Third Hand Play

Your partner is on lead against a NT contract and you as third hand to play, must be ready to make an intelligent play to further your chances to defeat opponents’ contract. If partner’s lead is not from a sequence, or the highest card in your suit, and he knows and uses the 4^th from longest and strongest rule, then you can use the Rule of 11 to make a decision as to which card to play from your hand. This is how it goes. Let’s suppose he leads an 8. Subtract 8 from 11 and you get 3. There are 3 cards in that suit higher than the one he led. By the time you are required to play, you can see the cards in “dummy” and your hand. You can count how many of those 3 higher cards you can see and then deduce what cards are in declarer’s hand. It could be that your partner’s lead is the highest if declarer plays low from dummy. This mathematical trick can be a great boon to your success.

We had 7 tables in play at our August 4^th Evergreen game. Winning N/S 1^st Ruth Bowles and Marie Pugh, 2^nd Becky Creekmore and Pat Macon, 3^rd Patsy Reynolds and Betsy Bare; E/W 1^st Margaret and Chuck Rimer, 2^nd Judy Gealy and Fern Albracht, 3^rd Toni Iossi and Betty Bills.

Featured is board #13 from this game.   All vulnerable         North dealer

NORTH:S J 2

H Q 7 5 3

D     7 6 5

C K J 9 7

WEST:                    EAST:

S K T                       S A Q 7 6 4

H T 8 4                   H —

D 9 8 2                    D A K Q J T 4

C Q 8 6 5 4             C     T 3

SOUTH:

S 9 8 5 3

H A K J 9 6 2

D 3

C     A 2

Pat Macon and Becky Creekmore had the best N/S score bidding and making 4HS, while Joe O’Brien and Genny Mozolak bid and made 4DE for best E/W.

We once again had 6.5 tables at our Tuesday August 8^th Women’s Club game. I am so glad this once seemingly dead game has revived. Winners were: N/S 1^st Beth Shafer and Betty Bills, 2^nd Betsy Bare and Dick Brisbin, 3^rd Marie Pugh and Loyd Hill; E/W 1^st Georgia Sorensen and John McLaughlin, 2^nd Judy Hurder and Myrnie McLaughlin, 3^rd Lawana Ford and Patsy Reynolds. Congratulations all. See you all again.