Simple Arithmetic

31st Jan – Board 17: Love All. Dealer North.

Two flat hands with a combined point count of 34 or 35 should be enough to warrant a small slam in no-trumps, but quite often there is horrible duplication of honours in one or more suits.

Playing Benji Acol East opened with the strongest bid in his system and West relayed to find out more about the strong hand. When East showed a balanced 23/24 it was just a matter of simple arithmetic to bid the slam but you can see what I mean about duplication of honours. The top four spades but only three tricks! On a spade lead declarer will most likely take a losing heart finesse and may well be defeated subsequently. As a matter of fact with six points South should know that partner holds nothing at all and has to make a safe lead and that can only be in spades.

Fatal Illusion

2^nd February – Board 12: North/South Vul. Dealer West.

Several pairs hit the top spot during the bidding on the featured hand but missed out on a play which would have led to a successful conclusion. There are perhaps many routes to the correct slam depending upon one’s system but the one given below couldn’t be criticized.

West	North	East	South
2C	No	2D	No
2H	No	3D	No
3S	No	5S	No
6S	End

I think it is correct to start with 2D over 2C because a jump to 3D initially would lead to an awkward rebid for East after a 3H bid by his partner. However after having started slowly, once his partner bids 3S East must do more than feebly raise to game and a jump to the five-level seems about right. West has an easy raise to the six-level and North will lead the queen of clubs. How should declarer proceed? What happened several times was that declarer played off two top trumps, discovered the bad news and entered dummy with a diamond. Needing the heart finesse to succeed the queen of hearts was led but when South covered, perforce, and the suit broke badly, declarer could not manage to ruff out both heart losers. Leading the queen was a fatal illusion. As it was necessary for South to hold the king of hearts a low heart would have done just as well but the difference now is that when the king appears declarer only needs one ruff to set up the suit. He wins the ace, crosses to the queen, comes back to hand with a club and ruffs a heart in dummy. Now he re-enters his hand with a trump and keeps playing hearts. In the fullness of time North will make his spade jack, but that is all.

Text Book Technique

26th January – Board 17: Love All. Dealer North.

What do you make of the bidding on the hand shown below? Lucky or not a good contract was reached, but even so declarer had to show good technique in the play of the hand.

West	North	East	South
	No	No	2C*
No	2D	No	3C
3D	No	No	3S
No	4C	No	5C
End

The bidding may need some explanation. 2C was either a weak two in diamonds or the strongest bid in the system, which might explain West’s reluctance to get involved at the beginning in case South held the former. When it became clear that South was holding the strong variety, game was reached in 5C and West led the king of diamonds. How should declarer proceed? If trumps break 2-2 the contract is trivial so declarer played off two top trumps and discovered the bad news. Instead of drawing the last trump however he led a spade to the king and one back to the queen and ace. West played the queen of diamonds and tried a third but declarer ruffed and now played a winning spade. If that suit had broken 3-3 he would have been able to draw the last trump and claim but as it was the defender with the last trump had four spades so declarer was able to ruff the last spade in dummy after all. It happens in the textbooks all the time but at the table less so. In the reply North/South played in a club partscore.

The Power Of Impletion

6th January – Board 10: Game All. Dealer East.

6NT by South is a grand contract of course and it is a sad fact for West that a spade, heart or diamond lead will provide declarer with his twelfth trick immediately. A spade lead gives declarer three tricks in the suit, a heart lead gives declarer four tricks in that suit and a diamond lead gives declarer three tricks in that suit! Only a club lead gives nothing away but with the fortunate position in the spade suit the contract should still make. I see no reason why North shouldn’t look for a major suit fit and because of that I think the auction might go:

West	North	East	South
		No	2NT
No	3C	No	3D
No	4NT	No	6NT
End

With no suit having been agreed 4NT is quantitative, asking South to bid 6NT with a maximum, and South would be happy to oblige.

Blurred Vision

27th May - Board 2: N/S Vul. Dealer East

	North: S A K Q 7 6 5 4 2 H 10 2 D 6 C 10 9
West: S 10 H 9 6 4 D K 9 4 3 C K 5 4 3 2		East: S 8 3 H Q J 5 D J 10 7 5 2 C 8 7 6
	South: S J 9 H A K 8 7 3 D A Q 8 C A Q J

A number of players would have been unhappy with their efforts on this exciting board but the reality is that if you keep your focus things could hardly be easier. After South opens 2NT second in hand that North hand is huge, with eight certain tricks, and I think a practical way forward is to ask for aces, find that partner has three and then bid 7S! That may seem rash but you can now count eleven tricks and partner still has an extra eight or so points for the remaining couple of tricks. As an aside people ask for aces in different ways in this situation. A popular approach is to bid 4C, Gerber, but I prefer 4C to show a long club suit with slam interest. I play that 4NT is Blackwood and if I have a ‘quantitative raise’ to 4NT I bid 4S, which otherwise has no meaning at all.

The play in 7S should be trivial, even on a club lead. With twelve tricks ‘on top’ you are just looking for one more and that will come from the heart suit as long as the missing hearts are not worse than 4-2. So win the club ace, cash the ace of trumps and then cash the top two hearts before ruffing one high. As it happens the suit divides 3-3 but even if it didn’t you could return to dummy with the jack of spades and ruff another heart. Then dummy is accessed with the ace of diamonds and the long heart provides a parking place for the second club in the closed hand.