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.

Torquay 2009

Which discard system do you prefer? Several people at my local club play a system called Dodds, where any discard conveys a message about your holding in another suit, the exact meaning depending on whether the card is high or low, odd or even, red or black, or if it’s Tuesday or Thursday. I ought to make the effort to understand it, but life’s too short at my age.

Instead, I get my own back on the Dodderers by telling them that my discards are ‘KWTL’. When this results in a puzzled look, I explain that KWTL is not a country music radio station in Oklahoma, but stands for ‘keep winners throw losers’. KWTL ought to be a simple system to play, but it’s not always that easy…

In the Torquay Swiss Pairs my right hand opponent is a leading tournament player, though his partner is unknown to me. On the last hand of the match, honours are about even when I pick up

♠ 5 3 2 ♥A K J 10 ♦ 9 5 4 ♣ A J 7

and hear partner open a reverse Benji two diamonds. I relay with two hearts and partner bids two spades to show a hand with eight playing tricks in spades. I set the suit by raising to three spades, and partner makes a cue bid of four diamonds. I am going to bid a slam so I wheel out 4NT, key card Blackwood, getting a response of five diamonds to show three key cards. I make a further enquiry with five hearts and hear six diamonds, showing the queen of trumps and the king of diamonds but no king of clubs.

I could bid six hearts now, to confirm that we have all the key cards and maybe to suggest a grand if partner holds the queen of hearts, but that would take us into uncharted waters and I am going to settle for a small slam. I can count eleven top tricks and the contract will depend on a heart finesse at worst. As it is pairs I go for the maximum and bid 6NT.
West leads the king of clubs and I see

♠ A K Q J 7 6
♥
♦ A K 7
♣ 8 6 5 4


♠ 5 3 2
♥ A K J 10
♦ 9 5 4
♣ A J 7

Rats. I hadn’t thought of that. So much for taking a heart finesse for my twelfth trick. On the opening lead East plays the nine, which could be the start of a peter to show a doubleton, so it looks as if West has four or five clubs to the K Q 10. How do you rate my chances now?

If West has the expected club holding, the contract is odds-on. East is more likely to hold the queen of hearts (he has fewer clubs and more vacant places in his hand for the other suits), and in that case there will be a double squeeze as neither opponent will be able to guard diamonds in the end game. I might even be able to win the last trick with the seven of diamonds and claim a free beer, although it is the first match of the day and I do not normally start drinking at 11.30 am.

I duck the first trick to tighten the position for the squeeze. West switches to a low diamond, so I win in dummy and cash the spades. There is no need to count the opponent’s hands - I just need to keep track of whether they unguard either minor - and I don’t look too closely at their discards. I throw a heart and a diamond, but then I have to discard the jack of clubs. That shouldn’t matter, as if West holds K Q 10 he will still be in sole charge of the suit.
I come to hand with the Ace of clubs. By now East will have been squeezed out of his guard in one of the red suits. If he has unguarded diamonds, two rounds of hearts will now squeeze West in the minors.

I cash the top hearts and the queen falls from East so I claim my slam, only slightly disappointed that I did not take the last trick with the seven of diamonds. All this has taken a while, so there is no time for a post-mortem and we move on to the next match, feeling quite satisfied at having made a slam on a double squeeze.
It is only after the session when I study the hand records that the full deal is revealed as





No squeeze was needed, as after ducking the opening lead I had twelve top tricks. Or I did until I threw the jack of clubs away, an abject failure to follow KWTL. Fortunately East let me off the hook as he also violated KWTL by discarding a third heart rather than a diamond. If he had kept three hearts and three clubs I would have gone down in a cold contract.

A final point about the bidding - I only chose play in no-trumps because we were playing pairs. It occurred to me afterwards that the auction had revealed a lot about partner’s hand but almost nothing about mine, so there was a good reason for my hand to be declarer at any form of scoring. I don’t think that East would have misdefended if my hand had been on the table.

Year End 2008

After the Tolly I was tempted to give up competitive bridge, but the persuasive Mrs Sharples encouraged me to sit opposite her for the mixed pairs at the London Year End Congress. It seemed a good omen when I forgot the system on Board 1 and we still managed to end in the right contract and get a decent score. The opponents were in charitable mood throughout and Ann played very well so we ended the first session in the lead.

In the second session we made a few mistakes but the opponents were still distributing largesse at regular intervals so that I felt we had a chance going into the last round. A poor bid from me led to a below-average first board and then came this little number, where I was declarer in 1NT at love all

♠ J 7 5 2
♥ 6 4
♦4
♣ J 9 8 7 4 3


♠ Q 3
♥ A 8 3
♦ K Q J 10 7
♣ A Q 10

I opened 1♦ and west's overcall of 1♥ was passed back to me. I bid 1NT to end the auction.

If you are wondering why North did not remove 1NT to 2♣, it was the last hand of a long day and her mind was already focussed on for more important matters, such as whether the large glass that would shortly be in her hand should be filled with Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon.

I ducked the opening lead and won the third round, West having started with ♥KQJ10xx. When I played on diamonds East took his ace on the third round, while I threw a spade and two clubs from dummy. I was expecting a spade switch which would allow the opponents to cash out for two down, but East played a club, and what had seemed like an auto-pilot hand now required some thought.

If East has the king of clubs, I can play the ten, overtake with dummy’s jack, repeat the club finesse and take eight tricks, but a losing finesse will lead to three down and a near bottom. Or I can go up with the ace of clubs and settle for one off.

Time stood still while I dithered and dummy’s need for a glass of wine grew ever more desperate. Eventually I decided to play the ace, on the grounds that the opponents could make at eight or nine tricks in hearts, so that one off would not be too bad a score. I try to avoid hyperbole, so let’s just say that I was rather pleased when West followed with the king and the contract rolled in with two lucky overtricks.

Making nine tricks on the last hand scored 59 match points out of 68… and we won by 4 (2365 to 2361). It was only when looking back later that I realised that a singleton king was the most likely explanation of the opponents’ caution in passing out 1NT. Another one for the Rabbi’s Rule - the king of clubs is always bare.

A few weeks later, another hand from this event found its way into Zia's column in the Grauniad

The last event of the old year, aptly named the "year end festival" by the English Bridge Union, provided an excellent example of a worthwhile resolution that you all might make for the new year. However hopeless your position may seem at the bridge table, never give up. Love all, dealer North.

South's jump to game was a normal enough move on his cards, but when he was doubled by West and the dummy was displayed, he could barely suppress a groan. Four hearts doubled seemed booked for two down, and it was clear that East-West could not make a game, so minus 300 was bound to be an awful result.

West began with the two top diamonds and, confused by East's signal in the suit, continued with a third round. That at least gave South the chance to dispose of his losing spade on dummy's queen
of diamonds, but prospects still looked bleak . Declarer called for dummy's low spade (it would not help to lead the king and ruff away East's ace, since that would not resolve the problem of trump losers), and East followed with the nine. South ruff ed, led the queen of hearts to the king and ace, watched East show out, and almost resigned himself to his fate – surely West was bound to make two of his three remaining trumps.

South ruffed a spade – not caring whether East played the ace, for this did not matter – cashed three rounds of clubs ending in dummy, ruffed another spade and led a fourth round of clubs. West, down to 10 8 6 of hearts , had to ruff this trick and lead into South's remaining hearts, which were J 9.

"Sorry", said West. "I thought you might be ruffing the third round of diamonds, and in any case I was certain I had two trump tricks, so my defence did not matter." "No, " said East, " I should have sacrificed in four spades." And I promise you – for I was there – that the words "but only if you were going to defend like that" never passed his lips.

When we played this hand the final contract was also 4♥ doubled after North had opened 1♣ and Ann overcalled 1♠. I cashed my top diamonds and led a spade to Ann’s Ace. A club would now lead to two down, but Ann made the natural looking return of diamond and South erred by discarding a club and coming to hand with a club. (He need to start on the trump reduction either by ruffing the diamond or ruffing a spade to hand).

Declarer then led the Queen of trumps which I ducked. When the four-nil break came to light he tried for a trump reduction and end play by ruffing two spades, but in the end game he held ♥ J 9 7, I had K 10 8 and dummy had A 5. I had to come to two tricks. If I had covered the Queen of hearts, in the end game declarer would have J 9 7 and I would have been end-played with 10 8 6. Plus 300 was worth 62 out of 68. One down would still have got us 42, but we needed those extra 20 points.