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Locating Honours.

We feature today two deals united by the fact that declarer’s success depends entirely on finding which opponent has a missing honour, in one case the queen and in the other the lowly jack. They are separated in time by 23 years as while one occurred very recently, the other was way back in the last century.

So, to yesterday’s problem:

 

After opening your very minor based weak no trump, East overcalls your partner’s Stayman enquiry. You retreat to 3 though partner soon has you in game.

West leads 4 which goes to East’s Q. Next comes A with West following with 3 and then 10 from East on which you and West each throw a small heart. You win with K and start on the clubs but East has singleton 10 and on the next three rounds throws  2, 3 and Q. Their signalling methods? Irrelevant. You and both defenders know West has very little...but how little?

You need 4 diamond tricks. How are you going to get them?

Or in other words, who has the Q? East has a plan with the first couple of tricks going in their favour. Spades could be played by East for just one loser. Now, they just have to wait until they regain the lead, certainly if hearts are played as the overcall almost definitely places the A with East. East would presumably hope that they did not have to discard to too many rounds of clubs. However, they had to find three discards before a break in declarer’s tempo suggested no more. A couple of diamond discards preceded the Q.

Detective at work!

What is going on? Defenders usually will try to help out each other when discarding to a long suit. One of them has a key honour with the other trying not to discard from that suit so that declarer does not know which of them really has the honour.

Here, that key suit must almost certainly be diamonds though some days it was possible for South to hold A10x and need to find the Q. East would surely know that was not the case here. Yet, East has thrown two diamonds and a suspicious looking Q. Surely if East had more little hearts, they would throw them? They are guarding two more high spades along with the      A…and have already taken two tricks.

Unless East is being very cunning in their choice of discards, their shape should just about be known to South..five spades and one club for sure and it looks like just two hearts. For East to enter a live auction with just a five card spade after Stayman has been used, they must have a reasonable hand, not just in high cards but in shape as well. So, the way to play the diamond suit might not be the way you first expected when East threw a couple….

 

Small to the ace and run the J with confidence (“never in doubt”). One honour found!

Jack...where are you?

As declarer in our second deal, you have no counting to do. Indeed, the play of a 10 at the right time is all that is required. Let’s introduce the four players from back in 1997. Three of them are still very much top New Zealand players, Michael Cornell, Tom Jacob and Brian Mace. Tom and Brian were playing together then and still are. However, the fourth, Dwayne Crombie, another very talented player, gave up the game early this century because of work.

Dwayne was declarer on this particular deal… and rather wished he had never opened the bidding as he held :

 108542

 AKJ85

 QJ

 4

He opened 1, comfortably complying with the Rule of 20, a great lead-directional bid!

Now, what’s the bid you would least like to hear from your partner? High on the list must be a 4 splinter bid casting big doubt on the worth of your best asset. After Dwayne  had resoundly said very loudly to his partner that he had no slam interest (perhaps passing 4might have been the best approach!), partner then went on cue-bidding at the 5 level!

Some partners just never listen, not even ones as good as Michael Cornell. He finally stopped bidding at the 6-level(6). Dwayne had to admit that Michael produced a decent dummy.

 

 Tom Jacob (West) led 9 which was covered by the K losing to Brian Mace’s ace. Back came a second lowish club. All looked pretty good now for Dwayne but just in case Tom was also rather short in clubs, Dwayne used his best trump, that 10, to ensure he won the trick.

Indeed, he did and needed to as Tom discarded a diamond. With a sense of relief and triumph, at having located the J in Brian’s hand, Dwayne announced to the table “My spades were not very good, but they were good enough.”

Next, he played a spade to the ace…but it was Brian (East) who discarded on the first round! There followed an almighty laugh from the player in the West seat, amid chortles of “he who laughs last, laughs loudest.” Mr Grosvenor at work. Who could believe where the J really was...not that it mattered!

 

“Jack” …or Tom

 

the loud laugher

Maybe Dwayne gave up bridge because his partner’s dummies were never good enough?

 Proving South Wrong

 

North opens a Weak no trump. You overcall with South competing. North is maximum in support of spades and invites with South happy to accept.

 Your partner leads 5. You play K followed by the A on which declarer plays 6 followed by Q. Your partner plays   2 on the second round.

What next?

See you on Queens Birthday.

Richard Solomon

 

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