The term tenace is much older than Bridge and is at least as old as Whist. It refers to a sequence with one gap, such as AQ (a major tenace), KJ (a minor tenace) and less often QT. But not TA as the name might suggest. It actually comes from the Latin tenax or the old French tenais, and the word tenacious has the same root.
It appears in A short treatise on the game of whist. By a gentleman, by Edmond Hoyle. (1743):
Even though in whist you cannot see partner's hand, the need to avoid leading into a tenace was apparent even in the 18th Century,
Guessing who has which card when you have a minor tenace is one of the most difficult tasks in bridge, and there were two such guesses on a hand last night:
North opened 2S at some tables, as the need to make life difficult for the opponents takes priority over suit quality these days. Some Easts overcalled in hearts and this allowed them to find a cheap save, but 4S was no sinecure.
At my table East led his singleton club and I won in North and guessed to play a spade to the king. This did not lose a trick, as East was getting a club ruff anyway, and West won and gave his partner a club ruff, fortunately with the queen. West had returned the ten of clubs, suit preference for hearts, and East duly switched to a heart, leaving me to guess the diamond "tenace".
I reasoned that East would never underlead the ace of diamonds, as North might have one diamond and two hearts, whereas he might underlead the queen of diamonds, so I decided to play a diamond to the king and this worked. Not much to go on but right on this occasion and a gain for NS.
In contrast I did not read the lead as a singleton and ran the 9 of spades (the best play just considering the spade suit alone). Luckily West ducked this and then later East went up with the diamond ace although the contract was safe by this point (worth noting this was an IMP pair game).
ReplyDelete