Bridge Game, Bridge Lessons at RonKlingerBridge.com

Try this problem:

North dealer : North-South vulnerable

West	North	East	South
	1	Pass	1
2	2	2NT (1)	3
Pass	Pass	Pass

(1) Puppet to 3, to compete in 3, 3 or 3

West leads the 8: king – ace – five and East returns the 7: jack – three – two. South plays the S2. Plan your defence.

(Answer later)

Seniors: In the last two rounds we lost 14-16 to Turkey, but were still running sixth, and then drew 15-15 with Brazil. Canada overtook us, but we ended in 7th place, enough to reach the Round of 16. We were 10 VPs ahead of 9th place.

That was the end of the good news for the day, Sweden chose us as their opponents for the Round of 16 (a 64-board match for the Seniors) and after 16 boards we were down 1-49. The next 48 boards are to be played today.

You can find all the results and the Daily Bulletins via the www.abf.com.au website.

The Australian Women’s Team were also chosen by Sweden for the Round of 16. We also had a poor start here, down 14-50 after 16 boards and down 23-92 after 32 boards. The team then rallied for an excellent 46-11 third set to be down 69-103 at the halfway mark.

Answer to today’s problem:

This was Board 21 from Match 17 vs Brazil:

North dealer : North-South vulnerable

West led the 8 against 3. The K was taken by the ace and East returned the 7, won by the J. South played a low spade and West took the A. The diamond switch went to the queen and ace. South played another trump, queen, king and the A was the only other tricks for the defence. N-S +140.

Whatever you make of East’s 7 return, the highest spot card, it cannot be a signal for diamonds. East could have a singleton heart: then A, A, Q. As it happens South is the one with the singleton so that defence does not work.

The winning move is to duck the 2 from South. It will go queen, king. East returns a club and West ruffs with the A. That is three tricks for the defence so far. The A will be trick 4 and East has a spade trick to come. This defence works even if East has just K-10-x.