20th January – Board 7: Game All. Dealer South.
In the fairly recent past bridge pundits would hold up their hands in horror at the thought of opening that South hand with a weak 2H. Their argument would be that with a four card spade suit on the side that suit might never get a look-in, leading to an inglorious result, and until fairly recently I would have placed myself firmly in that camp. Now I am not so sure, and certainly if you are under a certain age you would laugh at anyone who failed to ‘get in first’ as South. At one table, where the eventual winners were sitting, South opened 2H and North raised to 4H! I think this was well thought out, for there is no obvious way that 4H can be defeated and it certainly wasn’t, but at other tables the bidding was altogether different. If South belongs to the old school of thought or simply does not play weak two’s then the following auction would not seem unreasonable:
West
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North
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East
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South
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No
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No
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1D
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No
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1H
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No
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3C
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No
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3H
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No
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3NT
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End
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At any rate I think all other pairs got to the no-trump game, but careful defence should prevail. At one table East led a spade and West correctly withheld the king, allowing declarer to win with the jack. A low heart was now led to the king but West fell from grace and ducked. Why? By so doing declarer could now easily come to nine tricks via two spades, one heart, two diamonds and four clubs, the ten of clubs in dummy proving to be a very useful card. If West had won the heart and returned a low spade or diamond then declarer would have found himself a trick short, dummy being as dead as the proverbial dodo.
Could you tell us how declarer played the hand in the 4H contract?
ReplyDeleteWest led the jack of diamonds and declarer won in dummy and ducked a heart. West won with the eight and played another diamond , East ruffing the king. A club was returned and won in dummy, and declarer ruffed a club back to hand. The king of hearts lost to the ace but that was the last trick for the defence. Declarer won the diamond continuation, drew the last trump and took the spade finesse. In all declarer made two spades, four hearts, one diamond and three clubs. A bit lucky to make perhaps but the fact is 3NT should always be defeated. When partner is known to have a weak hand but with a long suit that suit will be useless in a no-trump game unless there are sufficient entries to both set up that suit and to get back to enjoy it.
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