This hand is very simple and yet it illustrates a complex thought process that will improve your game. West is on lead. If he decides to lead a red card the defense is easy and should always come to three aces and a club ruff for a one trick set. But what if he decides to lead the ace of clubs? Partner contributes the deuce and West must decide how to continue.
The thought process should be to stop and determine which clubs you cannot see. It is pretty obvious that the eight, seven, and two are all that are available for East and South. If East held all three he would play the deuce and South would ruff. South did not ruff but followed with the seven. Can East have the eight? If he did, what card would he play from the holding of eight-two? If they are playing standard carding, he should play the eight from this combination. So the two must be a singleton and you must continue with another club because you are never going to be on lead again in this hand.
What if the club suit is distributed differently and East plays the seven? If South follows with the two then the seven should be a singleton. If this is the case, South should play what is known as a "false card" by playing the eight instead of the two.
The important thing is to train yourself to think along these lines to improve your defense and declarer play.
Unit 125 of the American Contract Bridge League will host the Silver Bowl Sectional Bridge Tournament starting next Friday at the Solon Valley Party Center, 6340 Melbury, Solon.
Single session stratified events for players at all levels will be held at 1:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Stratum A will be restricted to players with more than 1,500 master points. The master point range for Stratum B will be 750 to 1,499, and for Stratum C, 0 to 749.
A two session Open Pair event will start at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday. The second session will start at 3:30 p.m. This event will be stratified. Stratum A1 will be for players with 3,000 master points or more and Stratum A2 will be for players with less than 3,000 master points. Single session events will be held at the same times for Flight B (less than 1,500 master points) and Flight C (less than 750 master points).
Separate events will also be held on Friday and Saturday for players with less than 300 master points.
Team events for players of all levels will start at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday.
The Unit 125 web site can be found at:
http://www.whistclub.org
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Bernstein is
a free-lance writer in Solon.
To reach Harvey Bernstein:
hjb0416@yahoo.com