One last Junior Pairs with Anaïs
On October 24 and 25, I headed to the French Bridge Federation in Paris for the U31 Junior Pairs. A total of 37 pairs from all over France came together for two days of competition.
This year, I was playing with Anaïs, my partner on the French Women’s team, and this tournament felt a little special: it was her last season in junior competitions, as she turns 30 in December 👵🏻
3NT -3: the perfect defense
I was South on this deal. I made a preemptive overcall of 2♥ over the opening bid of 1♦, and West eventually signed off in 3NT, which is why my partner led the 5 of Hearts.
I take my Ace and see the 7 appear on my left: I now know that declarer still holds King-Queen in the suit.
Since I know Hearts are going nowhere, I try to find my partner in Spades by switching to a high Spade (we play low promises an honor, so if I play the 4, my partner will expect me to hold a Spade honor).
The 10 appears on my left, my partner wins with the Queen and then cashes the Ace. I unblock my second high Spade so as not to block the suit, allowing her to cash all six cards.
A pretty good reason to play low promises an honor, since the 4 would have completely blocked the suit!
A Merrimac Coup!
I am declarer in 3NT from South, on the 3 of Hearts lead. East plays the Ace at trick one and returns a Heart, which lets me establish my Clubs while keeping the Ace of Spades in dummy as an entry to them after East ducks twice in Clubs.
But can you spot a nastier defense?
From East’s point of view: we hold the third-round Ace of Clubs, which allows us to duck the suit twice and cut declarer’s communications. But that Ace of Spades will still let declarer reach the established Clubs… ah! 💡
We need to force declarer to use the Ace of Spades before playing Clubs! After the Ace of Hearts, we therefore switch to the King of Spades to force me to use dummy’s Ace.
If I duck, East can play another Spade. I will then make only two Spades, two Hearts, two Clubs and one Diamond, for a result of -2, whereas at the table I was able to make the contract comfortably.
That is a nice Merrimac Coup (sacrificing a trick to knock out an opponent’s entry) that we got to see this weekend at the Junior Pairs!
Can you make 6♦ !
You will be able to see my bidding and card play after you have played the deal.
A neat bluff
This time, Élise Nugues, European champion in the Girls category and my partner on the French Junior team this year, takes us through one of the weekend’s deals.
With the opponents in an auction that was clearly heading toward a slam, I thought that if I made a passive lead, there was a good chance they would have time to discard their immediate losers.
Dummy had shown a Diamond control, so I knew they very likely had a singleton or even a void.
Declarer had denied a Heart control, so they had neither a singleton nor the King in the suit. I thought that if dummy held K-J in Hearts, declarer would quite naturally play the Jack.
If dummy held only the King, however, declarer would very likely not play it, since the Ace was almost certainly with my partner.
I therefore chose to deceive declarer by leading the 8 of Hearts from under my Ace. When dummy came down with only the King, declarer did not play it, allowing my partner to win with the Queen.
She then returned a Heart: she knew declarer did not have the Ace, so she worked out that I had it. I then cashed my Ace of Diamonds.
The opponents eventually made 4♠ exactly, which gave us a top, as we were the only pair in the room to take three tricks.
The results ✨
We got off to a great start by winning the first session. We were a little less consistent after that and eventually finished 5th overall.
The title went to Romaric Guth and Nao Tabata, ahead of Théo Guillemin and Pierre Bedouet, while Maxence Fragola-Jarjaille and his younger brother Clément completed the podium.
One last deal, told by Romaric, 2026 French U31 champion!
2♣ shows a 5-5 in the red suits.It is not always recommended to make a splinter with a singleton Ace, but here the King of Hearts would not do much for me. I would rather partner downgrade it. Conversely, the King of Diamonds is a very good card.
Across the table, partner has three top cards and no wasted values in Hearts. Nao therefore used Blackwood, then asked for the trump Queen, which was necessary to bid the small slam. In response to the trump-Queen ask, 5♠ would deny it, while a new suit confirms the Queen and also shows the King of the suit bid.
Nao was right to pass 6♣, because if Spades are 4-1, it is the only making slam: you then need to finesse the Jack of Diamonds so you can discard and then ruff a Spade.
At matchpoints, it is obviously less clear-cut, because 6♣ scores less. But we already know we should get a very good board for playing a thin slam with fewer than 30 HCP. And after a two-suited bid, the risk of a bad break is also higher.
Top 10 👑
Did you enjoy the deals in this article?
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