In the news this week the announcement that the Dutch team got a new coach, Ton Bakkeren (picture from the NBB):
The article says that this is remarkable, as he has no prior experience in the job. I don’t think that this 100% correct, if memory serves me right, he was the coach for Bertens and Nab in the late 1990’s until the pair split up after the 2000 olympiad, but IMP has a point. Can you imagine any other sport where the world championship team is being coached by somebody with (almost) no experience in coaching? In the meantime, I’m wondering if Ton will focus on bidding or play, considering this hand
I played against him a couple of months ago.
The 2♣ bid showed a weak 2 in diamonds or a variety of strong hands. 2NT asked. 3♣ showed a minimum weak 2♦. 4NT was intended as key-card blackwood but taken as quantitative. Considering that he had shown a minimum, north now has a nice hand and accepted. South corrected to what looked like a better contract. Now play the contract on the lead of a small club.
For the contract to make, the diamond must split with the ♦K in east. Tricks must come from the spade suit, which requires that one to break 3-2 as well. But, the spade suit can only be set up by ruffing them. That forces declarer to play 3 rounds of hearts, discarding a spade, before trumps are drawn.
Now it is time to combine all this: win the ♣A pitching a heart, play 3 hearts discarding the ♠6 followed by the ♠A. Then ruff a spade. Now run the ♦J and continue with the ♦10 to the ♦Q. Now ruff a 3rd spade, play a diamond to draw the remaining trump. If it all worked according to plan, you can now claim.
In practice it all did, east held the hand on the right.
Good for a 14 imp gain as the usual contract was 4♠ making 11 or 12 tricks. Ton, as a coach, don’t teach the team to bid like that!
In the meantime, it is almost Easter. Time for easter eggs. As we all know, one should be careful when walking around with a basket of eggs, as they tend to break easily. The same applies to some bridge contracts too. Take this hand from the easter game at the club yesterday. There is an incentive to do well as the winner will get a box of chocolate eggs.
You are in 4♠ after a 1♦ opener from partner, 2♣ from east and a (forcing) 2♠ from you. No further bidding and you end up in 4♠. West leads a small club, most likely 3rd best. East wins with the ♣Q and continues with the ♣K. West follows suit with a higher club, confirming that he started with 3. Plan the play.
Hint: when EW regain the lead, they will play a 3rd round of clubs.
If trumps split, then this is easy. Draw trumps, give up a diamond, ruff the club return and claim 11 tricks. But what if the spades split 4-2. You were already forced to ruff in trick 2, so you are down to 4 trumps. If you draw 4 rounds of trumps, the opponents can cash their clubs when they gain the lead with the ♦A. If you draw only 3 rounds (or 2, for that matter), then concede a diamond trick, the opponents can force you out of your last trump by playing more clubs.
There is a solution to this: give up the diamond trick straight away. Then, when the opponents continue with clubs, discard a heart on the third round and ruff the 4th round of clubs with the ace. Now you draw trumps with the ♠KQJT and claim. You’ll give up an overtrick if the trumps broke 3-3 but you make the contract whenever they are 4-2.
The full hand was this:
With careful play, you would have scored 10 tricks. This proved to be too complicated for most of the field though as nobody found the route to 10 tricks in a spade contract. We defended a 3♦ partial, declarer quickly wrapping up 11 tricks, for unexpectedly bad score.
Note that there are some variations on this line of play possible, but they all come down to the same thing. And, for one of the biggest fans of this blog, note how convenient it is to play 2♠ as forcing in this auction. It allows you show spades and then support diamonds, which is exactly what you want to do.
Final note: just when I was about to press the “publish” button on this blog, I received a mail that Hans Kreijns passed away last night. Kreijns was by far the best known player in the country and was one of the 13 players in the country who won an open world championship. For more details, click here.