Probably the worst entry in the ongoing competition of find absolutely silly things to show on a TV screen, is a program called “Boer zoekt vrouw”. The proper translation would be “Farmers seeks wife” and the content is what you guess it is. A single male farmer is looking for a wife and starts to date women, with various degrees of success. Now, for the life of me, I can’t understand why anybody would like to have 3 million people looking over his shoulder during a date. What is even worse, it is broadcasted by public broadcasting system, so guess who is paying for this nonsense. Right, tax payers like you and me.
In a deck of cards, the Dutch call the Queen, the “Vrouw”. “Vrouw” simply means women or wife, which means that her royal title got lost. The same applies to the King, this card is called “Heer” or “gentleman”. The Jack is called the “Boer” in Dutch. “Boer” is literally a farmer, but it should be interpreted more in the English sense of somebody who gets told by kings and queens what to do. So, taking all this into account, a bridge-translation of “Boer zoekt vrouw” would be “Jack seeks Queen”. Of course, this is a theme that does happen at the bridge table. Consider this hand from a practice match yesterday evening.
South is in 4♥ after a 1NT opening bid and a transfer auction. The opening lead is the diamond 2 (3rd and 5th) to the king and the _Q back to the ace. Declarer starts on trumps, east wins the ace and returns a diamond won by west’s ace. That is already interesting, leading from ♦Ax2 is very unlikely, so west appears to have 5 diamonds with the suit splitting 5-3. A spade is returned and declarer draws trumps (west had 2, east 3), cashes the top diamond and ruffs a spade. That leaves this ending, and the key is to find the ♣Q.
What do we know so-far? Trumps split 3-2 with west holding a doubleton. Diamonds are probably 5-3. East can be placed with ♠QJTx. That are 10 known cards in the east hand. West has also 10 known cards, 5 diamonds, 2 hearts and the 3 spades she already played. This doesn’t get you much further, both players are equally likely to hold long clubs and thus the ♣Q.
Are there any other clues? Counting high cards won’t get you anywhere either, east and west both appear to have balanced hands that would never enter the auction regardless if they have the ♣Q or not. What more? Well, west appeared to have led a diamond from Axxxx. That is not a very attractive lead, so her alternatives must be worse. What are those alternatives? A 3 card black suit. Indeed it is not very attractive to lead from 3 small in a black suit and what is even worse, lead from Qxx.
OK, that is about all you know, time to make a decision. As we started this blog with a discussion on TV, it is kind of fitting that we now break for a commercial... While reading it, decide what you would do.
We’re back. You don’t have much to go by, but the only thing is that west alternatives for a lead must be worse than ♦Axxxx. ♣Qxx is such a holding, so I play west for that. Small club from dummy to the ♣A, then the ♣J, small, small and east concedes the rest of the tricks. Did you get this right?
10 tricks made, for a 11 imp pickup when the other table goes down in 3NT after a small diamond lead. East judged well to duck the lead and south won the trick. South had to play a heart in order to get his tricks, east won and east-west cashed 4 diamonds. A bit unlucky, 3NT is a decent contract, if the diamonds break, you do not have to find the ♣Q.
Commercial: my fellow-TD Gijs asked to point all my bridge-playing friends to the bridge marathon of Zwolle that he is organizing. The key-data: March 17, 2012. 12 hours of bridge from 10am to 10pm, 70 boards, butler scoring, with breaks for lunch and a chinese dinner. Click here for more information or send email to register.