Disaster with Flair

Cork based Prof. Geoff Roberts submitted a chapter from his bridge Magnus Opus.

The man is not to be trifeled with! In my reply, I omitted his full title and this was his response.
“By the way, if you don’t know me personally its PROFESSOR Roberts. I worked hard for the title – and it wasn’t writing Bridge columns!”

Enjoy…

Play Bridge with Roberts: The Mistakes YOU can Make at Bridge, if You Try Just a Little Bit Harder

Chapter 4: Disaster Against the Deirdres

The last board of the last match in a multiple teams competition. Against a team known locally as the four Ds. A women’s team of a certain age, all called Deirdre, would you believe. It can be a bit tedious at times: “Who’s North?” “Deirdre”. “Whose bid?”. “Deirdre’s”. “Whose lead?” “Deirdre’s.” “Who called the Director?” “Deirdre.” “Who revoked?” “Deirdre.” “Who’s the team captain?”…….

We are non-vul against vul. I hold:

♠ 10987
♥ 3
♦ Q9654
♣ A92

The opponents bidding: 2d (benj acol) on my left, 3c, 3d, 3h, 4d, 5d. Declarer, we are told has 8 playing tricks with a solid suit in diamonds. Yeah, right. As solid as the Dollar!

I think about doubling. Seems likely that the contract is going down. But why give the diamond position away, and they might well run to hearts. Also, the match has gone well so far. Why go through all that stress and strain for the sake of an extra 100?

Partner leads the king of hearts. Dummy goes down:

♠ KQ
♥ J10842
♦ –
♣ KQ10863

Oh, joy! A void diamond. You are going down, down, down, Deirdre!

Shifting uncomfortably in her chair, Declarer says “thank you, partner”.

She wins the 1st trick with the ace. Ace of diamonds, followed by the King and Jack. Partner shows out on the 2nd diamond and discards a couple of small black cards. The suit and pips don’t really register. Its been a long weekend and surely the count won’t count in this defence? Declarer discards clubs from dummy.

In with the Queen of diamonds, what do I do now? I’m beginning to wish I had paid more attention to partner’s discards. It would be very handy to have a count at this point. I can hear partner now: “what’s the point in playing distributional signals if you don’t follow my discards”. Nag, nag, nag.

Looking at dummy at this point I can see:

♠ KQ
♥ J10843
♦ –
♣ KQ10

and a dreaded trump coup looming. I just hate it when the oppo make a five level contract against this kind of trump break. Bridge players are such gloaters. No sense of decorum.

I don’t want to lead my club ace. I can see it getting ruffed and there are two spade entries – enough to shorten trumps and pull off the coup. So it will have to be a spade exit. That’s it. Attack declarer’s entries, as the books say.

Declarer wins with the ace of spades. It looks like Declarer’s distribution is 1-2-7-3. Dear oh dear oh dear, Deirdre, so you prefer to play in a 7-0 trump fit rather than support your partner’s six card club suit. I just love to punish bad bidding! But funny that partner didn’t pre-empt with her 6-5 in spades and hearts. At this vul she usually pre-empts on principle with any six-card suit or 5-4 or better distribution. Maybe she’s finally taking to heart my little homilies on the difference between pairs and teams tactics. Still, 3d (Michaels) would have been fun! Anyway, my ace of clubs is not running away. Partner has a heart trick. Declarer doesn’t have the entries for the trump coup. Duck soup, as the toffs at the Young Chelsea say.

Declarer’s next move is to play a heart. Partner wins with the Queen and plays another heart. Stupid Partner! He is shortening trumps for declarer!! I discard and…Declarer follows suit with a heart. I just don’t believe it. Declarer has three hearts on THAT bidding. Absolutely shocking. Worse still Declarer is in dummy and my worst nightmare is about to materialise. The jack of hearts is played. I discard and so does declarer – a club. The king of clubs is led from dummy and ruffed. A grand coup. It just gets worse and worse. Spade to the king. Another heart is led from dummy. I’ve had enough of this. Let get this over quickly. I ruff, overruffed. My last trump is drawn and declarer wins her 11th trick with the 2 of diamonds.

Dummy Deirdre says: “I thought that might be the best spot. I always support partner’s suit when I have a void. Ho, ho, ho!

Declarer Deirdre solemnly states: “I should never have made it”.

Partner purses her lips and asks politely why I didn’t ruff the 3rd heart (lucky for me she is tired too – 4 hours sleep all weekend just isn’t enough at her age – and hasn’t noticed the psuedo-trump coup I have just perpetrated on declarer’s behalf. Strange, though, that she missed it – it is the second such defensive miscoup I have performed in the last month).

What to say to teammates? Blaming partner might be a bit difficult, under the circumstances. It will have to be the barrage defence – four hearts makes on a diamond lead etc, etc. Come to think of it, maybe pards bid it. No. 3nt, two down. But every cloud has a silver lining. The boys are too busy arguing about their bidding to bother with our result.

Time for a quick exit. Don’t think I’ll hang around for around for the prizes.

Points to Remember

1. The pseudo-trump coup works well against players who can be panicked into an unnecessary ruff. But make sure you play for it with a smug, self-satisfied smile on your face (not too difficult for any self-respecting bridge player)

2. Its generally best to double in these situations. On balance you will perform better defending a doubled contract than not. With declarer its usually the other way round. Also, think of the adrenalin jolt that surges through you when dummy goes down. And that frisson of fear in the middle game when you see ways in which declarer might make. Think too of that feeling of relief when the contract goes down. Better than sex and Ecstasy combined! And if they make it – “it only cost 150” – and there may even be the small compensation of some obscure line of double-dummy defence that you can berate partner (and bore teammates) about missing.

3.In the event of disasters of this magnitude always claim that it was a deliberate misdefence designed to create comic material for your new book.

The next instalment: Chapter 3: Chump Coup