North-South vulnerable. North deals.
North-South vulnerable. North deals.
NORTH
K J 10
7 4 2
K 6 5
J 10 4 2
WEST EAST
A 6 Q 7
Q 9 8 3 K J 10 6 5
Q 4 3 2 A 10 9 7
9 7 5 8 3
SOUTH
9 8 5 4 3 2
A
J 8
A K Q 6
The bidding:
NORTH EAST SOUTH WEST
Pass Pass 1 Pass
2 Pass 3 Pass
4 Pass Pass Pass
Opening lead: Three of
There are two different kinds of plays where you assume the lie of a specific card. In one, you must find a particular defender with a key card, so you assume he holds it and play accordingly. In the other, you assume the key card is in the wrong and look for a way to counter that. Consider this deal.
After a third-hand one-spade opening bid and a raise from partner, South had no clear-cut game try available. He tried three clubs -- ostensibly a help-suit try. North decided that, if partner could make a help-suit game try holding a weakish trump suit, his trump holding and king of diamonds would offer play for game and closed the auction with a jump to four spades.
West led his fourth-best heart, marking East with five cards in the suit headed by K J. If West held the ace of diamonds, declarer could lose at most two trump tricks and one diamond. But what if the ace of diamonds was with East, giving the defenders two tricks in the suit? Now declarer would have to hold his trump losers to one.
If East held the ace of spades, he would have at least 12 prime high-card points and would certainly have opened the bidding. At trick two, therefore, declarer led a trump and rose with the king -- West was more likely to hold A x or A x x in trumps than A Q x. When the king held, declarer returned a trump from the table, and great was the fall thereon. The contract was home regardless of the location of the ace of diamonds.
This column is written by Tannah Hirsch and Omar Sharif. For information about Charles Goren's newsletter for bridge players, call (800) 788-1225 or write Goren Bridge Letter, P.O. Box 4410, Chicago, Ill. 60680
& copy;2006, Tribune Media Services
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