While there are many good bridge players in the country, there are only a few who can be rated ‘World Class'. R. Krishnan, affectionately called ‘Kista' in bridge circles, is one such player whom many consider to be easily the best in the business. If it is a treat to watch him declare, it is sheer delight to watch him defend. Unassuming and modest, he brings a new dimension to the game by his extraordinary ‘bridge mind'. Watch him in action in today's deal as he declares a part-score contract in an IMP match.
Contract: 3 H by south. West leads the S A and continues with the queen. East follows with the two and the eight. How did declarer proceed?
Bidding comment: Admittedly, north has a ‘ sticky ' hand to bid. Though it has useful points, it is completely flat. North described his hand well by his cue-bid and elected to pas when he found the fit.
Analysis: With east advertising weakness by his pass, you seem to be headed for defeat as west certainly has the D A.
Play: Ruffing the spade continuation, declarer entered dummy by the club ace and ruffed one more spade. Declarer now cashed the H K and played a heart to dummy's ace, east following with the queen to the second trump. The last spade was played from dummy next, east discarding a club and declarer ruffing with his last trump. The six-card position was:
Play continued… Krishnan now played the C J from his hand. West discarded the diamond two and dummy played the four. East is no longer in the game. Next came the C Q from the declarer. West chose not to ruff, electing to discard his spade instead. Dummy won and Krishnan exited in a trump from dummy, discarding a diamond from hand. West won with the jack, and was end-played to give a trick to declarer's D K. The complete hands are:
Discussion: If west ruffs the second or the third club in the six-card ending and plays the fifth spade, declarer will discard a diamond from both the hands, leaving west on play and forcing him to give a diamond trick to the declarer.
When you view all the four hands, there are only seven sure tricks seen but as if by magic , declarer increased it to nine tricks. How did it happen?
It is very simple. Declarer scored five trump tricks, three clubs, and one diamond from the endplay for a total of nine tricks. Or, five trump tricks in hand , two clubs, one diamond, and one trump in dummy.
Play out the deal with a deck of cards to understand the play better.
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