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Morton’s fork coup

Published July 19th, 2007 in Uncategorized

A Morton’s Fork Coup is a coup in contract bridge involving the forcing of an opponent to choose between establishing one or more extra tricks in the suit led and losing the opportunity to win a trick in the suit led. It takes its name from the expression Morton’s Fork.


Example

South receives the lead of the jack of diamonds against his six-spade contract. It appears that the contract has unavoidable losers in both hearts and clubs. Although an extra winner can be built in diamonds, the discard it provides is not of a losing card.

However, the contract can be made if South can manage either to discard the hearts from hand or take two heart tricks (thus having two club discards on K and a diamond honor). South plays low from dummy, ruffs, draws trumps, and leads a low heart from hand. If West takes the ace, declarer can unblock hearts, ruff out the ace of diamonds, then discard two clubs on dummy’s winning diamond and king of hearts. If West ducks, declarer again ruffs out the ace of diamonds, but now uses the established winner to discard the queen of hearts, losing only a club.

Note that declarer must be careful not to play a high diamond on the opening lead, as East could then withhold the ace, forcing the declarer to choose a discard prematurely.


See also

  • Belladonna coup

References