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Play and Defend Better: for improving players
Bid it…and Make it. Catering for Normal Breaks.
It was really good that 9 out of the 16 pairs who played the following board in Teams matches bid to the excellent 6 spade contract. What was a shame was that of those 9 pairs who were playing this slam, recorded negative scores. It is excellent to bid a good slam but when the breaks are not that bad, it is a pity that more pairs did not make their contract. Let’s have a look.
| North Deals None Vul |
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| West | North | East | South |
| Pass | Pass | 1 ♠ | |
| Pass | 2 ♣ | Pass | 3 ♥ |
| Pass | 3 ♠ | Pass | 4 ♣ |
| Pass | 4 ♥ | Pass | 4 NT |
| Pass | 5 ♦ | Pass | 5 ♥ |
| Pass | 6 ♥ | Pass | 6 ♠ |
| All pass |
Driving to slam would be very straightforward were North to open the bidding with their fairly ordinary 11 count. Where North passed, slam should still be able to be bid. The 4
and 4
bids were both cue bids (showing first or second round controls in the suits bid) with 5
showing 1 or 4 key cards with spades as trumps. 5 asked for the trump (spade) queen with 6 confirming that card and K but no other side-suit kings.
A normal lead would be either minor suit. Apart from the missing 
K, South has three potential losers to deal with, their two small hearts and 10. Two hearts can be ruffed and the diamond discarded on the A..or one heart ruffed and two losers discarded on the AQ.
Ideally, you would want to discard on clubs after trumps are drawn..but that may not be possible. The difficulty is that you must ruff at least one heart before you draw trumps…and then you may have no way back to dummy to play clubs.
So, say you get a club lead. Win in hand and play three rounds of hearts, ruffing the third round with dummy’s 9. Discard the diamond loser on the A and return to hand with a diamond. Now, ruff the other heart with the Q (unless West plays K) and then play 5 (retained so that you are not stuck in dummy) using the high trumps in the South hand to draw the remaining trumps once the K has gone.
| North Deals None Vul |
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The only times when your contract will be in danger is if there is a 6-1 heart or club break, which is well against the odds. When the breaks are friendly as indeed they were, the contract should be made.
Two pairs found their way to 6NT, a contract which should fail. Declarer has only 4 spade tricks, 2 tricks in each red suit and 3 club tricks. However, discarding is not always easy and both declarers made their contracts.
Bidding and making the correct slam is excellent. Failing in this slam is a shame. Bidding to the wrong slam but making it is…well, everyday bridge!
Richard Solomon
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