Learn to Play Bridge Like a Boss

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About Me

H. Anthony Medley is an Attorney, an MPAA-accredited film critic, and author of Learn to Play Bridge Like A Boss,Sweaty Palms: The Neglected Art of Being Interviewed, and UCLA Basketball: The Real Story. He is a Silver Life Master and an ACBL-accredited Director and the author of a bridge column for a Los Angeles newspaper.

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

6 no trump hand bidding and play

Here are the east and west hands and the bidding:

♠KJ965
AQJ6
85
♣A3
♠Q8
53
AKJ
♣KQ9754

South             West   North             East
                               P                 1C
P                 1S       P                  2C
P                 2H       P                  2N
P                 4N*     P                   5D**
P                 6N

*  Roman Key Card blackwood
**1 key card with hearts, the last bid suit, as trump

Opening lead: 10D

Bidding: West got into a bind jumping to 4N so fast, although about the only forcing bid he could make would be 3D. How this would be interpreted is questionable. If East bid 3N, West is still in a bind about blackwood. Had Clubs been established as trump, East could have then responded 5S to RKC blackwood showing 2 key cards and the queen of trump. As it was, West was stuck because if he bid 5N, that would be asking for kings. The only way to get partner to stop in 5N would be to bid an unbid suit, which asks partner to bid 5N. Alas, the only unbid suit was diamonds and that was what East bid in response to blackwood, so West just bit the bullet and bid 6N.

Play: Actually, both 6N and 6C can make. But East, as declarer, ran the clubs, discarding spades, ending her chance to make the contract.

The diamond lead into her AKJ gave her 10 cold tricks, 6 clubs, 3 diamonds and one heart. How do you get two more? You can try to finesse the heart king twice, but that’s a 50% play. If it loses, you also lose the ace of spades. There is, however, a 100% play. What you have to do immediately is to set up the spades, and it doesn’t matter how they split. Lead the spade queen. If that holds for the 11th trick, go to the board in spades where you have the king and the jack. When they take the ace, your jack is your 12th trick and you don’t have to take the heart finesse.

I played this hand at a club game, playing West. Nobody got to the right contract, 6N, but us. Just about everyone was in 3N, making 5 or 6. A heart lead (hard to find) holds it to 5.


 Here are the four hands:

♠AT2
KT42
Q742
♣JT
Dlr: North
Vul: N-S
♠KJ965
AQJ6
85
♣A3
♠Q8
53
AKJ
♣KQ9754
♠743
987
T963
♣862

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