Dubious Logic

It's the tricks that count

There are some plays at bridge that are so attractive that they must be employed on every deal. When you first learn the game it is the ruff; whether it gains a trick or not, it seems so much the essence of having a trump suit that it must be employed whenever possible. Thus, when teaching the game, it is sometimes an uphill struggle to prevent pupils from forcing themselves – and persuade them that a forcing defence, one that exhausts declarer's trumps, can be a good idea.

The simple finesse is a glorious thing; the economy of making AQ perform the same function as AK is a delight. As the player advances they will come across squeezes and see them everywhere. This is all well learnt, up to a point. It is necessary to have these techniques built in so they can be employed without creating them from first principles each time but they have no absolute power in themselves. Two examples from recent events demonstrate where the axiom of leading to an honour (or taking a finesse) has got in the way of planning the whole hand. The first had an amusing outcome:

I don't usually approve of doubling when one might have made a simple overcall, but here I accept that the West hand meets my stringent criteria. North led the ♦K and West won and cashed a top spade discovering trumps to be harmless, North having the singleton. At this point counting tricks, West could have claimed; six spades, two heart ruffs in dummy and two aces makes ten. But she was on autopilot and wanted to lead towards her heart king. So she crossed to dummy with a trump but the heart king fell to the ace. So she was a trick short? No - South, not unreasonably threw a heart on the extra round of trumps – after all, if declarer had four of the suit, she would have ruffed them in dummy. Eventually, West's heart five became the game trick.

When West's 1♥ was passed out and dummy appeared, I thought they might have missed game. Three trumps and a singleton? The three card raise of a four card major opening seems to be ever shrinking in its attraction for the club player – I'm puzzled by it. Here two hearts seems to have much to recommend it; it keeps the bidding open, limits the hand and sets some obstruction to the opponent's spade suit. But maybe East knew better…

West ducked the diamond lead to South's king and a trump not unexpectedly appeared. West won and… Crossed to dummy with a diamond to lead a spade to the queen. North won to play another trump and, fearing loss of control, West ducked that as well. Though trumps were 3-3, as were diamonds, West just managed three hearts, two diamonds and one spade to fail by a trick. Counting tricks would have again seen declarer home; taking two ruffs, two diamonds, two top trumps and the spade ace with an extra one id diamonds or trumps were 3-3. Remember, tricks are the only hard currency in the game.

Published Saturday 26.Feb.2005