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Counting at Bridge
by Harvey Fox
We are always told the importance
of counting if you want to improve your bridge.
You have to count trumps, points
and shape. This is something most players find difficult to do,
hand after hand during a session of bridge, and is the main thing
that distinguishes the 'expert' from us duffers.
Picture the scene, you are playing
in an ordinary pairs duplicate at the local club.
You pick up
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K J |
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K Q 10 9 8 7
5 |
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K Q |
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J 3
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Partner opens 1
(5 card majors) and with no opposition bidding you bid 1
and you hear partner bid 3!
After getting back in your chair, you decide that you only need
to know how many aces partner has so you roll out Roman Key Card
Blackwood.
Partner shows 1 or 4 aces. Now you've
played with partner before and know what their double raises are
like, so you temporize with 5 ,
and sure enough partner bids the sixth, confirming four aces.
OK, time to count tricks. 2 spades,
7 hearts, 2 diamonds and a club, makes 12. If partner has
Axx, or
AQx then 7NT is laydown, plus there could well be
finesses and squeeze positions (you have to pretend to think like
an expert).
So you bid 7NT... this goes
Pass Pass double (voice of thunder) ...not good.
You get the lead of a diamond and
before dummy hits, partner comes out with one of the great bridge
quotes.
"You can't bid like that, I
might have got the response to Blackwood wrong!"
At this you KNOW partner has got
the response to Blackwood wrong. Sure enough his hand:
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A 10 3 |
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A 6 4 2 |
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A |
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K 10 8 4 2
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So even though you guess the spade
queen, you still go one off, for not a good score.
Oh yes. Another thing to remember
to count is ACES.
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