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Well, he looks wide awake. See what Michael can do on the first deal of the tournament!

Michael’s Morning Mayhem!

Are you always warmed up for the first board of a day’s bridge? If you are like me, then you would prefer not to have a difficult to bid and play slam hand right at the start. A nice straightforward 1NT is a great starting place.

On their first board of the Victor Champion Cup competition in Melbourne, Pam Livingston and Michael Ware had a very straightforward auction to 4. However, when Michael saw dummy, making 10 tricks did not seem difficult but almost impossible!

 

 The lead from South was 5 to North’s A. North returned 4. Plan the play.

Michael would have wished for a little more from dummy! One idea might be to ruff the club return and play two top diamonds discarding a heart and then ruffing a diamond. He could ruff a club to hand and then a second diamond. At this point, he would have to give up a heart and hope the opponents did not switch to a trump. A trump switch then or after he next played a heart would defeat the contract. 

Alternatively, If he ruffed, played his top diamonds discarding a heart and then played a heart, his opponents would have two opportunities to switch to a trump. He needed three ruffs in dummy to come to 10 tricks.

He had only one trump entry to dummy and could not ruff a club, draw trumps and get back there to enjoy the remaining clubs. That plan had to fail.

Michael did not attempt any of the above lines. Rather than ruff trick 2, he decided to discard. Now, if he discarded a heart, that would be an open invitation for the defence to switch to hearts. So, instead, he discarded a low diamond, a no win play but one designed to muddy the waters…. and amazingly that plan worked.

 

Of course, in itself, the diamond discard did not help Michael at all. However, it achieved its aim of confusing South who saw no reason to switch to a heart. The diamond discard would have looked extremely unusual to South and induced South to do just what he should not. He continued with a small club.

Michael inserted T and even though North ruffed, Michael over-ruffed, drew trumps in 2 rounds finishing in dummy and could play dummy’s 3 established club winners discarding all three hearts and still able to ruff his remaining small diamond in dummy to end with an overtrick!

Only 6 of the 43  declarers in 4 made their contract and he alone made an overtrick. Many failed by two tricks. Michael’s plan should never have worked. Indeed, he was risking 2 down instead of perhaps only down by a single trick. However, it threw South off the scent and Michael was well rewarded.

It was dangerous for North to switch to a heart at trick 2, if Michael had held A. Finding the heart switch at trick 3 might have been too hard for South (though even playing A would have seen the contract defeated). However, while South did not know it would be entirely safe, a trump or a diamond at trick 3 would have been better play than a third round of clubs.

At the other table, his team-mates got to play a rather unusual 1NT contract from the North seat, this contract failing by only one trick. So, Pam and Michael’s day started with an 8 imp gain when they really should have lost 4 or 5 imps.

The moral must be along the lines that when there is no hope, there is still some, especially with the innovative play of this declarer. Michael was certainly wide awake from the very start!

Richard Solomon

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