When a bridge player starts taking part in competitive bridge, be it matchpoint duplicate or team competition, one of the things that becomes very obvious is that the part score contracts are very important. The fact is that you play or defend many more part score contracts than you do games or slams. This hand is a good example to study. Put yourself in the South seat. You open the bidding with a very nice one no trump. North bids two diamonds which you announce is a "transfer" bid asking you to bid two hearts, which is what you do. Partner passes and West leads the king of diamonds.
You pause for a moment to take stock of the situation. It appears that you will have to lose two spades and two diamonds. You will also have to deal with the trump suit. You have a nine card fit but you are missing some key cards. You win the ace of diamonds and decide to play the ace of hearts and a small heart to the queen in dummy. West plays the ten under the ace and on the second heart, he discards the eight of spades. East wins the king and, based on West's discard, decides to cash the ace of spades and then continue with a small spade. West wins the king and cashes the queen and jack of diamonds with all players following.
Well, you knew you were going to lose two spades and two diamonds, so none of this is a surprise, but when West continues with his fourth diamond, East's nine of hearts becomes a sure winner. What has happened is called a "trump promotion". If declarer trumps with the jack of hearts, East will discard any loser in his hand. If declarer does not trump with the jack, East will trump with the nine. In either case, declarer will only make seven tricks and be down one.
What should declarer have done? On the actual layout of the cards, playing the ace and king of clubs and then trumping a club will allow declarer to lead the queen of hearts and finesse for the king. East will cover and while the nine will always be a trick for the defense, declarer will come to eight tricks. This, however, is an inferior play. I think it is much better to win the ace of diamonds and lead a low heart towards the queen- jack in dummy. You catch the singleton ten and lose the trick to the king, but your contract cannot be defeated.
The Labor Day Regional Bridge Tournament was held in Monroeville, PA from August 30 to September 5. Congratulations to the following area players who were successful in their respective events. Additional results will appear next week.
Phillip Becker and Martin Baff of Beachwood were members of the team that was second in the bracket 1 of the Tuesday- Wednesday bracketed knockout teams. Hope Ellis of Beachwood and Rosalyn Sukenik of Cleveland were first in Stratum B in the stratified pairs on September 1. Alex McCrea of Shaker Heights was a member of the team that was second bracket 1 of the morning compact knockout teams. Rusty Ellison and Cindy Sustin of Aurora were members of the team that was first in bracket 2 of the same event.
Diane Peltz of Shaker Heights, Terry Goulder of Solon, Peta
Moskowitz of Cleveland, and Barbara Kusner of Orange Village were
first in bracket 2 of the morning compact consolation knockout
teams. Victor Vertes of Cleveland, Marlene Zinamon of Beachwood,
with Harvey and Irene Bernstein of Solon were first in Stratum B
of the evening Swiss teams on September 1.
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Bernstein is
a free-lance writer in Solon.
To reach Harvey Bernstein:
hjb0416@yahoo.com