November 2008 - 43

November 2008



Bridge Player's Survival Kit

if you draw trumps immediately,
you won't have enough entries left
in dummy to set up and cash the
diamonds.
After winning the A, play the
A and a diamond to the king.
Ruff one of dummy's diamonds
with the 9 (don't send a boy to
do a man's job!). Lead a low trump
to dummy's 10 and ruff a diamond
with your J. Lead a low trump
to the queen and play the A to
finish pulling trumps if you need
to. Now your fifth diamond is good
and you can pitch a heart on it.
Poof! - there goes a loser. You can
even lead a low club towards the
K for a possible overtrick!
Pulling two or three rounds of

trumps at the beginning of the play
probably would've locked you away
from the diamond suit forever. Then
you would have had to rely solely
on the club finesse.
Reasons not to pull trumps right
away:
❖ If you want to crossruff the
hand, or if you need dummy's
trumps to ruff losers.
❖ If you need trump entries as
transportation (for finessing or
establishing a long suit, etc.).
❖ When you have too many quick
losers. If they get in with a high
trump, can they set you? If so,
don't pull trumps until you
eliminate enough losers.
r

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43

PLAY BRIDGE

Here is what one declarer did. Seeing
that he had to ruff two hearts in dummy,
he won the first heart and returned a heart,
which West won. West saw his partner's
10 and 8, so he knew East started with
two hearts. West led a third heart. Declarer
ruffed in dummy and was overruffed by
East. East led a diamond to West's ace, and
West led another heart. Dummy ruffed and
East overruffed again. This led to South's
losing one heart, two heart ruffs, the A
and a final trick to West's Q. Down two.
"Wow," said East. "I never expected to take
two tricks with this hand."
Here is what another declarer did. He
saw that if he ruffed hearts in dummy, East
would overruff. He did not like that possibility, so he won the A and played the
A and K. When he led a heart, West
won and played his Q. This left dummy
with one spade, so declarer could ruff only
one heart in dummy. This declarer managed to go down just one.
The last declarer was a little more aware
of the possibilities. He chose a play many
would not even consider - he let West win
the first trick!
West had nothing better to do than to
lead another heart. South won this one, and
now he did what the second declarer did.
He cashed his top spades and when they
divided 3-2, he was safe.
He ruffed a heart in dummy. Because
there was only one spade outstanding,
South did not care if it was overruffed.
When the heart ruff survived, South returned to hand with the K and ruffed his
last heart. When that also won, South gave
up a diamond trick and conceded a trick to
the Q. Ten tricks.
What South did was to lose a trick that
he had to lose anyway, and he did so in a
way that did not have the dangers you saw
in the lines used by the first two declarers.
Most holdups you see are in notrump
contracts, the usual reason being that you
want to keep one player from running his
suit. For now, be aware that the holdup
works well in suit play, too.
Note also that 4 was, ultimately, a
good contract. It was necessary for South
to bid 4 and not make a lesser bid of 2
or 3. 2 would qualify for some kind of
wimpy bid award, and 3, while a step in
the right direction, would still not get the
job done. North would have passed 3 on
the basis that he had a minimum hand for
r
his bidding.
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of November 2008
