Dealer: West
Vul: N/S
A K 9 2
9 5
Q J 6
A Q J 4 Q J A J 10 8 A 8 5 9 6 5 2
10 7 4 3 4 9 7 4 3 2 K 8 7 8 6 5 K Q 7 6 3 2 K 10 10 3The Gerbils - How well do you count?
match-points, Coaching Corner; BridgeClubLive!
| Board 18 Dealer: West Vul: N/S |
A K 9 2 9 5 Q J 6 A Q J 4 | |
|
Q J A J 10 8 A 8 5 9 6 5 2 |
|
10 7 4 3 4 9 7 4 3 2 K 8 7 |
|
8 6 5 K Q 7 6 3 2 K 10 10 3 | ||
| WEST | NORTH | EAST | SOUTH | ||||||||
| 1NT | 1 | double | pass | 3  |
|||||||
| double | 2 | redouble | 3 | pass | pass | ||||||
| pass | |||||||||||
|
1. 12-14 2. sporting 3. kamikaze | |||||||||||
Lead SQ
I’m not going to enter arguments about the 3 bid, but personally I think it’s not a bad shot. As my partner said later "I thought we’d get more from game than beating 1NT". Equally, the double of 3 is quite sporting, but this is Coaching Corner and I’m trying to teach my gerbils to be a bit more aggressive. So there I am having redoubled, sitting as dummy watching declarer play the hand. She gets off to an excellent start by winning the A and leading a small diamond to the King, Ace, and then wins the K when the Jack is led. She now cashes two top diamonds. If you were watching a reliable count-gerbil RHO discards upwards on the diamonds, and peters on the spades.
What do you discard on the 3rd diamond and why?
Count the hand! The 1NTer has shown A, QJ, and must have the AJTx, all of which comes to 12. So the club finesse will be failing as the K can’t be on your left. Discard the club and plan on taking the Club ruffing finesse, hoping that LHO started with exactly QJ, and Axx. Lead a Heart to the King to remove RHO’s hearts, winning the return if LHO takes the Ace and now play A, Q ruffing if covered. Pop LHO on lead with a trump and look smug. We need to play for LHO to have started with exactly 2-4-3-4 distribution so that when they’re on lead with their 4th trump they have to exit with a club, giving us access to dummy’s master club so that at last we can discard our losing spade, making 2, 3, 2 and 2.
Now let’s think about the opening lead ... Why did West double? Because she could draw trumps. So why did she lead a short suit knowing that any ruffs would just mean she was ruffing with trump winners? When you have a long trump suit you want to play a forcing game so a club lead stands out. The right time to lead a short suit is close to never, but it is ok if you’re looking for a ruff in the defensive hand with short trumps. As you can see, the club lead beats the contract no matter how much declarer wriggles
And finally, think about the final double. We had to find a trick in partner’s hand for this to be remotely close to going off - The opponents have shown 16 facing 8 (minimum) so on a good day partner has 1 trick and we have the same 4 we started with, but when partner has no tricks we’re telling declarer how to make a contract they would normally go down in.
Sadly my gerbil didn’t count; took the spade discard and tried the club finesse (-400 instead of +960) - but that’s what happens in coaching corner. More about the gerbils (and I’m very fond of them all) in another article .....