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TALES OF AKARANA
WHEN WILL YOU EVER LEARN
“Where have all the trump leads gone, long time passing.
Where have all the trump leads gone, long time ago.
Where have all the trump leads gone, gone to wise bridge players every one.
When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn”.
I hesitate to put quotation marks around the above because they are not the exact words of the Pete Seeger song made famous by the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary. However, had any of the above played bridge, then they may well have been the exact words. Take Board 19 last night.
| Board 19 South Deals E-W Vul |
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| West | North | East | South |
| 1 ♣ | |||
| 1 ♦ | 1 ♥ | 2 NT | 3 ♣ |
| 3 ♦ | Pass | Pass | 3 ♥ |
| Pass | 4 ♥ | Dbl | All pass |
The above is the kind of auction that may have occurred at several tables this Wednesday as 6 of the 16 tables played in 4
by North with five declarers being doubled. If we add to that the North who played 3x and the two Norths who played in 2,once doubled, then we have 9 East players on lead. (None of the North-Souths were clever enough to make South declarer!).
The sorry tale is that there were 4 -590’s and even though a couple of declarers lost their way in the play of the game contract, not one East could find a trump lead. How many points are there in the pack after auctions like the above? “Distribution” must be evident for everyone having so much to say. Even if you cannot bring yourself to lead the A (is it really going to crash your partner’s singleton king?), at least start off with a small trump. A small heart lead will hold declarer to 9 tricks, A and another to just 8. The dutiful 
Q met a swift demise. Two spades went on the 
AK as the declarers enjoyed themselves with three diamond ruffs, AK, four trumps in their own hand and the 
A. Unlucky or poor choice? My vote on such an auction with such a trump holding as East held suggests the latter.
I did like the first choice of bid by the newest Akarana member, uni student, Jacob Kalma. As East, he bid a very wise 1NT after the other three players had each bid their long suits. Alas, not even a trump lead would have beaten the low level heart contract at our table though as you can see, Jacob was in good company with his unfortunate choice of lead.
Richard Solomon
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