V N Ramamoorthy
For time immemorial, men have been struggling to decipher the minds and moods of the fairer sex! If married, it is much more a daunting task, may be 😢😇
But both men and women are equally at their wits' end at the bridge table - for locating / taming of her majesty the Queen, quiet often!
Whenever you are dealt with a suit in 5-4 ( or even 6-3) combinations, with all honour cards including 10 and 9 but missing the Queen it is always a toss up 😢
Your contract, especially when you are in a small / grand slam hinges on your " Taming the shrew"!
What does one do? Toss a coin, do "Eena meena mina mo" , say a prayer to your favorite God?
Not necessarily. If you take care to follow some simple precautions like :
1. Remember the bidding
2. Remember which opponent made a " Double " or made an overcall
3. Keep counting the points / honours shown by opponents - you need to watch like a hawk!
4. Get a mental count of the distribution of cards in each suit held by opponents
Believe me, you get clues all the time, provided you are counting and watching 🙃
And then there are tenets like :
"Queen always sits over Jack"
"Eight ever, Nine never" - for a finesse?
"On Tuesdays take the finesse through your LHO..." Blah, blah, blah....
But what does an accomplished expert do?
He will "Postpone" the finesse - as much as possible!
He will remove trumps as quickly and cheaply as possible. Then he will go about taking side suit winners and eliminating side suits - all the while noting the fall of honour cards and distribution, trying to get the counts of opponents' hands.
Then he will endeavour to "Throw in" either opponent forcing him to open that tricky suit where you needed to guess or lead a card which will give you a ruff and sluff.
1. If a thrown in opponent chooses the play for ruff and sluff - he is the candidate, most likely, to be finessed
2. If the thrown in opponent opens up the critical suit, well and good.
In any case you need to collect as much information as possible before you dare to tackle that finesse!
Remember, you need to have finesse, when handling ladies, especially when they are " Royal " like our elusive Queens!
Happy bridging,
Cheers
VNR
P. S. : Above New year resolutions made after gulping down 5 Large pegs on the New Year eve 😇- gulp them down, Hic!
Disclaimer : All opinions are entirely those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the BridgeFromHome Team.