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for Junior, Intermediate and Novice players..and others! It's Fri day. 

Never say “never”.

There is a bridge saying (there are many bridge sayings!) “eight ever: nine never” which helps us to decide whether we should take a finesse for the missing queen or play our ace and king of a long suit hoping to bring down the  queen in two rounds. The saying advises us that when we have 8 cards in the particular suit between our hand and dummy, we should take the finesse on the second round of the suit (“ever”) but when we have 9 cards, we should play the ace and then the king (“never” finesse) with the odds favouring the fact that the queen will fall in two rounds.

With that in mind, what would be your plan to make as many tricks as you can in the following 4 contract? As you are playing Pairs, overtricks matter and scoring a couple here will give you a very good score:

 

After West jumps in diamonds, showing lots of cards (at least 6, maybe more) in that suit but not too many high-card points (“weak jump”), North does their own jump to 4, as they have 17 hcp plus a very useful singleton. We can count 3 extra points for that singleton, giving North 20 points, enough opposite South’s minimum 6 hcp to bid to game.

West leads A and on seeing the singleton diamond in dummy, switches to 6. Plan the play.

Although it is possible that West holds K, seeing as they appear to have AK, the chances are they do not and indeed that 6 may even be a singleton. So, up with A and turn your attention to the trump suit, because if you can draw all the opponents’ trumps, you can hopefully play some club winners, discarding potential losers from your own hand.

One declarer remembered our above saying and played their two top hearts. They were soon to be disappointed:

 

East ruffed the third round of clubs with Q and cashed their K for the third trick for the defence. South’s contract still made but North-South did not score well as at other tables, South made 12 tricks, losing just the A.

These declarers had ignored the above saying. Why?

When one player has lots of cards in one suit (as West did above), logically, they will have proportionally less in other suits. There is a technical term for this called “Vacant Spaces”. There are “less spaces” for cards in other suits…or in other words, West above is more likely to have one heart than two. They may have none. Remember this principle even if you forget the technical term.

In a situation like the above, start off with a high honour in the hand where you can finesse if necessary through the pre-emptor’s partner, i.e. in the North hand above…and with just four cards missing including the queen, the odds do now favour finessing East for that card, rather than the suit breaking 2-2.

It’s time to break that rule or ignore the saying. Like so many bridge sayings, the saying has at its end “except when….” and the “when” is after an opening pre-empt or perhaps a weak jump overcall as above.

So, after finessing East for Q, the declarers could draw the Q under their K and discard two spades and a diamond on the three winning clubs to score two very useful overtricks.

The above is but a guide but a useful one. It should if followed bring you more success at the bridge table.

“Except…..” a word tacked on to so many of our bridge sayings and guidelines. Never say “never” when you hold 13 cards!

Richard Solomon

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