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The Price You Pay.

Or maybe it might just not be your day! You can choose which of the two phrases above is more applicable. Firstly, though, have a thought about how you would play these East-West cards in 3NT.

 

There has been no interference bidding and you West receive the 3 lead to South’s J. You win with K. Perhaps, your first wish is that you would like to be a level or two lower! However, if the black suits behave, you can then count 9 tricks. So?

Yes, the key, perhaps, is what you mean by “behave”. A 3-3 break occurs not much more than one third of the time. Add that to the chance of the jack appearing singleton doubleton, you are up to about 50%, the same as if you finesse a black 10 on the second or third round. So, which line would you take?

Now, say you had a bit of intervention along the way.

 

 

2C shows both majors, 4-4 or

2 shows both majors, 4-4 or more distributional. Same heart lead. Same problem though maybe a different solution. 

If it is your day, then you are going to win, play a spade to the ace, a second to the king and as long as North can tell the difference between spades and clubs (same colour!), the finesse in that suit is now 100%.

So, you have 4 spade, 3 club and 1 heart trick. A club to the king and a club to the ace and a third club..and…?

 

“The price paid” should have been North’s for their overcall. There will be days when such a minimum overcall works out fine. When you end up defending, you rather wish you had not overcalled. Here, West may or may not have taken the third-round spade finesse had North remained silent. It became obvious to do so.

What though about the club finesse? We will never know if West would have finessed, not unreasonably to do so but there was “a villain” in the defence…poor South. What would you discard on the third and fourth rounds of spades? South chose one card in each minor…and West’s club problem was no more…9 tricks, certainly aided by the minimal intervention by North.

Note that 3NT by West can almost always be made even on a black suit lead. Assume West can take four tricks in each black suit. They will exit a diamond (declarer must throw a diamond not a heart on the 4^th round of spades) and South must win to crush North’s king and to play Q. West ducks but covers the second round of hearts…and 8 will become declarer’s 9^th trick at trick 13.

Indeed, legitimately, the only way to defeat 3NT is by North leading K and switching to a black suit. Now when West exits a diamond after taking their 8 black suit tricks, the defence will take one more diamond and three heart tricks.

Glory Day!

Not today for the overcall!

Small comfort to North that defeating 3NT was so specific and hard or indeed that South could have made the contract harder to make by not discarding a club.  North’s 2 bid aided West’s cause. Light overcalls will sometimes win the day but there is a price we can have to pay in the pursuit of glory.

Not that will stop us overcalling a little light!

Congratulations to the Auckland Bridge Club for running2 tournaments on-line in support of UNICEF’s efforts in Ukraine. Ant Hopkins wrote the following on behalf of the Club.

“Thank you to all the generous players which participated in the Ukraine fundraiser over two evenings last week, and also to standbys and especially Patrick Carter and others who volunteered their time. At least $7,300 raised for UNICEF charity. And to the office staff of Auckland Bridge Club for heaps of organising. Well done!”

We can just be so grateful for where we live.

Richard Solomon

 

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