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Sunday, April 11, 2004 |
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Sunday, April 11, 2004 |
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Bidding quiz
Answer For years I used to make a poor decision on this type of hand, bidding 5C. The most frequent result was that I went one down and then found that 4S would have gone one or two down. You can always justify bidding on with ‘I was taking out insurance’. Nevertheless, you lose a lot of points by with losing decisions at this level. I rate the best action, in the long run, is to double for penalties. Awards: Double-10, 5C-7 Pass-4. — Knight Features |
NORTH’s
Baron 2NT showed a balanced hand of at least 16 points. Although this
idea has somewhat fallen out of favour (some players using 2NT as a
forcing raise in the major), I still like it myself. It is difficult to
describe such hands otherwise. West leads the spade jack against 6H. You
win with the ace and play a trump to the jack, East following with the
two. How would you continue? It would be careless to play the ace of
trumps next. The only serious risk to the contact is a 4-1 trump break
and you must direct your full attention to dealing with that. The
correct play is to run the nine of trumps on the second round. If West
covers with the king or ten, you win with the ace and knock out his
remaining trump honour. If instead he plays low, the nine will win the
second round. You may think it can cost nothing to run the queen on the
second round, collecting an overtrick if East should happen to hold
10-2. not such a good idea when East has found a brilliant duck from
K-10-7-2! You would then lose two trump tricks.
What would you say now on the West cards?
