Thursday Bridge Club: One Way Or Another

8th December – Board 8: Love All. Dealer West.

This board proved to be frustrating for those holding the East hand as their four-loser collection of cards was cruelly ignored. What is more whichever minor they decided to attack after cashing two spades, declarer could turn to his advantage.

West	North	East	South
No	1H	Dbl	3H
No	4H	End

After a double on the right South is entitled to add one for the road and North is just about worth a raise to game. East will surely cash two top spades but if he now switches to a top diamond declarer can win, draw trumps and use the ten of diamonds to force out the other high card in that suit, establishing a parking place for the jack of clubs in the process. And if East is inspired enough to have lead a low spade to his partner at trick two, a club return from that quarter fares no better. Declarer simply wins with the ace, draws trumps and uses the jack of clubs to force out the king. Then the queen of that suit will enable the losing diamond to fly away.

3 comments:

Robin11 December 2011 at 10:25
Q: What could be worse than playing in 4H Doubled (making) and thinking a score of 590 would do well until you get back to the table to score and end up with -4 IMPS?

A: See Comment on Board 20.
davidhuggett11 December 2011 at 11:11
What would be worse is for 4H to fail by one trick. Then you lose a bushel of imps!
Robin11 December 2011 at 11:17
Hmm, but that might only happen if someone was foolish enough to throw away the 10 of diamonds. How likely is that? (please don't answer).

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