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The Swinging Pendulum.

The pendulum swings…and so does the fate of many bridge contracts. Cold off one minute, making the next but finally? Who knows? Will the pendulum ever stop swinging?

 

Well, for a while, you thought you had a decent hand. However, the more the bidding continued, you started to wonder. 2 was a game try with 3+ hearts and South bid all the way to game. You have three aces and the trump queen but refrain from doubling.

Your partner leads the 2 to your ace and declarer’s 5.

Which card do you play at trick 2?

It was rather like Fred Whitaker’s 8 many many years ago in the finals of the Inter-Provincials, on Vu-Graph, in pre-BBO days. Indeed, Fred may reflect on how long as it was the Intermediate final. The 8 sat in dummy waiting to be cashed (all higher diamonds were long gone) but Fred came to and left dummy on several occasions…and to this day, the 8 has not been played…and the contract failed.

No more reminiscing

So, East sat there looking at quite an impressive dummy for a passed hand. Seeing the K there, East may well have wished they had doubled. Yet, what had caused South to bid all the way to game while missing the top four hearts?

The answer had to be shape. Presumably AK and maybe a diamond honour and what else? J? Was that really the key card? It seemed unlikely. So, East decided not to go laying down aces but to return partner’s lead. Instead of playing back the correct count card (9), they played 3.

A swing of the pendulum.

There is no point in hiding the East hand now. You have seen it…but South had not.

 

You and I can see a wonderful way to make 10 tricks after the diamond return. Win K and cash AK and then ruff a diamond and play 2 more rounds of spades discarding firstly that wonderful J (maybe that had encouraged South to jump to game?) and then a diamond while a rather frustrated East decided whether or not they would ruff!

However, that 3 return seemed to bother South. Why 3? A two-card suit? Convinced that East did indeed have a doubleton diamond, declarer decided to keep their spade weapon hidden. They decided to just play a trump to the jack and hope West held Q. That would help the cause if they did. East had not seen spades as a threat before. Why would they now?

So, at trick 3, a heart to the jack and queen.

A swing of the pendulum

Back to square 1. East on lead having originally held three aces and the Q. Not much, indeed nothing had changed. A looked like a pretty solid safe trick…but the A? Could East really expect their partner to get on lead once more to play a club, any club? Hardly. That may as well have been East's thought  two tricks earlier as well!

So, either by design or good fortune, the A fell onto the table…and the pendulum stopped.

No more twists

    pendulum stops

 

Which card did you play at trick 2? Did you try to turn four tricks into three? Did you expect the contract to succeed or fail?

One more question. Why was South wrong to worry about the lay of the outstanding diamonds?

The answer was in the opening lead, West’s 2. East-West lead 4^th highest, not 3^rd or 5^th highest from length. West held four diamonds and as strange as it seemed, East would hold a third diamond if you trust your opponent’s carding methods. Had South done so, they would not have failed in what, when the pendulum swung their way, was a cold game contract.

South opened their mouth once to often on this next deal and heard the axe fall!

 

Which 7 tricks did the defence score?

The opening lead? You decide what you would have led. The answer tomorrow.  

Richard Solomon

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