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Which Ace?

You have got three of them, aces that is. You are defending a part-score doubled contract, serious business. You do not want to put too many feet wrong. So, with which one do you start off? Shut your eyes and hope the choice is right? You certainly do not want to under-lead one. Not a great idea!

Well, no eye- shutting and guessing or else you will need to work out the score for 3x making. In fact, put those aces away and keep them safe in your hand for the first five tricks. You may then get the chance to use one to win a trick!

 

North’s 2was a fairly standard Multi 2 with West’s double of South's pass or correct 2 being for take-out. After North owned up to a weak 2 in spades, East made a take-out double of 2. South elected to call 3. 

It was a little strange that South did not bid 2 at their first opportunity, Pass or Correct to hearts style. However, South "corrected" to 3 which East doubled for penalties. That became the final contract. Your lead?

Although the bidding might seem unusual, as South had not bid 2 first time showing preference for hearts over spades, South’s actions were quite correct if they were always going to play the board in 3. If they had bid 2 first time, that might end the bidding. Therefore, to ensure they get the chance to bid again, they bid 2, knowing that should their partner have a weak 2 in spades, that they will bid 2. If North had a weak 2 in hearts, the opposition would certainly be bidding, not doubling!

Thus, it looked like South was always going to bid 3 to play and certainly did not want to hang around to see if you, West, were going to pass out 2x, which you were!

So, you took your partner’s double of 3, correctly, as a penalty double. All of which brings you back to the opening lead. You know the saying? When you have got the opposition “on the ropes” (well, you hope you have!) and they are at the 3 level (any level really) with relatively few high card points, the only way they can usually generate extra tricks is with trumps, ruffing, cross-ruffing. Therefore, just in case that might happen, you should lead a trump, early, as soon as you can, just in case ….

 

South bought a fairly nice dummy, a dummy that would improve after the lead of any side-suit ace. Let’s say A which hopefully would be followed by the 2 to the ace and a second heart. South wins, cashes K and plays a small spade. Even if West wins and underleads their diamonds to East’s king (a big “if”) and East takes the last trump off dummy, South can organize to win the third round of trumps in dummy and will have three black-suit honours to discard three diamonds….contract made!

Contrast that with a trump lead at trick 1. East wins to play a second trump. West has an awkward choice of discards. Perhaps a small club. Declarer wins the trump in hand to play 6. It may hurt and badly so for a while but West does best to duck. It takes a lot of pressure off the defence (no future spade winners in dummy to worry about).

So, K wins with declarer leading dummy’s diamond. An alert East will rise with K to play a third round of trumps. Dummy is “dead”, no threat. Declarer will lead a club off dummy. Finally, at trick 6, West gets to play one of their aces. Win, and exit passively in clubs (West’s second discard should have been a spade.). All declarer can do is exit in diamonds with West still having A and a club to exit when winning diamond tricks. Four diamond tricks, A and A…down 2. While ducking the first round of spades may seem at the time to have cost one trick, it actually gained an extra one for the defence! It is unusual when such a duck actually costs...and sometimes, as here, will gain.

Most pairs defending 3 allowed the contract to make, although they were not defending it doubled. The textbook says you should not lead a singleton trump, except when it is right to do so. The reason why it was right in this case was not that other leads were so unappealing. The reason was that there was a chance that dummy might produce ruffing opportunities, as it did. Every defender has been caught out at some time by a dummy producing unexpected trumps when the declaring side had the minority of high-card points. If you can recognize that situation may occur, on opening lead, then you will be calculating the score for “doubled, down two” rather than “doubled, making”. Much more pleasant!

Desperate Measures

The word “textbook” reminded me of a very unusual occurrence which has happened during this Covid 19 lock-down. If you are an avid reader and are a fan of holding a book in your hands rather than reading from a kindle, then you are struggling at present.

My wife is extremely frustrated, unable to make her regular, almost weekly visits to the local library. She will also be the last person in New Zealand to want to play or to learn how to play bridge. The last, the very last!  Time, though, for desperate measures.

Were you to be able to visit our home in the last two weeks, you would have seen Kath reading a bridge book! Desperate measures, indeed.

Before, though, anyone reserves a place at the table for her, I should add the book, Martin Hoffman’s “Bridging Two Worlds” contains not one hand of bridge. It is, though, a fascinating story of a Czech World War 2 survivor who finished as one of England’s top bridge players. Worth a read on the rare time you are not playing on-line bridge, or are totally devoid of library books.  

Now to tomorrow’s question: Teams.

 

Your opponents are playing Acol. Thus, 2 is what you think it is, well near enough…either 20-21 balanced or any Game Force.

Remember the rules of Bridge prohibit a psyche of a 2 opening. So, East is strong. Over to you?

Richard Solomon

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