Better Bridge in Barry County May 8 2014

Better Bridge in Barry County

By Gerald Stein

 

 

	North ♠  A 6 5  ♥  9 8 3  ♦  J 4   ♣  K Q 7 6 2
West ♠  4 ♥  K J 10 6 ♦  A 6    ♣  J 10 9 8 5 4		East ♠  Q 9 8 2 ♥  Q 7 2 ♦  Q 10 8 3 ♣  A 3
	South ♠  K J 10 7 3 ♥  A 5 4 ♦  K 9 7 5 2 ♣  ----

 

 

Dealer: Vulnerable: Lead:

West Both A♦

 

North   Pass 1NT 3♠	East   Pass Pass Pass	South   1♠ 2♦ ?	West Pass Pass Pass

There is a time for judgment in nearly every bridge hand. South used her good judgment to arrive at just the right contract for today’s hand. Did you “Pass” on South’s third bid, or did you bid “4S” with that encouraging jump-bid by North on her third bid? If you passed, you were in the minority and right! If you bid 4♠, you were in the majority and wrong! What were the informative signs that today’s South picked up on today’s bidding and the subsequent play of the hand? Let’s take a look.

At first glance, South’s hand looked to be very distributional. With five spades and five diamonds, three hearts, and no clubs, South realized early that she was not the only one with a distributional hand. If she had one, most likely there would be others who had unbalanced hands as well. In fourth seat, and strong spades, South opened the bidding with 1♠, promising five spades and at least 13 total points, counting the length in the spade and diamond suits. Although South knew that North was a passed-hand, North’s second bid was 1NT, a forcing bid in their agreement. North promised 6-11 HCP’s and South was forced to bid again. South duly responded with a 2♦ bid, promising at least three+ diamonds and at least 11 HCP’s.

After another pass by West, North provided a jump-bid, promising at least 10 HCP’s, three spades, and an invitation to go to 4♠. Here is where South used good judgment. She knew this about her partner’s hand:  Partner North did not open the bidding, so there were fewer than 12 HCP’s in the North hand. Counting her own high card points, and even giving herself extra points for the club void, South knew that there were too many high card points missing. The best she could come up with for North and South were 22 high card points, quite a distance from the 25-26 points needed for a major game. With the added knowledge that her hand was distributional, it seemed probable that others might also have a distributional hand, including a bad trump split. As a result, South passed, and the contract was placed at 3♠ in the South hand.

West led the A♦ as her opening lead. Not much was gained there with small cards from all players. West shifted to the J♣ on the second trick, covered by the Q♣ in the North, the A♣ in the East, and trumped in the South hand. South then played a small spade to the A♠ in the North hand. Using the K♣ next, South pitched a losing heart on the good club honor. A small club from the North hand was trumped in the South with the 10♠. Next, South played the good K♦ and played the J♦ from the dummy. The 5♦ was played next from the South hand. West, unable or unwilling to trump, threw a club away. That gave South a clear insight into the trump situation. There would be no point in trying to draw trumps if the spade split was 4-1, an unpleasant situation always.

South used the 6♠ to trump the losing diamond from her hand, and East followed with a diamond. Next, South led a small club from the North hand, trumping with the J♠. At this point, South had already won seven tricks to the one by the East/West team. South then played the A♥ winning the eighth trick for the partnership. South would win one more trick with the K♠ for the nine needed tricks while East/West would take four tricks on this hand.

The scoring was a plus score for those five teams who stopped and played at a 3♠ contract. Thirty-four other teams went down to flaming defeat with a wide variety of undertricks. A number of tables went down -1; others went down -2; still others went down -3, and a few went down as far as -4.

The takeaways today are these: when your partner is a passed hand, you know plenty about the points in that hand. It will not improve with any kind of wishful thinking no matter how enthusiastic your partner might be about your named trump suit. The fact that South also realized that the hands could be distributional was based on her own hand with two suits that were five-five with a void as well. If you look at the West hand, you can see the club suit is very long with six cards. The East hand has extra trumps in spades with four. Those teams that went down to defeat most likely tried to pull out all of the trumps and ended up with no trump power at the end of the play of the hand. Using the crossruff to take away losers from the South hand provided South with the winning combination to score well on today’s hand.

 

Gerald Stein

May 1, 2014

Number of words: 978

 

Bridge Notes: “Eight Conventions You Should Know and Use” is up and running at Kellogg Community College on Wednesday nights in May. If interested, there is still time to join for the last three Wednesday meetings. Call the KCC office of Life Long Learning if interested.