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Grant Jarvis

Auckland Provincial Pairs and Teams

A Win, a “Draw” and a Loss

The weekend of July 22^nd/23^rd saw a good weekend of bridge at the Auckland Bridge Club. Here is a slightly quirky look at a little of what happened in the Teams. Quirky? What’s an Irish Swiss Roll?

Firstly, despite an impressive 68.34% by Hamish Brown and Johanna Perfect in the first round of the Pairs, that day belonged to Carol Richardson and Andi Boughey who won handsomely by 11% from Michael Ware and GeO Tislevoll and Hamish and Johanna.

There was also an impressive performance by the team of Grant Jarvis-Ian Berrington and Dong Huang- Jeter Liu who won the Teams event for the third year running averaging 14.6 vps per match and winning all their matches in the 8 rounds by 9 board event. Michael and GeO (along with Michael Whibley and Matthew Brown) were once again the “bridesmaids”.

Let’s see whether you could have slowed Grant and Ian's progress to victory on this early board. As South, you reach 5 after a sequence which started:

West          North         East           South

                                                          1

1               x                 Pass           2

Pass            2               x

East’s double indicated “honour x” in spades, “honour” meaning one of the top three cards in the suit.

 

 

West led the 4. Let’s not worry about any awkward trump break. Let’s see if we can avoid losing the first 3 spade tricks!

While you are pondering that, something out of the “bottom draw..er” of humour.

Pat Carter directed the weekend tournaments in his usual excellent way. In the Teams, some of the draws were made a round in advance, helping to speed up the breaks in the 8 round event. At one point, he did warn pairs who might think of an earlier tactical loss to gain a favourable draw when it mattered that the “in advance” draws had stopped. However, not even Patrick warned the players about the “Irish Swiss Roll”. No, it’s not bread on the outside with cheese and cabbage inside as nice as that may be. (maybe!). It is when you lose the last round of a Swiss tactically to get a favourable draw.

" Ireland forever"

Sorry!

Back to 5. So you played low expecting, hoping that East held three spades to the ace and that the overcall was just on four cards? Yes, Ian Berrington has been known to overcall on four cards, maybe even less, but that means Grant Jarvis did not hold “honour x” but three cards. Surely, he would/could have raised1 to 2 with  Axx?

Come on, if the spades are 5-2 as the explanation and logic indicates, East will win their high honour and will soon receive a spade ruff for down one. You have to make this contract!

 

Up you go. Play the queen and give Ian on your left a sweet smile when the queen scores! You can return to teammates afterwards and tell the story of how you made two overtricks in 5 on a spade lead! Of course, you finessed the club as well. You are just "on fire"! Some story.

Alas for South, Grant’s jack scored at trick 1 with Ian winning the next two tricks for a routine down 1. Mere mortals would have given their partners a ruff a trick 3. Much more fun this way. Contract beaten and opponent demoralised. Oh, the stress of it all for Ian when dummy appeared.

Rumour has it that Ian gave Grant a “cheat sheet” at lunchtime with the order of the top cards in it.

So, that’s how you win. This is how you don’t. Most of you relate to this. Yet, the story involves part of the game not talked about that much, the psychology of an opponent’s hesitation. Don’t worry. There are no ethics involved. You can draw whatever inference from such a hesitation if you wish.

I’ll take you through the bidding holding a hand that made you feel sicker and sicker by the moment.

 AK754

 95

 KJ

 8532

“The rule of 20”, the fact that your main /only asset is spades and that you have a rebid (where? Did you see your club suit?) all added up to the fact that you opened proudly 1. Excellent for now.

It was less so when your left hand opponent jumped to 3 (no doubt weak but probably holding a better club suit than you did!) and partner made a forcing 3 call. Now, I must confess (please do not tell my partner, though) that for a millisecond I thought of making a partnership breaking pass but I decided 3 might be better for the post-mortem.

Partner’s next action was 4NT key-card. No point in lying or even thinking of passing (I could not guarantee a club hold) and so owned up to two key cards but no Q or any other spade higher than the 7!

I was still not spared as partner’s next offering was specific king ask (6). Well, we had come this far. I could still see the K and so called 6. My ordeal was soon to be over or so I thought. I saw partner grab most of the cards from his bidding box..just the one left. 7! Fine, I hope..but now came the curious look from my right, the opponent who had been for a coffee, a walk to the park and back while all the bidding took place. He paused, thought, looked and paused again and passed.

As they say in all good bidding problems, “your bid?”!

You have the choice of passing or pulling 7 to 7NT and coming home on the long diamond suit as surely East holds J1098….but was partner’s confirmed first round control the ace or a void? If the latter, the clatter of doubled undertricks would be loud and numerous.. and partner may not understand! What to do? I was cursing the rule of 20, everything about the bidding, the weather and wished I had passed 3! Actually, whether I passed 7 or had chosen to bid 7NT, I would have got a better score from passing 3!

 

I was of course down at trick 1 and was full of great remorse until partner pointed out that even Deep Finesse is a trick short in 7NT, or 7 for that matter. Just to make me feel better or worse, the K lead even beats 6 as the foul diamond break and failing heart finesse leaves no resting place for West's fourth club. Only 6 makes played by East. Heaps of imps out, of course, as the opponents ran into a bit of trouble at the other table and stuttered to 4 after South had opened their “power-house” at the 2 level. 13 imps out but only 10 out had we played 3. 13 imps in if we had found 6NT.

If anyone wondered about the anatomy of success and failure, then the above two deals give a good insight.

Richard Solomon  

 

 

 

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