Posted on 03 February 2010
Silvio Sbarigia is a pharmacist; he was born in Rome and lives there. He has won the European championship in 1975, runner up at 1974’s and at Olympic games of 1976. His bridge problems aren’t difficult; just we need to think on a plan and to avoid the instinctive playing.
Quiz n° 4
North (dummy): ♠KJ9 ♥653 ♦AQJ ♣J1075
South (declarer): ♠AQ10742 ♥K32 ♦86 ♣AK
IMPs. Contract: 4♠. West leads ♠5
Make your playing plan.
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SILVIO SBARIGIA is a pharmacist; he was born in Rome and lives there. He has won the European championship in 1975 with legendary Blue Team, runner up at 1974’s and at Olympic games of 1976. Sbarigia is member of Neapolitan Club Technical Commettee. His bridge problems aren’t difficult; just we need to think on a plan and to avoid the instinctive playing. Bridge quizzes by Sbarigia »
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Solution explained by Silvio Sbarigia:
We see three losers in hearts and one in diamonds. Finessing in both these suits, we catch 75% of chances of saving one loser or more (anyway playing diamonds first). Can we do better? Yes, we can. We win the lead by dummy’s ♠9, then draw ♣’s Ace and King, and play spades again, toward dummy’s King; now ♣J, discarding a diamond on it. West wins the trick by the Queen and plays clubs again; East ruffs the ♣10 (pity: it were winning), we overruff. Now we move the diamond to dummy’s Ace and diamond Queen, discarding an heart. West can win this trick too, but declarer’s ♥K is still safe and we have the time for collecting 10 tricks (six spades, two hearts and two clubs).
The matter of this quiz is the “Avoidance” playing:
“A plan of play designed to prevent a particular opponent from gaining the lead” [2001 ACBL Official Encyclopedia of Contract Bridge, page 31]. The manoeuvre in clubs doesn’t bring us any trick: on the contrary, we have lost a trick that we could have saved – maybe. However, playing so we have prevented East, the dangerous side, from gaining the lead for the time that we needed in order to establish the diamonds.