WHEN EXPERTS MEET
by Aleksander Wagner
It's a rare pleasure to play bridge with three players you can really trust, players you consider your true equals and treat them as such, despite your overgrown ego which you must have in order to succeed on the top level of the game. The first two hands occurred quite a long time ago in a rubber bridge I played with three members of our national team, the third one in a big tournament with high prizes against one of our very top pairs.
Deal no. 1:
Q1092 N E S W
A1043 ---------------------------
32 1C 1H 1S p
AQ9 2S p 4S p
J874 6 p p
K92 N QJ875
965 W E AK4
J82 S K1074
AK53
6
QJ1087
653
The opening lead was heart. I counted two losers in diamonds and two possible losers in clubs, unless I could establish the diamond suit. Of course I knew East had most of the outstanding strength to justify his bid.
I won the first trick with the Ace in the dummy and played a diamond to the East's King. A heart was continued, ruffed in my hand. Another high diamond forced East's Ace. Again East attacked with a heart which I had to ruff.
I knew that the most logical line of defence was playing trumps as many times as possible, so I began to wonder why East had never led a trump. The only reason I could think of was that he has't got any trumps, or at most one and didn't want to disclose it to me by playing only one round of spades. If my reasoning was right, West held at least four trumps.
The rest was easy: I played the spade Ace, both opponents following. On a high diamond I discarded the club 9 from the dummy, and played another diamond which West ruffed and I over-ruffed in the dummy. Now I ruffed a heart with the spade King, led a club to the Ace and threw East in with the club Queen. In dummy I still had the spade Q10 which had to win.
Would I have played the same way against a lesser player? I wonder...
Deal no. 2:
AKQ6 S W N E
74 ---------------------------
K2 p p 1C p
A10862 1D p 1S p
873 J1092 3D p 3H p
KQ1096 N 852 3NT p p x
J943 W E A p p p
5 S QJ974
54
AJ3
Q108765
K3
The bidding was natural, 3H showed enough points for 3NT and asked for a stopper in hearts. If East decided to double, and I took his double very seriously, he must have had a good reason for it. Obviously enough he didn't expect us to have less than 26 combined points nor did he have a long suit with five quick tricks, so the only reason I could think of was an extremely adverse distribution in all four suits, probably long spades and clubs and short diamonds. I trusted his experience and judgement, and I decided to play accordingly.
West led the heart King and I let him win the trick. I took his club 5 with the Ace in dummy in order to play the diamond 2, counting on singleton Ace or Jack in East hand. East took the Ace and played a heart . I took with the Ace and counting eight tricks, decided to end-play West for the missing trick. After drawing the diamond King and the three top spades from the dummy, I entered my hand with the club King (West had to keep all his diamonds so he discarded a heart). Now I threw him in with the heart Jack which I'd kept solely for this purpose, and he had to bring me two diamond tricks.
And again, would I have played the same way against a player I didn't respect so much?
Another thought: would East have doubled me, had he considered me his equal?
Deal no. 3:
Quite recently, pairs, high prizes, the last round and we were playing against current leaders. They reached 6S with the following hands:
K32 AJ986
K54 N A
J6 W E KQ
AKQJ2 S 109876
I (South) led the club 5, my partner played the 3, the declarer (East) took the trick in his hand and played his lowest spade on which I put the Queen. Let's follow our declerer's thoughts which isn't too difficult since in this deal East did all his thinking aloud:
He couldn't draw the Ace of spades and if the ten didn't drop enter the dummy and finesse it since his only entry was in clubs and the first trick suggested North had singleton club. Which meant he had to make his decision now.
He was painfully aware that I could have played Q from Q10, but there was some doubt in his mind whether after all the years he never saw me play, I was still capable of doing so and doing so with such a lightning speed. So, after some deliberation, he assumed my Queen was singleton, made the finesse and my spade 10 took the trick. Down two, absolute top, but they won the tournament anyway.
Let's take a closer look at this position: if in the second trick I'd played the spade 10 instead of Queen, he would have had no other choice but play the Ace in the next trick! Why? Because of the club situation he had no entry to dummy in order to finesse twice and that's what he had to do in order to catch Qxxx in North hand.
All this wouldn't have happened had we played 6NT, or IMPs when all sane players but the greedy ones would have reached 6C and they would have had enough club entries to dummy, but then I wouldn't have even considered playing Queen from Q10...
