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When counting up to 10
would have helped
East failed his arithmetic test on this week’s deal. North dealt at game-all and opened One Diamond. South responded Four Spades, (not everyone’s choice) and all passed. West started with three rounds of Clubs, and declarer ruffed. The two top trumps followed and East had an easy Diamond discard. The third round of trumps saw West winning with the Queen and dummy discarding the seven of Hearts. East found himself with a problem — he had to retain the Queen of Clubs, but which red suit should he discard? He chose to keep the same length as dummy in both and parted with the five of Hearts. As you can see, this proved fatal — for now declarer had the rest of the tricks. Counting up to 10 would have been sufficient to guide. East to the logical defence. He knows that South has six Spade tricks and he can see three winners on the table. If declarer is missing the King of Diamonds, the finesse lands the contract. The one slim chance is to
hope that declarer is void in Diamonds and unable to take the winning
finesse. So East should stick, leech-like, to his Hearts. If nothing
else can help, why not try it? |
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THEY
say the most important talent for a bridge player to possess is the
ability to count up to 13. Often it is enough to be able to get to 10!