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Four More Wins.

Big, small, lead from the front, come from behind. It does not matter how they come but at the end of the day, the New Zealand Open Team finished each match with more imps and vps than their opponents. Still unbeaten, they drew well away from Singapore as Australia did us a big favour of beating Singapore. With seven rounds left, the main challengers are now China though there is a healthy gap of 26.57 vps between the top two:

Open
New Zealand		265.00				Round
				Round Robin 2		3	v	China Macau	62-34	16.72
China		238.43				13	v	Australia	43-33	12.97
						1	v	Thailand	17-16	10.33
China Hong Kong		223.42				2	v	China Hong Kong	46-29	14.64
Singapore		222.22
Chinese Taipei		220.07

 

A word of advice for auction muddiers. In the words of a song “know when to hold up: know when to fold up”. South bid once certainly, probably twice too many times when they had made a curious overcall against Martin Reid’s Precision 1 opening:

 

Yes, this is international bridge! Newell-Reid were, of course, East-West and Peter Newell, West, was very much an observer. Why the China Macau South wanted to bid 1 is unclear. However, having done so, trying to correct to his real suit at the 2-level was a big mistake. So was 4NT and even worse 5NT!

The damage was down 5 (-1100) and 15 very thankfully received imps when Whibley-Brown conducted a much saner auction to 2 making an overtrick!

 
Maybe bemused by the auction, 
Martin Reid had cause to smile afterwards!

Against Australia, the Kiwis trailed by 20 imps at the half-way (7 boards) part of the match. This helped the come-back.

 

With the bidding indicating opponents held major suits, Michael Cornell, East, led J taken by the ace in dummy. Declarer then took a losing heart finesse with Michael continuing 10. There were now 9 tricks (3 in each suit except clubs) assuming declarer took the spade finesse the correct way.

However, North tried a low club from dummy which West, Ashley Bach, took with his K to play a third diamond. The declarer played a heart to the jack and then finessed spades the wrong way. Three clubs, a diamond and two losing major suit finesses spelt down 2. At the other table, Michael Whibley made an overtrick for +11 imps.

Boards 28 and 29 then produced 29 imps for the Kiwis. Despite holding only 21 hcp between them and missing 2 aces including the trump ace, the Australians tried 5 on a 4-3 fit. Unlikely to make with normal breaks (at best it required another finesse), it was well and truly doomed when Matt Brown's trumps were A98732. Despite being not vulnerable, that cost 1400 and 17 imps and when a board later, Cornell- Bach managed to beat 3NT (+12 imps), a victory which seemed unlikely a couple of boards earlier had been achieved.

What would be your plan on the following board when West leads a trump against 4? Trumps break 3-2.

 

 

There was little joy for our other two teams who could only muster one win between them on the first day of their second round-robin.

	Women				Round Robin 2		Round
1	China		156.36				1	v	Australia	10-46	2.09
							2	v	Japan	20-38	5.15
2	Singapore		153.34				3	v	India	16- 9	12.16
							4	v	Thailand	31-50	4.94
3	Singapore		141.50
4	Chinese Taipei		139.10
5	New Zealand		105.61
	Mixed
8	China Hong Kong		120.30				1	v	China	19-61	1.35
							2	v	Chinese Taipei	5-61	0.01
9	Korea		104.32				3	v	Singapore	14-47	2.51
							4	v	Indonesia	12-48	2.09
10	Japan		99.77
11	Philippines		97.64
12	New Zealand		77.23

 

For our women, their remaining aims would seem to be to hang on to 5^th place and stay above Australia while our Mixed Team would just love to get away from the wooden spoon position.

Auckland’s Candice Smith and Kinga Hajmasi have had an encouraging start to their international careers. Candice did well to earn imps for her side on the following:

 
  Candice and Kinga

 

A standard Stayman auction left her to make 10 tricks in spades. Not wishing to lead away from a queen, West led a trump. With an almost certain two heart and a club loser, Candice had to find a way to avoid a diamond loser.

She won and drew trumps in three rounds finishing in her South hand before leading a small heart. West took that with Q to switch to a low club. Kinga won dummy’s ace and played a diamond to hand to lead a second heart away from her ace in case West held both heart honours. No joy, there, but correctly, Candice thought East would try to cash two club tricks.

That is what East tried to do. Candice ruffed the third club, cashed A and discarded dummy’s diamond on the fourth round of hearts to make her contract. 10 imps in when 3NT failed in the other room. Candice herself described the gain : “Of course the hand isn’t rocket science but it was still rewarding to use a bit of analysis, a bit of technique, a bit of psychology and a healthy dose of optimism.”

That’s great advice for all three of our teams as they face their final seven matches. Today, our Open Team face Indonesia, Korea, Chinese Taipei and Japan.

Richard Solomon

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