HOMEPAGE > NEWS AND PHOTOS

Benito Redux
by Pamela Granovetter

Italian Blue Team champion Benito Garozzo

The following hand was written up for our Daily email column (Bridge Today Digest Daily). Two of our more famous subscribers sent interesting responses (below).

     North Renee
    A Q J 5 2
    4 2
    7 6 5
    10 5 3
West
10 9 7 4
K 10 5
10 4
Q J 8 6		 East Benito
K 6
J 9 8 3
9 8 3 2
A 9 7
     South Pamela
    8 3
    A Q 7 6
    A K Q J
    K 4 2
   

I declared this hand many years ago during the 3-Day Swiss at the Nationals. It was the last match of the first day and we needed to win in order to qualify for the next day. My partner was Renee Mancuso and you can imagine our chagrin when we saw Benito Garozzo sit down at our table!

We reached 3NT on this hand and I saw that I needed four tricks in the major suits to make my contract. West led the 6. I won the third round of clubs and played a spade to the queen and it won. But Benito was on my right and I knew he might have ducked smoothly with the king. If I crossed back to hand to take another spade finesse and it lost, I couldn't get to dummy any more to cash the ace of spades and take the heart finesse, and I'd go down.

I figured the spade finesse was still 50% and the heart finesse was also 50%, so I decided to cash the ace of spades for the vigorish that Benito might have started with king-doubleton. If the A caught air, I'd take the heart finesse. But the ace of spades caught Benito's king and I made the hand for a big swing and we won the match!

The moral of the story is that sometimes a great card player wins points by just following suit (because you imagine he's doing something great when all along he was doing something mundane). My husband Matthew likes to tell a story about the first time he played against Benito, when Matthew was still a teenager. A very similar position arose, and Matthew went up with the ace on the second round of the suit. But that time, Benito had three small in the suit! Perhaps this is where I got the bright idea to cash the ace of spades on the above hand. Boy did I get lucky!:-)

-------------------------------------------

From Danny Kleinman, Los Angeles

You were good, not just lucky. and what Garozzo did was neither mundane nor great (although at matchpoints it would have been great). Mrs. Guggenheim or Mr. Smug would have taken the king of spades and exited in hearts, putting you to a guess that you'd probably have gotten right (rising with the ace, then playing for 3-3 spades or a major-suit squeeze). The Unlucky Expert would have taken the king of spades and returned a spade, killing the squeeze. However, Futile Willie would have defended just as Garozzo did.

Congratulations on your good play!

Danny

-------------------------------------------

From David Bird, England

Hi, Pamela

Since the clubs are 4-3, can you not afford to take the heart finesse and fall back on a repeated spade finesse if it fails? A successful repeated spade finesse is more likely than dropping a doubleton king offside. So you would get a 50% vigorish. (You don't make the contract, it's true!)

Best wishes,

David Bird

Back to News and Photos page