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Tough Board.

What? They all are! Well, some are just a bit harder than others. Take the decision South already made below. They elected to take whatever they could rather than bidding on to 5S. A controversial decision. Will it be the right one?

 

 

2NT showed the minors with your partner’s 3showing a good hand with spades. You do not like your minor holdings and elect to pass out the double rather than bid on in spades. You lead a high heart which wins the first trick. Your partner plays Q. What now?

Needless to say, it is getting close to the critical stage. One trick in the bag and hopefully one in spades which means the third trick and any subsequent ones may need to come from clubs, unless your partner holds the A. No guarantees on that.

One plan when you see such a dummy is to play your major winners forcing declarer to trump in dummy so that they cannot ruff out any club losers, set up the suit and have entries back to that hand to enjoy the remaining winners. However, the presence of an extra- long strong trump suit in dummy makes the chances of doing this successfully less appealing.

East’s club holding is unknown though what seems likely is that they will need to at some point ruff clubs in their own hand. This makes switching to trumps a good idea. Where an opponent, the declarer, has few top cards outside the trump suit, the only way they can take tricks is with ruffs. Maybe East will have to give up a spade or a club before cross-ruffing begins and that your partner can play a second round of trumps. So, let’s play our trump now.

That was not exactly the situation but the trump switch was a good plan.

 

 

The defence had no more trumps to play but declarer then had only four trumps with which to ruff clubs…and North was able to cling on to their A and eventually score it as a setting trick. While it is likely that South would have overruffed the East hand on the 4^th round of clubs, the principle of cutting down cross-ruffing was a good one. Next time, your trump may be a lower card and then the trump switch would be really needed.

Good idea!

What then of 5? Played by South it can be beaten but only on the unlikely small club lead and even if South guesses not to play A, by a diamond under-lead from East so that they could obtain a second ruff. Played by North or on the more normal diamond lead from West, 5 can be made, though there is always the chance that declarer puts up the A, mistakenly, on the first round of the suit when led by West. Indeed, with West showing the minors, there is every chance that the declarer will guess trumps correctly to score an overtrick.

So, opportunities for defenders to shine. 5 looks like it should always be one down though there are few certainties in bridge.

And still at a high level:

 

Your partner’s 4 is a splinter, singleton or void, with 4+ hearts, in the 10-13 high card point range. Do we want to bid on or defend?

Richard Solomon

 

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