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Brad and Moss Wylie will share the reporting duties in bringing bridge news from down south every couple of months. They are two of the keenest bridge players in their region and will keep you up to date with what is happening.

G'day from down south. Richard Solomon knew better than to enlist only one correspondent from down here. He cornered Moss Wylie and myself after the South Island teams earlier this year.

I was originally going to try focus on the local partnerships that were selected for the International teams (Chris Ackerley on the Seniors team, and James and Sam Coutts as the reserve pair for the Open team). When I approached them to try find an interesting hand, I found Chris to be in shock at being selected while James was too modest to offer a specific hand.

It's been rather quiet locally with players unwinding from the Gold Coast Congress, or playing in national events. But there are always successes to celebrate, such as the Invercargill Intermediate Pairs which was won by the Winton pair of Richard Hishon and Jen White with a steady 59.35% over the two sets. Up in Central Otago, the Alexandra All Grades, Cromwell’s Elwyn Hughes and Elspeth Welsh were victorious with a solid 61.57% over two sets. Perhaps it's easier to keep the momentum going when your first and sixth result of the second set are +1010 and +990 (6 and 6NT).

A strong contingent of Otago/Southland players travelled up to Timaru for their recent congress. Just as a strong Otago team “stole” the Congress, I'll steal the chance to report it first. The team of Paul Freeland, Margaret Perley, Arleen Schwartz and Murat Genc won the Teams by a convincing margin of 12 vps over 6 rounds. Arleen and Murat proved that they were the driving force on the team by winning the Pairs with a convincing 61.17% over 3 sessions, beating out Paul and Margaret who finished second with 57.45%. (Commiserations to Moss Wylie and Lindsay Glover, who were leading into the final session and finished third.)

          Murat Genc, having a fine start to 2016

with a strong performance at Canberra in January

and doing the double in Timaru

 

Again, Murat and Arleen were too modest to offer up a board which helped them on their way. So I'll leave you with a cute hand that came up on an Otago club night.

Sitting South at favourable vulnerability you hold:

9532

A63

AQ

AK63

 

and you hear your partner deal and open 3. Depending on your style, you may be considering trying 3NT, or bidding 5. You get saved from making any such decision when the auction takes a turn for the unexpected:

West    North  East     South

            3       6       ?

You decide to tread water with a double and await developments.
West    North  East     South

            3       6       x

6       Pass     Pass    ?

 

Every South in the field thought that their hand was good enough to double at this level, but do you have any reservations when the auction continues:

West    North  East     South

            3       6       x

6       Pass     Pass     x

Pass     Pass     xx        ?

 

What can East possibly have for their bidding, at unfavourable vulnerability? Should you retreat to 7?

Our South decided to stick to their guns, and was soon scoring up -2070 when this was the full lay-out:

 

 

As you can see, 6 is cold as hearts failed to break 4-0. The majority of the East players eschewed showing their suits, and leapt to 6 over whatever North bid – which was also doubled by every South player.

 

Sitting East, I was quietly grateful for North having opened. I'd decided that opening 2 game-forcing, and having an auction like this would be the easiest way to show the massive distributional strength of my hand:

West                North              East                 South

                        Pass ¹               2                   Pass ¹

2                   Pass                 2                    Pass

any                  Pass                 6 

¹ obviously not on the actual hand above.    

Otherwise it'll be hard to get your partner to discount any minor suit strength that they have. Granted, these hands are freaks (a 7-6-0-0 shape happens a mere 0.0056% of the time – approximately 1 in every 18000 hands you'll be dealt will have this shape). When you're dealing with extreme distribution like this counting High Card Points goes out the window, which is a lesson the poor South players were reminded of on this deal.

 See you next time,

Brad Johnston

 

Brad is quite right with his last comment but his statistics are interesting. In the final round of this year’s South Island Teams, the South players held a monster 6-6 hand in the majors and bid all the way up to 5competitively on their own. Only North-South were vulnerable as indeed was East here. Sometimes, you have to believe the opposition really do have a strong hand and doubling them at a high level might not be the best approach.

However, what about the redouble? 7 is just 2 down and the redouble gave South the chance to reconsider. -2070 or -300?

Maybe East knew their opponent very well.

Thanks Brad and we head to the Far North next week.  

Richard Solomon

 

 

 

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