Bridge becomes at times a funny game where all those entrenched norms go haywire when you become desperate as a declarer to find the elusive tricks which can help you in establishing your bid contract. Our first illustration is an example of it. Here, west east land in a contract of 3S which is doubled by north who had originally opened the bidding with a strong 2NT (20-21) HCPs. West east held the following hand after north led the KD after this bidding:
After the opening KD led by north, north cashes the AK of clubs and puts west on lead with the third club led to his queen. As west, how would you play the hand at this point? Remember north has doubled your contract of 3S holding almost all the remaining high card points. Of course your own hand as declarer is a pretty good one too with 4 outside winners in hearts and clubs leaving you to manage trumps in a manner which could yield you 5 trumps tricks to enable you to succeed in your doubled contract of 3S. North must be holding all top 3 diamonds besides the AK of clubs which make up 16 of his high card points. It is almost a certainty that he holds both the QJ of spades too to give credibility to his 2NT opening. On your AS, south discards 3 of hearts. Now with 3 tricks already taken, can you manage trumps to a way that would give north only one trick, even if he is holding a 4 carder trump Q J 8 7? Of course if south has a trump and north has only QJX of trumps, there is no problem at all for after giving up a trump trick, the remaining tricks are west's making 3S doubled. The vital issue here is what if north holds all the remaining trumps, making it quite difficult for west to take 5 of the 6 trumps held. On the face of it, north is bound to take 2 trump tricks. For west even after cashing all his 3 heart tricks which if they hold true without being ruffed, is still in a quandary of avoiding 2 trump tricks to north. For whichever trump west plays, north can win cheaply and exit in diamonds leaving west back to square one. So as west, did you find your correct next move that can increase your chances of making your part score of 3S doubled, which would be quite a bonus giving you a game score of 730 instead of 140.
Yes, you rely on the old technique in Bridge of shortening your trumps in hand to the same length as held by west. This could be achieved if you cash AH and then going against all norms of Bridge, ruff your own KH with dummy's low trump so that you can play diamonds from dummy to ruff in your hand. This can be done twice ruffing the QH too, which would conveniently suit the declarer who in one stroke has managed to achieve his double aim: reducing his trump length to that of north and secondly at the sometime stripping the hand of all hearts to bring the following 3 card ending where west now holds K 10 9 of spades and north the Q J 8 of spades, west now leads the 10S forcing north to win with the JS and play away from Q8, completely end played. In case north does not take the 10S with the JS, south can cash the other top honour as his 10th trick, for with 3 top trumps tricks taken and 2 ruffs in hand and 3 in dummy along with the AH and QC already scored, south makes his 9 trick doubled contract of 3S, making north's double a little dubious one, made hurriedly on his mammoth strong holding. But in Bridge sometimes what looks so certain is nothing but a mirage.
=====================
W N E S
- 2NT P 3H
3S Dbl All Pass
=====================
Comments
Comments are closed.