Better Bridge in Barry County August 23 2012

Better Bridge in Barry County

By Gerald Stein

 

 

	North ♠  KJ2 ♥  A32 ♦  K1064 ♣  A73
West ♠  10986 ♥  974 ♦  32 ♣  K965		East ♠ 74 ♥ Q1085 ♦  J9875 ♣  Q4
	South ♠  AQ53 ♥  KJ6 ♦  AQ ♣  J1082

 

 

Dealer: Vulnerable: Lead:

East None 5♣

 

North   4NT Pass	East Pass Pass Pass	South 1NT 6NT	West Pass Pass

Today’s column continues the playing and bidding of no trump hands, especially big hands where the ultimate goal is bidding and making slam in no trump. Today’s hand was played recently at a local club where this same hand was bid and played eight times. Only one North-South team managed to get it right. What went wrong with the other seven teams?

South opened the bidding with a strong 1NT bid, having 17 high card points, only one doubleton, and a balanced hand. North responded with her hand, jumping to 4NT! This was not a Blackwood Convention invitation. This was a bid called a Quantitative Raise. North, with this bid, promises a balanced hand and enough high card points, in this case 15, to invite South to try for a slam in no trump. South, with 17 high card points, readily accepted the invitation and promptly bid 6 no trump.

So far so good. In the eight times that this hand was played, only four of the eight teams made it to 6 NT. Three of the teams made it to 3NT and one made it to 5NT, stopping short of a small slam in no trump. So four made the right bid, but of the four, only one made the right plan to take the twelve tricks necessary to make the contract.

Let’s look at the plan for South once he saw the dummy following the lead of the 5♣, which by the way, was the lead three out of eight times. The other lead was the 10♠ as a top of a sequence lead for the other five leads. Both leads were good leads for the defenders.

South duly thanked his partner for such a welcoming dummy and a good bridge bid. As we have seen in the past few weeks, South stopped to count his winners: in spades, there were four winners; in hearts, there were two winners; in diamonds, there were three winners; in clubs, there was only the one winner, the A♣. With only ten winners, where would the other two winners come from?

With a club lead, South realized that he would get another club winner, but now he was still one trick short of making the 6 NT contract. It looked to be a toss-up between the diamonds and the hearts. As you look at the four hands, it is easy to see that taking the heart finesse is the key to taking the extra and final winning trick. It was not so easy when you were playing the hand. It is, however, the only way to make the contract, hoping that East has the Q♥. East, indeed, had the Q♥ and the one team that tried the heart finesse was the only one of eight teams to bid and make the 6NT slam hand. Well done, North-South, on that particular slam hand.

What is the take-away advice from this hand? In this case, was the North-South team who made the winning move just lucky, or were they the only team to make a total plan? It appears that this particular team took the time to realize that the only hope to make the slam was to take the heart finesse and hope for the best. After all, a finesse is only a 50% chance, but, as we have seen by their play, the finesse worked and the take-away for them was 990 points. Those who bid and missed the slam received a minus 50 and the lowest scores of the day.  Taking the time to make a total plan would have resulted in a plus score for at least three other teams who bid and should have made the small slam in no trump. It is not enough to just count the winners for your plan. You have to know how to pick up the extra needed tricks as well. Happy bidding and playing in no trump.                                      

Gerald Stein August 11, 2012 Number of words: 727