BridgeCast on RealBridge - Counting and Card Placement

I hope you enjoyed playing four of my deals featuring Counting and Card Placement. I have run through deal three in the video above and all of the deals are analysed in the notes below. These deals were taken from my "Counting and Card Placement" book, part of my Bridge Lesson series of books.

Deal one

Win ♥ K and, playing West for a singleton spade, cash ♠ K. Assuming West follows low, continue with ♠ J, playing East for ♠ Q97x. Say East covers ♠ J with ♠ Q. You win ♠ A as West discards. You cross to ♣ A, lead ♠ 4 to (♠ 7 and) ♠ 8, cash ♠ 10 felling ♠ 9 and run minor-suit winners. Game made.

Playing North for a singleton heart, the best way to broach the suit is to cross to dummy and run ♥ J. This will be successful unless West’s singleton is ♥ Q: ie four times out of five.

You lead to ♦ A and advance ♥ J. South covers with ♥ Q and you win ♥ K, North following with ♥ 3. You cross to K and lead ♥ 2, covering South’s ♥ 6 with ♥ 7, as expected North discarding. You cross to ♦ Q, lead ♥ 4 to ♥ 8 and ♥ 9, cash ♥ A felling ♥ 10, then cross to ♠ K to dump ♠ 6 on ♦ J. 10 tricks and game made.

Deal two

It seems like you have 10 easily-to-be-established winners: four spades, two hearts, two diamonds and two clubs. The problem is that unless you are careful, you will have four losers (effectively, you will take the tenth and last of your winners at trick 14!).

Say you beat ♦ Q with ♦ K and lead a spade. No good. The opponents will win ♠ A and lead a second diamond. You’ll win ♦ A, draw trumps and lead, say a heart. They’ll win ♥ A, cash their third-round diamond winner, plus ♣ A: down one.

You have to lose the three aces, but must avoid losing the third diamond. This can be discarded on a heart, but you must set up the discard quickly – leading a spade loses a vital tempo. You must lead the heart at trick two. There’s a final wrinkle. If you win ♦ Q with ♦ K and lead ♥ 2 to ♥ Q, E-W can duck, win the second heart, lead a second diamond and you have no way back to hand to cash the third heart and dump ♦ 4.

You must win trick one with ♦ A – and that will mean you have to plan the play before playing an autopilot low diamond from dummy. At trick two lead ♥ Q. Let E-W win ♥ A (or duck), for you win their diamond return with ♦ K and cash ♥ KJ dumping dummy’s ♦ 4. Only now do you play spades.

You duck West’s ♠ K lead, but East encourages with ♠ 8 (holding the equal ♠ J) and West continues with ♠ 7. You win ♠ A and count a certain ♣ A loser and possible losers via ♥ K, ♦ K and the third spade.

To hold yourself to three losers, you need the diamond finesse to work. But if it does, you can afford to lose to ♥ K. The correct line is to lead ♥ Q (to tempt East to cover), but then to win ♥ A and lead ♦ Q, winning (phew) then ♦ 3 to ♦ J. You dump ♠ 9 on ♦ A and can force out ♥ K then ♣ A. 10 tricks, losing ♠ K, K and ♣ A.

Deal three

Although the odds narrowly favour the drop (♣ A, to hope for a 1-1 split), you should cross to dummy to lead ♣ Q. East might (erroneously) cover with ♣ K from ♣ K2. Say East doesn’t cover ♣ Q, but...

(a) East plays low in a split-second, far quicker than normal tempo, what can be termed ‘the shotgun’.
or

(b) East finds his cards are a bit sticky and he struggles to play his card normally.

or

(c) East looks around the room, asks if there are any biscuits, comments on the weather. He doesn’t look interested.

Question: Who do you think has ♣ K in those three scenarios?
Answer: I would guess that East holds ♣ K in all three cases.
(a). The Shotgun. East is ready for the card; he doesn’t want to give anything away; he doesn’t want to flinch; if anything he is too ready. Bang! His ♣ 2 hits the table almost before ♣ Q is led. If he had a singleton ♣ 2, would he really be so pent up.
(b). The Sticky Card. East is nervous. He is perspiring; his cards get sticky. Need I say more?
(c). The Overly Bored Card. If East had a singleton ♣ 2, he’d be sitting normally. East is feigning lack of interest with ♣ K2 and overdoing it (ethically dubious, by the way, although not as bad as pretending to think with a singleton – which is absolutely banned).

You win West’s ♦ K lead with ♦ A and, although the odds slightly favour dropping ♣ K, lead ♣ Q in the hope East will cover, or play a shotgun, or play a sticky card, or play an overly bored card. Say East plays low in tempo (well done East – but covering with ♣ K is clearly wrong with declarer having advertised seven clubs, leaving West with a void).

You rise with ♣ A – and curse when West discards. All is not lost. You cross to ♥ AK dumping ♦ 9, ruff ♥ 3, cross to ♠ K, ruff ♥ 7, cross to ♠ A, ruff ♦ J and now exit with ♣ J. East wins ♣ K, but has only diamonds left. You ruff in one hand, dump the spade loser from the other and claim your slam. Great recovery!

Deal four

South leads ♥ 9 v your 4 ♠. You win ♥ A and cash ♠ AKQ, North following three times and South discarding (♦ 2) on the third. You cleverly continue with ♠ 62, in case an opponent unwisely discards a club, but none is forthcoming. How do you now tackle clubs?

After cashing ♣ A (both following) and leading towards dummy, the a priori odds may favour playing a high club, hoping ♣ J falls under ♣ KQ and so promote ♣ 10. But to do so here would be folly. Think about North’s shape. He advertised 5 -4 in the bidding (1♥ -then-3♦). He followed to three rounds of spades. Ergo – he is 3 ♠-5 ♥ -4 ♦ -1 ♣. You confidently finesse ♣ 10 (key play), North discarding (as you knew he would), then cash ♣ KQ, dumping two red-suit losers. Ten tricks and game made.