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South Island Pairs on-line.

This event, played over the past weekend, attracted 52 pairs, a lower  number than other recent on-line events though would have been affected by the absence of those involved internationally in Morocco.

Winners were Auckland’s Alice Young and George Sun who posted a fine 64% last round to win from Russell Dive and Russell Wilson by 1% overall:

1	Alice	Young		George	Sun		59.61
2	Russell	Dive		Russell	Wilson		58.69
3	Brad	Johnston		Sam	Coutts		57.30
4	Blair	Fisher		Liz	Fisher		55.71
5	Jeremy	Fraser-Hoskin		Jack	James		55.48
6	Kathy	Ker		Anthony	Ker		55.41
7	Max	Morrison		Jane	Lennon		55.03
8	Greg	Buzzard		Lindsay	Glover		54.95
9	Gary	Chen		John	Wang		54.64
10	Fuxia	Wen		Ian	Berrington		54.38

 

Here’s a play hand for you from the 4^th session. You reach 6 on the following as East and receive the J lead to North’s ace. North continues clubs and all follow, South with 10. We will tell you that South has 4 hearts headed by the 10. What’s your plan?

 

 

Let’s follow the top two pairs as both reached 6 and both made their contracts. Let’s see Russell Dive in action first:

 

There was no stopping Russell Dive (East) once his partner gave a positive response to his Precision 1 opener. Three-card heart support and one key card (5) was all he needed to bid the slam.

The lead was J to the ace and a trump switch from North. Russell won in dummy to play two further rounds of clubs discarding a diamond from dummy. Then came AK and a diamond ruff though there was no sign of the Q. So, he played off 4 more rounds of trumps. With one trump left to play, this was the position:

 

The situation was getting a little tense for North. When Russell played the 4, North discarded 7.

It was 2:1 that South held K as North was known to hold Q, but Russell got it right by playing small to the ace.

It was Alice in charge when she and George held the East-West cards.

 

George’s 2 was Drury, showing 10-11 hcp and 3 card heart support. Alice needed no further encouragement. 4, with hearts as trumps, was Key Card. Again West showed one. Alice then asked for the Q with George’s 6 saying he held that card but no outside kings.

Alice  received 9 lead which was covered by both jack and queen and won by the ace. She played a trump to dummy and a low club. It is not terminal for declarer but certainly more awkward if North ducks this. However, North took their ace and exited a second club.

Alice won, drew trumps and cashed a second high diamond. The 7 was still her problem card as North held two diamonds. She cashed her last trump and basically was in the same position as Russell. However, foreseeing that they had to retain K doubleton, North let go the 4, not such an obvious discard as say Q would have been at Russell's table. 

However, Alice was counting diamonds and could cash 10 and 3 before the A at trick 13 to make her slam.

The South players had their chance at trick 1. A spade lead will beat the contract, removing the squeeze possibility and forcing declarer to try to ruff two diamonds in dummy (or take the diamond finesse and ruff one) and at the same time establish two club tricks, all too hard with a 4-1 trump break as well.

Richard Solomon

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