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“Tentation”.

You are playing Teams and hold the following West cards. What are you thinking about when it is your turn to bid?

 

1 promised at least 5 spades. 1NT was a standard 15-17, maybe 18. Yes, they should have a hold in spades, too! Well?

Perhaps a cup of coffee as 6 hcp is hardly enough to want to go anywhere higher and you are almost certain to be dummy if you pass. Yet, when one of the winners of the Hamilton Labour Weekend Teams, Gary Chen, held the above hand, he had other thoughts.

He saw a strong holding in North’s opening suit, a couple of rather potentially useful 10’s, 4 9’s as well. Opposite a maximum, he thought his side might just make game. He was very soon to see his partner, John Wang, attempt to score 9 tricks. This is what John saw.

 

Gary and John play 4-way transfers which means that their only way to invite game is through Stayman. Therefore, Gary was not promising four hearts with 2 and that encouraged South to lead 3.

With 2 in dummy, that looked very much like 4^th highest. John played low  from dummy which drew K from North who switched to 2 won by John’s K. John tried a second heart playing 9 from dummy. North won their A and continued with 7 to John’s Q.

It was getting close to crunch time as John turned his attention to the club suit. Any thoughts?

John reasoned that it looked like North started with 5 spades and by their play of diamonds 4 cards in that suit. If South had 4 hearts, then North had 3. John had two spade and two diamond tricks and thus 5 club tricks. A brought 4 from North. He then played 2 from his hand…and inserted 9 from dummy. North followed with a spade and John quickly wrapped up three more club tricks to make 9 tricks before the defence could take 5. These were the four hands:

 

Good card-reading. Had he played Q on the second round, the defence would take at least 5 tricks as John’s only chance of a 9^th trick could come from spades.

 
The other half of the winning team: John Wang and Gary Chen

There is no point in bidding to an aggressive game unless your partner plays the contract well. John fully justified Gary’s optimism and worth of those valuable 9s and 10’s. Indeed three of those 9’s were very useful along with 10.

That was worth 10 imps to the Ware team when their opposition played quietly in a club partial, also making 9 tricks.

Richard Solomon

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