2002 European Teams Championships Page 4 Bulletin 5 - Thursday, 20 June  2002


When in doubt, "take-away" one more …

By Marco Catelloni

You are playing 6© with these cards, after a competitive auction

Board 20. Dealer West. All Vul.
  ª 9 8 6
© A K 9 6 5 4
¨ Q 4
§ 5 2
ª Q J 10 4
© -
¨ A 6 5 3
§ A K Q J 4
Bridge deal ª K 7 5 2
© 10 3 2
¨ K J 10 7
§ 8 7
  ª A 3
© Q J 8 7
¨ 9 8 2
§ 10 9 6 3

West North East South
1§ 1© Dble 2NT(1)
3© Pass 3ª Pass
4© Pass 4NT(2) Pass
6ª All Pass    

(1) 8-10 with fit ©
(2) 0-2-4 aces

Opening lead: ©Q
You ruff in dummy and play spades, South taking the ace and playing another (a better defence is to duck the first spade, win the next and play a heart, forcing declarer to guess in diamonds - Eds.) Not finding 98 doubleton in spades, you are in dummy with the ªJ. Now you are at the crossroads and, having ¨J10, you can play the Q both ways.

When you are in doubt, you can make the wrong decision.

Try taking away the ¨10. Now it is very simple to make all remaining tricks. You can suspect this is playing double dummy - I agree.

So let us try taking away the ¨J as well. Now, if you think that South has two spades, it's simple to play the ¨K, and then all the clubs, discarding diamonds. At the end you can ruff a small diamond or, if North ruffs before, you can overruff and still play a diamond to the ace, continuing your job of discarding diamonds on clubs. You can disagree with the assumption of "South having two spades", but you have no choice.



Page 4

  Return to top of page
<<Previous Next>>
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7
To the Bulletin List