Susanna Gross

Bridge | 16 January 2014

issue 18 January 2014

Do you ever watch the greats playing bridge? And if you do, are you sometimes baffled, because instead of playing the obvious card, they do something that seems to be completely random? Of course, it never is random — it’s just that they are operating on a different plane from the rest of us. Not only is their awareness deeper and their technique better, but they never lose sight of the psychological aspect of the game. They are always trying to see things from their opponents’ points of view, to entice them to defend in a way that will bring about their own defeat. As John Lennon once said, you have to be a bastard to make it to the top.

This hand comes from the recent final of a US Championship. Zia Mahmood was South:

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