One of the truly enjoyable benefits of playing competitive bridge, for lesser mortals, is the opportunity to kibitz the legends. Quite apart from the education, often one gets a peek at advanced bridge psychology and refined intuition. More than a decade ago, I was first introduced to Kamal Mukherjee, a true legend and considered by many to be the flag-bearer of Bhowanipore Card Club in the 1970s. While Kamalda maybe a shade old-fashioned in his bidding, his defensive technique and card play are razor sharp. It was a privilege to watch him in action on the hand featured below:
North chose to open 1♥ as dealer (with none vulnerable) and East came in with an aggressive 4♦ overcall placing South between a rock and a hard place. Kamalda made the seemingly obvious and practical bid of 4♣ which became the final contract. West led the heart 3, and East after winning dummy’s Queen with the Ace returned a small diamond. This was duly ruffed by West, after which he chose to return ♣Q.
Declarer won with the Ace and cashed two top trumps, both opponents following.
At this stage, you know that East was dealt with 8 diamonds, 2 spades, a heart and a club. His thirteenth card could be in any suit other than diamonds! Recognising the need to figure out what it is, Kamalda played a third round of trumps on which East threw a diamond. So the missing card with East is either a heart or a club. If East has a club, all your problems vanish – just concede a club and claim the contract. But what if it is a heart? Declarer will then need to squeeze West in hearts and clubs. Before the squeeze can take effect, declarer must concede a trick in order to “rectify the count”. So what should declarer play next to discover East’s distribution? In practice declarer played another spade drawing West’s last trump but failed to get any information from East after a further diamond discard. Kamalda now undertook his final reconnaissance mission by playing a heart to the King, and East followed suit!
Now there remained no choice but to squeeze West. The minor task of rectifying the count by conceding a trick was all that remained to be done. After ruffing a heart in hand with the last trump, Kamalda took the diamond finesse which is guaranteed to lose! East won this with the King but his unavoidable diamond return saw declarer home. Discarding ahead of a dummy that holds diamond Ace , a heart and a club West has been compelled either to discard his master heart or un-guard his ♣J. This hand is a wonderful illustration of how a really long suit held by an opponent enables you to pin-point the defence’s distribution. Even better – the manner in which Kamalda made use of it by turning it against West to lethal effect!
Subhash Gupta belongs to the rare species that has represented two different countries at the very highest level in bridge – India and Canada. I was blessed to see him perform a miracle at the table on the following hand. After a fairly sedate auction, Subhash Gupta found himself at the wheel in 6♥. West leads a club and the only obvious danger is a 4-0 trump division.
After winning the ♣A, declarer led a low heart covered by West with the 10. Declarer puts on the Ace and East discards a club met with suitable theatrics by Guptaji and audible gasps from a few other kibitzers. Not one to be dismayed by such trivial misfortune, Subhash was busy plotting the coup that had to be pulled off. If the distribution of West’s remaining suits is favourable, West can be end-played to surrender one of his trump tricks. In order to make this happen, West needs to be stripped of all the other suits with declarer reducing himself to just 2 trumps, leaving a side-suit card in his own hand and another in dummy.
This elimination is possible only if West was initially dealt a 3-4-3-3 hand; else he can ruff before declarer has got the brew ready.
In addition if you need to ruff thrice in hand, the number of entries needed in dummy requires the ♠K to be right. At trick 3, Subhash ruffed a winning club and then continued by cashing three top diamonds. A spade finesse was followed by a second club ruff. Now declarer continued the good work by playing a spade to the Ace and ruffing a spade. Declarer now holds ♥K7 and diamond Jack whereas dummy has the 9&2 of trumps and ♠8. The lead of the diamond Jack caught West in a pincer with QJ8 of trumps, and shrieks of delight from the gathered cognoscenti. The old master had pulled it off once again! If West ruffs with an honour, dummy pitches a spade and West must lead from his tenace. If West trumps low, dummy’s trump 9 scores. The impressive trump holding of QJ108 has yielded a single trick with the second trick having vanished into thin air!
As F Scott Fitzgerald put it, “Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind”. Or put another way, intelligence recognises what has happened while genius recognises what will happen.
Sanjoy Bhattacharyya is Managing Partner at Fortuna Capital and an avid bridge player.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BloombergQuint or its editorial team.
As a Subscriber you get
Stories
RECOMMENDED FOR YOU
POPULAR