feb2016

English 55 A well-known rule in life is : " He who plays with fire, may get burned". This rule is valid also in bridge. In the following hand , both sides elected to play with fire, but only one of them got burned . Dealer South, Vul N/S ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ - AJT843 Q984 K62 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ QJT95432 K7 J 94 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ K86 5 KT7652 A73 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ A7 Q962 A3 QJT85 West North East South 1♣ 4♠ 5 ♥ 5♠ 6 ♥ Pass Pass Dbl Pass Pass RDbl 6♠ Dbl Pass Pass Pass South opened 1♣. West bid his 8-card spade suit at the four-level at favorable vulnerability. North introduced his hearts. East and South supported their partners' suits. The first one "to play with fire" is East. He holds one sure trick in clubs and two kings. The opponents did not have an opportunity to ask for the number of aces, and East thought that the contract would go down. By the way, N/S do miss two keycards, ♣A and ♥K, but the finesse against the trump king is working. East elected to double 6♥. However, doubling is highly problematic after such a wild auction. 6 ♥ doubled came back to North, who was not satisfied with making a doubled slam. North redoubled, an extremely risky move since as far as he knows the defenders may be able to cash ♦AK immediately. Following North's redouble, East was no longer so certain about his double. A cheap runout to 6♠ was available. Please note that a contract of 6 ♥ (either doubled or redoubled) by North may be set only by an underlead of the ♦K! North wins the ♦Q, but then there is no quick entry to South's hand in order to finesse the ♥K. An attempt to play clubs would allow East to win the ♣A and give his partner a diamond ruff. Would East have found such an inspired lead against 6 ♥? One cannot tell, but at the table East bid 6♠, doubled by South. West went down three and North/South had to be satisfied with a meager penalty of +500. This was a poor result for them, as in most other tables N/S made 12 tricks either in a game contract (+680) or in a small slam (+1430), sometimes doubled (+1660). Playing with Fire Joseph Engel