poorbridge.com!

Mike and Tom lock horns in battle

By Phil Smith

This week's example of how not to play our beautiful game involves Mike Scanlon and Tom Oag. During a Durham University A vs B team practice match, Tom Oag sitting East and Mike Scanlon sitting South, join Raul and Luke Porter in the North and West seats, to produce the following auction:

West	North	East	South
Pass	Pass	2¹	X
Pass	2NT²	Pass	3³
Pass	3	Pass	3NT
AP

Notes
(1)	Weak with diamonds
(2)	Requires 3 from partner. Either some values with hearts/spades or nothing much with clubs.
(3)	Mike makes the first of many very long pauses during the hand, before doing as told.

At this point we should look at the whole deal:

	4 3
	A 9 5 4 2
	K Q 3
	9 3 2

	10 8 7 6 5
	Q J 8 7 6
	6 5
	7

	K 9 2
	3
	A 8 7 4 2
	Q J 10 6

	A Q J
	K 10
	J 10 9
	A K 8 5 4

As far as the bidding goes everything seems to be in order. Tom makes a nice pressure bid in seat 3, and the A-team pair look to have found a sensible spot to play anyway.

Playing the hand

Luke plays a diamond, which Mike wins with the

J in hand. Then a low club to dummy's 9 and Tom's 10 is followed by another diamond to dummy's king. So now we have this, dummy to play.

	4 3
	A 9 5 4 2
	Q
	3 2

	10 8 7 6 5
	Q J 8 7 6

	K 9 2
	3
	A 8 7
	Q J 6

	A Q J
	K 10
	10
	A K 8 5

Mistake One

The

3 is played from dummy and Tom plays....the Jack(!) - d'oh - obviously Mike doesn't know Luke is out of clubs, in fact Tom made a diamond preempt, so Mike will insert the Ace whatever happens. As it is, Tom gives declarer a club finesse position.

Mistake Two

Anyway, when Luke shows out, Mike goes into thinking mode before playing king and another heart to dummy's ace. Mike has won 5 tricks and needs 4 more - thanks to the club finesse, that's 3 clubs and

A, right? Wrong! Mike hasn't been paying attention to the club suit and doesn't realise he has the finesse on!

The remaining cards were now held thus:

	4 3
	9 4 2
	Q
	2

	10 8 7 6
	Q J 8

	K 9

	A 8 7
	Q 6

	A Q J

	10
	K 8 5

And so having removed his own heart stops, Mike plays a spade. Caressing the queen in his hand, Mike now ponders the fact that should the spade finesse be wrong (and Tom has already shown 5 diamonds and four clubs + 7 points) Luke will win his top hearts. So bothered by this, was Mike, that he failed to play the only other line that could make the contract: to finesse and then crash the

Mistake Three

So Mike plays the

A(!) on the first round of spades followed by another spade and Tom gets in (oops!). He cashes the

A to leave the following position:


	9 4 2

	2

	10 8
	Q J



	8 7
	Q 6

	J


	K 8 5

Tom to play. Defence have taken 3 tricks against 3NT. Can you think of a way of declarer making the rest of the tricks?
Tom Could!

Mistake Four

Tom forgets that the

K is still out so, instead of cashing his winning diamonds, he plays the

Q. Game over. Tom claimed that he thought the

Q was good...why not cash the diamonds first anyway?

Sitting from dummy watching this hand, it was almost as if each side were trying to give the other a good score. Very poor bridge indeed.

At the other table a multi-2

opening by West caused all kinds of problems, and a -100 N/S score gives the A-team a 12 IMP shift.