I was reading the recent ACBL Bulletin…

I was reading the recent ACBL Bulletin and enjoyed Brent Manley’s editorial comparing his experiences as a running coach of newcomers with making newcomers welcome to our game of bridge.

As both a graduate of the C25K program (coach potato to 5K running program) and a bridge teacher and coach I really empathized with both the newcomer and coach point of view.

When I started to run my daughter was my coach and when I was finding a program difficult I would think about how pleased she would be when I told her that I had made it! I have found that runners of all levels welcome newcomers to their ranks. We need to make sure that bridge players are that welcoming and we need to think about how to bring a C25MP (coach potato to 5 master points) program to a lot of people. We need to make it available, approachable and ideally free.

Ray is busy editing some update Mike Lawrence books and we were discussing a deal. It reminded me of a deal I played with a student yesterday.

Norm was sitting North and he held

.

He passed and I opened 1♦  in third chair. Norm bid 1♥  and I leaped to the heart game.

The ♦Q was led and this is what he saw. (I have inverted the deal for convenience.)

The opening lead was the ♦ Q. It was won by East and the ♦ 6 was return and ruffed. East returned the ♣ 2 which you win in dummy with the ♣ A.

You have lost two tricks and you still have two spade losers in your hand. One approach is to draw two rounds of trump and assuming that they break 3-2  or you could ruff a spade (or two) in dummy. That would lead to 10 or 11 tricks. Even if trump break 4-1 as long as the long hand just got the diamond ruff you would still be in excellent shape.

So you start by cashing the ♠ A and leading a heart to the ♥ Q in hand. Alas, West shows out throwing a small spade.

How do you proceed?

You have lost two tricks and you still have two spade losers in your hand. One approach is to draw two rounds of trump and assuming that they break 3-2  or you could ruff a spade (or two) in dummy. Even if trump break 4-1 as long as the long hand just got the diamond ruff you would still be in excellent shape.

So you start by cashing the ♠A and leading a heart to the ♥ Q in hand. Alas, West shows out throwing a small spade.

How do you proceed? If you haven’t counted WINNERS this is a good time to start.  Most of us have no trouble counting losers but forget to count winners. By this point you have three tricks and need seven more. If you draw trump fully you can cash four another three club tricks and you still have three trump tricks to take. You still need one more and you can obtain that by ruffing a spade in hand with a top trump. Then you can play three more rounds of trump by crossing to dummy overtaking the ♥ 10.

So following this approach you ruff a spade with the trump ace. Cash the HJ and overtaking the ♥ 10 with the ♥ J and draw the opponents last trump with the ♥ 9. (love those heart spots). Then you play the ♣ K, overtake the ♣ J with the ♣ Q and cash the ♣ 10 for your tenth trick (love that club spot).

 

Now in fact Norm was actually sitting North and I didn’t invert the deal for convenience but to show it to you from Norm’s point of view. We usually find it easier to declare hands when the master hand is OUR hand. On deals like this you have to shift your viewpoint a bit. And that was Mike’s point in his book. Mike does show you the deal both ways to illustrate his point. By the way Mike Lawrence is no doubt one of the very finest bridge writers and teachers of all time. Every book he has written provides unique and valuable insights.