Frieda Mayer, our latest member who has just flown in from Sydney on her favourite airline Freedom Air, recently picked up this hand as dealer
♠94
♥AQT87432
♦—
♣QT8
Not being of timid temperament she opened 4♥. Somewhat surprisingly she heard a 4♠ response from her partner, a distinguished middle-aged gentleman called Gordon Rhode. What’s this, she thought, doesn’t Gordon like my hearts? Just in time she remembered that Gordon’s bid must be a cue bid agreeing hearts. Thinking she had nothing to lose by showing her diamond void she gaily bid 5♦. She was somewhat taken aback by Gordon’s reply: 7♥! The bidding had been:
| West (Frieda) | North | East (Gordon) | South |
| 4♥ | Pass | 4♠ | Pass |
| 5♦ | Pass | 7♥ | Pass |
| Pass | Pass |
The lead was a small diamond. Gordon did seem to be on the same wavelength for this is what she saw:
| Frieda | Gordon | |
| ♠94 | ♠ AK76 | |
| ♥AQT87432 | ♥K | |
| ♦— | ♦Q7632 | |
| ♣QT8 | ♣AK5 |
Frieda counted up her tricks: 2 spades, 8 hearts, 3 clubs. That seemed to come to 13 but she checked several times just to make sure. Gordon was going to be proud of her. She ruffed the diamond lead and led a heart to dummy’s king.
Disaster! North discarded a diamond. Well, the good news was that the four outstanding hearts were in the South hand. Unfortunately, dummy had only ♥K and so a normal finesse would be impossible. Was there any hope for our heroine? Look to the next paragraph for the happy ending but try to figure it out first. Notice that Frieda didn’t use any ace-asking bid – with a void that would not have been very useful.
Frieda must try to reduce her trumps to the same length as South’s by ruffing four times in her own hand. She must aim for a two card ending with the lead in dummy. Dummy will contain ♠7 6, South will have ♥J 9, and Frieda will have ♥Q T. When she leads a spade South will be “finessed”. This sort of play is called a trump coup. It will only work if South has not managed to ruff one of dummy’s winners; so, in this case, it is necessary that South follows to three rounds of clubs and the ♠A K.
Frieda and Gordon found that this hand produced many hours of self- congratulatory post-mortem after the game was over and it seemed to presage a successful partnership. For a start the hand was not easy to bid. It required that Gordon’s 4♠ be treated as a cue bid which many partnerships might not have discussed (but what else could it be? Surely not an attempt to improve the contract). This mutual understanding of bidding enabled them to develop a quick rapport.
Another point of interest for the new partnership was the realisation that dummy had the right number of entries to set up 4 ruffs in declarer’s hand and finally to enter dummy to execute the trump coup ending. Had the opening lead being either a spade or a heart then it would be vital (and far-sighted) to immediately ruff a diamond: all those opportunities to be in dummy must be utilised to enable declarer to shorten her trumps.
Having discussed this particular hand at length both felt they had come to a greater understanding of both bidding after a pre-empt and of trump coups. They also realised that they had both previously been quite naive about both and they both looked forward to working together to develop their partnership. They parted that night with Frieda inviting Gordon to dinner after Frieda’s next trip to Australia.
Bridge Romances
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