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“Crime” almost pays!

This is not a story about how to win a Pairs event because on the board that follows, the winners of the South Canterbury Congress Open Pairs, held last Sunday in Timaru, scored 13 out of 28 match-points available, a very ordinary result. Yet, the manner in which the average board was achieved was anything but ordinary.

You arrive in 3NT by the following route and this is what you see:

 

Your opponent’s opening is a pre-empt though there was a warning, an alert, from East that the pre-empt could be a little unusual, perhaps in the number of hearts held or even in the point count. Actually, the only comment made was that it could be unusual!

So, plan your play. West’s opening lead is 7. You try Q with East producing K. You duck and East continues with J. You duck that and East then plays 10. West follows to all three clubs. Which card do you discard from dummy? At trick 4, you try J. West discards a discouraging high heart and East allows you to hold the trick. What now?

As South, I made a couple of good decisions on this board, the first being to bid 3NT. We could have languished in 3, making with difficulty, despite a 6-0 trump break. This would not have scored as well as a making game. East did not double 3. They had seen their partner’s pre-empts before!

Looking for some spade tricks, I chose to discard a diamond on the A but that potentially proved wrong, when on the J, West discarded 7 (low encouraging). After some thought, East, Sam Coutts, played low.

Which card do you play now and if a diamond, are you going to finesse?

The theory of vacant spaces would suggest West had some length in diamonds though that rather depended on the number of hearts and clubs they held. Had West held A and 5 clubs, Sam would not have ducked that spade. So, how do you play the diamond suit?

By discarding a diamond, I had rather backed myself into playing one opponent for a doubleton Q… and thus played diamonds, successfully from the top. These were the four hands. Are you sitting comfortably?!

 

(hands rotated from the actual event but that West hand really did open 3)

After cashing 4 diamonds, I had 6 tricks and could easily negotiate a heart and 2 further spade tricks to make my contract.

Note had I discarded a spade at trick 3 and taken the diamond finesse, I would have lost 5 tricks (2 clubs, a diamond, A and inevitably a spade trick). That somewhat unorthodox pre-empt and the best opening lead (for the defence) had given me a rough ride to an average result.

Compare that with the following sequence:

West                    North             East                West

Pass                      1                   Pass                1NT

Pass                      3                   Pass                3NT

All Pass

Note the East/West bidding! Playing Acol, South might choose 2 as their first bid. That’s not quite a 10 count though tolerance for partner’s opening bid might allow South to “steal” a point. 2 does give North an awkward second bid being far too strong to raise to 3. Whichever no-trump bid shows 15-17 balanced might be a practical alternative. If that was 2NT, South would raise to 3NT to end the bidding….and East would still be struggling to find a good lead!

None of these issues were relevant at our table after Brad Johnston’s off-beat opener. Brad and Sam have a very aggressive approach to bidding as this board demonstrates. Without any East-West bidding, West might lead either a heart or a club, or even a diamond. South will have a relatively easy time after a heart lead with that suit producing 2 tricks and West never regaining the lead.

Sam Coutts and the innocent- looking pre-emptor, Brad Johnston.

Brad commented that on this day, they declared just over half the boards which does not in itself sound super aggressive. They defeated 13 of the 27 boards they defended, possibly a sign of strong defending but also that some opponents may have been “bullied” into inferior contracts.

That is their style…sometimes offering themselves at an uncomfortably high level though opponents cannot easily judge when it is right to defend. On the board above, only 7 of the 15 tables declared 3NT (one North-South pair helped themselves to +800 off 2x). Brad’s aggressive action did not work this time but it could so easily have done so.

Richard Solomon

Brad and Sam may not have won the above board but they won the event by over 10%.

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