BRIDGE DETECTIVE
By Larry Matheny
In this lesson we
will look at some of the seemingly mysterious ways experts use to find missing
honor cards. The methods they employ
include discovery plays, conclusions drawn from cards played, and simple
reasoning. To gain some of this
knowledge, let’s begin with some basic detective work.
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West
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North
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You
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South
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1
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Pass
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3 *
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DBL
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4
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Pass
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Pass
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Pass
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*constructive (7-9) spade raise
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West leads the
deuce of diamonds and declarer wins your king with his ace. Next,
declarer leads a high spade and you win the ace. The big question is
whether your partner’s lead was a singleton or low from Q82. If it was a
singleton, a diamond ruff might be necessary to defeat the contract. However,
if declarer had the singleton diamond, you must shift to a heart and hope
partner holds the ace and can give you a ruff.
Which play do you make?
The problem was
created at trick one. You KNEW * that declarer held the diamond ace so
the only question was the location of the queen. You should have played
the diamond ten at trick one to solve this puzzle. After declarer wins the
queen, when you regain the lead with the spade ace you can confidently lead a
diamond for West to ruff. Your partner will later score the king of
hearts for down one. If instead you shift to a heart, declarer will rise
with the ace, draw trumps, and make the contract losing only one spade, one
heart and one club. This type of "discovery" play occurs
frequently.
*If you find yourself with a partner who underleads an ace in this situation,
rush to the partnership desk as soon as you can.
Here is the entire
hand:
Now as declarer
let’s try to locate a queen.
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West
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North
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East
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You
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Pass
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Pass
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Pass
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1NT
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2
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3
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Pass
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4
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Pass
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Pass
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Pass
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West led a club and after winning with the king-ace, East continued with
a third round forcing you to ruff in dummy as West followed suit. It’s obvious you have to lose a spade so to
be successful you will have to find the queen of diamonds. What is your plan?
Rather than assume East who overcalled holds the queen, a good detective
will try to find out more about the hand.
After ruffing the third club, pull trumps (West has three) ending in
your hand. Next lead a small spade to
dummy’s jack. East wins with the king
and exits with a spade. You now KNOW the
diamond queen is in the West hand.
Why? Because East has shown up
with the king of spades along with the ace and king of clubs and would not have
originally passed if he also held the queen of diamonds.
This simple bit of DEDUCTION was possible by gaining additional
information and using just a little math.
Here is the entire hand:
Next, let’s look at a hand and draw a conclusion from the cards that hit
the table:
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Hand #3
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West
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North
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East
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You
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1
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Pass
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Pass
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DBL
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Pass
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2
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2
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3
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Pass
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4
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Pass
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Pass
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Pass
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West leads the jack of clubs and it’s clear you must lose two spades and the
ace of diamonds. This means you must pick up the heart suit without a
loss. The standard play with this suit combination is low to dummy's ace
of hearts and then to finesse on the way back. However, the auction along
with the opening lead allows you to place some of the defenders' honor
cards. For his opening bid, West holds the diamond ace and some spade
honors but why didn't he lead a spade? The answer is clear: he is missing
the king. With the AK or KQ a spade lead would have been preferred to the
club lead. So, if East holds the king of spades along with the queen of
clubs and passed his partner's bid, the heart queen must be with West. Accordingly,
you win the club lead and play the ace and king of hearts and you are rewarded
when the queen drops. All you did was REVIEW THE AUCTION and make a
logical CONCLUSION from the opening lead.
That is a good example of playing the hand, not the suit.
Here is the entire
hand:
Here’s another hand
that requires a good detective:
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West
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North
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East
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You
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1
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DBL
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1
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Pass
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1NT
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DBL
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Pass
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2
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Pass
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Pass
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Pass
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West leads the top
three clubs with East following and showing three cards in the suit. Next, West shifts to the ten of
diamonds. You hopefully put in the queen
but unfortunately she loses to the king.
East returns a diamond that you win in dummy. Since you will lose the ace of spades, you
must find the queen of hearts. Is it a
guess?
No! Find out who holds the ace of spades. West is kind enough to win the spade and
exits with a third diamond which you ruff.
You now know that West has shown up with the ace of spades, the AKQJ of clubs,
and a balanced hand. Putting your mental
calculator to work, you decide that if he also held the queen of hearts, he
would have opened 1NT. Case closed.
Here is the entire
hand:
This is getting
easier, isn’t it? How about this one:
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West
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North
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East
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You
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Pass
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1
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Pass
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2
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Pass
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4
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Pass
Pass Pass
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West leads the ten of
spades won by East with the queen. East continues with the king of spades
and then switches to a low diamond. You win the ace and have to decide
how to play the trump suit. With no other information, an amateur declarer
might play the top two honors and hope for the queen to drop. But, a seasoned detective like you is going
to examine what you have discovered so far.
First you review the
auction: East passed at his first opportunity and has shown up with the top
three spade honors. And, you know if West had held the top three diamond
honors he surely would have led that suit. This marks East with a diamond
honor, probably the queen (West might have led from KQ or QJ). Armed with
this information, you are now confident the trump queen is in the West hand so
you should play the heart ace followed by a low heart to the jack. You are now able to draw the last trump and
make eleven tricks by discarding your diamond loser on the long club suit.
Note that East made it
easy for declarer to place the high cards. A better play for East would have
been to win the first spade with the ace and then play the queen in an attempt
to convince you the king was in the West hand.
Here is the entire hand:
While you are waiting
for your promotion to Detective First Class, you get a chance to kibitz this
hand:
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West
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North
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East
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South
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Pass
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Pass
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Pass
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1NT
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Pass
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2
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Pass
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2
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Pass
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4
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Pass
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Pass
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Pass
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West led the top three spade honors with declarer ruffing the last one.
Without giving the problem much thought, declarer led a low heart to the king
and ace. He had to lose another heart trick and finished down one. I’m
sure you’re feeling sorry that declarer didn’t have an opportunity to attend
this session.
If you had been
declarer you would have realized the only way to hold the heart losers to one
is to find a doubleton ace. You would
have recalled the bidding and quickly come to the conclusion the heart ace had
to be in the East hand. If West held that card along with the three top
spade honors, he would not have passed. So you would have entered dummy with
a club or diamond and led a low heart toward your hand. When the queen won
the trick, you would have led a low heart from both hands and wrapped up your
game.
This was not
difficult. Here is the entire hand:
Now that you are
completely trained, you won’t have trouble with this last teaser. This time you are defending and sitting West.
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You
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North
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East
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South
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Pass
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1
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1
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DBL
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Pass
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1NT
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Pass
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Pass
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Pass
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From the West chair
you see no future in your anemic spade suit so you lead the four of
diamonds. The eight holds the trick in dummy and declarer next leads a
club to his king. After winning the ace, the “old you” would have played
another diamond to establish your king but as a new detective you stop and
analyze the available evidence.
From the bidding you
know South holds one if not both of the spade honors. It is also
clear declarer has the QJ of diamonds along with the top two (or three)
club honors. Any logical combination of those cards place South with
12-14 high card points so one thing becomes clear: South does not hold the ace
of hearts. With that card along with the others, he would have too many
points for the auction. So at trick three, you put the heart jack on the
table and then continued with the king and another. These six tricks for
the defenses held declarer to his contract and a great result. In fact,
in one of our local games, two N/S pairs bid and made 3NT.
Notice you did nothing more than COUNT the high card points South had shown
from the bidding and the play of the hand. Defense can be simple.
Here is the entire
hand:
If you just use the
simple tools from this lesson, your card-placing skills will improve
tremendously.
