May 2019 - 32

Tips from the Teachers
Hints for new players from the American Bridge Teachers' Association
BY JIM RICKER

The two biggest benefits ABTA
brings to teachers across the country
are the ABTA Quarterly Magazine and
the ABTA Teachers Conference. The
ABTA magazine is a treasure to teachers. One example of the material available to teachers is the following article.
For this lesson, one hand is going to
give rise to four lesson topics.

Timing and ducking
♠KJ7
♥52
♦A9532
♣ K 10 4
♠ A 10 9 8
♥K43
♦K864
♣AQ
You (South) open 1NT, and partner
raises to 3NT, ending the auction. Your
left-hand opponent leads the ♥7. You
call for the 5 from dummy, and RHO
plays the ace. You obviously play the
3. On the second trick, RHO leads the
♥Q. Should you play the king or the 4?
Before you decide which card to play
on the second trick, let's first plan the
play. You have seven top tricks (♠A K,
♦A K and ♣A K Q) plus the ♥K,
which is now good for a trick after
RHO plays the ♥A. So you need to
develop an additional trick. If the diamond suit breaks 2-2, it will easily provide extra tricks, and the spade suit has
a possible finesse in either direction
for another chance at an extra trick.
This situation involves what players call timing. You can see how to get
enough tricks to make your contract,
but can you get your tricks before the

32 Bridge Bulletin May 2019

opponents take too many?
The heart suit should be your biggest
concern because you have only one
stopper in the suit. Thankfully, LHO
led the suit and gave you a sure trick
in it. But if LHO has a five-card heart
suit, your contract will fail as soon as
LHO regains the lead. If hearts are 4-4,
however, you will make your contract.
You need to keep LHO out of the lead.
Because you have a choice on the spade
finesse, you can choose to finesse
your LHO for the queen, and if you are
wrong, RHO will be on lead. But what if
RHO has a third heart?
To counter this, you should duck the
♥K until the third trick. This is an ageold technique called a holdup play. If
RHO began with three hearts - and the
spade finesse fails - he can no longer
lead a heart back to West. East will be
forced to lead back to one of your good
suits, and you can take your winners. In
fact, you can even play for an overtrick
by testing diamonds.
Some might think that diamonds
should be played first to see if they are
2-2, but this isn't right, because you
aren't sure how hearts are splitting yet.
If hearts split 4-4, you would be giving
the opponents access to the setting
trick in diamonds if the suit is 3-1. You
could lose three hearts, a diamond and
a spade. Secure your contract first,
then go for overtricks.

Rule of 11 and third-hand high

let's use the Rule of 11 to get an idea of
what declarer might hold. Partner led
the 7. The Rule of 11 says to subtract
the rank of the opening lead (assuming it's fourth best) from 11. Given that
11 - 7 = 4, that means that dummy,
your hand and declarer's hand have a
combined total of four cards that are
higher than the 7. Dummy does not
have a heart higher than the 7, and you
have three . That means declarer has
one card higher than the 7. If it isn't
the king, it won't matter if you play
the ace or the queen. If it is the king,
your decision on which card to play
might be very important. If you have
never heard the expression, "Second
hand low and third hand high," you
haven't been playing bridge very long.
Traditionally, third hand plays high to
promote the suit partner led. If you use
third hand high as your guideline, then
you would play the ace.
Now, I will show you the exception
to the third-hand-high rule. When you
hold A-Q-x in the suit partner leads,
play the queen instead of the ace. Why?
If you play the queen, which defender
will declarer think has the ace? Declarer will assume that the opening
leader has the ace, and if so, declarer
can't afford to duck the trick. If you get
on lead with the ♠Q, declarer will lose
four heart tricks, and the contract will
be defeated.
Isn't it nice when one hand can produce so many discussion points!
◾

Defending the same hand illustrated
above, partner leads the ♥7, and you
(East) hold:

This year's ABTA Teachers
Conference will be held July 16-19
in Las Vegas. Visit abtahome.com.

♠Q 5 2 ♥A Q 9 ♦10 7 ♣J 6 5 3 2.
Before you decide what card to play,

http://www.abtahome.com

May 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of May 2019