7th June – Board 15: North/South
Vul. Dealer South.
When your side is not
vulnerable but the opponents are you are said to be at ‘green’ and in these
circumstances you can have as much fun as you like. Even three down doubled
shows a profit against a making game the other way and if you can deflect the
other side from doing that so much the better. On the featured hand East/West
are heavily outgunned and their manoeuvres are likely to be ultimately
unproductive, but that shouldn’t stop them from trying.
2S is a weak jump overcall, a little on the light side maybe but who’s counting? South has the ideal hand to double, for take-out of course, showing the other major and tolerance for partner’s suit and West increases the pressure by raising to 3S. North might double - for penalties this time - and collect 500, or have a bash at 3NT, which would prove to be an easy make. However the main point to be learned is that even with relatively few points you can still show a profit if you have a lot of trumps, especially at green.
We played this as E/W against the Doubleton Chris partnership who beautifully got 2 overtricks in 3NT by leading the 9 of clubs to the jack resulting in 5 club tricks. I see the optimum contract is recorded as a score of 630 for NS. Does that mean the finesse shouldn't be taken or is there a better defence?
ReplyDeleteNot at all. The 'optimum result' thing is really a bit of nonsense because it assumes double dummy play and defence. So it assumes a spade wasn't led - although it would be most likely in the real world - and as it happens a spade gives away a trick. Deep Finesse would lead a diamond to the king and West would switch to a spade. Now there are only ten tricks. So you shouldn't assume your defensive skills are below par!
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