April 2020 - 55

Newer Players

Lessons Learned
BY MICHAEL BERKOWITZ

michael@larryco.com

Counting
My parents had to put up with a lot
on car trips. My sister and I found ways
to entertain ourselves that ranged from
silly to educational to combative. They
were all loud. The educational games
were the ones that eventually broke my
parents.
As the elder child, my sister - two
years older than me - knew everything (and still does). She liked to test
me on my schoolwork, but she would
get frustrated by my slow responses.
If she asked, "What's ten plus six?" I
would start counting, "One ... two ...
three" and get to 10, then count six
more. She hated when I got them right,
though, so after ten plus six and five
plus seven, next came, "What's 70 plus
64?" I started, "One ..." and my parents
shouted simultaneously "NO!"
When I started playing bridge, I was
mystified by the ability of experts to
count every single card. My dad gave
me the same advice, "You don't have to
count every card. You can know where
they are to start."
North (Dummy)
Dlr: West ♠ K 6
Vul: None ♥ K J 8 5
♦K75
♣K953
East (You)
♠A5432
♥76
♦AJ4
♣A62

As East, you listen to the opponents
have an uncontested auction:
West

North

East

Pass
Pass

2♣
4♥

Pass
All Pass

South
1♠
2♥

Partner leads the ♦10, and dummy
plays low.
This is the time to make a plan as a
defender. When declaring, our plan
starts by counting either winners (in
notrump) or losers (in a suit contract).
As a defender, we start by counting the
points. We have 13, and dummy has 13.
Declarer opened so presumably they
have at least 12 (although we know
they might have opened with 10 or 11).
That doesn't leave much for partner. In
fact, we know partner can't have much
more than 2 points.
Next we can look at shape. The opponents are probably in a 4-4 trump
fit. Declarer bid hearts second, after
all, although declarer could be 5-5 or
6-4. But let's assume declarer is 5-4 in
the majors, meaning partner has three
hearts. Declarer also opened 1♠. That
means that with our five and dummy's
two, partner has at most one spade.
With three or four cards in the majors,
partner must have a lot of clubs and
diamonds.
Without this information, our right
action is to play low at trick one. Once
we have all this information, however,
we should rethink our plan.

If the 10 wins (partner would lead the
10 from Q-10-9-8 as the top of an interior sequence), partner could continue
diamonds, but it is a distinct possibility
that declarer can ruff the next one. In
that case, declarer will draw trumps
and play on spades, losing just the three
aces. If the 10 loses, it could similarly
be to a singleton queen, which could be
catastrophic for our side. In that case,
we take only two aces.
Instead, we should win this trick
with the ace. Next, we should play the
♠A and give partner a spade ruff with
the ♠2. That is, we should do that if
we trust partner to read our 2 as a suit
preference signal for clubs. If partner
doesn't always pay attention to our
cards (bad partner!), we might cash
the ♣A before playing the ♠A and a
spade. This will eliminate any chance
of partner guessing wrong. This might
lose a trick, however, if declarer was
originally void in clubs.
The full deal:
♠K6
♥KJ85
♦K75
♣K953

♠-
♠A5432
♥932
♥76
♦ 10 9 8 6 3 2
♦AJ4
♣ 10 8 7 4
♣A62
♠ Q J 10 9 8 7
♥ A Q 10 4
♦Q
♣QJ
◾
April 2020 Bridge Bulletin

55
April 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of April 2020
