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Aussies to the fore.

The final round in the 9 round Trans- Tasman Challenge, played on the night of Friday November 10^th,  did not prove very successful for the New Zealand teams. Our 2 Open teams played the two Australian Open teams, both losing and dropping out of the top five finishing positions:

Round 8			Round 8		Round 8		Round 8		Final
Position					v		Score		Scores
1	Aust Open 2		107.67		NZ Open 1		18.09		125.76
2	Aust Open 1		105.91		NZ Open 2		13.52		119.43
4	Aust Seniors 1		96.25		NZ Seniors 2		19.61		115.86
6	Aus Women 2		88.53		NZ Women 1		16.88		105.41
5	NZ Women 2		94.75		Aust Youth		10.00		104.75

 

On this last night, New Zealand teams won only 2 out of 9 matches, though three more were drawn. The top finishing NZ Women’s 2 team was represented by Jane Lennon, Mindy Wu, Kate Terry, Judy Pawson, Kate Davies and one “fill-in” male, Alan Grant. New Zealand occupied 5^th to 10^th position but not the top 4.

New Zealand Youth had a big win on the last round and one big reason was the following board. Before we come to one reason why, how would you plan the play of the following board:

 

(board rotated)

At some tables, South bid an immediate 5 (which was a couple of times raised a level..but more of that later) but for most, making 11 tricks was the aim, on the lead of 8 . If you finesse at trick 1, you lose to K. Back comes J and West follows suit.

If you play a trump, East discards and West will exit a second round of diamonds if you did not finesse at trick 1 or a second trump if you did. When East wins the second round with 10, they will exit J. West held 2 diamonds. 

A few of the declarers got close to getting the hand right but only Australian, Paul Lavings, did without any help from the defence. The key to making 11 tricks is to realise that when West showed up with the A, it was evident that East was almost certain to hold all the other honours. There were only 16 missing high card points in total and East had opened the bidding without A.

A spade finesse was not going to work and East was likely to hold KQ as well. It was time, therefore, to try for a trump squeeze. These were the 4 hands:

 

Whatever happened at trick 1, after either ruffing the third round of diamonds or getting the trump return, South had 5 trumps left. They needed to play all bar one which means there would be a 5-card ending with 2 trumps still to play:

East was discarding after dummy so that a simple squeeze would not work. However, the Kiwi East had an unpleasant choice on the next round of trumps when Paul discarded Q from dummy. They chose 9 but Paul could play a spade to the ace, play A and ruff a heart and make his 10 at trick 13…game made: well played.

Had East thrown 9, Paul could play a heart to the ace, ruff a heart and A and J would have taken the last 2 tricks. A couple of declarers got close in running trumps but succumbed to take the spade finesse.

However, back to Zachary Yan of the New Zealand Youth Team. He jumped to 5 and was raised to 6. This contract has no play on a spade or a diamond lead. However, West decided to have a look at dummy by leading the A and East signalled for a diamond.

Zachary had to win with A, cashed A and then played off all his trumps. This was the position with one trump left:

West had not started with any diamond higher than South’s 9 and so could not help their partner in that suit. On 5, Zachary threw Q from dummy. East could have saved themselves by discarding Q though chose K.

Next came 9 and East threw K. 10 and A took the last two tricks and the slam was made, rather fortuitously. 10 would have won trick 13 had East discarded Q.

A nice play to make 11 tricks by Paul Lavings and a good desperate play by Zachary to make 12.

Hopefully, all those who took part in the 9 -heat Challenge benefited from the experience.

Richard Solomon

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