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Know when “to fold up” .

That’s so often the decision we have to make when our opponents go further than we wish they would. By bidding to the 5 level, and with vulnerability in their favour, they are probably telling us that we would have made our game…..but would we make any more than 10 tricks? That is the question!

 

North-South vul. Teams.

Your partner has opened the bidding and then has shown a reasonable 6 card heart suit. They did not have to bid 2. However, both opponents have not remained silent and East has not let your partner play 4.

When 5 has been bid, South has nothing special to say and as per the recommended guideline has passed the decision to the player in the partnership who bid to game: you!

“Nothing special” would include not having extra length in hearts (7+) or a void in clubs. Either might have induced them to bid on. So, playing Teams, your choice is easy. Take the money! You may not receive sufficient compensation but you certainly cannot guarantee 11 tricks in hearts. Interestingly, with their shape and playing Pairs, South might still have had a go at 11 tricks in hearts because a 300 or 500 penalty off 5 stacks up badly when most pairs are making 620 or 650 in hearts. 

In Teams or Swiss Pairs (the medium in which this deal was played), that difference is indeed significant. While sometimes you wish you had bid on, taking a plus score may not win the board for your side but ensures no double figure disaster happens, certainly if the sacrifice is common. The end imp result was not positive for North-South (or not as positive as it might have been had they bid on to 5) but resulted from a sensible Swiss Pairs or Teams action:

 

5 did make but was no better than 50%, the spade finesse, since there was a certain trump and club loser.

5x can produce +500 for the defence, down 3, and is best achieved with J lead from South to be followed by a second spade (10), two rounds of diamonds finishing the North hand and then a low spade from North (withholding their ace). Declarer can correctly ruff with A and lead a low trump to dummy picking up South’s singleton queen but still needs to ruff a losing spade from the West hand. In doing so, they have to ruff a heart and declarer cannot get back to the West hand to enjoy the then high 10 after drawing trumps. Effectively, there will be a fifth loser even if East avoids losing a trick to the Q.

Nevertheless, even -500 was a good result for East-West since 4 should have easy to make even without an overtrick and despite the 4-1 trump break.

The scoring was complicated by many North-South pairs playing in part-score. + 500 was worth + 4 imps to North-South whereas the vulnerable game was worth + 6 or 7 imps to their side, depending on whether 10 or 11 imps were made. A few failed in 4 for a double figure imp loss. 5x gained North-South 4 imps if they scored +500 and lost them 2 imps if they only gained +300.  Imagine had the spade finesse failed what the imp loss would have been in failing in 5. Meanwhile, 5 x would certainly be one, maybe two down, no great result but the best they could achieve. 

Accepting a loss by doubling the opponents (only a 3 imp loss here) is annoying but incurring a double-figure loss from failing in one’s game is even more so. Like “The Gambler” in Kenny Rogers' song, one needs to “know when to fold up” or “take the plus”.

Richard Solomon

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