Thursday, January 2, 2025

A well-executed ruff-sluff or double exit in a side suit

An ominous lead of T of spades goes to SJ which holds. Obviously a singlton.

I lose the trump finesse, win the D return (covered J, Q and A, and draw trump in two more rounds. (Note: GIB or double dummy engines suggest taking fewer than three rounds trump and playing West for the club King and a doubleton trump, when you can make 12 tricks, but this is not for the feint of heart. After you take three trumps and "test" the spades, the following paragraphs are accurate.)

Setting up Spades has insufficient entries. Clubs are fraught unless there is an endplay.

I find the only exit that works. My losing diamond. When West leads a third round of the suit, I avoid ruffing in either hand, taking a ruff sluff and encouraging another diamond play which will not help defense.

He is forced to play a club and I stick in the queen, and have obtained 10 tricks when I am able to ruff my last spade loser with dummy's trump having pitched the penultimate spade loser on the CQ.

EDIT: Final note as this goes to print. I would be down if the C finesse failed. Instead, I can even make 11 tricks. After drawing trump, there is a beautiful loser on loser line to set up the spades. Overtook the SK with the SA and play the S9, pitching dummy's losing diamond.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

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.

NOTE: For JUNE, I am experimenting with adding BBO's Handviewers, which make bridge movies embedded. Just
scroll down beyond the few sampled book covers and you arrive at the blogs that play themselves with the NEXT button. THANKS, BBO!!

About Me

My photo
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

Followers