Bucuresti, 26-1-2005

Story of 2 boards in the pairs contest Atomic 24-01-2005.

1 time a month there are pre-shuffled boards. And on the sheets is the comment how the board was supposed to be bid and played.

If you want to learn something about bridge wilt leren, and you have no books, this is an excellent way. First you play the boards, and then you study the sheets afterwards.

Theme: Defending, you do it together.

First the problem:

30 O/-	North Louis		North	East	South	West
	Q 7		-	P	1	1
	K 10 7 5 3		3	P	4	ap
	8 7 4		Lead	A
West	K J 2	East
A K J 10 8 2		5
-		?
J 8 6		? + 5
10 9 8 3	South Truus	? + 4
	9 6 4 3
	?
	?
	?

Trick1: A - 7 - 5 - 3

Trick2: K - Q - 5 of 4 - 4

Partner signals diamonds in Trick 2.

I don’t know your system. Italian is odd, so 5, or Lavinthal, a low for . What now? Do we obey partner and do we switch or give him a -ruff? Solution at the end.

Another beautiful defence.

4 W/All	North		North	East	South	West
	K		-	-	-	p
	K Q J 10		1	p	1	P
	A J 9 8 7 3		2	p	3	ap
West	Q J	East	Lead	A
A J 4 3 2		9 8 5
8 6 5 3		9 7 4
K 4		Q 10
8 2	South	A K 10 6 5
	Q 10 7 6
	A 2
	6 5 2
	9 7 4 3

Trick1: K - 3 - 8 (even number of ) - J

The most wonderful thing that can happen is to let partner ruff a high, then there can be a trump promotion in East. But first A has to be cashed. So it goes:

Trick2: 9 - 6 - A - K

Trick3: 2 - Q - A - 4

Now play a low , to make certain that partner ruffs high.

Trick4: 5 - 7 - K - A

East gets Q 10 and the contract is 1 down.

Did we get this brillancy-price?

No, but at our table the rebid from North after 1 was 2 and that was the final contract.

I, East, thought that West was much stronger and wanted to prevent dummy to ruff a lot of hearts. I played: Trick2: A, Trick 3: Q.

North maybe has a 5-crd and a 4-crd and not strong enough to bid 2.

This defence was right, but this wasn’t the right board.

Solution of the problem:

30 O/-	North Louis		North	East	South	West
	Q 7		-	P	1	1
	K 10 7 5 3		3	P	4	ap
	8 7 4		Lead	A
West	K J 2	East
A K J 10 8 2		5
-		8 4 2
J 8 6		A K 5 3 2
10 9 8 3	South Truus	7 6 5 4
	9 6 4 3
	A Q J 9 6
	Q 10
	A Q

Trick1: A - 7 - 5 - 3

Trick2: K - Q - 5 of 4 - 4

I don’t know your system. Italian is odd, so 5, or Lavinthal, a low for . What now? Do we obey partner and do we switch or give him a -ruff?

As we can see now a diamond continuation is winning.

You make the first 4 tricks with A K and A K.

If you continued then it goes:

Ruffed high in dummy, with to South, again ruffed high, draw trumps,A and Q overtaken with the K, on J a discarded.

East is clever enough to play in Trick 2 a high or an even to ask for the ruff.

East could have done even better!

Ruff the high K and play A and K.

This is the sure defence, because in bridge also rules the law of Murphy:

If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong.

The Dutch defender, Louis Stift.