Finessing at trick one - it's now or never
Board 5 Dlr N NS Vul
NORTH
North opens 1ª. With no fit and 12 HCP, South shifts to 2©.
¨ A shift to 2© always shows 5+ ©s. Can you explain why, according to the rules you have learnt for shifting?.
North with a strong 16-count, a midi hand with an excellent 6-card suit, ensures her rebid reflects this by jumping to 3ª (=16+ and forcing to game over South's guaranteed minimum of 10 HCP). Doubleton king is now adequate support and South's 4ª concludes the auction.
East has no clear-cut lead. A minor suit sounds best on the bidding. And a more aggressive §4 lead (low from an honour other than the ace) looks better than a diamond when you have so little. You tend to lead aggressively when you think cards are well situated for declarer – on this hand your ©K may well be sitting nicely for declarer under dummy’s AQ. (Don’t take up fortune-telling!)
Declarer is cheered to count ten sure tricks, with a possible eleventh via a club finesse. Further good news is that there are only two sure losers, with a possible third in clubs if the finesse loses.
So what do you play at trick one on a club lead? It's now or never for the finesse. Can it hurt you if it fails? The lead can hardly be a singleton, for West would surely have bid at favourable vulnerability with seven clubs headed by the KJT.
To make a vital overtrick in the greedy game of matchpointed duplicate bridge, declarer must play §Q and then draw trumps and claim 11 tricks for +650 rather than a panicky +620, which is likely to score very poorly.
Board 6 Dlr E EW Vul
NORTH
East opens 1ª. With only 6 HCP West must not shift to the two level (which guarantees 10-15 HCP), despite her nice diamonds. The correct response is 1NT, showing 6-9 HCP, not 3 ªs and not necessarily balanced.
¨ Are you aware that you would respond 1NT even with a void spade if you had only a poor 6-9 HCP? (You might dredge up a two-level shift with 9HCP and a good 6-card suit, or maybe even AKQxx.)
East makes the normal rebid of 2ª with her minimum hand with its 6-card suit and no other 4+ suit. West, of course, passes.
South's club sequence makes that suit the most likely lead. North wins §A and with dummy's diamond suit a possible threat (meaning that declarer may be able to make lots of diamond tricks and throw away losers from her hand) may choose to switch to a slightly dangerous heart. ©J is best with this holding when the ten is in dummy. (This is a rather advanced defensive play called a surround play. Your J9 surrounds dummy’s ten.) This lead removes declarer's ©A and exposes two heart losers.
On a normal 3-2 break in spades, declarer figures to have four spade winners and one more guaranteed in each of the other three suits - one short of the eight needed. And the loser count is two in trumps and hearts, one in clubs and one possible in diamonds.
What can be done? The only possibility to create an eighth trick and avoid a sixth loser is a successful diamond finesse. But there is no need to do it immediately.
Play ace and another trump. Take the diamond finesse either when South is on lead and plays a low diamond, or when you are back in your hand with a club for example. The opponents can make only one more trump trick and all will be well. You will come to 8 tricks, +110 (2x30 + 50).
Note that there is no guarantee of making your contract by finessing. But there is a virtual certainty of failing if you don't.
No comments:
Post a Comment