BASIC BRIDGE TECHNIQUES
By Larry Matheny
In this session we are
going to examine some concepts with which the successful player needs to be
familiar.
With this first hand there
is nothing particularly difficult yet several declarers failed when tested at
the table.
1. THE HOLDUP
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West leads his fourth best
spade. Plan your play.
SOLUTION: You have only
eight tricks so you must develop a club trick.
First you must duck the first two spade leads and win the third. Then you must hope that East holds the ace of
clubs. If East holds a fourth spade, the
suit is divided 4-4 and you make the hand.
If the club ace is in the West hand and he has five spades, you cannot
make the contract.
Additional note: The small doubleton spade should not deter
you from opening 1NT. If you open 1
,
you will often have no good rebid.
2. COUNT YOUR TRICKS
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West leads his fourth best
spade. Play your play.
SOLUTION: Although the
spade deuce suggests a four-card suit, there is no reason not to holdup and win
the second spade. A quick tally of your
tricks shows only seven: one spade, one heart, and five diamonds. Although the heart suit is attractive, unless
the king is doubleton in the East hand, taking a winning heart finesse will only
give you one more trick and if it loses will set up a fifth trick for the
defense. Playing on clubs will give you
the two extra tricks you need.
I sat East on this hand and
declarer won the first spade, took the losing heart finesse, and promptly went
down in an ice cold contract.
3. THE SAFETY PLAY
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*Jacoby Transfer
West leads his fourth best
club. Plan your play.
SOLUTION: The only
thing that can defeat this hand is a 4-0 spade break. Since you cannot pick up the suit if East has
four spades, your first play must be the ace of spades. Now you can pick up West’s trumps. The initial play of a low spade to dummy will
quickly have North busy looking for a new partner. Actually this shouldn’t be titled “Safety
Play” because it is the ONLY play.
Hint: Look for the problem before you play to trick
one.
4. IGNORE THE MINOR – GO FOR 3NT
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Many rubber bridge players
have trouble making the necessary adjustments to be successful at duplicate
bridge. Using matchpoint scoring it is
rarely correct to head for a minor suit game.
It just doesn’t score as well.
This hand is a typical example.
Those in 5
will make four or five depending upon the opening lead and the diamond
guess. Even those successful in 5
will only score +400. Assuming a heart
lead in 3NT, those declarers have an easy eleven tricks for +460. Without a heart lead there are still ten
certain tricks for +430.
Be certain there is a
wide-open suit before bypassing game in NT.
Even then the opponents may not be able to cash five tricks before you
have nine.
5. OPEN 1NT AND 2NT WITH SEMI-BALANCED HANDS
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One reason for opening 1NT
is to show partner the strength of your hand immediately. Another plus is that it eliminates rebid
problems. If you open the South hand 1
,
you don’t have a good rebid after North’s 1
response. You have the values for 3
but your suit is not good enough for a jump rebid. And it’s usually right for the stronger hand
to declare the contract.
Looking again at the
comparison of 3NT and five of a minor, those in notrump will likely score +460
while those in 5
will be +400.
6. AVOID FINESSES WHEN POSSIBLE
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*Forcing
Spade Raise
West leads the queen of
diamonds. It appears you have a diamond
loser so you must not lose a heart. How
do you continue?
SOLUTION: It doesn’t
matter who holds the heart queen. Win
the diamond in your hand, unblock the club ace, and play a trump to dummy
followed by a club ruff. Another trump
to dummy allows you to ruff dummy’s last club.
Next you simply play ace and another diamond. Whoever wins must now either lead a heart or
allow you to discard a heart as you ruff in the other hand.
This is a standard
ELIMINATION play. Guessing is for the
young and the very lucky.
7. PREVENT THE HOLDUP
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West leads the heart nine: sitting
East, what do you play to trick one?
SOLUTION: You know
from the opening lead and bidding that South holds the AJX of hearts. If you play the queen (or king) at trick one,
South will duck and win the second heart.
This will leave West with no heart to lead when he is in with the club
ace. Therefore, you must overtake with
the ten and force South to win the first heart.
When West wins the club ace he returns his remaining heart. When you win the club king, you can cash your
hearts defeating the contract. The
opportunity for this play occurs frequently.
This is a good example of
why you must stop and think about the entire hand before you play to trick
one. Look at the opening lead and
remember the bidding.
8. REMEMBER THE AUCTION
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East won the opening lead of
the ten of spades with the queen and cashed the king before switching to a low
diamond. You win the ace and have to
decide how to play the trump suit. With
no other information, you would play the top two honors but let’s stop and
recall the auction. East passed at his
first opportunity and had shown up with the top three spade honors. You also realize if West held the top three
diamonds he would have led one rather than a spade. This marks East with a diamond honor,
probably the queen. Armed with this
information, you should play the heart ace followed by a low heart to the
jack. Next you draw the last trump and
make eleven tricks by discarding you diamond loser on the long club suit.
Notice how easy East made it
for declarer to place the high cards. A
better play would be to win the first spade with the ace then play the queen in
an attempt to convince you the king was in the West hand.
9. DON’T SELL OUT…BALANCE!
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Now you are in the West
chair. This is a typical auction in a
pairs event. It is almost ALWAYS correct
for West to balance in this auction. The
“rules” are 1) the opponents have a fit, and 2) they have stopped below
game. Every now and then you will walk
into trouble but letting them play at the two-level with a fit will
usually give you a bad result.
On this particular hand, your
partner will go down one trick for –50.
The opponents can make +110 or +140 depending upon the club guess. Even if you get doubled (highly unlikely),
your –100 is a good result. It is
important for East to realize that you are bidding the combined values of the
E/W cards. You know East is marked with
points because the opponents stopped short of game and if the opponents bid on
to the three-level, East should not bid again.
In fact, the goal is to push the opponents to the next level. They may make it but it’s better than
allowing them to play at the two-level.
This is a very important
matchpoint (pairs) technique. If you go
–110, you will usually get very few matchpoints.
10. ANOTHER “LISTEN TO THE AUCTION”
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West led the queen of
diamonds won by East with the ace. East
shifts to the jack of clubs and the opponents quickly have four tricks. West exits with a heart; how do you make this
contract?
SOLUTION: Just REMEMBER
THE AUCTION and the rest is easy. East
passed his partner’s opening bid and has shown up with the diamond ace and the
jack of clubs. This means the heart king
and the spade queen are both in the West hand.
You must play for the spade queen to drop under your ace or king.
11. DEFENSIVE CARDING
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In response to your overcall, West leads the queen of hearts. Declarer
plays low from dummy and you follow with?
Solution: Of course
you immediately see the danger in dummy's long club suit and desperately want
partner to shift to a diamond. So you
discourage a continuation by signaling with the heart deuce. West makes the obvious switch to diamonds and
the contract is defeated. It is easy to see that if West had continued
with a second heart, declarer would win any continuation, draw trumps, and
discard his remaining red cards on the club suit. In fact, you would have
to cash the diamond ace at trick three just to prevent the overtrick.
There was nothing difficult about this hand. Just remember that every
card you play sends a message. Most new players in the West chair would
be delighted they won the first trick and couldn’t wait to lead another
heart.
Don't be mechanical: Watch
the cards.
12. HAVE A
REASON TO BID
There are several reasons to
enter the auction after the opponents have opened the bidding. You might want to try to buy the contract,
suggest a sacrifice, impede the opponents, or make a lead-directing overcall. However, some players enter for no reason
other than they can.
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East-West were on their way
to a 4
contract when South decided to enter the auction. West doubled to end the bidding.
West led a diamond and
declarer was lucky to find six tricks for down two. Since the distribution doomed the spade
contracts, this score of +300 was a top for East-West. On defense against the East-West spade
contracts, the North-South pairs usually took the first seven tricks.
It is difficult to
understand why South entered the auction.
At least North thought so.