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The New and the Established take the North Island Teams.

One very fresh and one very established partnership won the on-line North Island Teams, hosted by the Tauranga Bridge Club this past weekend. The “ established” are Liz and Blair Fisher who combined with the scratch pairing of Jeremy Fraser - Hoskin and Graeme Tuffnell to take first place. At the end of 2-day 8 round x 14 board Swiss matches, these were the top placings:

1

Jeremy

Fraser-Hoskin

Graeme Tuffnell

Liz Fisher

Blair

Fisher

117.72

2

Jack

James

George

Masters

Russell Wilson

Bob

Hurley

111.45

3

Alan

Grant

Jane

Lennon

Annette

Henry

Stephen

Henry

109.39

4

Brad

Johnston

Sam

Coutts

Michael

Whibley

Matt

Brown

101.87

5

Richard

Solomon

Anna

Kalma

Sandra

Calvert

Colin

Carryer

96.77

 

Fraser-Hoskin had a great first 5 matches, averaging just under 17 vps per match. A further win followed but they then picked up only 2.81 vps against James. So, it was all to play for in the last round with Fraser-Hoskin on 100.17, James 97.73, Johnston 94.59 and Grant 91.62. While Fraser-Hoskin took on Genc (Murat Genc, Anne Somerville, Graeme Stout, Jeff Miller), their two closest rivals played each other.

Fraser- Hoskin emerged with 16.55 while James managed 13.72. Grant scored 17.77 off Brian Cleaver – Denis Apperley and Graeme Norman – Pat D’Arcy.

Try this little situation:

 

1 is 16+ Precision style. Your double of 1 shows about 5-7 hcp. Then, the bidding takes off. Your double of 4 is very clearly penalties…but what now?

With some quite dramatic slam zone hands around, it might seem strange to feature a part-score affair as one of the two boards involving Jeremy and Graeme. They had played at this year’s King’s Birthday Congress in Auckland but otherwise were an untried partnership. They got their full entitlement from the following:

 

This is a tricky board all-round. Jeremy, South, might have defended 2 which can be beaten but re-opened and found a spade fit. 2 can be made but only if declarer takes the unusual finesse in clubs, playing J and then finessing 10 if West covers.

However, East moved on to 3 and Graeme led J won by Jeremy’s ace. Now, the defenders have to find the same club play immediately, to get their full entitlement. Jeremy played J and Graeme won to return a small club. 3 club tricks, 2 hearts and A meant two down, +200 which went well with 3 down 1 at the other table for a 6 imp gain. Only three North-South pairs managed to take 6 tricks in defending heart contracts.

However, back to our rather strange bidding. Now, some may think that Jeremy might have been sitting in the North seat but no, Jeremy, was South and his bidding was straight down the middle! Not so Graeme Tuffnell in the North seat as these were the four hands:

 

A little psyche rather disrupted the East-West bidding. Doubling 4 was easy though what to do over 5? West decided to take the money but there were just three tricks for the defence.

 
Jeremy, the honest bidder. 

North-South disturbed the bidding at the other table, too, though Blair Fisher was not to be denied:

West        North             East                South

Liz                                     Blair   

                                          1                   1
x                5                   6                   All Pass

After another Precision 1 opener, 1 showed diamonds and spades while Liz’ double showed 5-7 hcp and at least 1 5-card suit. It would have been a very sad day for Blair if that suit was diamonds! He took his chances in 6. He ruffed the opening diamond lead and being confident as to which defender held Q, laid down A and then played a second heart. Playing a spade to dummy at trick 2 was, of course dangerous if North held a void spade. Blair could regain the lead, draw trumps and take the spade finesse the right way for 1430 and 16 rather useful imps at a critical time. More of Liz and Blair tomorrow.

In the meantime, our usual thanks to the directors and scorers, Allan Joseph,Kevin Walker and Nebosja Djorovic and to all those at Tauranga involved in the event organisation. It was a weekend when playing bridge indoors was definitely preferable to stepping outside! 42 teams surely agreed.

Richard Solomon

 

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