“Look before you leap”
is first known to appear
in this 14th century manuscript
(Ms. Douce) now housed
in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
This very old proverb or adage (it is not an idiom) stems from Aesop's Fables (around 620) where the fox could not climb out of the well, so persuades the goat to jump in. It's modern meaning is that you should consider the consequences before acting. Keen students of Middle English will be able to read the above!
Nowhere is this more relevant than at trick one in bridge, even if one seems to have the most natural action in the world. As in the following hand from last night's British Summer Sims Pairs.
The auction was a good one, and only four of the eleven NS pairs reached slam, and making it scores 70% in any case. But the overtrick is not to be sneezed at, especially online in these Covid times. East led the queen of clubs and Ken Barnett won, far too quickly, with the ace in dummy. If the hearts are 2-2 you have six hearts, two spades, one diamond, two clubs and a club ruff, totalling 12 tricks, but the "baker's dozen" will be a useful bonus.
The best line is to win the lead with the king of clubs, cash the ace of spades, play two rounds of trumps ending in dummy, play the king of spades and ruff a spade if the queen does not appear, cross to the ace of clubs and ruff another spade. Now you can ruff a club and enjoy the thirteenth spade. As long as spades are 4-3 and trumps 2-2 you will make an overtrick.
Chantal was also in 6H by North and made the same mistake as Ken, but the opponents misdefended and she made an overtrick when both defenders threw away too many diamonds. Making the overtrick elevated her score to 90%. One can still make 12 tricks of course after winning with the ace of clubs, but one does not have enough entries if the queen of spades does not not come down in three rounds. If you swap the queen and nine of spades, you can only make an overtrick on a club lead if you keep the ace as clubs as an entry.
As one of my Welsh friends points out, playing low from dummy is the best way to make the contract as well. If hearts are 3-1, you will then still have enough entries to establish the long spade while the defenders ruff with their trump trick.
It is, however, great to report a Woodberry winner of the SIMs last night; Phil Mattacks and Ken Rolph came first nationally with a fine score of 71.04%
As GIB points out, you can make 13 tricks whether you play
ReplyDeletethe CA or not. When declaring, you don't have the advantage
of seeing all 4 hands. Looking at a hand afterwards to see
the perfect play, is not always the best way of analysing.
But you are allowed to look at your own cards and playing the AC from dummy is wrong. You only make 13 when you do as the queen of spades comes down in three rounds. There is NO downside to playing low from dummy.
DeleteI played in 6 hearts. A trump lead made my life a lot easier.
ReplyDelete