mn|SKY Club & Larry Cohen|tu||
cr|1255|cb|164|cg|1255|
cr|264|cb|2255|cg|2255|
cr|364|cb|364|cg|3255|
cr|4255|cb|464|cg|464|
cr|590|cb|5180|cg|5130|
cr|6255|cb|6255|cg|6255|
cr|7120|cb|7255|cg|80|
fh|170|ff|1Times New Roman|fi|1y|fb|1y|fu||
fh|250|ff|2Times New Roman|fi|2y|fb|2y|fu||
fh|379|ff|3Arial|fi||fb||fu||
fh|410|ff|4Arial|fi||fb|4y|fu||
fm|1|
fm|2|
fm|3|
fm|4|
bt||bg|5|nt||fp|1|
cs|1|3d|3|at|


^-{ SKY CLUB & Larry Cohen }
^-
|cs|1|fp|2|3d|3|at|^-{ Deal of the week Series I - Deal I}
|fp|4|ht|w|at|

|at|}
^-

|fp|4|ht|y|at|^- The analyses are kindly made and shared for you by Larry Cohen.
^*Hwww.larryco.com^*N
|at
pg||bg|6|nt|
|cs|2|ht|b|fp|2|at|^-{INTRODUCTION}
^-
|fp||at|Welcome to the first in a new series. Every week I will be providing an instructive deal. |pg||

nt||cs|2|ht|b|fp|2|at|^-{INTRODUCTION}
^-
|fp||at|For the first few weeks the deals will feature my favorite topic, the ^*BLAW of Total Tricks^*N ( more information here:  ^*Hwww.larryco.com/BridgeArticles/ArticleDetails.aspx?articleID=229^*N). 


More specifically, in each of these deals, one player will have to raise his partner's preempt. When your partner preempts, you have an easy decision. 

If you are interested in game (rare), then bid accordingly. But, if you are ^*Inot ^*N interested in game, your decision is easy: just raise to the level of your side's number of trumps.

|pg||
nt|
|cs|2|ht|b|fp|2|at|^-{INTRODUCTION}
^-
|fp||at|So, if your partner opens a weak 2-bid showing 6 cards, and you have 3-card support, raise to the 3-level (9 trumps so 9-trick level).

If your side is known to have 10 trumps, raise to the 4-level.  To read more about this, please see: ^*Hwww.larryco.com/BridgeArticles/ArticleDetails.aspx?articleID=129^*N

|pg||
bg|6|st||qx|Board1|3d||ah|SKY&&Larry|ah|S I - D I|
pn|South,Partner,North,You,South,West,North,East|md|3SAQT3H2DAT8762CA6,S8HKQT987DJ9CQ982,SKJ94HA4D54CJ7543|sv|0|sk|e|nt||ht|c|at|On this week's deal, you hold these East cards:|pg||mb|p|nt||ht|c|at|With neither side vulnerable, your RHO passes.  |pg||mb|p|at|You pass, of course  |pg||
mb|1d|at|and LHO opens 1D. |pg||
mb|2h|nt||ht|c|at|Your partner makes a jump overcall of 2@H |pg||mb|X|at|and RHO makes a negative double. What do you do?|pg||
nt||cq|3|lb|*mYour call is?^Pass~3@h~4@h^3|nt||ht|c|at|Partner's weak jump overcall is similar to an opening weak 2-bid.  |pg||at|It shows a 6-card suit. You have no game interest, of course,  |pg||
at|so this is the time to apply the ^*BLAW of Total Tricks^*N.   |pg||nt||ht|c|at|Your side has 10 trumps (6+4), so you bid to the 4-level. |pg||
nt||ht|c|at|Yes, I know that the 4-level is game, but that is just a coincidence. |pg||
at|You are not bidding 4@H to make. |pg||
at|You are bidding it to further the preempt.|pg||
nt||ht|c|at|If you buy it in 4@H, great. |pg||
at|If you make it tough on the opponents, also great. |pg||
mb|4h|nt||ht|c|at|Over your 4@H bid, LHO has a problem. |pg||
nt||ht|c|sk|a|at|Let's look at the full deal: |pg||
nt||ht|c|at|South will probably guess to bid 4@S. |pg||
at|A good adage is "when in doubt, bid 4@S over 4@H". |pg||
nt||ht|c|at|What do you think of the full deal?|pg||nt||ht|c|at|Here are my thoughts:|pg||
at|
1) Partner's 2@H bid is perfect - a textbook preempt.|pg||
nt||ht|c|at|2) Without negative doubles, North would be stuck for a bid. I recommend playing negative doubles on any level. |pg||
nt||ht|c|at|3) East's 4@H was a good preemptive bid. As you can see, 4@H won't make (my clever analysis tells me that the fact that E-W are missing all 4 aces means they aren't likely to make 10 tricks!).|pg||
nt||ht|c|at|4) How should the play go in 4@S? |pg||
mb|4sppp|nt||ht|c|at|One of my important tips for declarer play is that in a suit contract, declarer has to decide if he should draw trump. |pg||
nt||ht|c|hs|nsss|at|Here, it would be a big error to draw trump. |pg||ls|ssns|pc|hk|nt||ht|c|hc|ha|at|West leads a high heart and declarer wins dummy's @HA. |pg||
lc|ha|pc|hahh|pg||
nt||ht|c|at|At trick two, what should declarer do?|pg||nt||ht|c|hs|sdnd|at|Certainly, he should start the diamonds.|pg||
ls|sdnd|hc|da|at| Play a diamond to the ace and concede a diamond. |pg||
pc|dddad|pg||
pc|dddd|pg||
lc|da|nt||ht|c|at|The opponents will win |pg||
hs|eh|at|and probably play another heart. |pg||
ls|eh|pc|h|pg||
nt||ht|c|at|Then comes a key play. |pg||
at|To keep control of trumps, don't ruff! |pg||
hc|c6|at|Simply discard South's inevitable club loser on the heart. |pg||
lc|c6|pc|c6hh|pg||
nt||ht|c|at|This loser-on-loser play is a great trade. |pg||
hs|wheh|at|Now, the defense can't effectively play any more hearts.|pg||
ls|wheh|nt||ht|c|at|Declarer can win any return, |pg||
hs|sdns|at|ruff a diamond in dummy, |pg||
ls|sd|hs|ss|at|draw trumps - |pg||
ls|ssns|mc|11|at| and claim 11 tricks.|pg||
nt||ht|c|at|In my classes (maybe I need to teach better), |pg||
at|many students go down (or take only 10 tricks). |pg||
nt||ht|c|hs|ssns|at|Prematurely drawing trump is a sure recipe for disaster on this deal. |pg||ls|nsss|up|3|nt||ht|c|hc|c6|at|Failing to throw the @C6 as the opponents cash their heart also causes complications.|pg||
lc|c6|nt||ht|c|at|Maybe it looks easy to some of you, but in real life, that isn't always the case.
|pg||up|13|nt||ht|c|at|Next week, we will get another chance to ^*B"Follow the LAW"^*N.|pg||pf|y|nt||ht|c|at|You can now experiment with how the play of this deal could go by selecting the cards that you want to play for all 4 players. Click on the cards that you want to play. 

The  ^$6  button on the toolbar below can be used at any point to take back the last card that you played. |