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No Break from Bridge!

Welcome back to the daily hands after the Christmas and New Year break. Even though I am no longer working for New Zealand Bridge, I will continue to produce these hands.
It has been a mixed break for many this holiday period with mainly weather to make us all want to rush indoors to find the card table. There have been some tournaments played but firstly, naturally, a problem for you, a play problem to start the New Year:

 

North opens a 12-14 1NT with East’s 2 showing spades and a minor. You compete in hearts and North takes the push to game. 3 aces, ruffing value and the trump queen seemed reasonable values.
West leads Q to East’s A with East continuing spades with your K winning trick 2.

Plan the play.

The post- Christmas period saw the regular Papatoetoe tournament with Patrick Carter and Grant Jarvis prevailing. Meanwhile, the Auckland New Year’s Pairs was won by Neil Stuckey and yours truly. Wellington’s Suzanne Duncan Memorial Pairs was won by Alan Grant and Russell Dive. Arleen Schwartz and Peter Hall won the Alexandra Holiday Pairs with a 65+% average. At Thames, the John Eldridge Teams winners were Liz and Blair Fisher, Grant Jarvis and Ken Yule. Andi and Steve Boughey won the Barclay Open Swiss Pairs and Jeremy Fraser-Hoskin and John Craig the 2-session Welcome Pairs. Plenty of bridge then in the traditional break from bridge! 
                                                                             Tops at Thames

     
Ken Yule and Grant Jarvis in the John Eldridge Teams       Steve and Andi Boughey in the Barclay Swiss Pairs 
( absent:Blair and Liz Fisher)

Back then to our play problem. It looks like you can survive with just one loser in both majors and one diamond…yet there is shapely distribution about. The key to success lay in attacking clubs:

 

It seemed that East was going to be short in either hearts or the minor they do not hold. It was a good idea to find out which by playing a heart to the queen. That produced good and bad news, a successful finesse but 2 unavoidable trump losers. Therefore, you had to dispose of your diamond loser.

So, a club to the king, then to the ace and a third club, ruffing. Now ruff your spade loser and play a fourth club ruffing again. Back to dummy with a heart to the ace and then the 5^th club disposing South’s diamond loser. West could ruff with T but South’s only other loser was the K: game made.

It was imperative that South tested trumps before ruffing the spade loser. South needed to know that they had 2 trump losers and then set up the long club for a diamond discard. Had they ruffed a spade at trick 3 and then tested trumps, they would be an entry short to dummy.

East could have done better by switching to Q at trick 2. South can still prevail but only by playing on clubs immediately before playing trumps, perhaps dangerous. West’s initial lead seems reasonable but had they chosen K at trick 1, the contract could not be made as the defence can grab their diamond trick when South plays a spade as they will have to do. There will now be 4 losers.

Not much changes in this new year. The success or failure of a contract depends on the choice of opening lead. East/ West seem likely to make 9 tricks in spades but in the process pushed their opponents into a game that without the right defence could be made. A challenging deal to start the year.

Well?

 

It seems right with a distributional hand of your own to bid on to 5. Yet, what about those 2 hearts…and partner’s double? Well?

You are playing Pairs.

Richard Solomon

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