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The “Wake- Up” Signal

Taking your mind off the job for even one second could cost you big time when you are playing Bridge. What would you do as West in the following situation when some minutes ago, you overcalled at the one level and found yourself leading to 5? Well, the opening lead seems obvious enough but whereto from there?

 

Partner played 3 and declarer 9 to the first trick. An interesting 4 call from our partner on only a three card suit. You know the next spade will be ruffed by declarer. You need two more tricks to make the 4 bid worthwhile. They are not coming from clubs. Are you thinking or did you casually play another high spade?

At the table, West was not allowed to “go casual” because the card actually played by East at trick one was not the 3 but the J. Surely that was not their lowest? What was East trying to say? How about: “please switch to the higher non trump suit, diamonds? Now, please.”

 

Partner was absolutely correct. A second spade would have been ruffed. South would draw two rounds of trumps and then ruff a club. They would ruff a spade back to the South hand and hope the Q comes down in the next two rounds of the suit. Thus, three of dummy’s diamonds would disappear on high clubs and 11 tricks would have been made.

So, you would have found the diamond switch anyway? Did East know that? Of course, not. That’s why that J, an artificially high card asking for a switch to the highest non-trump suit was such a good one. Make it easy for partner. You have heard that before.

You can often indicate to partner not just that a switch is required but to which suit. Sometimes, a low card may be a count card, or maybe encouraging partner to continue the suit led. However, an artificially high card in such a situation demands a switch, maybe to the higher side suit, or maybe just that a switch is required. Here, there was only one suit to switch to but it woke West up to the need to  indeed find that switch just in case they were going to play a lazy second spade.

East had done well in the bidding (4 is cold while only a club ruff beats 4) and they had done very well by giving their partner a wake-up call, just in case they were “sleepy”.

 

 

 

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