SWISS MATCH
In each seven-board Swiss Match, you face realistic situations, make key decisions, compare scores, and get your result. There are also secondary discussion questions about substantive matters other than each deal's important action. (Of course, routine matters are filtered out, so the interest level of the deals is abnormally high.) The problems cover all technical phases of bridge (constructive bidding, competitive bidding, opening lead, declarer play and defensive play) and a lot more besides.
From the May, 1995, Match
In most Swiss tournament experiences there comes a point at which your team must win if it wants to keep alive its chances for an overall high finish. Generally, the better you are doing the later this point comes; if you are doing very well, the point of desperation never comes.
Your team is performing at only a mediocre level in a medium-size sectional Swiss. Struggling, you manage to remain in contention during the day, but you reach your point of desperation two rounds from the end when your record falls to four and two. To stay in the hunt for high places, you must win--which requires a margin of 3 imps or more--in the next round. Trying to stir up energy in your partner and teammates, you point this out just before play starts. Was anyone interested? You couldn't tell.
Board 1
North dealer
Neither side vulnerable
| NORTH ♠ 10 ♥ K 6 4 3 ♦ A K 7 4 ♣ A K Q J |
||
| SOUTH ♠ A J 3 ♥ A Q 5 2 ♦ 9 8 ♣ 10 9 8 6 |
| SOUTH | WEST | NORTH | EAST |
|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 1 ♦ | Pass |
| 1 ♥ | Pass | 3 ♠* | Pass |
| 4 ♠ | Pass | 5 NT | Pass |
| 7 ♥ | Pass | Pass | Pass |
*In Bridge World Standard, a splinter raise of hearts (showing short spades).
West leads the heart ten.
Plan the play.
| NORTH ♠ 10 ♥ K 6 4 3 ♦ A K 7 4 ♣ A K Q J |
||
| WEST ♠ K 8 6 4 2 ♥ 10 9 ♦ J 6 ♣ 7 5 3 2 |
EAST ♠ Q 9 7 5 ♥ J 8 7 ♦ Q 10 5 3 2 ♣ 4 | |
| SOUTH ♠ A J 3 ♥ A Q 5 2 ♦ 9 8 ♣ 10 9 8 6 |
In a ruffing situation where declarer wants to keep control, and the reentries to the trump-drawing hand are split between trump honors and side-suit high cards or ruffs, it is often best to use the trump entries last. This phenomenon arises when the opponents may have an opportunity to discard while declarer takes his ruffs. Those discards may be in the side suit where some of the reentries lie. Thus, the earlier declarer can use up the side-suit reentries, the less opportunity the opponents will have had to discard, and the smaller will be the danger that an opponent will ruff (or overruff) a side-suit reentry. In contrast, the trump entries are secure against this danger.
Curiously, that principle reverses when you don't expect the opponents to be able to discard while you are attending to your ruffing business. In that situation, it is generally more advantageous to remove as many of the opponents trumps as early as you can, just in case an opponent with short trumps is also short in a key side suit.
In the current case, you will try for two spade ruffs, clearly safer than trying to ruff diamonds in the South hand. Thus, you need three closed-hand entries (one to use to draw trumps). These must be the ace of spades, one high trump (because you need to use two of dummy's low trumps for ruffing), and one diamond ruff. The ace of spades must come first. And, since you don't anticipate anyone's discarding on spades, the "reversed ruffing-entry principle" dictates using the high trump second, the diamond ruff last. Therefore, the correct order of business is: heart king, spade ace, spade ruff, heart ace, spade ruff, diamond ace-king-ruff, heart queen.
Results: If you played correctly, plus 1510; if not, minus 50. Also worthy of note: Did you give your grand-slam contract the extra time it deserved?
Post-Mortem
On Board 1, where you had to handle your reentries carefully to get the ruffs you needed to make seven hearts, your opposite numbers stopped in six.
| NORTH ♠ 10 ♥ K 6 4 3 ♦ A K 7 4 ♣ A K Q J |
||
| SOUTH ♠ A J 3 ♥ A Q 5 2 ♦ 9 8 ♣ 10 9 8 6 |
Is seven hearts a worthwhile contract?
Probably, but not by much. When a small slam is laydown, or virtually so, a grand slam has to be a significant favorite for the imp-odds to justify bidding it. (In a short match, you can afford to bid seven when it is only a slight favorite, because the result of that board is so likely to have a huge impact on the overall result.) This grand needs a three-two trump break, plus a bit of handling, putting it very close to the mark, assuming that mark could be calculated based on the length of the match--so close that one could not reasonably answer the question with absolute confidence, in the absence of massive calculations. In other words, some things are not worth worrying about.
In a different direction, sometimes a questionable grand slam is not worth bidding because of the possibility that the opponents won't reach even a small slam. Then, because of the IMP scale, you risk giving up a big gain for getting to slam for the chance to win very little more by bidding and making seven--very poor odds indeed.
North-South plus 1010.
Your teammates are still arguing about the last board. . . . West contends that . . . East proclaims that only a moron would . . . This is all proving very embarrassing to the monitor, who is trying unsuccessfully to get a member of each pair to sign his report, in triplicate.
Meanwhile, is your team still going to be in contention?
Here's a sampler of the features, articles and columns that you will find in the pages of The Bridge World each month.