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For Junior, Intermediate and Novice players…and others! It’s Fri   day!

“Light Hearted”

It has been a bit of a heavy week with deals involving squeezes and end-plays. It’s time for something more straightforward…and a question for you. How would you like to play as West the following two hands in 4 with North leading 2 ?

At this point, I will not give you the full bidding. East started with 1 and South called 1. There was no other opposition bidding with East-West bidding to 4. I can tell you that the heart break is friendly, 3-2. So, how many tricks would you expect to make? Decide before you read on.

So, what would you bid as West over South’s 1? A negative double seems about right with East then bidding 2 and West, with enough hcp to bid to game, raising to 4. However, West became declarer when they bid 2 over 1, a little “crime” as that really promises at least 5 hearts.

So you said maybe that declarer wins A, plays a couple of high hearts and then a club losing to A. Even if South then plays Q, it looks like declarer can get to the West hand to play a spade to 10 losing to Q. Whether or not South has K, a declarer need only lose A, Q and a trump…and if the Q was doubleton, maybe even better than that.

8-0…maybe a football, unlikely a rugby score. What about a Bridge percentage?

Dreams are free. Welcome to West’s nightmare! With 8 cards missing in a suit, the percentage chance of the break being 8-0 is 0.2% and in reality is less than that when a player holding 8 is a defender…and has not taken a bid! So, West could feel a bit non-plussed when their A was ruffed with 8 at trick 1. Someone might have asked South whether they really had no diamonds. West would presume they had revoked! But no! Worse was to follow, that is for West:

 

That 2 suggested that if South won the lead, that they play back a club (lower non- trump suit)…even better if they held A. So, A was followed by a club ruff and a second low diamond. West did the best they could by ruffing with J but Q beat that. Then, a second club ruff and yet another diamond. In desperation, West tried 7 but South could beat that with 10!

Trumps were then all drawn though not in the way West would have wished! There was still a spade trick for the defence to come… 5 ruffs and 2 black aces meant down 4 in a game contract where the declaring side had 25 hcp, an 8 card trump fit and fairly good trumps.

That was a little cruel on West though had East been declarer, the defence could still have beaten the game by 3 tricks (one less ruff for South). Several declarers did make 4 when the ruffing never started and one pair actually made 3NT, a contract helped considerably by the 8-0 diamond break!

Unfortunately, some North players did decide to bid their 8-card suit rather too aggressively with only 8 tricks for North if the defence take their two heart tricks early. … a terrible result for the declaring side even if not doubled.

 
There was no "Plan B" this time for West. 

Someone, indeed many, say one should make a plan at trick 1 before one plays to dummy. Poor West’s plan here was blown apart by the very first card South played. “ Multi Light hearted” contract indeed!

Richard Solomon

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