Thursday Bridge Club: So Lucky

18th August – Board 13: Game All. Dealer North.

I love hands where a moment or two of clear thinking will lead you to the right approach and even more so when that approach is rewarded by a favourable lie of the cards. West was so lucky on the layout shown below, but he had to be aware of his luck in the first place.

West	North	East	South
	No	1C	1S
Dbl	No	2D	2S
3H	No	4H	End

The bidding might vary from that shown in several ways, and the final contract is highly ambitious, but the problem is how to play 4H when the defence starts with three rounds of spades. South has been clever in playing that third round because he wants declarer to ruff in dummy thus ensuring himself two trump tricks, so declarer must be careful to ruff in hand instead. He then crosses to dummy with a diamond, say, and leads a trump. South rises with the ace and leads a fourth round of spades and West should realise the futility of ruffing with anything other than the seven or eight. If he ruffs with the two he will clearly be overruffed and if he ruffs with the jack he must lose a trick later to either the ten or the queen. As it happens the medium size ruff will work and now declarer enters dummy once more to take a trump finesse against the queen. Declarer actually needed South to hold precisely AQ10 in trumps for the contract to make.

6 comments:

Anonymous21 August 2011 at 13:19
I'd like to know how many people found that line of play.
Dave21 August 2011 at 16:24
Sadly none. Or none that I know of. And yet it's not really that difficult - all that is required is to think what might happen in a few tricks time. When the defence offer a ruff and discard you should be really wary because they are not on your side.
Tony Lock22 August 2011 at 07:48
On our table NS bid to 4 spades (2 off doubled) and I never got the chance to show my brilliance.
Dave22 August 2011 at 07:56
I suppose N/S were unlucky in a way because they had beaten par by only losing 500 and yet I imagine they still scored zero. Sometimes virtue has to be its own reward.
Anonymous22 August 2011 at 10:09
Dave, what do you think of S doubling the 1C opening bid, intending to bid spades over any response? Surely that best describes his hand and spade suit here?

Chris A.
Dave22 August 2011 at 12:59
Yes, I thought that when I was entering the possible auction. The only trouble comes when the auction has got quite high next time it comes back to you and you might wonder whether or not to compete. At least if you bid 1S you have got the suit in. But I have no strong feelings about it and I suspect you might be right.

If using the 'Anonymous' option for adding a comment please write your name in the comment box so we all know who has commented. You will also need to copy the word shown before you can publish your comment (to reduce spam.) Thanks, Dave.