Bridge Technique 7 Planning the Play in Notrump by David Bird Marc Smith

Author:David Bird, Marc Smith [David Bird, Marc Smith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: aVe4EvA
ISBN: 9781554940073
Publisher: Master Point Press
Published: 2001-05-09T20:00:00+00:00

♦ 9 6 4 2

♦ 8 3

♣ 8 7 5 ♣ J 10 6 3 ♠ Q 6 ♥ 8 7 3

♦ A K Q J 10 ♣ A Q 4

West leads the ♣7 against 6NT. How would you plan the play?

There are eleven top tricks and you have chances for a twelfth in both spades and hearts. Suppose you win the club lead in dummy and play a spade towards the queen. You will make the contract when East holds the ♠K, a 50% chance. The other possibility is to duck a heart, hoping that the suit will break 3-3. Look back to our table of probabilities (on page 25) and you will see that this is only a 36% chance.

So, it’s considerably better to play a spade to the queen, is it? Not at all, because ducking a heart allows you to combine two different chances. You make the contract if hearts are 3-3. You succeed also if the same defender holds the ♠K and four or more hearts, as in the diagram. After winning the defenders’ return, cash the ace of spades, followed by the remaining clubs and diamonds. On your last winner, East will have to throw either the ♠K or his heart guard. Nearly half of the time when hearts do not break 3-3, you will still make the contract. Ducking a heart therefore gives you a total chance of around 68% (36%

+ half of the remaining 64%), considerably better than the 50% for leading a spade to the queen.

On page 26 we looked at a 3NT deal where we had to compare the chance of a combination (A-J-10) finesse with that of a 3-2 break. We concluded that it was a close decision. The next deal features the same two combinations but we have changed the spade suit, so that the defenders have no communications. What a difference that makes!

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