In Bridge, control is the key to success. Whether it is in using control cue bids in bidding, or in play with trump management is suit contracts or longer suit establishments in no trump contracts and of course in defence with the early opening leads to take the tactical advantage, keeping control with proper timing is the only road to success at Bridge.
More often than not, Bridge players are carried away with their trump power to knock out their enemy's power to ruff in order to make their side suits run. But sometimes the plan misfires and too late they realise that the trumps were pulled out too early losing control of the situation at hand. In Bridge everything rests on timing. One needs to plan his contract in the overall context of the bidding and the opening lead with meticulous care particularly in suit contracts where trump management holds the key to either success or failure.
Today's hand is a classic example of simple planning to muster up the tricks needed with particular care taken to time the sequence of tricks in the right order. The full hands are given below along with the bidding. See if you can place your timing right in managing your trumps for the 12 tricks needed in the little slam of 6S laid as under:
The opening lead is 10D covering East-West hands. How do you propose to muster up 12 tricks in South's chair? One look at the dummy shows the loopholes with losers in Clubs and Hearts provided trumps break evenly 3-2. Even then with 3 trumps needed to get the enemy trumps out, you have 5 trumps tricks, 4 Heart tricks (provided Hearts break 3-3) and the 2 minor Aces which still add up to only 11 tricks. From where does the 12th trick come?
As you contemplate on your plan to make your little slam, you realise that unless you go for a dummy reversal, there is no way to make 12 tricks. Many a time, in one's enthusiasm to make one's own hand good, the declarer misses out on dummy reversal, which calls for looking at the tricks from dummy's angle in order to make the dummy the Master hand for the control of the hand.
Let us now look at it from the dummy reverse angle to make the dummy good. It becomes now abundantly clear that dummy's 2 Diamond losers can be ruffed in hand and its two Club losers discarded on the good hearts, thus making 4 trump tricks in dummy: AK of Hearts, with 2 more good Hearts, the minor suit Aces and the 2 Diamond ruffs, making 12 tricks needed for the slam.
Once the plan is set, the play can be set up. But there are snags in trump management which needs precise timing. Suppose you take the AD and ruff a Diamond, and as a matter of precaution play out 2 trumps of AQ from hand, hoping that the hand would now be good after you give up early Heart lead to the opponents.
But Bridge has its unseen pitfalls lurking at the corner. They need to be recognised early, too, and care taken to overcome them. Drawing 2 rounds of trumps would make you lose control when the opponent on lead with the Heart would play the third trump denying you the opportunity to a second Diamond ruff, spelling defeat of the little slam. There is no denying that Bridge in the last analysis is a truly logical game. Precise timing requires that you draw only one trump and then play a low Heart. Nothing can defeat the little slam now because you would always be in control.
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The Bidding:
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South West North East
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1 S P 3 C P
3 H P 3 S P
4 C P 6 S ALL Pass
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North West East South
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K 6 4 2 J 9 1 0 8 3 A Q 7 5
A 4 2 Q 1 0 6 J 9 K 8 7 5 3
A J 3 Q 1 0 9 8 K 6 5 4 7
A 7 4 K 8 6 3 J 1 0 9 Q 5 2
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