The Aces on Bridge: Friday, January 20th, 2012
How very weak the very wise,
How very small the very great are!
William Thackeray
| West | North |
|---|---|
| Both | ♠ K 7 4 2 ♥ 8 ♦ 8 7 5 3 2 ♣ 10 9 8 |
| West | East |
|---|---|
| ♠ J 5 3 ♥ J 9 7 6 4 3 ♦ A K 10 9 ♣ — |
♠ A Q 10 ♥ Q 5 2 ♦ Q J 6 4 ♣ 5 4 3 |
| South |
|---|
| ♠ 9 8 6 ♥ A K 10 ♦ — ♣ A K Q J 7 6 2 |
| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pass | Pass | Pass | |
| 1♣ | 1♥ | Pass | 2♥ |
| 4♣ | 4♥ | 5♣ | All pass |
♦K
A month or two ago I gave you a story of a hand played by Roger Trezel where he fell into the right line almost by accident. To redress the balance, the following deal was played in Paris by Trezel with a very different theme.
Trezel had arrived in a great contract five clubs), but still had to make it. He suspected the spade ace was with East, given West’s diamond-king lead from a passed hand. It is hard enough to try to make this contract looking at all four hands, and of course declarer did not have that advantage.
Trezel ruffed the opening lead with a high trump and led the club six to dummy and ruffed another diamond high. He re-entered dummy by leading the club seven to the 10 and ruffed a third diamond high. This was followed by the heart ace-king and a heart ruff with dummy’s last trump. Then came a fourth diamond ruff, again with a high trump.
At this point Trezel had reduced his once proud trump holding to just the club two, accompanied by three little spades. Dummy had king-third of spades and a winning diamond, while East had A-Q-10 of spades along with a “high” trump: the five!
Trezel exited his hand with a trump, discarding a spade from the table. Poor East could no better than take his club five and his spade ace, but then had to concede the last two tricks to dummy’s spade king and winning diamond.
This is the sort of deal that is duck soup if you play inverted minors, whereby a response of two diamonds is forcing for one round and shows at least a limit raise in diamonds. Failing that, your choice is a slightly antipositional invitational call of two no-trump, or a limit-raise to three diamonds, hoping partner does not have precisely three diamonds. I prefer the former action.
BID WITH THE ACES
| ♠ A Q 10 ♥ Q 5 2 ♦ Q J 6 4 ♣ 5 4 3 |
| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1♦ | Pass | ||
| ? |
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HBJ : That is one of the most brilliant plays I’ve read in a long time. Another brilliant example of sacrifing a trick to make two….. coupled a suit elimination and a masterly end play to gain entry to a seemingly entry-less dummy.
This hand either tells me to give up the game ( being so average ) or to inspire me to achieve greater things.
What a player…..accidental line ? I think not !
Hi HBJ,
According to bridge lore (whatever that is or was), this hand was played the way it reads, but sometimes, in other around the world bridge magazines, editorial license or just plain editing sometimes comes into play and integrity in reporting may suffer.
Whatever, do not ever give up the game. Understand, even this hand how a good (expert) problem solver (strongly suspecting that the ace of spades is in the wrong hand for the declarer) is able to take advantage of that situation and run for a goal or a touchdown is not a miracle, it is a putting together of the advantages of having one hand or the other on lead at the key moment.
Rejoice, don’t despair, and use the logical thinking (card placement) as a learning experience.
It is a fun hand. So much so that it reads like a Victor Mollo vignette.
I can just see the Rueful Rabbit blushing to the tips of his whiskers over having started with a 7-card trump suit and a 10-card fit solid all the way down to the 6, and still managing to lose a trump trick.
He would be apologizing to his partner. Afterall, if he hadn’t lost that avoidable trump, he would have scored an overtrick.
Hi Jim2,
You have the talent to be a movie producer, specializing in keeping character’s personalities consistent.
Although I am far from an expert in analysing Victor Mollo’s principle characters, because of your final paragraph, you have surely latched on to the Rueful Rabbit’s mindset, modest, therefore lovable, but pretty far out.