Home »Weekend Magazine » Bridge Notes: When lady luck smiles

The trump suit in Bridge holds an all important position and therefore, when playing a trump contract, it becomes imperative that the handling of the suit should be immaculate with the objective being to maximize the number of tricks with it. For that, it is vital for the declarer to recognize early the source of tricks, which can only materialize if the declarer is able to time his play in a manner that keeps the communication between the two hands flexible.

Let us learn by a few examples. How you would handle this contract of 6S by south on the opening lead of KC? Fortunately for south the KC lead is not a killing one for it not only rectifies the count but also enhances the chances of the declarer as he can now win the trick with the ace of clubs and before drawing trumps lead back the JC to west's QC discarding his only loser in diamonds and gaming an entry with 9 of clubs to dispose off his possible loser of hearts. Otherwise on a different lead, 6S would need hearts to break even.

In one next example, the contract is 6S with the opening lead being QS:

With 11 top tricks as south how would you play the hand? This is a tricky hand where your obvious 2 major suit losers in hearts and spades can be disposed of on the KQ of diamonds provided - and here lies the catch, you can find your entry in dummy to cash the good diamonds, when on the face of it dummy appear to be entry less. Can you spot the obvious solution? Yes, if you can find an entry in dummy with trump 9. For this all you have to do is to win the opening lead. Cash AH and lead the 5C. Either way one of dummy's clubs is bound to score when you hit the 7C from dummy. If the defender takes it with the QC your 9C becomes the entry to cash your diamonds. Ducking club 7 will be even easier to dispose of your major suit loser.

Let us now come up with a more subtle example of table play. This time the contract is 4H and the opening lead KS with the following NS hands spread as under;

What are your chances now? You have obvious 2 losers each in the black suits. How can you then redeem yourself from this fiasco facing you? The only hope lies perhaps in the diamond suit, if the missing diamonds are 4-3, perhaps the 5th diamond can come in handy to club your 4 loser to 3 and thereby help you to succeed in your contract of 4H.

Well, does the play require some careful handling of the cards or is it an easy access hand. You need 4 entries to ruff diamonds 3 times and get in the Dummy to enjoy the 5th diamond for a vital discard. Let us see how many visible entries are there. There is the AD, the 10, 9 and 8 of hearts.

The west east hands are as under:

The play should be tuned as under; win the AS, lead a diamond to dummy's ace, ruff a diamond in hand with the AH. Lead low heart to dummy's 8, ruff a third round of diamonds with the KH, lead another low trump to dummy's 9 and ruff the 4th round of diamonds with the QH. The 10H in dummy is a welcome entry of pitch a spade loser on the 5th diamond. The point to note was the high ruff in hand to provide dummy the necessary entries to make that last diamond good. A well-executed trump handling indeed but a bit lucky on the opening lead. A trump lead would sink the contact. But then in Bridge, success comes when lady luck smiles.





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North

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A 7

8 4 2

Q 10 7 6 5

A J 9

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South

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K Q J 9 5 4 2

A K Q 3

8

10

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North

=================

6 5 3

10 9 3

A 8 6 4 2

Q 10

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South

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A 9 4

A K Q J 7 5 3

9

J 7

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North

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7 6 3 2

10 8 5

K Q 4 3

9 7

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South

A K 9

A K 4

A

A K Q J 8 5

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West East

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K Q 10 2 J 8 7

6 4 2

J 7 3 K Q 10 5

A 9 8 5 K 6 4 3 2

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Copyright Business Recorder, 2017


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