| North ♠ A K 7 3 ♥ J 4 ♦ K Q ♣ Q J 10 8 7 |
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| West ♠ J 2 ♥ A Q 8 ♦ J 10 9 8 3 ♣ K 4 3 |
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| Lead: ♦J Bidding:
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By Mike Lawrence
Aside from the one million and one things you can learn from books are the one million and two little details that you and your partner must sort out as you go along. This article is the first in a series. You will be presented with a number of situations, some in the bidding and some in defense, and then will be asked some questions pertaining to what is happening. Experienced partnerships will know the answers to these questions. The reason they know the answers is that they have seen the situations before and have learned from them, or from the ensuing discussions, what their partnership tendencies are.
You lead the jack of diamonds. Dummy’s king wins, with East playing the six. Declarer plays the ace and king of spades, on which East plays the nine and five, in that order.
What do you think East is saying when he plays the nine and then the five of spades?
| Dealer: S Vul: N-S |
North ♠ A K 7 3 ♥ J 4 ♦ K Q ♣ Q J 10 8 7 |
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| West ♠ J 2 ♥ A Q 8 ♦ J 10 9 8 3 ♣ K 4 3 |
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| Lead: ♦J Bidding:
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- There are many meanings you can give to East’s play of the nine and five of spades.
- He may be trying to show he has two trumps.
- He may be trying to give you a suit preference signal for hearts.
- He may be trying to tell you that he can ruff something. If this is so, the suit is most likely to be diamonds.
- He may be trying to show that he has three trumps.
- He may have been trying to fool declarer. Perhaps East thinks that you have the queen of trumps and was trying to look like a defender with the doubleton Q9 when he played the nine.
Which, if any, of these things do you think partner means? Or is it possible that your partner is just kidding and doesn’t really mean anything at all?
I’ll give you a hint. East should not be throwing his cards on the table in willy-nilly fashion. He should have a purpose. A defender who plays the card nearest to his thumb will lose his partner’s interest. On those occasions where a signal is important, the sloppy defender will find his partner isn’t watching because there is usually nothing to see. The correct answer is one of the five choices listed. Which one applies to your partnership?
Here is my opinion of each of them. You may draw your own conclusions.
- East should not be showing a doubleton. The reason is that on occasion, East will have a doubleton ten or jack or queen, and it will be dangerous to play the high card. It is true that in other suits, the correct play with a doubleton is to play high-low, but not in trumps.
- This is a reasonable treatment. It has merit. There is a problem with this treatment, though, in that it often does not work. Say, for instance, you are dealt a singleton ten of trumps. Declarer plays one round, you follow with the ten, and your partner, who is winning the trick, looks at your ten and thinks you are giving a suit preference. Comes the shift. And, unfortunately, it wasn’t what you wanted. Too bad. Because of the elements of uncertainty, I do not recommend this treatment, although it has its moments.
- Telling partner that you want to ruff something is laudable, but it is also rare that this signal will come to anything. When defenders have a ruff coming, declarer is usually busy drawing trump. The usual meaning of this message is, “I could have ruffed something, but by the time you get in, it will be too late.”
- This is the meaning I suggest. Rather than use the high-low to show some special message, such as in points two and three, I like the high-low in trumps to say that you have an ODD number of trumps. This information will help partner in more ways than you might imagine. Here is one such. The bidding goes as follows.
NORTH SOUTH 1NT 2♣ 2♠ 4♠ Pass West has only the singleton two of spades and is hoping that East has four of them. Here are the trumps that West sees after making his opening lead.
North
A Q J 3West
2
South wins the opening lead, whatever it was, and plays the ace, queen, and jack of spades. East follows with three little ones. At this point, how many trumps do you think South has? Since he opened one notrump, you would tend to think South has four spades. If you and partner give count in trump as shown above, you will be able to tell what is happening in spades. Say East followed with the four, five, and eight. East has played his spades in ascending order. This shows he has an even number. Therefore, you know that both declarer and East started with four of them. If, on the other hand, East played the eight, four, and five, you would know that he had just three. The sneaky South player has opened one notrump with a five card spade suit. On defense, such information is useful. I suggest you try to tell partner how many trumps you have and hope for the same information in return. Obviously, declarer knows how many trumps are missing. The news won’t be new to him. But the news might be useful for partner.
- This is the fifth and final meaning for partner’s nine of spades. I suggested that if partner had the 9x, he might play the nine hoping to fool declarer. This can work, but trying it is at the cost of fooling partner too. Try this once in a while to give your opponents something to think about, but for the most part, keep your cards honest. Partner will appreciate this.