Acol at BBO
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Acol at BBO
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| So your superb bidding has landed you in a contact of
six clubs and the opponents lead the ace of diamonds… You’re obviously going to ruff this trick, but what then? |
North
A 7 Q J 7 6 3 Q 9 8 5 K 2 |
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| West ? ? ? ? |
East ? ? ? ?
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| South
K 8 5 4 3 2 A - A Q J 10 4 3
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| The simple plan would be to draw trumps, then play the ace and king of spades and concede a spade - making the contract whenever spades are 3-2. |
| A useful phobia for bridge players to develop is the “what if syndrome”, otherwise know as “WIFS”. In this case the “WIF” is, “What if spades break 4-1?” On a 4-1 break a declarer following this plan will lose two spade tricks. |
| The solution isn’t too difficult to find – all south has to do is to organise a spade ruff in dummy with the king of clubs, as this can’t be overruffed. |
| At trick two south plays a spade to the ace and a spade back to the king and… |
| West ruffs and plays a trump, leaving declarer with two spade losers and solitary trump in dummy. Ooooops, something’s gone wrong. |
| The solution is to duck a round of spades after taking the ace. If spades are 3-2 this cedes an unnecessary trick but it guarantees the contract on all 4-1 breaks. |
| Let’s say west discards on the second spade, and east plays a diamond. |
| South ruffs the diamond, ruffs a spade and returns to hand via with a club. Notice, if east is the one who is short in spades the king of clubs can be used to ruff the spade. Once the spades are established, all declarer needs to do is draw trumps and claim. |
| This is the distribution declarer is ensuring against. |
| North
A 7 Q J 7 6 3 Q 9 8 5 K 2 |
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| West 9 10 9 8 2 A K 7 3 2 9 7 5 |
East Q J 10 6 K 5 4 J 10 6 4 8 6
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| South
K 8 5 4 3 2 A - A Q J 10 4 3
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| One final note – an expert defender in West’s seat would have listened to the bidding and realised the ace of diamonds was unlikely to take a trick. He or she would look at the singleton spade in their hand and deduce that declarer may need to establish the spades by ruffing them in dummy - and so would lead a trump. |
| South plays ace and ducks a spade as before, but our expert west ruffs his partner’s trick (yes! that’s right) and plays his remaining trump to remove the king of clubs. With East still holding the queen and jack of spades, the contract cannot be made. |
| Points to note… | |
| 1. | Fine-tune your bidding to reflect how well your hand
fits with partner’s. Remember in bridge, as in life, compatibility counts. |
| 2. | As you play, try to anticipate where the alligators are hiding and avoid that part of the swamp. |
| 3. | The ritual sacrifice of a trick to ‘Fourone’, the god of bad breaks, can reap huge rewards when the final score is written. |
| 4. | As a defender, listen to the bidding; attempt to predict how declarer is going to play the hand, then find the killing lead. |
| PS. In real life, the spades were 3-2 so six clubs was cold.
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