Birthday treat

On the Saturday of the Swiss pairs at Brighton it is Ann's birthday. Both opponents gave her a couple of presents on this hand - clues from the bidding that pointed the way to a fine piece of declarer play.

E-W vul

	♠ AQ9432 ♥ K ♦ AKJ ♣ 765
♠ 8 ♥ J962 ♦ Q852 ♣ KQJ10		♠ KJ1076 ♥ 8753 ♦ 107 ♣ 98
	♠ 5 ♥ AQ104 ♦ 9643 ♣ A432

South	West	North	East
AnnyS		RockH
p	p	1♠	p
2♣	X	3♠	p
3NT	p	p	X

My 3♠ was wrong - I should have redoubled, which must be game forcing after a 2 level response. If the opponents run they are in deep doo-dah, although perhaps my misbid turned out well as 2♣ redoubled would have gone down on normal play. West's double was not alerted but when he led the king of clubs it was clear what he meant.

Ann ducked the club, won the second round, finessed the ♦J and then cashed AK of diamonds, king of hearts and ace of spades before exiting with dummy's last club. West was able to cash two more winners in the minors but was endplayed and forced to concede the last three tricks in hearts. Well played indeed.

Unfortunately we didn't always play that well. Here are a couple of text book problems that we failed to solve at the table

N-S vul

	♠ A873 ♥ A8765 ♦ A6 ♣ Q6
♠ 54 ♥ 92 ♦ J94 ♣ AJ10984		♠ KQJ2 ♥ 43 ♦ 10832 ♣ K32
	♠ 1096 ♥ KQJ10 ♦ KQ75 ♣ 75

South declared 4 hearts after West opened 3 clubs and East raised. West led ♣A and continued with a second club to the King. Now East switched to the king of spades.

Best is to duck the King (surely West would have led a spade if he had a singleton), win the next spade and run the trumps (throwing a spade from hand) to squeeze East in the pointed suits. On the actual layout you can also succeed even after taking the first round of spades. On the run of the trumps East has to keep his diamonds and must come down to a singleton spade. Now declarer plays a spade to set up the 8 - a squeeze without the count.

♠ 1076 ♥ AKJ104 ♦ 2 ♣ 9742 ♠ A2 ♥ Q8653 ♦ 743 ♣ AQ5

I opened 1NT as South and ended in 4 hearts. West led a diamond and switched to a trump, East following. I took a mundane club finesse, hoping that if it lost West would fail to switch to a spade and that clubs would be 3-3.

A better chance is to play for an elimination. Cash the Ace of spades at trick 3 and then play another spade. On any return I can draw the last trump, cash the Ace of clubs and eliminate spades and diamonds, ending with the lead in dummy. Now play a club. This line still wins when East has the king of clubs, but also when West has a singleton or doubleton King, which was the case on the actual hand.

Grand Designs

At Bournemouth Bridge Club we started with new packs, which normally require an enormous amount of shuffling to produce random deals. When my first 8 hands were all either 4-3-3-3 or 4-4-3-2 it looked as if we were in for a dull evening. Fortunately things improved after that, but then I picked up

♠KJ10x ♥Qxx ♦KJ10x ♣Ax

Another boring 1NT? Not exactly. I opened 1NT and partner bid 3 clubs, a natural slam try. Although I have a maximum, it's not a great hand for a club slam but I think that it is too good to rebid a discouraging 3NT, so I try 3 diamonds. Partner bids 3 hearts, doubled on my right and now I bid 3NT. Partner goes into the tank and and after a while bids 4 clubs. Our system is that when we take out 3NT into 4 of a minor, 4NT on the next round is a sign off, so that's what I bid. Now partner returns to the tank for an extended visit. After much agonising she eventually takes all the cards out of the box - 7NT and produces

♠A ♥A ♦AQxxx ♣KQJ9xxx

Well bid partner! Though for maximum style points Ann should have bid 7NT two rounds earlier. 3 diamonds must show diamond length with the A or K , and I would surely have rebid 3NT with an aceless hand.

Hands from the past - Giant killing in the Gold Cup

Late one night I arrived home from a business trip to Edinburgh, only to be told by my wife 'You might be going back - Bartlett's been on the phone, and you have got to play some Jocko team in the Gold Cup'. The 'Jocko team' turned out to be the top Scottish team and number five seeds, Steel, Matheson, Cuthbertson and McIntosh. I went away on holiday while Keith sorted out the arrangements to play the match at a half way venue in Manchester Bridge Club.

After the first set of eight boards, I wished we hadn't bothered. The opponents had made a close slam on the second board, and Miles and I had eight minus scores on our card. We were relieved to be only 11 imp down. The second set continued in the same vein, we were 22 imp down and the match seemed to be following a predictable course.

Then came two boards which altered the whole complexion of the match.

♠ A J 3
♥ A 4
♦ A Q 8 4 3
♣ 8 6 5


♠ 5
♥ Q J 8 7 5 3
♦ J
♣ A J 10 7 2

Miles and I bid

1♥ - 2♦
2♥ - 3♣
4♣ - 4♥


The crucial bid was Miles' three clubs, which steered us into the best contract. Four hearts made eleven tricks when the hearts and clubs both behaved. In the other room the Scots had to contend with a Gary Pick weak jump overcall of two spades on Q 10 x x x , and ended in 3NT. This had to go one down on a spade lead for a swing of 13 imp. On the very next board Miles and I overbid to six hearts on these hands.

♠ K Q J 3
♥ 7 5 4
♦ 6
♣ A Q J 7 2


♠ A 5
♥ A Q J 8 6 3
♦ K 7 4
♣ 8 4


West led a spade, and as dummy went down an angry local burst into the room, complaining that we were using the boards which he had painstakingly prepared for a teaching class. Disturbed by this interruption (that's my excuse), I mistakenly won in dummy and led a diamond to the king and ace. West now returned a club, leaving me in a dilemma- should I go up with the ace and hope that East had singleton or doubleton king of trumps, or finesse the club which would allow me to pick up king to three trumps with East? After much thought I followed the first line, but the cards lay so well that both lines would have worked.

The contract in the other room was a sensible four hearts, so we had another 13 imp. Can you seen how I should have played? With a few small gains on the other boards we won the set 35-0, the match had turned round and we eventually held on to win by 14.

What about that six hearts? The correct line is to win the spade lead in hand and play a diamond (the king is best as it may avoid a potential spade ruff). If West wins and returns a club you win with dummy's ace, finesse a heart, ruff a diamond, draw trumps and claim. This line wins as long as the trump finesse works and the trumps break 2-2 or 3-1.

Hands from the past - the Reverend's Coup

The 4th round of the 2007 Gold Cup saw a local derby between two Dorset teams captained by Phil Norman and Keith Bartlett, with the prize for the winner being bragging rights and the chance to take on a seeded team in the round of 32. Keith’s team (Anne Sharples, Barrie Cantello and me) had the better of things, and a couple of weeks later I got an e-mail from Keith that said ‘The draw for round 5 finds us against Allfrey, Forrester, Robson & Bakshi. No trouble then! After we beat them, we probably get Peter Lee's team from Surrey, and then Byrne of Manchester in the quarter-finals.’ In spite of Keith’s optimism, our match against Allfrey was a bit like Weymouth playing Chelsea in the 4th round of the FA Cup. With the bridge correspondents of two national newspapers in the team, the opponents had arranged for duplimated boards with hand records, so that details of any interesting hands could be made available for the delectation of readers of The Times and the Daily Telegraph, not to mention the Dorset Coup. Although we did not manage a giant killing, conceding when 48 imps down after 40 boards, we did have our moments. Here is a hand where Barrie Cantello (aka the Reverend), perhaps inspired by playing in an old rectory, came up with a coup that I had never met before, either in print or at the table. I doubt if Tony Forrester had seen it either, as it caused him to go down in a cold game.

	♠ A9752 ♥ Q532 ♦ K103 ♣ J
♠ Q10 ♥ 64 ♦ A986 ♣ 97653		♠ KJ864 ♥ A8 ♦ QJ75 ♣ A10
	♠ 3 ♥ KJ864 ♦ 42 ♣ KQ842

Forrester declared four hearts after Barrie had opened one spade as east. I led a spade which Forrester won with dummy’s ace to play a club. Barrie took the ace and cashed the ace of trumps. If he had continued with the obvious play of another trump, I am sure that Forrester would have made the contract by playing a top club (throwing a diamond in dummy) and ruffing a club. When the 5-2 club break is revealed, declarer is a trick short but he can ruff a spade back to hand and lead a diamond towards the king for his tenth trick. But after Barrie had taken the ace of hearts he switched to a spade, convincing Forrester (and everyone else at the table) that he had started with a singleton ace of trumps. Forrester ruffed the spade and thought that he might have a winning line on a cross ruff, so he cashed the king of clubs throwing a diamond from dummy. The fall of the ten of clubs was suspicious, but surely it was safe to cash the queen of clubs as East could not have any more trumps. It was something of a shock when Barrie ruffed with a card he could not possibly have – a trump – and played a diamond to my ace for one down. So now you know the Reverend’s coup – cash the ace of trumps when holding A x or A x x and switch to another suit. Declarer is bound to play you for a singleton ace. 

Only one hand from this match ended up in the national press, and even that was not quite truthful. 

 

 I was the West who led the 'dubious' eight of diamonds, but declarer (Robson) did not actually play as described in the article and went one down. Not that it really mattered, as Forrester and Bakshi were allowed to play in four hearts at the other table for a big gain.

Hands from the Past - a Bad Trump Break

One of the most valuable rules of Bridge is David Burn’s Law of Total Trumps. ("When you are declarer, the total number of trumps held by your side should be greater than the total number of trumps held by your opponents.")

It's normally a good idea to keep on the right side of Burn's Law, but not always. My most spectacular piece of law breaking came in a county KO match, where Roy France and I played in five clubs vulnerable with a combined trump holding of four to the jack. In spite of the ludicrous contract, the bidding was not unreasonable, nobody doubled, and we even gained on the board.

The hand comes from the match between Keith Bartlett and Shirley Groome, won convincingly by Shirley, in spite what happened here.

Game all

	♠ 95 ♥ KJ10 ♦ A4 ♣ AK10653
♠ 32 ♥ 5 ♦ KQJ952 ♣ J842		♠ AQJ10746 ♥ 874 ♦ 8763 ♣
	♠ K86 ♥ AQ9632 ♦ 10 ♣ Q97

At my table the auction was brief but eventful

South	West	North	East
1♥	2♦	4NT	5♣

I have to admit that I was East, and my five clubs was an attempt to get a club lead against five or six hearts, and to give the opponents a chance to forget their responses to Blackwood after intervention. Unfortunately this cunning plan backfired when South passed to show one ace, West passed to show club tolerance, and North passed to show even more club tolerance.

I am sure that North (Andy Passmore) was right to pass five clubs - he knew that six hearts would go down on a club lead, and the penalty in five clubs undoubled would be worth more than a game.

North-South could have taken all the tricks, but it is always difficult to find the optimum defence against silly contracts, and they generously allowed me to take a spade, a heart ruff and a diamond (!) for a penalty of 800.

Meanwhile Keith Bartlett and Gary Pick had a good auction to the second best contract on the North-South cards .

South	West	North	East
1♥	pass	3♣	pass
3♥	pass	4♦	pass
5♣	pass	6♥	double

28 imps hung on the choice of opening lead. East's double was Lightner, which asks partner to find an unusual lead and is usually based on a void. Perhaps South should have removed to 6NT (which makes on any lie of the cards), but West failed to get the message and led a diamond. Declarer quickly wrapped up all the tricks for 1860 and a 14 imp swing.