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2 of these are missing! Where are they?

6 Hearts again!

For the second day running, our contract is 6H with one hand holding H AQT to 6 hearts and once again, the opponents have done their hardest to disrupt the bidding by pre-empting to 5D. It is, though, a different board but also from last weekend’s North Island Teams.

 

 

 

Your bidding is essentially all natural. A little further explanation after but for now, your task is to make your contract after the lead of K and then a second round of diamonds. You have lost one trick and need therefore not to lose a trump.

Also, like yesterday’s 6 contract, the above board was very significant in deciding the end result of the event although today's occurred very near the end of Day 1. In this key match, Johnston (Brad Johnston, Sam Coutts, Michael Whibley and Matt Brown) were taking on Fraser-Hoskin (Jeremy Fraser-Hoskin, Graeme Tuffnell, Liz and Blair Fisher).

With the bidding above, Sam Coutts as West was in the hot seat. Brad had no desire to go very high on his modest East opener though when Sam pulled the double of 5, all Brad's values seemed to be working. Perhaps, had Sam been void in diamonds, they could make grand-slam…hence his 5 cue-bid. However, Sam was happy to settle for small slam.

The defence led two rounds of diamonds and Sam’s big decision was about to be made. He played a club to dummy and a heart to the queen.

Before we see all four hands, let’s see the unusual events at the other table:

West                    North             East                South

Blair                     Michael         Liz                   Matt
Fisher                  Whibley        Fisher            Brown

                                                      1                 Pass

1NT                      3                  3                   4

6                         x                      All Pass

A few explanations are needed. 1NT showed any game-forcing hand. 3 was naturally weak with Liz getting to bid her miniscule heart suit. No jump from Matt but Blair was not messing!

Michael’s double of 6 is interesting. By agreement it said “I want to save”, obviously in 7. However, with an ace and an interesting trump holding, Matt was going nowhere.

Matt led A and switched to a safe- looking club. This time, it was Liz Fisher in the East seat who was faced with the problem. She must have been hopeful of a reasonable trump suit appearing in dummy…and it was good but not quite ideal!

She did, though, have one piece of information which might be useful. North’s desire to sacrifice at the 7 level could (no guarantees!) be based on no hearts. It was something to base one’s decision on. So, at trick 3, she led 9, playing low when Matt followed with 2:

She was correct and that meant 18 imps to Fraser-Hoskin in a match they won by 25 imps. A lot of imps rested on that decision.

 
So, you thought Blair was a lot taller than Liz? Not so on this 
occasion. Indeed, Liz would have felt 10 foot tall when her 9 
won the trick. 

An interesting system employed by Matthew and Michael which this time seemed to work against them. 6 was bid only 5 times. Twice it was made and twice it failed. One North did not hang around to see what would happen and managed to escape for -800 in 7x.

The other successful declarer in 6 was the Australian, Chris Depasquale, with his partner, Michael Courtney, no doubt looking on admiringly from the dummy seat.

Certainly, all the declarers in 6 knew that North had more diamonds than South. Whether that was enough evidence to play South for all three missing hearts is debatable, unless North showed an interest in sacrificing. Well done to Liz Fisher on taking the correct inference.

Richard Solomon

 

 

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