Jettison Play
One of the most famous hands in his books is a seven notrump contract requiring a very advanced jettison play. High cards often get in the declarer's way, that is they block the effective play of the hand. A solution to these blocking problems is to throw away high cards. This unblocking coup is known as the jettison play.
| South in 7NT | ♠ | A Q | |||
| ♥ | K Q J | ||||
| ♦ | 3 | ||||
| ♣ | J 9 7 6 5 4 2 | ||||
| ♠ | J 10 2 |
N |
♠ | 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 | |
| ♥ | 10 8 7 4 | ♥ | 9 6 5 3 2 | ||
| ♦ | J 7 5 2 | ♦ | — | ||
| ♣ | 8 3 | ♣ | 10 | ||
| Lead: ♠J | ♠ | K | |||
| ♥ | A | ||||
| ♦ | A K Q 10 9 8 6 4 | ||||
| ♣ | A K Q | ||||
Win the opening lead of ♠J with the ace, dropping the king of spades. Cash the queen of spades, and jettison the ace of hearts from hand. Now cash the top hearts in dummy and jettison the top three clubs from hand! You can now run the clubs to discard diamond losers. This line of play has the advantage of trying out the club suit before seeing if the diamonds run. Due to this particular hand layout, the diamonds don't run because of the 4-0 split, while the clubs run because of the singleton ♣10. If the clubs did not split favorably, declarer could still try to run the diamonds using dummy's ♦3 to get back into declarer's hand.
Read more about this topic: Bill Root (bridge)
Famous quotes containing the word play:
“PLAYING SHOULD BE FUN! In our great eagerness to teach our children we studiously look for “educational” toys, games with built-in lessons, books with a “message.” Often these “tools” are less interesting and stimulating than the child’s natural curiosity and playfulness. Play is by its very nature educational. And it should be pleasurable. When the fun goes out of play, most often so does the learning.”
—Joanne E. Oppenheim (20th century)