One chance may conceal another (Le Bridgeur Magazine n°883 – May 2014)

Article written by Jérôme Rombaut and published in the French magazine Le Bridgeur n° 883 on 15 May 2014.

A timely preempt can take you away from the optimal contract. Don’t give up! Show better technique and be twice as optimistic instead.

The selection process to join France Team has just ended. Funbridge and I would like to wish good luck to all our representatives! Here is a deal from the final phase of the selection process. I am sitting in North opposite Cédric Lorenzini (South) vs Marc Bompis (East) and Jean-Christophe Quantin (West).

A J   A K 4 2  Q 6 4 2  A Q 7

Q 8 4 2  J 8 6 5  8  10 8 6 3

After two passes, Quantin in West opens  and I bid .

Contract:  played by North.

Marc leads diamond king and continues with diamonds (Jean-Christophe thus opened with only six diamond cards. I am only half-surprised since he is in third seat at favourable vulnerability). Jean-Christophe takes the second round of diamonds with the ace and draws a third round of diamonds.

First, I have to discard twice from dummy. I discard a club, then a spade and I notice that Marc discards the spade 3, probably from five cards.

I try to set up my hearts, starting by playing the ace, then the king, and what a good surprise to see that the queen is second in the hand of the one who made the preemptive opening. I return to hearts to finesse in spades and then, West follows with the 10 that I cover with my jack, thus taking the trick. What to do next?

I most likely visualise  K10  Qx  AJ109xx  ??? in West. In that case, I will take 9 tricks by playing the spade ace and then communicating in hearts to cash my spade queen. But if ever both players have produced wrong cards and the spade king is third, I can create a potential club trick by finding the jack-second in West. For both chances to add up (i.e. spade king-second or club jack-second), I produce the club queen and when East plays spades and the king doesn’t drop, I play the club ace and I’m glad to find the jack in Jean-Christophe’s hand.

Nine well-deserved tricks! At the other tables, contracts were much different as +1, +2 and +1 were played.

It must be said that the  opening by Jean-Christophe was quite atypical. He had a nice suit, certainly, but also many points and a balanced hand. As it was deal no.2 of the match, I assume that the aim was to test us out and try to put pressure on us by raising the bidding level.

A J  A K 4 2  Q 6 4 2  A Q 7

K 10 9  Q 9  A J 10 9 7 5   J 9

7 6 5 3  10 7 3   K 3  K 5 4 2

Q 8 4 2  J 8 6 5  8  10 8 6 3