Bridge - with David Bird

FRIDAY MARCH 2

North starts with a negative double and continues with 5H, asking you to bid a slam with any sort of spade control. Since you have good trumps and a side ace, you decide to show your first-round spade control with 5S. Two cue-bids later, you are in 7H. How do you play on a trump lead? If you look at the losers from South's point of view, everything depends on avoiding a club loser. This will be easy if trumps are 2-2, leaving you with a trump in dummy to deal with the fourth round of clubs. Similarly, all will be well if clubs break 3-3 or the jack falls in two rounds. How can you improve your chances? The answer is a dummy reversal. You win the first trick with the trump nine and ruff a spade in your hand. A trump to the ten reveals the 3-1 break and you ruff another spade. You cross to the club ace, ruff a third spade, return to dummy with the diamond king and ruff dummy's last spade. Since you started with seven clubs and six diamonds, the safest route back to dummy is a second round of diamonds. All follow and you draw West's last trump, discarding a club. Thirteen tricks!

THURSDAY MARCH 1

Taf Anthias and I are using computer simulation to investigate opening leads. What would you lead against 7S? A popular choice would be a trump. Our simulation fixes the West hand and creates 5000 deals where North would open 1H and the combined values justify bidding 7S. It tells us that the best lead here is the singleton heart! Suppose, on this deal from the simulation, that West leads a trump. Declarer wins and draws trumps in two further rounds, throwing a club from dummy. He then plays the A-K of hearts, throwing a minor-suit loser. He hopes to find hearts 3-3 or 4-2 and establish the suit to ditch his two remaining minor-suit losers. When West shows out on the second heart, another avenue opens. Declarer leads the ten of hearts, covered and ruffed, returns to the club king and leads the nine of hearts, covered and ruffed. He then crosses to the ace of clubs to throw his two remaining minor-suit losers on the good 8-3 of hearts. A heart lead prevents this line of play and beats 7S. Our book 'Winning Notrump Leads' describes the best leads against all sorts of auctions to 1NT, 2NT, 3NT and 6NT, determined by computer simulation.

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 29

North's 4D agreed hearts as trumps. South then bid Roman Key-card Blackwood, discovering that his partner held (a) two aces and the queen of trumps, and (b) the king of clubs. How will you play 7H when West leads the eight of diamonds? You need to set up dummy's spades to discard your diamond loser. After winning the diamond lead, you play a trump to the ace (you must preserve the trump queen as an entry to dummy). East shows out on this trick and you play the king of trumps, followed by the king and ace of spades. When you lead a third spade, East discards a diamond and you ruff with the three in your hand. A trump to dummy's queen allows you to ruff another spade with the eight. You draw West's last trump with the jack and return to dummy with the king of clubs to discard your diamond loser on the established thirteenth spade. The ace and queen of clubs then claim the last two tricks. When you are establishing a long suit in dummy, you often have to use the entries that the trump suit provides.

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 28

How will you play 6S when West leads the two of hearts? You are very likely to lose a club trick, so it may seem that you will need the diamond finesse. Play the hand well and you can give yourself a substantial extra chance. You win the heart lead with dummy's ace, draw trumps in two rounds and ruff dummy's remaining heart in your hand. You then play the ace of clubs and lead the two of clubs towards dummy, covering West's eight with the ten. East wins with the bare jack of clubs and is end-played. He has to lead a diamond into dummy's tenace or return a heart, giving you a ruff-and-discard. In the latter case, you will discard a diamond from your hand and ruff in the dummy, claiming the slam. If East had turned up with Q-J-4 of clubs, he would have been able to exit safely with a club. In that case West would have started with five diamonds to East's two and the odds would be good that the diamond finesse would succeed. (In fact, East would have shown up with 9 points outside diamonds and would have no room for the diamond queen.) Suppose instead that East had started with J-8-4 of clubs. You would win West's club queen with dummy's king and exit on the third round of clubs, again end-playing East.

MONDAY FEBRUARY 27

South's 1NT shows 15-17 points and North suggests a slam with 4NT. South could pass on a minimum but here he raises to 6NT. West leads the jack of spades, won with dummy's queen and East surprises you by throwing a diamond. How will you continue? Seeking further information, you play three top clubs. When West follows all the way, you know that he has only three cards in the red suits. A 3-3 heart break is therefore very unlikely. A much better prospect is that East holds both the red-suit guards and can be squeezed. Your next step is to duck a round of hearts. Suppose another heart is returned to dummy's king. You cross to the ace of diamonds and when West follows, you know that hearts cannot be 3-3. You continue with the A-K of spades and then play the queen of clubs, throwing a diamond from dummy. East has to find one more discard from Q-9 of hearts and Q-J of diamonds. If he throws a diamond, you will play the diamond king and cross to dummy's ace of hearts to score the ten of diamonds. If instead East throws a heart, you will play dummy's ace of hearts and return to the diamond king to score the eight of hearts. The technique is a criss-cross squeeze.