Through the Pack at Glenfield

The Jack of Diamonds

I lay kindly for south on this deal from the match against County C on 20^th November 2002 enabling declarer to make a marginal slam and helping Glenfield to a gain of 15 imps.
	North S AK3 H – D QT63 C AKQ762	Dealer West Game All	West opened one heart and North with a hand even too good for a strong jump overcall doubled. East passed (poorly in my judgement – a bid of two hearts would have made life very difficult for north-south). South had an unattractive choice of bids. He decided that one no trump was worse than two diamonds. West might have made some noise at this stage but it was irrelevant. North blazed into Roman Key Card Blackwood. It was a slight disappointment to north when south bid five diamonds to show just 1 or 4 of the aces (including the king of diamonds as an ace). After all, it might have been the ace of hearts. Nevertheless, north pushed on to six diamonds. West paid north a massive compliment by not doubling but then, arguably, insulted him by leading the ace of hearts. If we are assuming that north has bid this slam on the strength of a heart void (hence not doubling) then perhaps the best opening lead is the ace of trumps. Nevertheless, the ace of hearts lead had the virtue of making the contract as difficult as possible for south. North remarked that the crux of the hand might be my location and, indeed, he probably hoped that I was in south’s hand. South ruffed the opening lead and reasoned that the ace of diamonds must be in west’s hand for the opening bid. He led a spade to the queen and led a diamond. West played low. South decided that, because of east’s pass, west must have six or more hearts and therefore would be more likely to have A or Ax in diamonds than Ajx and rose with the queen. Declarer continued with a diamond from table and I burst onto the table. Here I am! Declarer was pleased to see me.
West S 952 H AKJ986 D A42 C J		East S JT84 H T542 D J8 C T94
	South S Q76 H Q73 D K975 C 853

The next card is the Ten of Diamonds.

The previous card was the Queen of Diamonds.

Site Map
1. Home Page	Club News	Glenfield A Fixtures	Glenfield B Fixtures	What’s New	Forthcoming Events	Photos	Links
2. Newsletters	April 2003
3. Results Archive	2001/2 Masterpoints	All time masterpoints	Buildrite Cup	Helen Doughty Memorial Trophy
3.1 Club Results	Current Month	January	December	November	October	September	August
		July	June	May	April	March	February
3.2 Glenfield A Results
3.3 Glenfield B Results
4. Technical Library
4.1 Bidding	Strategy	Acol
4.1.1 Hand Evaluation	Defensive Tricks	Losing Trick Count	Playing Tricks	Point Count	Total Number of Tricks	Passing
4.1.2 Opening Bids	One Club	One Diamond	One Heart	One Spade	One No Trump	Pre-empts
					Two No Trumps
4.1.3 Responding to an Opening Bid	Simple change of suit	Opener’s Rebid	Responder’s Rebid	Preference	Opener’s Second Rebid
4.1.3.1 Responding to 1NT	Transfers
4.1.3.2 Responding to 2NT	Transfers	Baron
4.1.4 Conventions	Stayman	Fourth Suit Forcing	Reverse	Crowhurst
4.1.4.1 Conventional Opening Bids	Lucas Twos	Multi Two Diamonds	Weak Twos
4.1.4.2 Competitive Conventions	Jump Overcall	Lebensohl	Unassuming Cue Bid	Unusual No Trump	Continuing after opponent’s take out double	Take out Double	Cue Bid
	Fishbein	Defence to 1NT	Halmic	1NT Overcall
4.1.4.3 Slam Conventions	Blackwood	Gerber	Roman Key Card Blackwood	Splinter	Jump to 5 of a suit	Grand Slam Force	Acol Four No Trump Opening
	Asking Bids	DOPI and ROPI
4.1.5 Doubles	Optional	Penalty
4.1.6 The Protective Position
4.2 Declarer Play
4.2.1 General Technique	End Play	Squeeze	Finesse	Lose tricks early	Pin	Avoidance
4.2.2 Trump Management	Ruffing	Ruffing Losers before drawing trumps	Trump Coup	Ruffing Finesse	Loser on Loser	Coping with bad splits	Cross Ruff
4.3 Defence	Second Player	Signals
4.3.1 Defensive Tactics	Forcing Defence	Passive Defence	Merrimac Coup
4.3.2 Opening Leads	Fourth Highest	Third and Fifth	MUD	Top of Nothing
4.3.3 Plays in Third Hand	Finesse Against Dummy	Finesse Against Partner
4.3.4 Entry Management	Unblocking
4.4 Probability
4.5 Glossary of Terms
5 Through the Pack