TAKE YOUR TIME AT THE FIRST TRICK

Being founding father of the Ailurophile Society, the cliche I dislike the most is, "There's more than one way to skin a cat." But the concept -and the concept alone -may be applied to many bridge deals.

Take today's, for example. How should South have planned the play in three no-trump after West led the heart seven, and East put in the 10?

South's opening bid of two no-trump showed a good 20 to a poor 22 points. (I am not fond of the modern 20-21. That means you either force to game with a balanced 24 points or have two clubs two diamonds - two notrump show 22-24 points, which is an uncomfortably wide range.)

Three declarers a played the contract. The first won trick one with the heart king and immediately finessed the club queen. However, East won with the king and returned his last heart: down two.

The second declarer saw that he did not need the club finesse. After winning the first trick, he led the club queen (to tempt a cover) but put up dummy's ace when West played low. The king didn't drop, so he led a second club. Nonetheless, the result was the same: down two.

The third declarer used the Rule of 11. Subtracting the value of the card led (seven) from 11, he knew there were four cards higher than the seven in the other three hands, and he had seen all of them.

bridge

Therefore, West had several heart tricks ready to run if East got on play. To try to stop this from happening, South played his heart four at trick one. With the hearts 6-2, he could no longer go down.

The moral is: Paws (sic!) at trick one. Copyright United Feature Syndicate

(Asia Features)