I read recently that bridge today is 70 per cent bidding, 20 per cent defence and 10 per cent play, and if the first weekend of this year’s Premier League is anything to go by that would about sum it up. Most IMPs went out of the window with bidding misunderstandings leading good pairs into the wrong contact, or, through sloppy or unlucky defences, contracts being let through.
This hand, from the first match, caused the most discussion, and illustrates the value of a great defender:
Andrew Robson who, I read somewhere, is 70 per cent class, 20 per cent tall and 10 per cent a bit of a slowcoach, was sitting West. The contract is quite good, mainly because of South’s 9, 8 of Diamonds, which gives declarer an extra opportunity in that suit. The slam was bid at four of the eight tables in Division One.
With a Spade ruff in dummy you have 11 tricks, and the best chance for a twelfth is to run the nine of Diamonds — if it loses to the Queen or King, you repeat the manoeuvre.
When the u10 turns up in the East hand, you can either take the Club finesse or play for a squeeze against East, whichever your delicate nose tells you, and two declarers indeed managed to bring home the slam by squeezing East.
Andrew doesn’t like risking declarer making a successful guess so when South played the u9 from hand he inserted the Queen! Although this doesn’t make it any clearer how the Diamonds are divided, the endplay is much harder to find and you could not blame anyone for going back to hand and playing another Diamond towards dummy and …one down!
Neat defence, Maestro — 100 per cent brilliant!
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