The Hold-Up and the Bailout 

By Jared Johnson
D17 ScoreCard Editor 

What with all the current economic bailouts a lot of taxpayers feel like they are getting held up by a variety of financial institutions and corporations.  

Want a hold up - to work in your favor for a change? That can be arranged. At the bridge table, of course. 

Here is an example of the standard hold - up play to sever connections between the opponents on defense. None vulnerable, South dealer. 

North 
Í Q J 10 
Ì 7 6 
Ë A Q J 7 6 
Ê 5 3 2 

West                                         East
Í 8 7                                        Í 6 5 4 3 2 
Ì K J 8 5 4                   Ì Q 9 3 
Ë 4 3                        Ë K 8 5 
Ê Q 9 8 6                    Ê K 7 

South 
Í A K 9 
Ì A 10 2 
Ë 10 9 2 
Ê A J 10 4 

A standard one notrump, three notrump auction puts you in game with 26 high card points but the contract could be in jeopardy. West leads the Ì5, fourth best from his longest and strongest, but of course, you as declarer South don’t know whether it is from a four card suit or a five card suit. 

Haste leads to defeat. If you win East’s ÌQ with the ace (or win the second round of hearts) and take the diamond finesse, it is curtains. East wins the king and returns a heart for down one. 

Instead, you make a hold-up play. You win the third round of hearts, and then take the diamond finesse. It it wins, so much the better. If it loses and hearts were originally four-four, they can only take one more heart trick. If hearts were originally five-three, East has no heart to return. 

Either way, your contract is safe. 

The Hold-Up Play, Part Two: When do you not hold up? When another suit is an even greater danger. We shuffle around the cards from the hand above to produce this deal: 

None vulnerable, South dealer. 

North 
Í 4 3 
Ì7 6 
Ë A J 9 7 6 
Ê A 4 3 2 

West                                        East 
Í 8 7 6 5                    Í K Q J 10 9 
Ì K J 5 4                   Ì Q 9 8 3 
Ë4 3                       ËK 8 
Ê 8 7 6                     Ê10 9 

South 
Í A 2 
Ì A 10 2 
ËQ 10 5 2 
Ê K Q J 5 

Once again you are South after a one notrump, three notrump auction with a heart lead. You have the same heart suit in hand and dummy as the first hand. The Ì4 may be from a four-card suit or a five-card suit. You don’t know because you can’t see the opposing hands. 

In isolation, you would hold up the ÌA until the third round to exhaust East of hearts if hearts were originally five-three and the diamond finesse loses. 

But on this hand, spades are an even greater threat than hearts. If East has only three hearts, he may realize that you are holding up if you don’t win the ace (at least if you elect to duck, duck smoothly), and given his high card count, figure that West has no quick entry if the hearts get set up. So he may easily switch to spades even without the delightful suit he has been blessed with on this diagram. 

As it is, you grab your ÌA, lose the diamond finesse, breathe a sigh of relief when the defenders cash only three more hearts, and make your contract. 

And what if hearts were five-three originally, and East was going to switch to spades if you ducked, and also the king of diamonds was offside? Then even Congress wasn’t going to bail you out on this hand.