Ron Klinger appointed as a contributing editor to The Bridge World
The Bridge World magazine has announced the appointment of Australia’s Ron Klinger as a Contributing Editor. Klinger, one of the most prolific bridge writers ever, is the author of many successful books for players of every level of experience and has been one of the leading players in Australia over many decades.
On this deal from the 2009 National Open Teams (Australia’s most important tournament), Klinger engineered a large swing in favor of his team by making the right moves in both bidding and play:
West dealer
North-South vulnerable
| North ♠ A Q 4 ♥ 8 6 5 2 ♦ A K J 2 ♣ 6 5 2 |
||
| West ♠ K 9 2 ♥ K Q J 10 7 ♦ 7 3 ♣ K J 9 6 |
East ♠ 8 3 ♥ A 9 4 3 ♦ Q 8 5 4 ♣ 7 6 4 |
|
| South ♠ J 10 7 6 5 ♥ — ♦ 10 9 6 ♣ A Q 10 8 3 |
| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
| —– | 1 ♥ | Pass | 2 ♥ |
| 2 ♠ | Pass | 3 ♥ | Pass |
| 3 ♠ | Pass | 4 ♠ | (All Pass) |
Despite unfavorable vulnerability, Klinger barged into the auction with a South hand weak in high cards, because it appeared that he held his partnership’s distributional strength. Theorists call this type of daring venture a pre-balance, because it is done in the expectation that partner has concealed strength but before the opponents have stopped bidding. In this case, North had an even stronger hand than could be anticipated; placing South with heart shortness and visualizing a perfect fit, North sensibly drove to game.
After ruffing the opening heart lead, Klinger first tried to take advantage of favorable placement of the diamond queen and club king. However, when a finesse of the diamond jack lost to the queen, the bidding indicated that West held the king of clubs. Accordingly, declarer ruffed the heart continuation, crossed to dummy’s ace of diamonds, and led a club to the ten. No luck there either—West won with the jack and led a third round of hearts.
At this point, many players would fall for the temptation of removing some of the opponents trumps, but Klinger saw that doing this would leave him a trick short. Instead, he boldly led a third round of diamonds. West needed to ruff, lest declarer follow up with a cross-ruff, but there was no satisfactory follow-up for the defense. West did as well as he could by leading a spade, but Klinger won with dummy’s queen—at last finding an honor onside—ruffed dummy’s last heart, played the ace of clubs and ruffed a club, drew the missing trumps with the ace of spades, and took the last trick with a winning diamond.
Klinger joins The Bridge World’s editorial staff beginning with the magazine’s August issue. For subscription information, visit: www.bridgeworld.com or write to: The Bridge World, PO Box 299, Scarsdale NY 10583 USA.
