Well worth a 100%…

Who said that only grand champions could write bridge articles? A few months ago, Funbridge launched a brand-new format of articles that allow talented players to share their expertise on the deals that inspire them the most. We have the pleasure of presenting you with a captivating article below that was written by one of the members of our community.

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Well worth a 100%…

Today I present you a deal from a daily tournament scored by MPs. This deal could earn you the supreme score of an absolute top – 100% – out of 4,850 players, purely due to your skills, without the lucky advantage of an exotic contract that happens to succeed.

For my part, I scored 96%, but I realised during the play that I might have missed out on the Holy Grail which would be 4% more.

But enough introduction, let’s get to the heart of the matter. Here is our South hand:

I decided to balance with a natural 2 Hearts bid, hoping for support in North’s hand. To that, North responded 2NT, showing a strong hand. So, I described my hand by saying 3 Clubs, and North jumped to 4 Hearts.

Now I was hoping that I was not too high and that, playing in MPs, I wouldn’t get doubled while vulnerable. But this was not the case. Here is what I could see after the opening lead of the King of Spades:

What are the prospects?

We had a combined strength of 25 points. In other words, West, who opened 1NT, had all the remaining points, including the Queen of Diamonds, which was therefore offside.

Taking South’s hand as the base hand, I started with four losers (Ace of Hearts, two Clubs and a Diamond).

Making 4 by ruffing a Diamond should already give a correct score for playing in and making a game contract after the opponents opened 1NT. But I could do better…

Could I also ruff a Club? This seemed difficult, since Argine only needed to play two rounds of Hearts after I played Ace-King of Clubs and a Club. Then only one ruff would be possible. What was the solution?

A dummy reversal! The conditions seemed to be met. I needed to take the North hand as the base hand, set up the spade suit by ruffing, and lose only one Club.

After immediately ruffing a Spade, I checked that I had enough entries. And I did.

There were indeed three entries with the two minor-suit Kings and a trump (Argine would remove one by playing back a trump after winning the Ace of Hearts). I hoped for trumps to break 3-2, a reasonable condition in a MP tournament.

Here we go. Ace of Spades, spade ruff, a trump won by East with the Ace and a trump return, spade ruff, King of Clubs, spade ruff, King of Diamonds, King of Hearts to draw the last outstanding trump… I therefore lost only one Club and the Ace of Hearts for a score of 96%. 

I was satisfied with the outcome. And yet… I realised at the end of the play that I may have missed a trick that I could get by squeezing West if, in addition to the Queen of Diamonds, he also had four cards in Clubs. I checked, and damn it, that was the layout.

Let’s start over!

This is the end position I want to get to:

At this point, in North, after having drawn the last trump, I can play the 10 of Spades, discarding the 7 from South, and West would be squeezed because he couldn’t keep both a Club and his doubleton Queen of Diamonds.

But timing is everything, and there is an extra precaution to think about. Do you see which one? When you look at the following position, which is the key play that you need to make after ruffing your third Spade?

You need to cash the Ace of Clubs! In fact, it is necessary at this stage, before ruffing the last Spade, to cross to dummy with the King of Clubs and not the King of Diamonds. This is because when we ruff the fourth round of Spades, East can discard a Club and he still has a trump in hand. It would then be too late to unblock the Ace of Clubs because he can ruff it. Thus, the end position after drawing the last trump would be this:

As you can see, there is no more squeeze possible because when you play the master Spade and discard the 7 of Clubs, the Ace of Clubs would be in the way.

It is therefore necessary to play the Ace of Clubs before crossing to the King of Clubs (Vienna coup in anticipation).

As a result, when you ruff the last Spade, East would discard a Diamond, which presents no danger. That way, you get to your desired end position for a well-deserved squeeze and an extra 4%…

Reaching a game contract and taking twelve tricks after a 1NT opening by your opponents, making a plan for the play requiring a dummy reversal, careful timing and a squeeze including a Vienna coup in anticipation was well worth 100%. Wasn’t it? 😉

The full deal: :

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