Score N/S: 325 E/W: 214 Dlr: North KQJ72 K53 K8 974 104 Q1096 6543 J108 A93 A2 J1097 Q532 865 J874 AQ2 AK6 East South West North 2      3       1     5

Exhibit #7a. Technique The Play: 1. East leads 5: K, 8, 4. South wins. 2. South leads A: 10, 7, 3. South wins. 3. South leads 8: 9, K, A. East wins. 4. East leads Q: 6, J, 9. East wins. 5. East leads 2: 4, 10, 3. West wins. 6. West leads Q: 5, 2. 7. West wins. 7. West leads 6: K, A, J. East wins. 8. East leads J: 2, 3, K. North wins. 9. North leads Q: 3, 5, 4. North wins. 10. North leads J: 9, 6, 10. North wins. 11-13. North/South win the last three with two spades and the A. East and West made their miserable 3-bid and they took both bags to boot. East lodges a complaint against the Dealer for handing out such lousy cards! Is this complaint justified? Submit your e-mail comments to: You Be the Judge

The Public Responds:

Our panelists made short work of this first case. Everyone agreed that East had no business complaining about the cards. In fact, the Dealer was kind enough to create a deal in which East/West could set their opponents and get back in the game. Here is a fine bit of analysis from our first panelist.

Brandon: E/W are trailing by a lot. They need to set or bag N/S to have a chance. On Round 3 North loses a count card, the K. Round 4 and 5 see two unexpected tricks won. These two, plus the lost count card, mean N/S are very vulnerable to a set!

Round 7 sees East overtrump the K with the A. MISTAKE! It's obvious from the bids that North has spades. Better let him waste the King trumping and try to promote E/W's other spades. East should have discarded a useless diamond. North gets set if he leads spades. The key is for E/W to score the 9.

A second panelist is in complete agreement.

Kloide: East/West had the set! How? Trick 7 jumps out as the critical play. Instead of overtrumping North's K with the A, East should throw a losing diamond. "Hmm..." North says. "I guess my partner has the ace." Now North starts to run his spades starting with a low one because of a possible doubleton A in his pard's hand. Now East plays low again, South the 8, and West takes the setting trick with the 10. Even if North runs off one more high spade before going low to his pard's "ace," East will play low and later take the setting trick with the 9.

Even though no charges have been filed against North and South, this one panelist is not truly satisfied with their performance.

Kloide: To whoever played South's hand...please don't ever pard me. You led the dangerous heart when you could have easily played the 3rd club round safely, if you wanted to hold out dimes for a possible finesse. That was an unnessesary risk and was the play that gave N/S a chance to set.

And even more damaging testimony is directed at East from the rest of the group.

Purple Cow: East/West got off to a fortunate start, bringing home three unexpected tricks. They need two more for the set, and they have them in a way. At Trick 7, East must hold up the A. It is usually wrong to ruff (or overruff) with the master spade. Indeed you should not hastily surrender control of the spade suit on a hand where the opponents hold the majority of the trumps (this sounds familiar). At Trick 7, East should simply pitch a diamond loser. East/West will then get two spade winners for the set.

Dustin: East and West played great until Trick 7. Overtrumping with the A cost their side the set. If instead East had discarded, he would preserve his "flexibility" in the spade suit. In other words, the 9 would be promoted. East should have known that it rarely pays to overtrump a top honor when that player has strong spades.

Lastly, we hear from from a new panelist whose unsigned post identifies himself only as someone mailing from MudslideSlim's e-mail address. Still, his writings seem vaguely familiar to us.

MudslideSlim: The over-ruff with the Ace of Spades cost an easy set. By making a discard here the nine of spades becomes promoted. 100% fault to East.

Something George Rosenkranz [a well-known Bridge expert] told me a long time ago... "Jay, win the Ace of trumps at the correct time!"

Yes, those are the words of wisdom that are offered whenever someone has just screwed up a hand. By the way, this case's Trump Promotion theme is the subject of a Spades Strategy article written by Jay Tomlinson.

We are not yet finished with the stoning. As if East isn't in enough hot water already for taking the spade ace too soon, one sharp-eyed panelist noted yet another way that East could have destroyed North/South.

Brandon: On Round 6 East sloughs the 2, the last one. Mistake! Better to discard a useless diamond.

How true! Now East can overtrump with the A at Trick 7 (still a mistake) and he can set by playing the 13th club. West trumps with the 10 to uppercut North, and East's 9 is promoted to a winner. East botched it twice!

Now for the court's ruling... Wait! East sees what's coming next and bolts from the courtroom. Guards! Get him!

Update: East is still at large, and he can stay that way. Nobody really wants to find him.

Exhibit #7b. Strategy The Play: 1. East leads K: 9, 7, 10. East wins. 2. East leads A: 8, 6, 5. East wins. 3. East leads 2, 3, Q, Q. North wins. 4. North leads 5, J, A, 3. South wins. 5. South leads 4, 2, K, 10. North wins. 6. North leads A: Q, 10, 4. North wins. 7. North leads 9: 8, K, 3. South wins. 8. South leads 6: 2, J, 7. North wins. North/South have just made their team 6-bid, and East/West need three more. West appears confident. As North ponders his lead, let's look at the 5-card ending below.

Score N/S: 387 E/W: 397 Dlr: North AJ6 Q1054 K65 AJ9 K10982 76 Q32 432 73 AK2 J1097 Q875 Q54 J983 A84 K106 East South West North 2      3       3     3

Score N/S: 387 E/W: 397 Dlr: North AJ6 4 5 -- K10982 -- -- -- 73 -- 97 5 Q54 J 4 --

Exhibit #7b Continued. (N/S have their bid. E/W need 3.) 9. North leads 5: 9, 4, 2. West wins. 10. West leads 10: 6, 3, Q. South wins. 11. South leads J: 8, 4, 5. West wins. 12. West leads 9: J, 7, 4. North wins. 13. North leads A: 7, 5, K. North wins. West is astonished to find his side has gone set. Since we can see all four hands, of course we know who did what. The question, however, is this: If you were East or West at the table and could see only your own 13 cards, would you have played the same way as our hapless defendants, or would you have done something different? Submit your e-mail comments to: You Be the Judge

The Public Responds:

For our second case, the game situation demands that both sides must be careful about bags. Like it or not, the game is likely to be won by the better baggers. Yet none of our panelists brought up this key item. Either they were not aware of it, or assumed it was too obvious to mention. Who knows? Anyway, here's how our first panelist sees it.

Brandon: On Round 3 West ducked with the Q. MISTAKE! He should have cut, or at least thrown a low club. He threw a valuable card. Send him back to Spades school.

On Round 6, East tossed the Q. MISTAKE! Thats a potentially valuable card.

E/W tossed two good queens and passed up one chance at a cut. That would have saved them from a set.

Hmm... Nothing said about bags. Maybe he didn't notice. Our other panelists all take bags into consideration, sorta, barely, and they reach the same conclusion.

Dustin: This case is pretty simple. East and West played like clowns. Throwing off cards to "bag" the opponents on an 11-bid is just stupidity. West should have cut on Trick 3 and started on the spade suit.

MudslideSlim: The problem with hands like this is premature bagging. Make your dang bid first lol. The 3-bid was pushy. So, "Make your Bid!"

The Queen of dimes discard on a tight 3-bid was dumb. I'd trump with a middle spade as I can see pard has his bid in the bag and we've no real chance on setting these opps. The best we can do is give them the two bags as I see it. So it's not all that difficult to see a later endplay coming if I refuse to take them now, and sheesh, I am not going to remove my exit cards for the opps, lol.

Purple Cow: Short answer, play agressively at the start. Sure West was unlucky to be stuck under North's AJ later, that is not the point. Trump Trick 3, and DO NOT pitch the only other honor in your hand. The Q released so carelessly at Trick 3 was a third-round stopper.

The question, however, is not how the bid could have been made by someone who can see all four hands. At the table a player's view is limited to just 13 cards. Aware of the bag situation, would you, as East or West, have played differently? Only one panelist accepted this challenge.

Purple Cow: In the West chair: I would have trumped trick 3 with the spade 2, and led the spade 10. Matters not what happens now. The best defense is for South to lead spades through me twice more to North's AJ. This would be painful for me (West) indeed, but I would eventually walk away with three winners; the ruffed heart, a spade, and the diamond queen, to go with partner's two hearts.

Now from the East chair: I too would start with the K, and reading partner's 7 as encouraging, I would continue the ace. Now I have a problem... If I lead a third heart, I am out of the rest of the hand. With a 3 card sequence, I'd like very much to make a diamond play here. So, what's a guy to do? Well....I would lead a diamond. Some would scream that partner's high-low in hearts screams for a 3rd round. Well....from where I'm sitting, everyone echoed in diamonds. This is uncertainty at it's finest. Right or wrong, I would switch to the J at Trick 3. Not going to go into what would be different from here on, except to say that both East and West need to worry about bags less, and making their bid more. Thus I would not be so quick to toss possible late-round winners early from either seat until the bid was fufilled, and the chance of a set looked bleak. Indeed, our actual East could have saved the day by not carelessly shoving the Q under the ace later. Baggers will continue to pitch Queens like the plague, and I'll just keep grinning.

But how could East know the right play to make with the Q? After all, his partner could have had three solid trump tricks, and a single unnecessary bag could cost the game.

Dustin: Incidentally, East should have preserved his Q instead of throwing it off. But the bigger fault lies with West, since he was the who sent the passive signal in the first place.

MudslideSlim: I don't fault the Q dump because the dime queen was played first by East. That signaled his pard to dump high cards.

All panelists have the same idea, and we quite agree. Even when bags are a key issue, as they are here, the right approach is to make your bid early. West should have trumped the third heart, preferably with a middle spade, and played back another spade. The E/W partnership is then well placed to determine how to finish the hand.

We hold East blameless. He dutifully followed his partner's advice. That leaves West as the sole culprit. This miserable defendant is hereby sentenced to read or re-read one of those low-powered Spades books written for beginners. ("Mercy!" he shrieks.) We are adjourned.