Aug 12 2011
Landed on My Feet
After a long day at work, i got home at 6:55 pm, rushed in the door and asked Lance if he wanted to play the 7 pm Speedball on BBO. He had just had a two-hour set with his client, so he was ready for some “real bridge”. We were halfway through the game when we encountered this hand.
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The bidding gets us to 3NT quickly and easily, North declaring, while they cash four rounds of diamonds off the top. East shifts to the club Jack. I win the Ace and take stock.
I have four hearts, three clubs and a spade, and the count has been rectified for me. If clubs are 3-3, that’s nine, but what if not? In that case, the only line open to me is a squeeze in clubs and spades, so i’ll need the person with four clubs to also have the spade King.
At the table i reasoned that my LHO (East) was likely to have the hoped-for holding. A) He didn’t shift to a spade, and B) he made the club shift, which he might not have made without JTxx. So i played him for it by cashing three rounds of clubs, which confirmed he had four clubs. Then i cashed four hearts. On the fourth heart, he pitched a spade, so i threw the useless club. A spade to the Ace dropped his now-stiff King and i claimed the spade Queen as my ninth trick.
As it turns out, this worked and i landed on my feet, but it was the wrong way to play the hand. If clubs are 3-3, there’s no rush to find out. I should instead cash two rounds of clubs only, then cash the spade Ace, a Vienna Coup. Now i can cash four hearts, pitching all spades from dummy. The result as the cards lie will be the same, except East may squirm more.
The reason this would be much better, though, is that West could be the one holding four clubs and the spade King. My line at the table will not work in that case – my line was a positional squeeze against East. The Vienna Coup line will work against either defender.
August 14th, 2011 2:33 pm
[...] from the bridge table: I wrote up a couple of hands from this past week. Just [...]