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Familiar Names but New Partners win the North Island Pairs.

Very familiar names ended up winning a tightly fought North Island Pairs at the Wellington Bridge Club this past weekend. Yet, the partnership was new, just for the occasion.
The number of entries, 28, was lower than hoped for though that number enabled a good movement which saw pairs play four boards against each other pair in the course of the two day event.

Naturally, we pose a problem for you from the event, indeed two.

 

2 shows 5 hearts and 4+ cards in any other suit.

 

 

Top Placings							%
1	Peter	Newell		Michael	Ware		57.89
2	Leon	Meier		GeO	Tislevoll		56.75
3	Kathy	Ker		Anthony	Ker		55.96
4	Kevin	Hu		Jeremy	Fraser-Hoskin		55.86
5	Julie	Atkinson		Patrick	Carter		55.40
6	Rachelle	Pelkman		Malcolm	Mayer		55.04
7	Pat	D'Arcy		Graeme	Norman		54.97
8	John	Davidson		George	Masters		54.82
9	Mindy	Wu		Kate	Terry		52.62
10	Kate	Davies		John	Patterson		52.44

 

                                                                  Unfamiliar Partnerships at the top in Wellington

 
      Peter Newell and Michael Ware                                  Leon Meier and GeO Tislevoll

500 is a good score.

Well, it was for Michael Ware and Peter Newell this past weekend, twice. Let’s see why. Defending was preferable to bidding on both of the above deals.

 

This deal provided some horrific results with 4 being reached by both South and East, each of course being doubled. However, Michael elected to pass his partner’s reopening double, itself an interesting choice on the East hand (too good for just a 2 bid). Michael led J and the declarer found life extremely difficult even at the 2-level.

After the club lead, they won and played a diamond to the jack and Peter’s Q. He exited a trump to the jack, king, ace. Then South played a spade, with Peter taking 2 spade tricks and exiting a second trump won with Q.

Again, declarer exited a spade to Peter who played A ruffed and over ruffed by Michael who exited a club. There was no escape now for South who once more exited a spade. Peter played all his spades with South ruffing the 6^th spade and Michael over-ruffing. The defence scored 5 spade tricks, 2 trumps and a diamond for +500.

 

Michael found a great pass on the second board above as well:

 

Any plus for East-West would turn out to be a good result because many East players reached 4 either by bidding it directly or by pulling their partner’s 3NT response to their initial double of the pre-empt, a seemingly normal action. Of course, that was wrong this time because there are 8 top tricks in 3NT with a diamond or spade lead providing a 9^th. North can be end-played after 4 rounds of clubs and  3 rounds of spades if they manage to start with a club. Meanwhile, the 5-0 trump break made 4 impossible to make.

However, Michael and Peter were not to know that and their aim from defending was to score 500 to beat those in game. Peter started with a high heart, ruffed. Declarer led a club hoping to score a ruff in dummy. No such luck with Michael twice winning club leads to play trumps. The defence scored 3 tricks in each black suit and a trump for the sought after 500.

Defending can therefore be rather rewarding.

Thanks to Caroline Wiggins and Kevin Walker for directing and scoring and to all at the Wellington Club who helped make this an enjoyable weekend…with plenty of nice food provided throughout both days.

Richard Solomon

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