All News

A Defender’s Pet Hate.

Any nominations? You must have suffered many such situations when something goes badly wrong with your defence. High up there near the top of the list must be when against a suit contract, you lead an ace. Down in dummy comes Kxx and declarer proceeds to ruff that trick. A few seconds later, declarer is in dummy playing that king and discarding a loser.

Nothing that bad could happen today, could it?

 

2 was a game try with 3-card heart support. With both sides vulnerable, everyone has something to say as the auction hurtles to the 5-level at lightning speed. With two aces, the trump king and your partner in the bidding, you decide the opposition are overboard and double their 5-level contract.

Maybe you would double. Maybe you would not. What about a slightly different auction?

West              North            East                South

                       Pass                Pass                2   (weak 2)

Pass                Pass                2                   3

4                   5                  Pass                Pass

?

This one took a little longer to get going but eventually gathered momentum to the same spot. In some ways, there might be more cause to double a Weak 2 opening opposite a passed hand, now bidding all the way to the 5- level. Our West here was not so sure about their defensive tricks. They passed 5out but they were still on lead.

So, your leads to the two auctions are?

This board occurred last weekend in the international tri-series Real Bridge competition, in the Senior’s event. The board was thus played 6 times but only twice was 5 the final contract, and only once was it doubled. (At the other tables, three East-West spade game contracts and one North-South diamond game contract all failed, mainly doubled.)

However, only one of the 5 contracts was beaten. It seems that the opening lead was pretty important. So, your choice was?

A choice of aces for sure. Only masochists underlead one or look elsewhere. You will be pleased to know that there was no Kxx in dummy when the wrong ace was led. However, there was something equally as bad!

 

For New Zealand 1 after our second auction, against 5, Julie Atkinson led the A and was very relieved to get an encouraging 4 from her partner, Pat Carter. She continued the suit after which the defence could not be denied their trump trick, the contract being down 1. No double as no doubt Julie has seen many such auctions before where the double proved unsuccessful.

No-one had mentioned clubs. It seemed a good idea to test that suit at trick 1. It was. However, the “defender’s pet hate” was to occur a little more slowly than normal at the other table where Jonathan Westoby was declarer in the doubled contract.

He ruffed the A opening lead and noted dummy’s potentially useful spade cards opposite. Out came J at trick 2. West ducked but Jonathan played his ace to be followed by Q. He would have discarded a club had East played low but hopeful that Jonathan had no quick way back to dummy, East covered with K. Jonathan ruffed and disappointed the defence by playing a diamond to the queen to be followed by J discarding one of his losing clubs. A trump brought the king and queen on the same trick and with only one club loser, the contract had been made, doubled, a swing of 14 imps to New Zealand.

Julie is entitled to have a smile on her face after finding
a sensible opening lead.

I am not going to say that given the choice of aces of suits to lead that the ace of an unbid suit will always be more successful than the ace of the one your side has bid. However, there is surely more chance that it will not be ruffed at trick 1 than the suit where your side is known to have at least 9, maybe more cards. That fact proved vitally important here.

It does seem that the Indonesian West got their just desserts on this board.

So you know now what to lead?

Then, you will have no problem with our “Jan’s Day” deal for tomorrow! You do not even have to worry about the bidding by your side as there was none! Only 4 suits…only 13 cards from which to choose. Do you want to make your choice with eyes shut or open? What do you reckon?

 

2 is strong, 8 playing-trick style: i.e. not game-forcing.

Richard Solomon

 

Go Back View All News Items