Central Carolina Bridge Association

Piedmont Triad Region of North Carolina

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 Two “Less than Wonderful” Contracts

 By Don Gardner

We have all been in bad contracts and have learned not only what to do, but what not to do. What to do: make the best of what you have; what not to do: grimace, moan, berate partner, etc.

Here are two hands which occurred in recent club games. The first one is “easy” and the second one “less easy”. See what you would do with each.

1) The “Easy” One

You are South and are declaring four hearts (Why you are in four hearts will not be discussed here!).

After viewing dummy (without gasping), you form a plan of attack. You need to make an assumption and plan what to do at tricks 1-4, the crucial ones. Over to you…..

2) The “Less than Easy” One

You are South and are playing a six no-trump contract with these cards:

This contract is a terrible one. Again you have to make an assumption about the hand and what to play at tricks 1-3.

1) The “Easy” One

The assumption you must make about this hand is that the trumps are 2-2. You will not make it otherwise. The opening lead is friendly as you would be in trouble with any other one and reasonable defense.

The opening lead of the six of diamonds indicates that the ace of diamonds is likely to be on your right and you play the jack of diamonds to locate the queen. Alas, RHO plays the queen and you ruff. At trick two you play a low trump to the ace. Play the king of diamonds and ruff the ace, if covered. If not covered, discard a spade. In either case play a trump at trick four, hopefully watching the king and queen crash together. After that happens, you will lose one spade (one ruffed and one discarded on a diamond), one club, and one trump.

Here is the total deal:

3) The “Less than Easy” One

If the dummy held the queen of diamonds instead of the jack, you would have eleven tricks and squeeze possibilities for the twelfth. But you don’t and you have to assume that LHO holds the queen with no more than two others.

Assuming now that you have eleven tricks, you need to “rectify the count” for the squeeze as soon as possible by losing a trick safely. When the king of hearts is played on the opening lead, you must duck it! Win the heart return with the ace discarding a spade from the dummy and stop to consider the situation.

The opening lead suggests LHO has the heart length with the queen and you hope that RHO has the diamond length without the queen. If so, you have the ingredients for a double squeeze.

At trick three, you play a small diamond toward the ace-jack in dummy and magically the queen pops up from LHO (If LHO had played a small diamond, you would have finessed the jack)! Very good news indeed. Play the jack of diamonds to confirm the situation and then run your club tricks and return to your hand with a third diamond.

Ten tricks have been played at this point. The dummy is left with AK10 of spades and you hold a spade, a diamond, and the jack of hearts. Throughout the play of the clubs and diamonds you were watching for the queen of hearts discard from LHO and more than one diamond discard from RHO. If neither of those occurred, then neither defender could protect the third round of spades in the three card ending.

The complete deal is:

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Last modified: 06/17/08