My brilliant Korea

Australia’s best-known bridge player is Ron Klinger, one of the world’s leading bridge writers. One of the main benefits for subscribers to his website www.RonKlingerBridge.com,  is that a new bridge problem is uploaded each day. The following deal comes from the website in the past and was titled “My Brilliant Korea, starring Gabby Feiler”. It comes from the Pacific-Asia Youth Teams some years ago in Seoul.

South is declarer in 5D, after an auction in which East overcalled spades. West leads the S3. 

Dealer North, NS vul.

NORTH 
S K75
H 98
D AT9
C AKJ72

SOUTH 
S 4
H JT76
D KQJ8765
C 5

West’s lead of a low spade marks the SA as being with East (because West would not have led a low spade “away from the ace” on the opening lead against a suit contract). What card should be played from dummy?

Despite knowing that it would lose, Gabby Feiler as declarer made the unusual play of the SK. Why?

Feiler’s first aim as declarer was to deter East from switching to hearts which would see the contract go down immediately. If a low spade had been played from dummy on the first trick, East would not have continued spades because doing so would have made dummy’s SK a winner.

The late Tim Seres advised of the need to “give the opponents enough rope”; make it easy for them to do the wrong thing. Feiler’s simple play of the SK from dummy achieved this aim. East won the SA and made the easy return of another spade, ruffed by South.

Declarer can breathe again but still has work to do to make the contract. What is the best plan?

There are seven winners in diamonds and two in clubs, for nine in total, meaning that two more are needed from the club suit. Firstly, Feiler drew trumps with the DA and a diamond back to the DK. What next?

To bring home this game, Feiler needed a favourable lie of the clubs. He led a club to dummy’s jack. When the finesse worked, he discarded two hearts on the A-K of clubs then ruffed a club, establishing the last club as a winner. 

Thus he made four club tricks and his contract. This was the complete hand:

          NORTH 
          S K75
          H 98
          D AT9
          C AKJ72
WEST                EAST
S QT32              S AJ986
H AQ532             H K4
D 2                 D 43
C Q93               C T864
          SOUTH 
          S 4
          H JT76
          D KQJ8765
          C 5

As the clubs lie, it would also have worked for Feiler to bang down the A-K of clubs then ruff a club, hoping for the CQ to fall in three rounds. However this has only 26% chance of success, compared to 31% for his line.

In typical style, Klinger ends with a quote: “The public is wonderfully tolerant – it forgives everything except genius” (Oscar Wilde).

Klinger ventures way beyond bridge odds in his advice. Take the following:

Bridge and honeymoons do not mix. A bridge addict went on honeymoon with his non-bridge wife to the World Championships where he spent a great deal of time watching the bridge. His new partner in life went along with him to show interest in his hobby. However, he kept watching the bridge and finally the wife had had enough.

She left the playing area, sat down in the hotel foyer and burst into tears. An international player noticed her distress and, being a kindly soul, he comforted her over a drink in the hotel lounge.

“I stood it until the forty-sixth board. Then I just lost my temper and ran out,” she said.

'That was a mistake,' said the expert. “Board 46 was the best hand of the session.”