18 C R Y D E R P O I N T MAY Contract Bridge CARD-READING by STEVE BECKER DUCK SOUP A shortage of entries to dummy is usually just as apparent to the defenders as it is to the declarer. When such a situation exists, the defenders should try to shape their play so as to take advantage of declarer’s limited communication with dummy. For example, consider this deal where South made three notrump, although proper defense would have defeated him. West led a club, and South won East’s ten with the king. Hearts was obviously the suit to attack, so declarer led a heart to the jack, East taking the queen. East returned a club, taken by declarer with the queen. South then forced out the ace of hearts and wound up making four notrump, scoring two spades, three hearts, two diamonds and three clubs. However, the contract would have been defeated had East allowed the jack of hearts to win at trick two! Presumably, declarer would next have taken a spade finesse. West would win and return a club. Regardless of PAY ATTENTION! 18 CRYDER POINT COURIER | MAY 2015 | WWW.QUEENSCOURIER.COM how South proceeded from then on, he would finish a trick short, scoring just two spades, a heart, two diamonds and three clubs. The advantage of ducking the first heart is that declarer scores only one heart trick instead of three. This represents a difference of two tricks, or the difference between making eight tricks and 10. East should reason that if declarer has only two hearts -- a virtual certainty given West’s play of the three at trick two, indicating an odd number of hearts -- refusing to take the queen immediately will ultimately cut South off from dummy. He can see that dummy is critically short of entries and should defend accordingly. Usually, the holdup play is utilized by the declarer, but there are many cases -- and this is one of them -- where the defense can successfully adopt the same strategy. (c) 2015 King Features Syndicate Inc. Mah Jongg is the most fun when the participants are friendly even though the game is intrinsically competitive. When the game is over and everyone is mixing the tiles and building the Wall, that’s the time to chat and exchange ideas. But once the game begins, your attention should be focused on what’s going on in front of you. Inattention was the problem in a game a couple of weeks ago. As the game progressed, one of the players discarded a 5Dot and mistakenly called it 5Bam. There is usually not much ado about it—and another player usually picks up on it and corrects the mistake. No harm— no foul. But one of the players we’ll call her Jan, started to call for the 5Dot, which was really a 5Bam. Didn’t the player have to discard a 5Dot instead of the 5Bam? No. Did the miscaller need a 5Dot and mistakenly called the Bam a Dot? Maybe. Although she didn’t disclose the fact, it became obvious to the others that Jan needed a 5Dot for an Exposure. Her big mistake was not paying attention to what was going on in front of her, because even if a tile is miscalled, players have the responsibility of attending to what is discarded, regardless of what the caller says. So, unfortunately, she revealed to everyone a 5Dot was essential to her hand and of course, no one discarded a 5Dot. But what if Jan called the tile and used it in an Exposure? Presumably the Exposure is in error and therefore the hand is declared “Dead”. A shared fault, because again the Exposee should have been paying attention. It’s pretty drastic, but that’s the rule. However the rule changes if Jan called the misnamed tile for Mah Jongg. Then the onus is on the miscaller. The penalty for misnaming a Mah Jongg tile is to pay the mah Jongg declarer four times the amount the hand is worth. No one else pays anything. Pretty stiff penalty! So the lesson here is to pay attention to what’s going on. If you don’t, the consequence can be costly…. AMERICAN Reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles and Elaine Sandberg. Elaine is a mah-jongg instructor, who has taught the game for Holland American Cruise Lines and at American Jewish University, and the author of “A Beginner’s Guide to American Mah Jongg: How to Play the Game and Win” (Tuttle, $14.95). til next time... may the tiles be with you!
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