In chess, a sacrifice is a move giving up a piece in the hope of gaining tactical or positional compensation in other forms. A sacrifice could also be a deliberate exchange of a chess piece of higher value for an opponent's piece of lower value. Any chess piece except the king can be sacrificed. In contrast, in bridge, even the king may be sacrificed in pursuit of a satisfactory outcome.
During the weekend from 15 to 16 January 2012 at the TGRs Bridge Club, 44 Great Cumberland Place, London, the third annual TGRS Auction Pairs was played.
This event is designed for every bridge player who wants to test their mettle and earn their value at Auction. What does that mean? This event is for you if you have money, want to win money, can play bridge, or just love to be in the action!
54 pairs played this year's edition, among others we can mention: Zia MAHMOOD - David BAKHSHI; Marshall LEWIS - David BURN, Alexander ALLFREY - Andrew ROBSON, Juan Carlos VENTIN - Frederic WRANG, Simon GILLIS - Boye BROGELAND. The winners of the TGRs Auction Pairs, for the second consecutive year were Adalsteinn Jorgensen and Bjarni Einarsson from Iceland.
I followed the event on BBO and saw this great hand where one of the defenders sacrificed his trump King to defeat the contract.
Geir Brekka led his stiff CJ, dummy played low as both North (C5) and declarer (C4) did. South already arrived in an uncomfortable position. A spade continuation would have allowed East to fulfill his contract - inevitably a few tricks later he would find himself end-played and obliged to play heart or diamond, allowing the declarer to enter dummy to pitch his club losers. A diamond continuation, looking at dummy was very unattractive. So South continued with a low heart to 6, 2 (showing an odd number of hearts) and King. At this point declarer played his only diamond. Brekka already knew declarer's shape: 6 spades, 2 hearts, 1 diamond and 4 clubs. Therefore he won DA, cashed HA and continued with the S10 won by Ruminski with the Jack.
When East played the SA South immediately realized that if followed with a small spade, he was going to be end-played in the next trick with his SK, and that he would have to play a red suit to dummy, helping declarer to pitch his club losers. So Brekkea unblocked his Trump King (!): trading one trick for three and defeating the contract down two. A nice defense, well done Geir!
Contributed by Ana Roth for BridgeTopics.com
Comments
Not too impressed
Are we looking at the same deal here?
A normal defense practiced by all beginners defeats the contract by 2 tricks: North takes clubs ace-king and returns a club ruffed by South. Those 3 tricks plus the 2 red aces and the king of trumps and Voila!
In fact, North’s defense may get very low marks on this deal. Indeed, if declarer has the same shape but holds A-K of spades and heart ace (instead of the king), by playing a low club at trick 1 North allows the contract to be made-a terrible outcome. On the other hand, the straightforward defense of winning the ace-king of clubs and playing a third round of clubs succeeds nicely.