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NORTH
S: AK942
H:Q8
D:864 C:K105 |
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WEST
S:10875
H: J763
D: KQ3 C: Q6 |
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EAST
S: 63
H: 94
D: J10952 C: J982 |
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SOUTH
S:QJ
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At a recent teams-of-four evening at the Wallingford Bridge Club, both the winning team and the runners up failed to negotiate the above deal successfully after South ended up in a contract of six hearts.To their credit, they avoided the six no-trump slam, which needs a 3-3 break in hearts or one of the opponents to hold jack-doubleton in hearts to secure twelve tricks.The best major suit slam is, of course, six spades, where possession of the jack of spades enables four rounds of trumps to be drawn after the likely diamond lead (using the queen of hearts as entry to North’s top spades after cashing the queen and jack).Now the remaining top hearts can be cashed and the fourth round ruffed if necessary to establish the suit with the ace of clubs available as an entry to the long heart.
The best attempt at six hearts was to take the diamond lead with the ace and draw three rounds of trumps, getting the bad news when East showed out on the third round.The queen of spades was now cashed and the jack was overtaken with the ace.The reason for this manoeuvre was to preserve the king of clubs as a vital entry to the remainder of the spade suit, should the suit break 3-3 or should one opponent hold the doubleton ten.When the king was led to the third round of spades and a diamond loser discarded, East showed out of spades and West was able to claim two tricks with his ten of spades and jack of trumps to set the contract by one trick.Had either major suit broken 3-3,or had either opponent held ten-doubleton in spades or jack-doubleton in hearts, the contract would have been made.Pretty good odds.
There is a safe way to make six hearts (other than by a fancy squeeze ending) if both major suits break 4-2 andneither opponent holds a key doubleton in either major suit.Problem solvers please study the deal further before reading on…….
Take the diamond lead with the ace, cash the queen and jack of spades and draw two rounds of trumps ending with the queen in dummy.Now lead a top spade and discard the losing diamond.If this trick is ruffed by either opponent, you have a club entry to hand to draw the remaining trump and a club entry to dummy to cash the remaining spades.With the present layout, West, with four spades, has to follow suit anyway.This a bit annoying for the unfortunate South who overtook the second spade in dummy, because he could have cashed his queen and jack of spades, crossed to dummy with the king of clubs and discarded his losing diamond with impunity.But who would expect the same opponent to hold length in both majors?Frustrating game, bridge.
LOCAL NEWSNigel Wilkes, Clive Keep, Gillian Lonsdale and Richard Lonsdale came equal sixth in the Winchester Green Pointed Swiss Teams held in July.Best Performance by a local team in this year’s Brighton Congress was equal nineteenth out of 234 teams in the Brighton Bowl, by Debbie Roberts, Geoff Nicholas, Sara Tulip and Peter Russell.AbingdonThe winner of this year’s Summer Frolics was Joe Fox.