July 2011 - 50

Better Bridge
with Bergen

Marty Bergen
www.martybergen.com

You can't bid them all
In many clubs and tournaments
these days, hand records are available
to show what contracts could have
been made, based on declarer and defenders playing as if they could see all
52 cards. Not only is the opening lead
the best possible lead for the defense,
but the program generating the data
assumes perfect declarer play and
defense. Here is an example:
A3
A5432
Q72
KQ2
 K J 10 9 8 7
Q6
N
 K Q J 10 9 6
8
W E
J
K954
S
-
J97543
542
7
 A 10 8 6 3
 A 10 8 6
If you held the North cards, I'm
not sure whether you would open
1 or 1NT. To avoid potential rebid
problems, the latter is definitely my
choice. If North does open 1, South
would definitely respond 1NT, and I
would assume that West would bid
2. That might end the auction, but
it might not. If North opens 1NT, I
50 Bridge Bulletin July 2011

defy anyone to confidently predict the
rest of the auction. My best guess is
that West would eventually declare a
spade contract, possibly doubled.
"Time out, Marty! Your current
series deals with slams. Why is this
deal here?"
A hand record for this deal would
tell you that West can make 3, and
South can make 7!
West making 3 is believable, but
North-South making 7 with 23 HCP
on a 4-3 fit and a 6-0 trump split is
beyond incredible. I do hope that if a
North-South pair saw "South 7" on
a hand record after the session, they
wouldn't get upset for not even getting to 6. In fact, there is an excellent chance that clubs would never be
mentioned.
Let's begin with West declaring a
spade contract. North leads the K.
The defense to beat 4 is worth
looking at. West will always lose three
aces. But where is his other loser?
The key to this deal is that when
West leads trump, North must duck
the first round. When North waits to
win his A on the second round, East
will be out of trumps, so North can
lead a heart and give South a ruff.
Let's get back to slams. Watch South
take 13 tricks with clubs as trump. Assume that West leads the K.
Trick 1: Declarer wins dummy's A.
Trick 2: Declarer leads the Q from
the board. Suppose East
covers with the king. South
wins the A, as West drops
the J. (It does not help the
defense if East doesn't cover
the Q.)

Trick 3: Declarer leads a spade to the
ace.
Trick 4: Declarer carefully leads
dummy's 7. East plays the
4 and declarer lets it ride
by playing his 3. Once
again, there is no difference if
East covers.
Trick 5: Declarer leads the 2 from
dummy. East plays the 5
and declarer wins his 6.
Trick 6: Declarer cashes his 10 and
discards dummy's 3.
Trick 7: Declarer ruffs a spade with
dummy's 2.
With North on lead, here is the position:
-
5432
-
KQ
 K J 10
-
N
 Q J 10
-
W E
-
-
S
-
J97543
5
-
8
 A 10 8 6
North's 2 is led and South can't be
prevented from crossruffing the last
six tricks to make 7. Despite having
six trumps headed by the jack, East
is unable to take even one trick! Note
that 7 would not make if North was
declarer. On opening lead, East could
prevent the big crossruff by putting a
trump on the table.
I included this deal to make the following point: Do not even think about
trying to bid slam on every deal that
happens to make 12 or 13 tricks.
r

http://www.martybergen.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of July 2011