Wednesday, February 16, 2005 10:30 AM

Killing The Board

PITBULLS:

There are some defensive strategies that come up so often in Bridge that they have labels attached to them. One is the “dummy lock” which is self evident by its name and “killing the dummy” is another. Patterns assist us in finding these common defensive plays . Lets discuss the latter one as a number of examples have come up in play recently. I was playing against the Bartons and the auction went

1♠-P-2♣-P We lead the diamond Ace and the board hits with x Jxx xx AKQJ10xx . We continue

2♥-P-3♣-P with the diamond king and everybody follows. Now what ? Patterns again are the answer

3♥-P-4♥-P . Declarer is probably 5-5-2-1 so lead a club to “kill the board”. The club comes too early for declarers liking as the trumps are not drawn. Lee tried to recover by playing more clubs hoping that the long hand would ruff in but to no avail. Lee overruffed my trump and played the Ace & King of trump but my partner had Qxx so bye bye dummy. If we do not switch to a club , Lee plays AK of trump and runs clubs until partner ruffs in for –620. Timing is everything.

Susan was in 5♣ recently and “killing the board” is again the defense du jour. You hold A98xxx Qx KJx xx and Susan has indicated a very long club suit on the bidding. You lead the heart queen and the board comes down with KQJ10 Kxx xxxxx K . Susan plays small and your queen wins so what is your next play ? The only entry to the spades is the trump king so “kill the board” by taking away that entry prematurely. You switch to a trump and Susan leads the spade king with partner signaling two spades. The hand can not be made now. What if you continue hearts ? Susan ruffs and leads a spade you win the Ace and continue a spade. Susan discards a diamond and leads another spade . I ruff with Qx of clubs and Susan over ruffs. Back to the club king drawing my last trump and Susan cashes the last spade for +600.

Good defenders quite often “kill the board” with their choice of opening leads.

1♠-P-2♦-P The 3♦ bid was alerted as not forcing and I held Axx xxx xx AJxxx . With a trump control , I

2♠-P-3♦-P decided to “kill the board” by leading a diamond. xx xxx AKQJxx xx . Declarer won the

4♠-P-P-P diamond and led a spade which I ducked . Declarer lead another spade and I won my Ace and returned a diamond. The dummy was dead and we got +200 instead of –650.

The most common “killing the board” strategy is leading a trump. My partner held a nice 16 HCP hand AKQx KJ10xx Kxx x and opened a heart. LHO bid 2NT vul and I bid 3♥ . RHO bid 4♣ and my partner bid 4♥ which brought 5♣ which got doubled and ended the auction. OK partner shows about 8 HCP’s for crawling in at the 3 level. You have 16 + 8 = 24 so the opponents are in a 16 HCP 11 trick game. Where are their tricks going to come from ? If you say by ruffing , go to the head of the class. You lead a trump and the board comes down with x x AJxxxx AJ987 . Declarer has xxxxx xxxx void KQ10x . He needs 3 ruffs to establish the diamonds plus entries to get back and forth. This is impossible so he goes two down for +500. My partner did not lead a trump nor switch to a trump so -750 was the result. Timing is everything when you are trying to “kill a board”.