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the most valuable card in the pack?

As Valuable as an ace?

Well, if you cannot hold the ace or the king or the queen of a suit, this is the next best thing. In “500”, it can take on somewhat inflated importance and at times, it can be a pretty useful card to hold at the bridge table as well.

Defending a tight doubled (into game) part-scores at Teams is really not to be recommended. However, it can be quite nerve-wracking at Pairs as well. One slip and you have zero match-points on the board.

 

By rebidding 1NT, your partner showed 12-14 hcp balanced, normally a doubleton heart (no support double) and presumably a hold in spades. Your double was for take-out but partner left it in.

East led J. Declarer won A and cashed Q before exiting with a heart. You rise with K as declarer plays 2 and your partner 3 ( reverse count style). What next? A bottom awaits you unless you can find six tricks for the defence. Can you?

One good tip is not to be put off with the sight of dummy no matter how good (for declarer) it looks. Excellent trumps and both kings certain to take tricks as you do not hold either ace. Look for a way to beat the contract, despite dummy!

One piece of good news is the heart suit. You can certainly give your partner a ruff. That’s three tricks: yes, halfway there! So cash A and give partner a ruff and the same time suggest to partner which suit to play next, that is where you side-suit ace or king or queen might be. The only problem is you have none of these cards!

Do not worry. You have a jack! How wonderful. Not much of an entry, is it? Well, let’s find out!

This contract was defended by Michael Ware and David Skipper in the recent TOPS Main Centre Pairs  at Kaikoura. Michael sat West and had to look for miracles. There could be no miraculous entry in the club suit. So, diamonds it had to be!

David was onto it. He knew his partner had no more trumps (assuming North had started with 5 trumps) and rather wanted to get to Michael’s hand. Let’s see why:

 

The declarer wanted to get to hand to draw the last trump though had no easy way. David (East) was keen to make use of his remaining trump (10). So, he underled his  AQ though North feared the worst and guessed right by rising with K. North tried a club to the queen and David’s ace. David found the play of his other low diamond to Michael’s oh so valuable jack.

Michael was there with a fourth round of hearts which enabled David to score his second ruff…two hearts, two diamonds and two ruffs spelt an excellent one down.

The "under-leader"     and the valuer of Jacks

     
  David                          and    Michael 
  on their way to success at Kaikoura

Although the Q from David would have produced the same result, this would not have been a wise play had Michael held J singleton.

So, if you ever read articles on how jacks are overvalued (yes, we are guilty in this feature of saying so), this particular jack was worth a heap of match-points.

Now, if Michael had held the J too… but that was too much to expect!

 

The Pre-emptor’s Partner

 

It’s Teams, no-one is vulnerable and you have not much in the majors. What’s your pick?

Richard Solomon

 

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