All News

Daily Bridge in New Zealand

The Timing’s Right too!

If you are going to do something a little unusual, then you could have egg on your face if it backfires. However, on a good day, your “crime” or creativity pays dividends. Today, we have Alan Grant spilling the beans on his partner, Anthony Ker.

Firstly, though, what do you do at trick 2 when you see as South the following dummy in the West hand.

West Deals
E-W Vul

   

10 7 6 3

K 9 6

J

10 9 8 6 4

 

N

W

 

E

S

   
 

Q 9

A J 8 2

A 10 8 5 4 2

7

 

West

North

East

South

Dummy

   

You

Pass

Pass

1 ♠

2 

2 ♠

5 

5 ♠

All pass

 

You lead Diamond-smallA and all follow. Your partner plays Diamond-small6 which does not call for a side-suit switch. Declarer plays Diamond-small3. What now?

A Creative Opportunity in Defence - by Alan Grant

"A week ago, my partner Anthony Ker and I teamed up with Michael Ware and Matt Brown to play the Kelly Peirse Teams run by the Rotorua Bridge Club. In past years we enjoyed playing this tournament in Rotorua. However, this year, with Omicron variant of COVID still raging around the country, the decision was made to move this to an online tournament with RealBridge.

While our overall results were not great, the following hand gave us a big swing in Match number 3.

After the following auction, Anthony as South was on lead against 5Spade-small played by East:

   

 

West

North

East

South

Dummy

   

You

Pass

Pass

1 ♠

2 

2 ♠

5 

5 ♠

All pass

 

Anthony led the Diamond-small A and saw the following dummy:

West Deals
E-W Vul

   

10 7 6 3

K 9 6

J

10 9 8 6 4

 

N

W

 

E

S

   
 

Q 9

A J 8 2

A 10 8 5 4 2

7

 

West

North

East

South

Dummy

   

You

Pass

Pass

1 ♠

2 

2 ♠

5 

5 ♠

All pass

 

After the opening lead won the trick, Anthony creatively switched to the Spade-small 9!

The Spade-small 9 was covered by the Spade-small J and ace. Then, the declarer could now see a new option in the play:

West Deals
E-W Vul

   

10 7 6 3

K 9 6

J

10 9 8 6 4

 

N

W

 

E

S

 

A K 8 4 2

7 4

3

A K Q J 5

 

Declarer led Heart-small 4 to the Heart-small K, which won – then decided to try picking up the North’s potential remainingSpade-smallQ5 by finessing back to hand towards the Spade-small K842, inserting the Spade-small 8. This lost to the Spade-small Q! and with the Heart-small A now cashed, the declarer was held to 10 tricks and the contract was down.

This creative defence worked out very well for us, with an 11IMP gain for our team as no other South in the field defending against 5Spade-small (or 4Spade-small for that matter) found the Spade-small 9 switch and every other declarer in the popular spade game contract by East made 11 tricks.

Who says that bridge is not a creative game?”

Here’s the full hand:

West Deals
E-W Vul

J 5

Q 10 5 3

K Q 9 7 6

3 2

10 7 6 3

K 9 6

J

10 9 8 6 4

 

N

W

 

E

S

 

A K 8 4 2

7 4

3

A K Q J 5

 

Q 9

A J 8 2

A 10 8 5 4 2

7

 

A simple hand really for the declarer, without Anthony at the table. Cash Spade-smallA  when you win trick 2 and then   

Spade-smallK (breathe a sigh of relief) and hope the Heart-smallA is with South. That was all in declarer’s favour. Unfortunately, his left-hand opponent was not!

Anthony Ker (3).jpg 
Anthony Ker, a man with imagination...
and perfect timing

Tomorrow, we start our coverage of the New Zealand Open Team at the Bermuda Bowl.

Richard Solomon

 

Go Back View All News Items

Our Sponsors
  • Tauranga City Council
  • TECT.jpg