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CUTTING ONE’S LOSSES

Unless we know we are sacrificing, we bid games to make them. It is great if we do, especially with an overtrick or two. However, either partner’s hand is a let-down (never yours, of course!) , a bad break or good defence means you are going to fail.

Time to feel sad? Yes.

Time to give up? Certainly not!

If every pair in the room is in the same contract and suffers the same bad break or good defence (that latter scenario may happen, one day!), you will get an average board. However, you know that some pairs either by good judgement or good luck will have stayed in part-score so that you will never be getting 50% of the match-points on one board, However, your job is to ensure you score 40% on the board rather than 10% or less!

It is not a crime to be in 4 with a combined 23hcp and on normal breaks, only three losers. So, watch the following:

 

2 was Multi-coloured with 3 confirming a poor weak 2 in hearts. Your QJ look like useful fillers and so you bid to the heart game. On the K lead, it looks like you can make this game for the loss of A,A and a spade trick.

So, you win your A and play Q noting an ominous looking T on your left. East wins the A and switches to the 2. You win this trick and play your J but West who had played 5 on your ace (low encouraging), throws 4 on this second round of hearts. Which card do you play next at trick 5?

 

Declarer had to get to table to play any more trumps and decided to cash a second high diamond, a play that had very little to gain but had much to lose:

 

East ruffed the K and played a spade to West’s jack who returned a third diamond…and the 9 had to score a trick with declarer two down. That result scored very poorly for declarer.

It might have been wiser for South to have ducked the opening spade lead (as there was a certain spade loser) to cut communications between the defenders’s hands. It would have been vital here had East held a doubleton spade, even if trumps broke 3-2.

However, if West liked diamonds, there was a distinct possibility that East did indeed have a singleton diamond. South knew they had to lose two trump tricks. They needed to avoid losing three.

If West held the A as well as a spade entry, and that 2 was a singleton, there was nothing South could now do. South had to hope West had only one entry, in spades, and that East had A.

So, it was vital that at trick 5, South exited with a spade, to cut the communication, create an entry to dummy and limit their losses. West would win the trick, give East their ruff but East could no longer get to their partner’s hand to suffer a second ruff.

The contract was good. The trump break was unlucky. The subsequent play at the table was not the best and the end result was a very poor score for North-South. When you are down, you are not necessarily “out” as long as you keep thinking. Keep those losses to a minimum.

Richard Solomon

 

 

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