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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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.