Sanjoy Bhattacharyya On Bridge: Simple, But Not Easy

Hyderabad is the venue for a number of quality events on the Indian bridge calendar, of which the Jubilee Hills event is my personal favourite. After qualifying with some comfort and cruising in the pre-quarterfinals of the Teams we find ourselves up against the heft of Anil Padhye, Raju Tolani, Sunil Machhar, Vinay Desai, K Srinivas and Arun Bapat – all multiple National Champions – in the quarter-finals..After a few uneventful deals and both sides vulnerable, you find yourself holding ♠7 ♥K102 ♦J73 ♣Q109864. RHO as the dealer opens 1♥ and is enthusiastically raised to game by LHO. Partner is quick to bid 4♠ which causes the dealer to go into a slight huddle before bidding 5♥. Declarer wins your spade lead with the Ace, partner putting up the ten. Declarer plays the trump Ace at the second trick felling partner’s jack and continues with a trump. You win with the King and note partner’s discouraging discard of a club. Looking at dummy ♠82 ♥Q843 ♦K98642 ♣5, what thoughts cross your mind? If declarer has both minor suit aces, the defence is helpless. Your only hope of getting a spade ruff is finding partner with an ace. The play of the spade 10 at the first trick provides a useful clue. Just to make it abundantly clear, you table the ♦J. Declarer lets out a small shriek of disgust when you over-ruff the spade Queen! Can you spot how declarer could have adopted a superior line? Holding ♠A ♥A9765 ♦Q105 ♣AKJ7 he needs to judge the likelihood of his RHO holding a singleton club as opposed to the prospect of a singleton spade being led given the aggressive auction..With a couple of swings in our favour in the second stanza, we find ourselves in the Semi-Finals. In the first session, we face the seasoned partnership of VM Lal and Raju Bhiwandkar. With neither side vulnerable, LHO deals and I pick up ♠J1063 ♥A6 ♦A932 ♣Q85. After a quick pass from the dealer, my partner R Sreekrishnan, a fine card player with a penchant for bold bids opens 1♥. VM Lal overcalls 1♠ and a 1NT bid on my cards is fairly easy. After two passes, RHO bids a second time - 2♦, leaving me with an awkward decision. 2♥ though a trifle conservative may well be our best spot if partner has a minimum with a sturdy suit. Double is an option that might convey my above average values for the initial bid with 4 good diamonds. 2NT is slightly nebulous in terms of describing shape but has the advantage of making a mild game try. Sreekrishnan’s 3♣ response is a bit of a surprise since the dealer is marked with a club stack, but enough encouragement to push ahead to 3NT. VM Lal gives me an avuncular smile, gazes once more at his cards and eventually picks a green card from the bidding box.. Having escaped the double, I realise that it is bound to be touch and go and the hand will require my undivided attention..Raju Bhiwandkar, who has a great “nose” at the table, promptly leads ♦6 and I thank partner for the dummy that comes down:.6 tricks are available off the top. The heart suit will always provide at least one more provided there are entries to dummy.. The risk is that the defense may arrive at 3 spades and a trick in each minor suit before I can get home..There is also the minor challenge of preserving communications to manouevre 3 club tricks in case no spade trick is on offer! Why did West choose to lead a ♦ rather than the first suit bid by his partner, ♠s? Could it be that East is 6-5 in ♠s & ♦s? With all these thoughts swirling in my mind and aware of the need to destroy defensive communication links, I table the ♦K and lead a low spade from the table at trick 2. East wins ♠A with all following suit and the ♦Q appears in a flash. After winning the ♦A and noting the play of the 5 by West, I realize the need to isolate the defensive winners in the East hand. I persevere with the ♠J from hand and feel elated to see a low club appearing from West. All that remains is to find the ♣K with West since 9 tricks (4 hearts, 3 diamonds and a trick in each black suit) are in the bag if East cashes ♠AKQ and a diamond! Even if West opts to win diamond 10 and switch to a heart which is the best defense, life should be relatively simple. It seems my luck is in when Lal puts down ♥J without playing a third diamond. All that needs to be done is to throw West in with the fifth heart and collect 3 club tricks. For the sake of completeness, East held ♠AKQ984 ♥J ♦Q10874 ♣3..Most competent rubber bridge players are familiar with the Roman Key Card (RKC) Blackwood convention which asks a partner to convey the number of Aces he holds with the trump King being treated as the fifth Ace. This is a useful gadget to ensure that slams are not bid with “Aces” missing! However, it fails to deal with the presence of a side suit void in the responder’s hand. Playing rubber bridge for moderately high stakes, with both sides vulnerable, I hear partner open 1♣ as the dealer. Right-hand opponent passes quickly and I find myself looking at ♠KQ8764 ♥AKJ3 ♦ - ♣A54..Without a second thought, I bid 1♠ and hear partner rebid 2♣ after a pass from LHO. Another pass from RHO leaves me wondering about the best way forward. Partner is highly likely to hold 6 clubs and 12-14 high card points. There should be a slam in the offing unless opener has significant wasted values in diamonds. The method to discover whether partner has the right cards to bid slam outside his high card strength in diamonds is an extension of RKC aptly named Exclusion Key Card Blackwood. A double jump bid in the suit you wish to exclude - 4♦ - requests partner to communicate the number of “Key Cards” in his possession leaving aside diamonds. Opener now bids 5♣ clarifying that he holds 2 key cards and the trump queen. Knowing with certainty that these are ♣KQ and ♠A, you make the glorious leap to 7♣ and focus on counting how much the grand slam is worth! The 10 of hearts is led and partner immediately tables his cards after drawing two rounds of trumps with both opponents following suit, to claim 13 tricks. The full hand appears below:.Warren Buffett famously said that achieving investment greatness is “simple, but not easy”. Much the same can be said about bridge..Sanjoy Bhattacharyya is Managing Partner at Fortuna Capital and an avid bridge player..The views expressed here are those of the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of BloombergQuint or its editorial team.

Sanjoy Bhattacharyya On Bridge: Simple, But Not Easy

Buffett said achieving investment greatness is “simple, but not easy”. The same can be said about bridge.

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