All News

For Junior, Intermediate and Novice players…and others. It’s Fri Day!

Gamblers.

Some bridge deals can be bid, defended and played in a precise manner. Players bid what they have and barring bad breaks, they should be making their contracts, or indeed defeating them as long as honour cards are where you expect, perhaps hope them to be. Then, there are other contracts where chances are taken. 

We will give you, North, two problems. It is possible that if you take action on the first you may not have to worry about the second. So:

 

Your system is 4 card major Acol. What’s going on here? Your partner presumably has at least 11hcp and you have 7. Does that mean West has the rest? Could be. Will they make their contract? Maybe. Do you want to bid more? Not if West has all those high card points!

So, North passed and was on lead to 3NT. Yes, you guessed correctly. They led a low spade, partner’s suit. Surely, that’s OK….at least in the post mortem?

Surely not! There was a little clue as to what was happening in North’s own hand. That diamond void! Chances are that West has lots of them and a spade hold and thinks they could come to 9 tricks. Now, it’s hard for North as if that spade hold was the ace, then you might want to lead a spade, endure 6 or 7 rounds of diamonds and then defeat the contract.

Such a bid by West is often made with a weakness somewhere, trusting to get a spade lead. It usually pays to look for that weakness. No guarantees but that club suit North holds offers some promise. Like West perhaps might and indeed did by bidding 3NT, take a gamble. Lead a club. There are days when a low club is best but the standard lead is Q. North was rather regretting they did not take this gamble:

 

As long as South wins the first club (getting them to do that is a good reason to lead a low club! Partners do err at times. ) and North remembers to overtake the third round of clubs, the defence will take the first 5 tricks. “Great lead” South, even West, would be heard to say. Even a heart lead should have worked. West wins and on the fourth round of diamonds crosses to dummy (It is not often that a flattish “9 high” Yarborough produces an entry) to take the “marked” spade finesse.

West’s face would drop as North takes the K and switches to a club or even continues with a heart! The contract then had to fail.

West gambled and on the lead of Q, even 9542 would have prevented the defence running the club suit, at least initially. East just could not provide. They held the wrong 9!

West’s gamble did pay off as a spade was led. North had two chances to gamble and took neither, thus recording a really bad result. Do you see what the other gamble is? They could have bid 4 (count 5 for the void and you have an opening hand, just), perhaps as a sacrifice and on this day perhaps the best kind of sacrifice! That diamond void is crucial.

West may well not pass 4. They may bid 4NT to play or even 5. Neither will record a plus score for West though South may even make 4! It is hard to make as if West keeps leading diamonds, South must avoid giving West a club ruff as dummy runs out of trumps. However, defenders have been known to err, too!

not all gambles are this successful!

To make 4 is tough with good defence but even 1 down in 4 (doubled?) is better than making the wrong lead to 3NT. So, perhaps the gamble of bidding 4 failed. The gamble of leading a club against 3NT would have been a spectacular success. Someone’s gamble had to work and unfortunately for North, it was West’s.

Next week, hopefully, we will have some Gold Coast hands in this feature. There will be plenty of Kiwis there.

Richard Solomon

Go Back View All News Items