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Jan’s Day in the part-score Zone.

Such deals may not be sensational but their outcome can be every bit as important as a slam or game contract, especially playing Match-Point Pairs. You bring home a very tight small slam on a double squeeze and on the very next board, drop an over-trick in playing a part-score contract: just another 50% round!

So, on the deal below, how many tricks did our declarer make in their 3 contract? The lead was 9.

 

Low level: high importance

“Most players tend to overlook the importance of making or breaking part-score contracts, feeling that these lowly levels do not warrant the effort or concentration of game or slam contracts.

At Pairs, of course, they are usually the difference between a bottom or top board but at Teams or Rubber, it is the difference of a few points here or there.

However, these “few points” seem to accumulate, especially when one considers that more than 50% of the deals we play are “part-scores”.

Take today’s deal which happened in a Teams match resulting in a small victory for our side when the opposition failed to defeat South’s 3 contract.

North’s 2 asked her partner to bid a suit, showing interest in game, with the raise to 3 being invitational. With wasted values in diamonds, South was not tempted and correctly passed the invite.  

West's 9 opening lead was taken by East’s king. A second high diamond felled South’s Q and was followed by J from East. South ruffed this with 10 which won the trick.

Thus, declarer crossed to dummy with A and East won the heart continuation with their king.  The defence had taken three tricks, with the A almost certainly to come. From where would the 5^th trick come to defeat the contract?

East must assume that South holds the A and probably Q for their initial take-out double. Thus, the chances of a second black suit trick were slim. There was also no chance of beating the contract if South had started with a five-card heart suit. However, say declarer had only four? It might be interesting to play a 4^th round of diamonds, giving South a ruff and discard.

Normally, such a play can be very costly but, on this deal, assuming that South had Q or even JT for the initial double, the end result might be very favourable for the defence:

wrong normally, but

this time!

 

When the 8 is played by East, West’s 9 is promoted for a trick no matter what South does. That would be +100 rather than -140 for the defence.

So, next time your opponents bid all the way to 1, pretend they are at the 7-level and you might just devise some skilful defence to beat their lowly contract and tip the balance of the match!”

It’s all in the lead: for less experienced players and others

 

1 promised  4+ clubs. The 1NT rebid showed 15-17 hcp with South accepting their partner’s game invite. Which card do you lead?

Richard Solomon

  

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