Confounded
When you first learn bridge, it seems only about having the right rule at your finger-tips; if only you had all your notes, or had paid more attention in class! As you gain insight to the way the cards work, you can relax a little. The surprises come when even those rules are overturned.
Consider this deal from a club pairs, first as a declarer problem:
| ♠ AJ1074 | ♠ KQ | ||
| ♥ K62 | ♥ 94 | ||
| ♦ AJ1032 | ♦ Q986 | ||
| ♣ --- | ♣ Q8643 |
| West | North | East | South | |
| Pass | ||||
| 1♠ | Pass | 1NT | Pass | |
| 2♦ | 2♥ | 2♠ | End |
East's no-trump response to West's five-card major was forcing but might have been chosen by an Acol player. North led the club ace which drew an encouraging nine from South. Two spades doesn't look in much danger, how many overtricks can you make?
Even if everything goes swimmingly and you score five spades and five diamonds, you are not able to trump your third heart in dummy. Therefore, with a backward glance to potential trump problems, you discard a heart rather than ruff. North unconcernedly continues a club and South beats dummy's spot card; this time you ruff. A spade to table and a diamond finesse loses. North returns a diamond and to your relief, all follow. However, when you try to draw trumps, playing the ace to swallow dummy's king, South gives you start by throwing a club.
So North started with five spades; you've seen two each of clubs and diamonds and he bid hearts – he must be 5=4=2=2. It may feel odd but you continue to draw trumps leaving North with the last one in the game. Now when you run your diamonds – without the aid of a safety net – North can ruff but has to lead a heart to your king and the rest of the diamonds for nine tricks in total.
When he won the king of diamonds, this was the situation that faced North. As we saw, a 'safe' exit with a diamond (or a spade) led to him taking just two more tricks:
| ♠ 9853 | |||
| ♥ AQJ5 | |||
| ♦ 4 | |||
| ♣ --- | |||
| ♠ AJ10 | ♠ K | ||
| ♥ K2 | ♥ 94 | ||
| ♦ AJ102 | ♦ 986 | ||
| ♣ --- | ♣ Q86 | ||
| ♠ --- | |||
| ♥ 10873 | |||
| ♦ 5 | |||
| ♣ KJ105 | |||
The only alternative was to lead a heart, away from the ace-queen – and that is surprisingly effective. It is a trick that has to be surrendered anyway and it is much better to concede it now. In fact, after ace and another heart, declarer has to play extremely carefully, by playing diamonds without touching another trump – otherwise North will take four tricks from the diagram and is assured of three. At pairs, the temptation to hope for trumps 4-2 might be too hard for declarer to resist and he would be down in two spades.
Published Saturday 11.Oct.2008