Take all your chances at bridge – 9 by Eddie Kantar

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Eddie Kantar

denver 2015 1DENVER FALL 2015 NABC – NOV 26-DIC 6

The 2015 Fall NABC is being played in Denver let us look some interesting deals from the bulletin’s series: Take all your chances at bridge by Eddie Kantar.

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You have a simple auction. You open 2, weak, partner says 4, and West leads a prompt J. Plan the play.

Solution

You have a 100% play for the contract, yet someone with thousands of masterpoints had a blind spot and went down! To ensure 10 tricks after winning the Q, draw trumps ending in dummy and discard two spades on the top diamonds and eventually lead up the K.

The most you can lose is three club tricks (you can ruff the fourth club in dummy if necessary). The player with the bushel basket of masterpoints discarded two clubs on the diamonds thinking he still had two finesses left in the black suits and only needed one to succeed. But why give yourself a 75% chance when a 100% chance is available? Declarer had a hard time living this one down. The full deal:

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Notice that if West had found a club lead, the defense could take the first five tricks! It has been said that if an average plus player made the winning lead on every board, he would be a world champion without a shadow of a doubt.