{"id":48833,"date":"2022-08-22T17:26:05","date_gmt":"2022-08-22T15:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funbridge.com\/blog\/?p=48833"},"modified":"2022-08-23T10:31:13","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T08:31:13","slug":"x-rays-by-norbert-lebely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funbridge.com\/blog\/en\/x-rays-by-norbert-lebely\/","title":{"rendered":"“X-Rays” by Norbert L\u00e9bely"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In partnership with Bridgerama+ magazine, Funbridge is pleased to offer you free access to an article from the February issue. Take advantage of it! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Teams dealer south -N\/S Vulnerables <\/strong>
Sitting South, you open your balanced 15-count with 1NT:<\/p>\n\n\n

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West leads the 4 of Spades\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n

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Contract: 6 No-trump
Lead: ♠4. East wins with the Ace and plays
back the 7 of Hearts.
Holding 17HCP and a five-card Diamond
suit, your partner counted an additional
point for length and jumped directly to
6NT (18 + 15 = 33).
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What is the classic way to lead against 6 or 7 No-trump?<\/strong>
Against a slam that was bid “by weight”, the best is to lead from the longest suit without an honor, giving standard count (third and fifth) because one must strive not to waste the few useful values that the defense may possess.
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How many tricks do you need?<\/strong>
You start with ten tricks: the Diamond Ace, four Hearts, three Clubs and two Spades and the only suit that could provide you with the two missing tricks is Diamonds:
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What is the problem that you are facing?<\/strong>
You are missing KJ87 in Diamonds and it will be very difficult not to lose any trick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there a distribution of the missing Diamonds that would be helpful for your project?<\/strong>
Yes. There are even two:
\u2022 The stiff Jack at your right. If that’s the case, you have to let the Queen run in order to \u201ccrush\u201d it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 The stiff King to your left. Here, you’d have to play the 3 and then cover the King with the Ace. Next, you can then let the 10
run for a \u201cforcing\u201d finesse against Jack third in East’s hand:<\/p>\n\n\n

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How can you make a judicious choice between the two ways of tackling the suit?<\/strong>
Since it is obviously not a question of flipping a coin, you have to carefully count the distributions of the hidden hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


How will you proceed?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To simplify your task, you\u2019ll only reconstruct the distribution of a single defender, the one already better known to you. Here this is West, who had to decide on the opening lead. First, you’ll cash the three suits without a problem, that is Spades, Clubs and Hearts, and carefully watch the discards, so in the end you’ll know his number of Diamonds.
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There you go\u2026<\/strong>
East discards a Club on the third round of Spades and you have the confirmation that West started with five. West throws a Spade on the third round of Clubs and the fourth round of Hearts. He therefore originally held two Clubs and three Hearts, which makes it now possible to deduce that he had a 5-3-3-2 and therefore three Diamonds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this in mind, what will you do?<\/strong>
You put the Diamond Queen on the table and when West covers with the King and East follows with the Jack, a huge sigh of
relief escapes your chest \u2012 you now have twelve tricks.
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Where you right to play Clubs (the King, then Ace-Queen) before the last Heart from dummy?<\/strong>
Yes, of course. This allowed you to be in your hand and to play the Diamond Queen, protecting against King-third.
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Last question: if you had discovered that West had five Spades, four Hearts and three Clubs, what would be your reaction?<\/strong>
You would have played a small Diamond, hoping for his singleton to be the King (♠87654 ♥6543 ♦K ♣962).<\/p>\n\n\n

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The principle <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At bridge, correctly playing suit combinations is the cornerstone of declarer play because it allows you to optimize all the crucial plays that you have to execute. Faced with a choice between several possible ways of tackling a suit, as you were on the occasion of this deal, sometimes it\u2019s counting the suit distribution, sometimes it’s counting the points that will put you on the right track.
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