King Sacrifice

Brush up your bridge playing with John Wilmott, from Keswick Bridge Club.

Two of the best teams in Keswick clashed online. The favourites were John Robinson’s team that he has mentored over the last three years. His playing partner is the club chairperson, Jane Eyre, teammates are Gaynor Williams and Bill Richardson. The opposing team led by our esteemed club secretary Joan Taylor partnered by club director Leo Lehninger, teamed with a relative newcomer to the club Felicity Kay and myself.

We had much the better of it and won over a limited set of boards. There will be a rematch this Friday at 14:00 on BridgeBase.com. The play of the day was made by my partner:

In first seat, vuln vs non-vuln Felicity sitting north held;

982
K984
K62
AQ3

We play 5 card majors and strong notrump, systemically my partner opened proceedings with 1 club. Left-hand opponent doubled, I passed, which in theory shows club tolerance. RHO bids 1 diamond, you pass, of course, LHO bids 1 heart, and RHO bids 1 Notrump which is raised to game.

1C-X-P-1D
P-1H-P-1NT
P-3NT all pass

Felicity decided to lead a passive 8S, the opponents had shown a cover in clubs and length in the red suits.
Dummy hits the deck;

AKJ10
AQ632
A9
J7

Declarer paused for thought, and played the Ace, I encouraged with the 3 (low encouraging, high discouraging). Trick 2 declarer called for the AD, I followed with the 3, showing a three-card suit, declarer played the 4 and north played the 2. Next came the 9, 5,10, and the king, North continued with the 9S, this time declarer finessed in dummy and I won with the Q, the dummy was down to

KJ
AQ632
J7

I am holding

54
J75
7
654

It looks tempting to play a club, it is vitally important to keep declarer from reaching her hand to cash the diamonds, with the Jack on the table I thought it best to let declarer tackle the suit. For that reason, I returned a spade, dummy winning perforce, next came the CJ, north winning with the CQ and then cashed the club ace,

This is now Felicity’s view of the dummy:

K
AQ632

Her holding is:

K984
6
3

She can reconstruct the hidden hands, Dummy started with 19 HCP, north started with 12, partner has already shown the QS, so only 7 HCP left for declarer. For west to have her bid she must have close if not all the missing picture cards. Let’s see if we can work out what the shape of the unseen hands are? Partner has shown 4S, and 33 in the minors, and must have 3H. Therefore declarer started with a singleton heart, which could easily be the Jack, her shape being 2155. Armed with this information, Felicity put the heart King on the table pinning declarer to the table. Two off.

The four hands, rotated for convenience are: