47
December 2016 English Bridge
here than in hearts. After all the opponents have
made no attempt at all to play in NTs so the
diamonds are quite likely to be wide open and you
can cash a trick or so.
(d) a club: 10 marks. The clear winner in my
opinion. Your RHO seems to have 11 black cards,
LHO has jump supported clubs and does not like
spades. Surely declarer will be ruffing spades in
dummy, particularly given your great holding in
them. So your job is to get as many trumps as
possible off the table. Even if declarer has red suit
losers that go away on the other red suit your trump
leads may well be enough to beat the hand in spade
tricks. This time a trump was essential since dummy
was 2-4-3-4 and declarer 5-2-0-6. They had no red
suit losers but repeated trump leads meant declarer
could only ruff one spade and so spades were the
setting tricks.
HHHHHH
South West North East
3® Dble Pass
4™ All Pass
The opponents have brushed aside your pre-empt
with disdain.
Choose from: (a) ´7; (b) a heart; (c) t5; (d) ®K.
(a) ´7: 6 marks. This could be right if it is necessary
to lead through dummy's spades to partner (and
maybe even give you a ruff), but it needs a pretty
specific layout for it to be necessary.
(b) a heart: 4 marks. Again this could be right if you
need to cut down ruffs but when the opponents bid
like this they usually have plenty of trumps between
them, so this seems unlikely to achieve much.
(c) t5: 10 marks. A fundamental principle of defence
is to play partner for the least s/he can have that will
beat the contract within the constraints of the
bidding. Here the easiest way to beat the hand is to
find partner with a couple of aces and we can take a
couple of ruffs (or maybe tAQ with the tK in
dummy), and a ruff and a trick from partner.
Anything else needs much more. So lead your
singleton and hope I say.
(d) ®K: 6 marks. How can it be wrong to lead from
a K-Q-J combination? Well it isn't and it could be
right. However, it needs quite a lot to be right - clubs
need to be 7-2-2-2 round the table for example as
otherwise you will never get in to cash your club
trick. The main reason for leading a club is to give
nothing away, but does it sound like a passive defence
will beat this hand? r
Hand 3
´ 7 3
™ 6 4 2
t 5
® K Q J 6 4 3 2
27 - 30 December 2016
YEAR END
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