Bridge - the bottom line
Thursday, 22 April 2010
by ABM Ahsanullah
The following hand was dealt and played a little our 3 decades ago.
1. Artificial : 18 + PTS.
2. Artificial : 12 + PTS.
3. Stayman :
4. Blackwood - Ace asking
5. Showing 1 Ace
6. King asking - Grand Slam Forcing
7. Showing 1 king.
South's 4th bid showed a social seven - or eight - card suit with little else.
West leads the H - 2. Declarer wins and plays two more rounds of heart. East discarding a spade on the third heart. What does declarer discard heart, and how does he continue?
Giving south only seven solid hearts, North counts twelve sure tricks. Where there are twelve, there must be thirteen! Easy for North to say: North does not have to play the hand. South does!
Against a voluntarily bid Grand Slam, a trump is usually a safe lead.
Declarer's best shot for that elusive thirteen trick is to discard two spades on the 2nd and 3rd trump, and then cash two high diamonds hoping to drop the Queen. If that does not happen, plays off two top clue and ruff a club, hoping to drop the Queen in that suit.
If the declarer has no luck there, takes the spade finasse. Something must work on this ****** hand! It does. The spade finnase works and virtue is rewarded - for once.
Trigger happy north was boisturons with the result. Kitbizer was critical with the up shoofing grand stamp id, for, no good bridge player takes the risk of finnase in a grand slam contract.
The following hand was dealt and played a little our 3 decades ago.
| Bidding | |||
| W | N | E | S |
| 1 C (1) | P | 1NT(2) | |
| P | 2 C(3) | P | 2 H |
| P | 2 NT | P | 2 H |
| P | 3 NT | P | 3 H |
| P | 3 NT | P | 4 H |
| P | 4 NT(4) | P | 5 D (5) |
| P | 5 NT(5) | P | 6 D (6) |
| P | 7 H | ||
2. Artificial : 12 + PTS.
3. Stayman :
4. Blackwood - Ace asking
5. Showing 1 Ace
6. King asking - Grand Slam Forcing
7. Showing 1 king.
South's 4th bid showed a social seven - or eight - card suit with little else.
West leads the H - 2. Declarer wins and plays two more rounds of heart. East discarding a spade on the third heart. What does declarer discard heart, and how does he continue?
Giving south only seven solid hearts, North counts twelve sure tricks. Where there are twelve, there must be thirteen! Easy for North to say: North does not have to play the hand. South does!
Against a voluntarily bid Grand Slam, a trump is usually a safe lead.
Declarer's best shot for that elusive thirteen trick is to discard two spades on the 2nd and 3rd trump, and then cash two high diamonds hoping to drop the Queen. If that does not happen, plays off two top clue and ruff a club, hoping to drop the Queen in that suit.
If the declarer has no luck there, takes the spade finasse. Something must work on this ****** hand! It does. The spade finnase works and virtue is rewarded - for once.
Trigger happy north was boisturons with the result. Kitbizer was critical with the up shoofing grand stamp id, for, no good bridge player takes the risk of finnase in a grand slam contract.