Through The Slips

8th November – Board 11: Love All. Dealer South.

Strangely enough the total number of tricks available to both the declaring side and the defenders doesn’t always add up to 13 and the hand below was a case in point where declarer can easily come to ten tricks in a spade contract if the defenders do not take their four top tricks.

Maybe that 3NT bid is a bit on the aggressive side but it is the call that most bridge players would make without a second thought and naturally West would remove to the spade game. Curiously the game was made more often than not when North wheeled out three rounds of diamonds from the top in the expectancy that perhaps partner could ruff the third round, although that would never happen. Why? Well if South had started with a doubleton diamond he would have played high-low on the first two rounds of the suit so the initial card played – the 2 – was either a singleton or the lowest from three cards. However when he plays to the second diamond lead he has a choice of plays, and that should give the clue to the winning defence. With a preference for a heart switch he should play the higher of his two remaining cards, the jack, and with preference for clubs – as is the case – he should play the six. High card for high suit, low card for low suit. All this has to be done in tempo of course and not with deliberation and a stony glare at partner just to make sure the message has got through. Obviously without that club switch declarer can pitch a losing club from dummy on the fourth round of hearts after drawing trumps.

The Best You Can

19th January – Board 18: North/South Vul. Dealer East.

How would – or did – you defend 4S on the hand shown below from the North position? It might seem that there is little to do, being at the mercy of partner so to speak, but sometimes you have to do the best you can.

West	North	East	South
		1S	No
3S	No	4S	End

West is somewhere between three and four spades at his first call but whatever is chosen East will surely push on to game and equally surely South will start with a top diamond. Now from the North position the best chance of setting declarer lies in the ability of his side to obtain a heart ruff and his sole aim should be to point his partner in that direction. Of course for this plan to work South needs to hold the ace of hearts but getting him to cash it and continue the suit is not easy. But how about this? On the ace and king of diamonds North follows with the nine followed by the ten. This cannot be from a doubleton because they would have been played the other way round but as they are obviously unnecessarily high cards they must mean something. That ‘something’ is a suit preference signal for the higher of the two suits outside trumps, hearts in this case. Obvious, but only once you think of it! What you must not do as North is think for a while and then play to the first two tricks in a meaningful way, something I once saw a famous actor/bridge player do in a big tournament. Not that it did him much good.