Friday, April 24, 2009

"Somehow we landed in Six Notrump" by David Bird

Just got this book in the mail. The first half of this book draws from 6NT contracts in fact (Meckstroth's 6NT Tim Bourke's 6NT Ely Culbertson's 6NT etc.) , the second from fiction, the famous Bird characters, the monks of St.Titus, the missionaries, the Witchdoctor and the Parrot, and also the Rabbi.
Incidentally, having bid my share of 6NT without two cashing tricks (two aces typically), it is enlightening to see how often the world's best do the same. Sometimes the defender with the two tricks is not on lead and is gnashing his teeth as you bring home twelve tricks on a favorable lead.
There are several squeezes without the count, but by far my favorite hand in the book is the following losing card trick. Brother Paulo is at the helm after 2C-2D-4NT-6NT, the lead Dq.




Dlr:
Vul:




J52

10865

65

AJ52


6

J932

QJ10984

83


1098743

74

void

109764


AKQ

AKQ

AK732

KQ



Over to David Bird.
"Eyebrows were raised around the table as East showed out on the diamond lead, discarding a spade. Paulo won with the DA and marked time by cashing two rounds of spades. Further information came to light when West showed out on the second spade, discarding a diamond. When the three top hearts were played, the jack refused to fall and East discarded another spade on the third round. Paulo sat back in his chair. He had an easy eleven tricks by overtaking on the second round of clubs. How could he make a twelfth trick?
Brother Paulo soon found the answer. West held the guard in both red suits so he would be squeezed if a blacksuit winner could be played from dummy. He cashed the CK and overtook the CQ with dummy's Ace. These cards remained.




Dlr:
Vul:




J

10

6

J5


none

J

J1098

none


109

none

none

1097


Q

none

K732

none



'Club five, please,' said Brother Paulo.
East won the trick and the Italian flipped the SQ onto the table. The novice in the West seat discarded a diamond and his partner then had to play one or other black suit giving the loead to dummy. West threw another diamond on the club return. When Brother Paulo cashed dummy's remaining winner, the SJ, West had no card to spare. If he discarded the HJ , dummy's HT would be good. He chose instead to throw yet another diamond and Paulo claimed the last two tricks with the DK and the D7 in his hand. "
....." 'It is strange but a 6-0 diamond break was more helpful than a 4-2 break' he said."

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Welcome to Ramesh's BRIDGE BLOG

In these pages, I comment on hands from Bridge Base Online ACBL tourneys. I play in these with a variety of partners with different degrees of skill. I might present a hand or two from my collection of bridge books, every now and then. I am more interested in play and defense than in complex bidding systems, but I do follow the cut and thrust of Vanderbilt and World Championship Vugraph and try to keep abreast of expert practice in the obstructive and constructive bidding system department. I may also feature, newspaper-style, famous hands from important matches that I saw on Vugraph.

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Bridge expert for 20 years. I started blogging about bridge only in 2009. Chess follower. Problem fan. Studied hundreds of composition themes in two-movers, fairy chess, the former from the Good Companion era to the modern style of virtual play. Big collector of chess and bridge rare books. My two game blogs bridge blog, and my chess problem themes blog chess expo

My alter ego, The Hideous Hog

My alter ego, The Hideous Hog

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