Sanjoy Bhattacharyya On Bridge: Sniffing Out A Lead
In some respects, a good bridge player resembles a top notch detective. Quite often you are on lead and the only guidepost in giving your side the initial advantage is the auction. The importance of the opening lead and the thought process leading to greater skill in this area is often not given the emphasis it deserves. Here is a hand where I fell short playing in the eighth round of the Swiss League (Team event) at the recently concluded National Masters in New Delhi.
As dealer, vulnerable versus opponents who are not, you find yourself looking at ♠10 ♥Q10973♦AK95 ♣Q106. You opt to make a mildly aggressive 1♥ opening and partner bids 1NT after LHO passes. Up against one of India’s best and most experienced partnerships (Pritish Kushari and Badal Das) it is vital to concentrate even harder than usual! RHO (Kushari) doubles for take-out, you have an easy pass and Badal bids 2♠. Partner (SK Iyengar) puts the green card fairly quickly and after considerable thought RHO bids 2NT which is not alerted. After 3 passes, you find yourself on lead, wondering what 2NT could possibly mean? Quite obviously, declarer has a monster of a hand (at least 18 HCP) with the hearts very well guarded. Opponents must have at minimum a 9 card spade fit since partner failed to respond 1♠. So, 2NT is clearly a game try in spades! A minor suit lead is called for but which card will give you the best chance at beating the contract? I chose to lead ♦5, hoping partner held the Queen giving us a chance of collecting 4 diamond tricks. Mistake.
The sight of dummy confirms your misgivings about having got off to a bad start. Dummy comes down with ♠Q754♥652♦J1073 ♣J7. Declarer wins ♦Q in hand and plays ♠J knocking out partner’s Ace. Now 8 tricks roll home in comfort – 4 spades, 2 hearts and a trick in each of the minor suits. The full hand was:
Combine Your Chances
Follow the play after the lead of a top diamond honor and a switch to the ten of clubs. The defense is now assured of 5 club tricks, the 2 top diamonds and ♠A – 8 tricks (3 down). Apart from the fact that it was not a particularly difficult hand, the post mortem suggests that the 2♠ contract was par for opponents. An opening club lead permits the defense to collect 2 top diamonds, a diamond ruff, a club and the trump Ace. As an aside, EW can score 10 tricks in clubs as the cards lie with careful play but it is virtually impossible to land in the perfect spot!
Hence in order to achieve the best result possible, they must defend (lead!) out of their skin.
The second round provided another example of the importance of the opening lead. Sitting North, R Sreekrishnan, an accomplished player and former partner, heard West open 2NT. The rest of the auction is given below –
The Bidder’s Game
What should you lead holding ♠J96♥1076♦K10654♣95? After fidgeting uncomfortably and a weary shrug of the shoulders, he chose ♣9. This was the full layout:
Odds And Ends
4NT seems tempting with 12 HCP but is a trifle ambitious apart from being hasty. In addition, it is not clear whether the bid is RKC with a spade slam as the final destination or Quantitative. 6NT is a shot in the dark! A diamond lead spells doom for any slam contract and funnily enough we won the match on the strength of this board.
The lesson in this specific instance, and generally true, is to always lead a suit with positive intent/interest.
Try your luck on the bidding with this hand from the fifth round. Early in the session, with only opponents vulnerable, LHO deals and I pick up - ♠AJ85♥A3♦J942♣A72. I have barely arranged my cards before the bidding tray appears. Leftie starts with 1♦ playing SAYC and partner overcalls 2♣. The best option is a sound raise of clubs by bidding 2♦ though the thought of leaping to 3NT crosses my mind. Partner makes a lightning quick jump to 4♥ on hearing 2♦. What should you be bidding next?
Partner most likely has longer clubs than hearts since he chose not to bid the Unusual 2NT at his first opportunity.
If he has a 6-5 distribution in the bid suits, slam is likely as long the 2 remaining cards are not diamonds. Should you bid 4♠ to convey the Ace and slam interest? While the bid might appear superficially attractive, the risk is that partner signs off in 5♣ with a hand devoid of a single Ace unaware that you hold the top card in each of his bid suits. The dilemma of bidding the slam will just have been transferred to your next bid unless partner pulls out a 4NT bid. Better to be imaginative, hope that partner was not dealt 2 little diamonds and bid 6♣ immediately. Not much to the play considering partner held ♠7♥KQJ95♦7♣KQ10986.
Finally, a peek at what must surely be a contender for the most creatively bid slam of 2018. Sitting South, you hear RHO open the bidding 1NT and find yourself looking at ♠A75432♥AKQJ4♦Q♣Q! B Prabhakar, fresh from a scintillating performance at the Rosenblum earlier in the year, where they beat the DIAMOND (former World Champions) team to earn a place in the Quarter-finals, bid 2♣ – both majors. His long-time partner, R Krishnan (Kista), a prodigious talent in his own right chose to bid 4♥. What do you think Prabhakar bid next knowing that his partner cannot hold more than 7 high card points (15 with opener at minimum!)? For the slam to be on, Kista needs to either hold a singleton spade or Kx. If he has Kxx, then the suit needs to break evenly to avoid a spade loser. Apart from this, Kista also needs to show up with a minor suit Ace which prima facie is a pretty tall order. 99 percent of players would pass unhappily, but Prabhakar chose to move ahead with 4NT and found that his partner held a minor suit Ace.
Not great odds, but having got this far Prabhakar chose to trust his intuition and bid 6♥ which turned out to be child’s play when dummy appeared – ♠Q1086♥109863♦-♣A872. The reasoning may have been a trifle off-centre but a wonderful result! The full hand was:
Bridge At The Top
I wonder what meaning an expert partnership would ascribe to a 4♦ bid over 2 Clubs (Landy)? As a wag put it, “the time to work on a problem is after you’ve solved it”.
Sanjoy Bhattacharyya is Managing Partner at Fortuna Capital and an avid bridge player.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BloombergQuint or its editorial team.