The Aces on Bridge: Saturday, October 24th, 2015
However brilliant an action, it should not be esteemed great unless the result of a great motive.
Duc de La Rochefoucauld
| E | North |
|---|---|
| E-W | ♠ 7 4 3 ♥ 10 7 5 ♦ 9 5 4 ♣ A K 7 3 |
| West | East |
|---|---|
| ♠ 8 6 ♥ K J 9 6 4 2 ♦ — ♣ Q J 8 6 2 |
♠ A J 10 9 2 ♥ Q ♦ Q 3 2 ♣ 10 9 5 4 |
| South |
|---|
| ♠ K Q 5 ♥ A 8 3 ♦ A K J 10 8 7 6 ♣ — |
| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 ♠* | |||
| 5 ♦ | All pass |
*Spades and a minor, preemptive
♠8
Today’s deal from a Polish teams tournament saw South miss his chance to draw the correct inference from the auction. He might have put himself in line for a brilliancy prize, but had to content himself with the consolation prize of nursing a beer in the bar while uttering the Polish equivalent of “I could have been a contender.”
When East opened two spades, which in his methods guaranteed precisely five spades and four or more cards in one of the minors, South had no convenient way to describe his assets. He opted for an agricultural leap to five diamonds, and the defenders led a spade and shifted to hearts.
Declarer won in hand, and was all set to claim 12 tricks. He cashed one top diamond and was hugely taken aback when it was West who discarded. The best he could do now was tempt East by advancing the diamond jack. When East rejected the Greek gift, declarer had no option but to run his trump, and concede two heart tricks in the ending, when the defenders made no mistake.
Can you see somewhat abstruse play that declarer might have found? He must unblock a spade honor at trick one. This gives up on the overtrick in most cases, but here it is essential. You win the heart shift, and cash one top trump. When the bad break comes to light, cash the remaining top spade then duck a spade to East, who cannot afford to duck dummy’s seven, and must now lead a trump, spade or club, all of which are fatal.
Facing a partner with real extras, you have enough to drive to game in hearts. But might nine tricks be easier than 10? The alternative to jumping to four hearts is to cuebid three diamonds and respect partner if he bid three no-trump next. Both routes make perfect sense, but I think I prefer the more flexible cuebid.
BID WITH THE ACES
| ♠ 7 4 3 ♥ 10 7 5 ♦ 9 5 4 ♣ A K 7 3 |
| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 ♦ | Dbl. | Pass | |
| 2 ♣ | Pass | 2 ♥ | Pass |
| ? |
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Bridge-related
As soon as dummy comes down, S knows that E has precisely 5S, at least 4C (maybe 5 but no more), and when E then leads a H at trick 2, at least 1H. So that leaves only 3 unknown cards in E’s hand. If they include no D, down he goes. If they include only 1 or 2 D, easy make. While S has yet to play to trick 1, the only distributions that matter are when E holds all 3 D (and either 4C and 1 H or 5C and no H, but the latter seems impossible since then W would hold KQJ seventh of H and would either have bid something or surely would have led the HK). If S had thought this far, dropping a S honor at trick one is not too difficult, but who has ever seen this situation? Well, now we have. Thank you, Mr. Wolff.
“An agricultural leap to five diamonds”… I like that!
And when declarer plays the spade king at trick one… is that a royal dump?… But I still think it’s humanly impossible. Abstruse is the right word.
Thank you for this fascinating end-play. It just reminds me of how much more there is to learn.
Regards,
Michael
Hi Bobby,
One other obscure possibility arises of east plays a spade back at T2. South wins, cashes the DA to get the bad news cashes the SQ then leads a small heart from hand. West has to play a crocodile coup by playing the HK then giving east a ruff. I wondered if south could try the DJ after the DA before this, but it doesn’t work as East ducks as per the column line. Fun though, and a good hand.
Regards,
Iain
Hi David,
No doubt you should have been a professional “how to” writer while explicitly explaining how to either put an apparatus or some kind of structure together. Here being a bridge gem of enormous proportion.
Your description is picture perfect explaining why it is possible for the declarer to throw a high spade under the ace at trick one. Delving deeper, can anyone imaging, assuming this hand is being shown on vu-graph, when declarer starts considering what to do (instead of merely following suit with his lowest spade).
The viewing audience will probably squirm in their chairs until they realize that perhaps a genius play is in the offing.
Much fodder for the mill, perhaps envisioning how bridge will be presented around the 22nd century.
Thanks David for your very provocative play-by-play analysis.
Hi Michael,
Yes Michael, high-level bridge reasoning can be both challenging and indeed beautiful.
However imagining a Royal Dump, might present a slightly different image, but perhaps just as satisfying.
And to echo your comment, realizing for all of us there is more to learn, is indeed just as important as taking the time and effort to do it.
Much thanks to what you always offer.
Hi Iain,
Perfect description! Simply because it would be a croc whether or not West opened his jaws to swallow his partner’s queen. In David’s thorough analysis even he missed the likelihood of declarer considering the seven hearts missing to be distributed exactly as held.
However, when we all get to bridge heaven, playing of course, 24 hours a day, at some tables and after a decade or two, a few tables may be on their first hand or three, while attempted perfection is usually good for the soul, but always somewhat exasperating for the opponents.
And may I say, you, almost never miss a trick or a detail with your bridge analysis, making it more difficult for us mortals to keep up.
Swapping South’s 6D for North’s 5D would make another interesting column hand.
Hi Jim2,
Yes, if so, and of course, declarer then found his way to dummy, by not overpowering anyone or anything, but rather instead, slowly slipping there.
No doubt, that would be a long remembered 9 cards of a suit when told that they were the ones quite rightly played: AQ9765432 over the course of the first three tricks when one player was void.
Ira Corn once explained that winning either the Spingold or the Vanderbilt seemed to be similar to 16 monkeys (each one representing one team left in the round of 16) in a cage all running around until one of them happened to pick up, off the ground, the winning ticket and thus declared the victor.
However Jim2’s example sets bridge apart in order to understand the language of cards, its strange numerate truths and how it applies to bridge.