14 Tryon Daily Bulletin / The World’s Smallest Daily Newspaper Thursday, December 27, 2012
Bridge Players Corner by Karl Kachadoorian
NORTH } 8763 { 72 [ 8652 ] AJ9
EAST } Q109 { AK65 [ 74 ] Q764
WEST } AK2 { 43 [ KQJ1093 ] 53 SOUTH } { [ ]
WEST --2[ 3NT
J54 QJ1098 A K1082
NORTH
EAST
SOUTH
--PASS ALL PASS
PASS 2NT
1{ PASS
You are sitting South and after opening the bidding with 1 Heart, the opponents just disregard your bid and march into 3NT. Obviously you lead the Queen of Hearts, with partner following suit with a discouraging deuce and declarer winning with Ace. Declarer then leads a Diamond and you have to win with your singleton Ace. Now what do you do? If you continue with leading another Heart to knock out the King you have just labled yourself as a “card pusher,” i.e. a non-thinking player, and given the opponents a free path to making their contract. As a declarer you have been taught to count your winners and losers. Has anyone every told you, as defender, to count the opposing sides potential winners and losers? If the answer is no then you need to find a better teacher or mentor. As a defender you should review what has taken place after each trick has been played.
Jim Wiprut, H.I.S.
Let’s review what we know in this hand. After trick one, based on partner’s play of the deuce, you know declarer holds both the Ace and King of Hearts. And after seeing dummy’s Diamond holding and having your Ace dislodged you can count declarer taking 5 Diamonds, 2 Hearts and at least 2 Spade winners for a total of nine tricks. So you should ask yourself, what’s to be gained by continuing Hearts? The answer should be self-explanatory; nothing! So what should you do? Look elsewhere for a possible killing defensive solution and that usually lies in the remaining suit to be played, Clubs. So after winning with the Diamond Ace , if South switches to the deuce of Clubs, based on the lie of the cards, the defense is able to get 4 Clubs to defeat the contract. Bridge can be so rewarding, if you just take the time to think instead of playing like a “card pusher?”