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The Timing’s Right too!

If you are going to do something a little unusual, then you could have egg on your face if it backfires. However, on a good day, your “crime” or creativity pays dividends. Today, we have Alan Grant spilling the beans on his partner, Anthony Ker.

Firstly, though, what do you do at trick 2 when you see as South the following dummy in the West hand.

 

 

You lead A and all follow. Your partner plays 6 which does not call for a side-suit switch. Declarer plays 3. What now?

A Creative Opportunity in Defence - by Alan Grant

"A week ago, my partner Anthony Ker and I teamed up with Michael Ware and Matt Brown to play the Kelly Peirse Teams run by the Rotorua Bridge Club. In past years we enjoyed playing this tournament in Rotorua. However, this year, with Omicron variant of COVID still raging around the country, the decision was made to move this to an online tournament with RealBridge.

While our overall results were not great, the following hand gave us a big swing in Match number 3.

After the following auction, Anthony as South was on lead against 5 played by East:

 

 

Anthony led the A and saw the following dummy:

 

 

After the opening lead won the trick, Anthony creatively switched to the 9!

The 9 was covered by the J and ace. Then, the declarer could now see a new option in the play:

 

Declarer led 4 to the K, which won – then decided to try picking up the North’s potential remainingQ5 by finessing back to hand towards the K842, inserting the 8. This lost to the Q! and with the A now cashed, the declarer was held to 10 tricks and the contract was down.

This creative defence worked out very well for us, with an 11IMP gain for our team as no other South in the field defending against 5 (or 4 for that matter) found the 9 switch and every other declarer in the popular spade game contract by East made 11 tricks.

Who says that bridge is not a creative game?”

Here’s the full hand:

 

A simple hand really for the declarer, without Anthony at the table. Cash A  when you win trick 2 and then   

K (breathe a sigh of relief) and hope the A is with South. That was all in declarer’s favour. Unfortunately, his left-hand opponent was not!

 
Anthony Ker, a man with imagination...
and perfect timing

Tomorrow, we start our coverage of the New Zealand Open Team at the Bermuda Bowl.

Richard Solomon

 

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