Bridge is not merely a game of skill and imagination. It is a game where the nerves of human beings are stretched to the full revealing their little switches of weakness. In other words, bridge is an exercise in psychology wherein one needs to be vigilant enough to note how much pressure an opponent is undergoing and of course what are his reasons behind a certain compelling play, defence or avoidance of endplay.
A good bridge player keeps track of every little hesitation, avoidance or a quick mopping up of a trick to keep an entry that the defender, undertake. His reward comes in his sound judgement. But for that to come about, one must be well versed in every bridge technique and quite vigilant enough to understand the pattern and play of the defenders. This is important in the overall context of the hand vis-à-vis the contract bid. In bridge, challenges come unexpectedly, but when they do, it behooves a good declarer to rise to the occasion and meet the challenge squarely overcoming it in a manner which leave the opponents perplexed.
Let us take you way back to 1979, Eastbourne where Switzerland is leading the contest with its star player Jean Besse holding south's hand and bidding as under: The opening lead by west is a low club with the following NS hands: Let us now analyse south's prospects in a contract of 4H bid by him. Looking at the 2 hands, we find that there can be 2 losers in spades, 1 in clubs, 1 in diamonds and 1 in hearts. That makes 5 losers in stead of 3 - far too many for comfort.
Straightaway dummy's QC loses to the king and the spade return killing the QS with west's ace of spades opening up an immediate loser in spades when west returned a spade driving out the declarer's king of spades. Crossing to the ace of clubs, declarer takes the trump finesse successfully with QH winning.
At this point, to the ordinary mortal, the contract is a lost cause with hardly a way to avoid a loser in diamonds and spades, with 2 tricks already lost to the defence. First of all how would you proceed as south in fulfilling your bid contract of 4H? This one is a tough cookie. For there is still a matter of the trump king besides the 2 solid losers pending and the 2 already lost.
Well are you going for a repeat trump finesse by getting into the dummy with the ace of diamonds? Not so with Jean Besse who had a different story to unfold to the defenders. He banged the AH and the doubleton KH fell under it. Hearing a sigh of relief, Besse strarted reeling off the trumps. Let us now lift the curtain on the west east hands, which were as under:
When 3 more heart tricks were cashed by Besse, west's and east's last four cards were as under: Dummy had no spades and hearts keeping A108 of diamonds and a club. When Besse released his last trump, west felt the pinch first. He could not bare his KD, so he bared his spade retaining K9 of diamonds. Dummy shed a diamond and now it was east's turn to succumb. Unable to throw the winning club knowing west was exhausted in clubs, with dummy's 4th club being a threat card, east also came down to 2 diamonds. Now Besse end played east with the spade who perforce returned a low diamond. Any guesses even now? Where would you place the KD - yet Besse confidently guessed right by playing low. Can you spot why? Because on the spade, west allowed east to overtake to save himself from being end played away from the king. For Jean Besse that was all he needed to know.
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South North
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1H 3NT
3H 4H
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North South
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652 KQ7
653 AQJ1097
A1083 Q7
AQ4 73
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West East
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A87 J1093
82 K4
K962 J53
10862 KJ95
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West East
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87 J
- -
K9 J5
- 5
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