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Show Ieasy les'sons in t i AUCTION BRIDGE J 4 I 1 a ... !Lr. TAVL H- SEYMOUR f 1 Author oi "HhUhU cm Auction Brid,." I - ..-7s (Copyright, by Hoyle, Jr.) Article Twenty-Eight. The Grand Coup THIS Is a play which sometimes becomes be-comes possible at a declared trump and if recognized in time Its performance perform-ance will gain a trick for declarer. The essentials of such a situation are: A major and a minor tenace In trumps one In Junior's hand and the other held by declarer and one more trump In declarer's hand than In junior's. Played In the ordinary manner this holding would force the lead into declarer's de-clarer's hand on the eleventh trick and compel him to lead away from his tenace up to junior's, which would give Junior one trick If he held the minor tenace, or two tricks If his tenace ten-ace were the major. If, however, declarer held one less trump that Is no more than junior and If the lead could be placed In dummy for the twelfth trick junior would lose one If he held the major tenace or he would lose both If he held the minor tenace. It thus resolves re-solves itself Into a question of getting rid of a trump and this may often be done by trumping a good card of dummy's. Of course a re-entry card In dummy. is also necessary so that the situation must be recognized several sev-eral tricks in advance and the play planned for it. Here is a deal to illustrate it: -K, Q,9, "710, 2 C K, 5, 4 A, K, Q, J 7, S, 2 10, S V 6,S N K, J, 7, 4 O A.J, 9, 8 1 W E 010,6,2 10,8, 6, i S 9,7, S. A, J, 8, 6 S A. Q, 9, 8, 6 O Q ,7. S 6 North deals and bids one no trump and East passes, South has two good reasons for changing the bid to hearts: First, he has a good original heart bid; second, he has a worthless singleton. Therefore he bids two hearts. West passes and North considers con-siders changing back to two no trump. If he had no hearts or only one he would have done so; but his holding (10, 2) is so near normal expectancy that he passes, and South becomes the declarer to play two hearts. West has a very poor hand from which to make an original lead. The Ace-Jack combination, like the Ace-Queen, Ace-Queen, is the very least desirable opening, because if he waits for that suit to be led up to him he is much more likely to be able to get two tricks from it. He therefore leads the -four of clubs. Dummy is placed on the table with the trumps at the right and declarer takes a moment to consider his play. He must lose one trick to the Ace -of diamonds and he may lose one heart, but otherwise it promises to be a very easy hand to play. The play follows: W N E S 1 . . - C4 CJ C2 C6 2 . . - H3 H10 H4 H6 5 . . . H5 H2 H7 HS 4 ... DA D4 D2 . D3 6 . . . S7 SK S5 S6 6 . . . C6 CA C3 H9 7 . . . S2 S4 S10 SA 8 . . . D8 DB D6 DQ . 9 . . . D9 DK D10 D7 10 - . . C8 CK C7 S8 11 . ' . . C10 CQ C9 SJ 12 . . . S3 SQ HJ HQ 13 . . . DJ S9 HK HA Declarer wins a small slam. At trick 2 declarer leads dummy's ten of hearts so as to take the double finesse and retain the lead in dummy If It is successful. After trick 3 declarer de-clarer sees that junior holds the King and Jack of trumps and he recognizes the Grand Coup situation. He must plan to get rid of his nine of trumps and then place dummy in the lead for the twelfth trick. He leads diamonds at trick 4 because this Ace must be drawn out as soon as possible. At trick 6 he trumps dummy's Ace of clubs and then takes his Ace of spades. He cannot continue spades because East has played the ten and probably has no more and he must not be allowed al-lowed a chance to use one of his trumps. Declarer takes his diamonds next on tricks 8 and 9 and then leads the good clubs from dummy and discards dis-cards his two spades on them. At trick 12 It makes no difference which of his trumps East plays. Declarer captures them both and makes a small slam. Foot Note: The term major and minor tenace are used here because It makes the explanation so much simpler sim-pler However, the trumps need not be Ace-Queen and King-Jack, but declarer's de-clarer's last two must each be higher than one of Junior's. |