Bridge is famously known as an intellectual game and a pastime and there is no doubt about it, but that intellectual game has many angles of perfect methodology and technique of playing the game to meet its logical conclusion. A good player needs to be fully equipped with the armoury of established conventions and arithmetic calculations of placement of cards generally known as percentage play.

In that sense the player has to keep in mind about the probability of distribution as well as the key-cards held by opponents in short.

A deal which was played by a knowledgeable set of players, is given below, who employed simple a convention in the Acol system and a simple percentage play, which may not be very simple for an average player.

In the following hand again there is an element of necessary assumption with out which the result would end in a negative outcome, that is, if the hands held by the opponents are too lopsided then in that case the play falls beyond the scope of percentage play and a positive result cannot be achieved, however one may try. The complete hand with bidding is given as under: -

(1) Acol two opening bid with eight playing tricks.

(2) No additional value.

WEST LED HEART SIX

The North dragged the bidding to a small slam in hearts with three card trump support and five card spade suit headed by ace and another ace queen in diamond suit with good twelve points.

The North invited slam more particularly when the partner showed eight playing tricks with heart suit. When the South looked at the dummy he thought that the contract depended on one successful finesse in one of the minor suits, which works out to 74 percent chance of success. But which finesse he should try first? On second thoughts he thought of establishing spade suit which would give him a discard of diamond which would give him 74.4 percent chance of success. And he could, in that case, he could avoid taking any finesse. So he planned the play for a better option percentage play of making the fifth spade good by ruffing three rounds of that suit, if the division of the suit is 3-4.

The declarer having firmed up his mental calculations, proceeded to play two rounds of the trump and played the queen of clubs from hand, which was won by West with the king and obviously he led back a small spade which the declarer won with the ace and ruffed a small spade high in hand and played the eight of clubs from hand entered the dummy with the jack and ruffed another small spade in hand, then he entered the dummy with nine of trump and ruffed seven of spades on which the king of spade came from East which he ruffed in hand and entered the dummy with the ace of diamonds to discard his diamond on the good jack of spades and claimed the contract.

GOLDEN TIP:

Calculation is an important component of bridge play.

DEALER SOUTH

North-South Vulnerable

NORTH      WEST      EAST         SOUTH

S AJ743    S Q108    S K952         S 6

H 943      H 6       H 107    H AKQJ852

D AQ9      D JI063   D K875        D 54

C J6       C K943    C 10752      C AQ8

THE BIDDING:

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South     West     North     East

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2H (1)    Pass     2S        Pass

3 H       Pass     4D        Pass

4H(2)     Pass     5H        Pass

6C        Pass     6H        Pass

Pass      Pass

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