AUCTION BRIDGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 222, 19 September 1930, Page 6

AUCTION BRIDGE.

THE WRONG VIEW.

(By A. E. MAKNING FOSTER.)

How often it happens that players mios a certain game and rubber through taking what they call "the wrong view" when it is not really a question of view at all. Occasions arise frequently when the declarer may aptly state that ihe has taken a '"wrong view." He may have been misled toy false cards of the adversaries, t>y the bidding,,.or by taking mathematical chances. In the following case from actual play it was not a question of the wrong view, although the declarer excused himself in this way, but of wrong play.

Score, game all, love all. Z deals and bids "One Spade"; A "Two Hearts"; Y ''Three Clubs ; B "2s T o bid"; Z "Two No Trumps." All pass. A opens with the King of Hearts, which wins the trick and continues with the Queen of Hearts, which also wins. Z takes the third trick in Hearts with the Ace. How should he play to ensure game? ThL; is how he played actually: He led 9 of Diamonds, and when A played the 2 he played Dummy's Queen, and the trick >vas taken by B with the King. B led 3 of Spades. Z took the trick with the Jack and led another Diamond, finessing the 10, B winning with the Jack. B then led a Spade, and Z, on taking the trick, led 7 of Clubs and finessed the Jack, B winning with the Queen. Z therefore made only eight tricks, losing two' Diamonds and one Club, in addition to two Hearts.

This hand was played, in this peculiar fashion, at a well-known London club by a regular player, who remarked on his iil-luck in finding all the finesses wrong. When his partner pointed out to him that h< had game "sitting," he replied: "I daresay. But I took the wrong view." Now I gubmit that the wrong view is quite the wrong -way to put it. * There is a way of playing the hand which makes game a certainty. Moreover, it is a simple, easy, straightforward way, with no puzzling features. Z was right to hold up the Ace of Hearts until the third round of the suit to exhaust B. But, having done so, the rest of his play was extremely bad. It was qujie unnecessary to keep on 'finessing. He had the game for certain, with possibilities -of an overtrick. His right method after winning the third trick with the Ace of Hearts was to play out his four Spades. Having already discarded one of Dummy's Spades on the third Heart, his two discards from Dummy should have been 9 of Clubs and 7 of Diamonds. He should then have led 9 of Diamonds and'run it up to B.

There is nothing now for B to do but to lead a Diamond, or a Club. Whichever he elects to do, Z has game certain, making in all one Heart, four Spades, two Diamonds and two Clubs, or alternately one Heart, four Spades, one Diamond and three Clubs. The hand is a very simple and elciuentary example of placing the lead at the right moment, after eliminating the Spades. It was, in fact, quite a remarkable lapse on the part of Z.