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BRIDGE BITES #110
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ODDS-ON FAVORITE
Brian Gunnell |
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♠ 82
♥
73
♦
Q982
♣ A6432 |
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Both Vulnerable
South West North
East
1♠
Pass 1NT Pass
4♠
Pass Pass Pass
Against 4♠, West leads
the ♥Q
and, when Dummy goes down, you can count 9 tricks. A Heart ruff in
Dummy could be the 10th trick, at least it could be if the
defense is fast asleep. But no, the defenders see the need to stop that
Heart ruff. So, in case it is necessary to lead trumps through Declarer
(West might have ♠Kx), East overtakes with his
♥K
and fires back a trump. |
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Dummy
West East
Declarer |
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♠ AKQJT3
♥
542
♦
A
♣ KJ7 |
You are clearly not going to be
allowed to get your tenth trick via the aforementioned Heart ruff. What’s the
plan now?
►
Clubs must come to the rescue,
and one obvious line of play is simply to draw trumps, cross to the ♣A and
finesse the ♣J. There’s a 50% chance that East will have the ♣Q, in which case
you’ll make your contract. Can you find a line that is odd-on favorite to
succeed?
►
It’s better than 50% that the
missing Clubs are split 3-2. In fact the odds of that are 68%, so a
substantially better bet for developing an extra trick from that Club holding is
to lose the first round of Clubs and later to play the ♣K, then ♣A, hoping that
the suit behaves. But there’s a slight snag, isn’t there?
►
It won’t work to win the trump
shift at Trick 2, draw the remaining trumps, and then lose a Club. In that case
the defense will take two Heart tricks and four altogether. Better timing is
required. The Club must be lost before drawing trumps, that way there
will still be a trump on the board to handle that third round of Hearts.
►
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♠ 82
♥
73
♦
Q982
♣ A6432 |
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♠ 97
♥
QJT98
♦
J63
♣ QT8 |
Dummy
West East
Declarer |
♠ 654
♥
AK6
♦
KT754
♣ 95 |
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♠ AKQJT3
♥
542
♦
A
♣ KJ7 |
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A Rule of Thumb:
You don’t need to memorize probability tables in order to know if a suit is
likely to break evenly. Here’s a short cut … when missing an even number
of cards in the suit then the odds are against it splitting 1-1 or 2-2 or 3-3 …
when missing an odd number then the suit is odds-on to split 2-1 or 3-2
or 4-3.
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