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Poor Bridge of the Week
Poor Card Combinations
By Joe Mela

Card combinations in bridge are a bit like the endgame in chess; fundamentally simple but you still have to work them out at the table. We've all been there, pondering to ourselves the relative merits of playing an opponent for a singleton Queen or Ten. The ones that Joe presents in this article are nothing like this difficult. In fact, they're painfully easy. But that's why they weren't submitted to our sister site, qualitybridge.com.

1

A 9 4 2
Q 8 37 5
K J 10 6

South declares in this spade suit. There is an outside Ace to lose and no other problems. At one table the contract is 6S going off when declarer misguesses spades. At the other, the contract is 3NT and West leads a spade from the Queen. Declarer wins it in hand with the Ten, crosses to the SA and takes the spade "finesse" to lose to the now stiff Queen off-side. Words fail me.

2

Q 10 3
J 2K 9 7 4
A 8 6 5

This is the club suit and I was declaring in 4H which rests on losing only one trump from AJ9x opposite four small and losing no clubs. Defence kindly play on trumps and I'm now stuck with the club suit. I called for the CQ and ran it. So far so good. I now cashed out and watched RHO keep his spades (despite his partner having shown five) and bare the CK. So when I cashed the Ace my last club was good...

3


SA 9 5 3
H2
DA K 8 6 3
C5 4 2
SJ 6
HJ 6
DJ 9 4
CA Q 9 8 6 3
DIR
SQ 8 4 2
H9 8 7 5 4
DQ 10
CJ 10
SK 10 7
HA K Q 10 3
D7 5 2
CK 7

I led the SJ as West against 3H. Declarer won the first trick with the King and immediately ran the S10! Does he think we play Roman leads? Partner won this and gave me my ruff. I played a diamond to dummy and declarer promptly played the SA to pitch a diamond loser, but thereby giving me a second ruff!