Friday, September 15, 2006 2:40 AM

Defense – Patterns

PITBULLS:

Expert Bridge players “count out” hands on defense . This is done by translating the bidding into patterns or noticing when somebody shows out of a suit or signals etc. This is done all the time on each and every hand that is defended. If you do not do this , you are just guessing how to defend, This is a must have skill to defend properly and should be automatic.

Here is a simple hand where translating the bidding into patterns beats a little club partial but is with 4 IMPS nevertheless. Steve Clements opened 1♦ and Chris Buchanan responded 1♠ on

♠Kxx ♥xx ♦Qxx ♣xxxxx . Steve rebid 2♣ and that ended the auction. When one partner gives preference to a 2^nd suit it usually means that he is short in the 1^st suit so a trump lead is pretty well automatic on these auctions. I held ♠Q10x ♥Kxxxx ♦xxx ♣KJ and I led the club king. This won the trick so I translated the bidding into a pattern. Declarer showed 5-4 in the minors so the 5 card diamond suit is a danger to discard winners. Declarer might be 3-1-5-4 so I switched to the spade queen which was ducked . I continued the spade 10 and BJ won his jack. BJ is counting out the hand also so he also knows the 5 card diamond suit is a danger. He knows the spades are probably 4-3-3-3 so he cashes his Ace of spades. BJ now switches to a heart before the trump queen is knocked out so we win the race. Declarer wins the heart Ace , cashes the club Ace dropping my jack of clubs and starts to run diamonds. BJ ruffs in on the 3^rd diamond and cashes his heart for one down. Both declarer and responding bid 3 card suits ! If you did not “count the hand” they make 3♣ and you lose 5 IMPS.

Another routine counting out a hand occurred against Klimo. Louise opened 1♦ and BJ pre-empted to 2♥ with Klimo bidding 2♠. I held ♠xxx ♥K10987 ♦xxx ♣Kx so they could be on for a slam here. I decide to muddy the waters with a 3♣ bid. Louise bids 3♠ and BJ raised “my clubs” to the 4 level. Klimo made a slam try by bidding 4♥ which I doubled followed by a 4♠ bid by Loiuse. BJ decided to bid 5♥ and Klimo now started to think. He held ♠AKQxx ♥void ♦KJxx ♣Jxxx . With both of us bidding clubs this marks Louise with only one club so he takes the push to 5♠. I lead a heart and the Ace wins on the board and Klimo discards a diamond. Klimo ruffs a heart and draws 3 rounds of trump and I follow to all of them. BJ is counting out my hand as I showed up with 5♥ , 3♠ so far. Klimo now cashes diamonds and I follow to 3 of those ! . BJ now knows I only had a 2 card club suit for my bid. BJ had AQxx of clubs originally so he carefully holds on to the AQx and ducks to my king when Klimo trys for a pseudo end play. We win 10 IMPS as we made Klimo go wrong with our defensive bidding. If you do not count hands , you might discard clubs because I “bid them” . Laziness would not be rewarded .