4 MAN/ 6 MAN?

There has been a lot said over the years about the merits of a 6 person against a 4 person team in a long bridge event. The final of the Gold Coast Teams will add more fuel to the fire. Congratulations to the team of Andy Hung, Kornel Lazar, our own Michael Whibley, Roger Lee, Liam Milne and Nye Griffiths who beat their four person opponents Vainikonis 145-27 with only 36 of the 48 boards played. Vainikonis had been the 2^nd best team throughout the 214 team event (a pretty fair achievement) but collapsed in the final. Bad luck? Maybe some but one has to wonder at what the real cause of the size of that defeat was…and that takes nothing away from the performance of the winners.

Michael Whibley, winning Kiwi

Ivy Dahler Butler Swiss Pairs.

These are the final results after the 10 completed rounds, New Zealand players in the top 20.

Congratulations to Matthew Brown on his first place East-West in the Open.

Open 104 pairs each direction.

North/South

6^th Michael Courtney with Sue Ingham                                   132.95

9^th Wayne Burrows – Peter Hall                                              127.68

17^th Carol De Luca- Bev Henton                                             118.75

East-West

1st Matthew Brown with Jessica Brake                                     129.28

6^th Jenna Gibbons with Julian Foster                                       120.68

10^th George Sun – Alice Young                                               117.76

12^th John and David Skipper                                                   117.23

17^th Lyn Muller – Sarah Green                                                115.20

19^th Peer Bach – Setsuko Lichtnecker                                    114.15

Intermediate (94 pairs)

9^th Derek Snelling – Isobel Ross                                            123.59

14^th Tony Jiang – Julia Zhu                                                     118.76

17^th Mary Driesbock- Vivienne Sexton                                    115.72

20^th Max Robb – Gwyneth Hopkins                                         114.23

Restricted (90 pairs)

3rd Kathy and John Hamilton                                                  129.24

6^th Gail Tippett – Paul Maxwell                                                127.98

9^th Marsha Woodbury – Virginia Warren                                 120.94

12^th Eileen Boocock – Philip Hassall                                       117.85

20^th Jenni Borren – Margaret Robbie                                      111.48

 Downgrade Upgrade Revisited

A couple of days ago, we saw how a player really downgraded his hand and then one bid made him go the other way. Our final hand of the week shows the same scenario:

Holding  AT9762   -   A73   KQ95, Fuxia Wen opened 1 and heard partner Ian Berrington bid 2. She made a slightly negative non-forcing 3 bid. Ian jumped to 4 and Fuxia had a rethink. A double fit, a void and good minor cards. She jumped to 6.

West led the 2 (4^th highest leads) and this is what Fuxia saw.

She had a certain diamond loser though if the spade finesse worked, she just needed to play clubs for no loser. So, your play to trick1

 

Fuxia decided to play the T which would be fine if West had led from the jack…and kind of fine if not. The only problem was that when the ten lost to the jack, there was only one way to dummy to take that trump finesse…a second round of clubs. Ouch!

 

Rising with the A was the winner at trick one. Unlucky to find that break…or as we say “them’s the breaks”. I am sure that Fuxia and Ian will like many of the 200 + Kiwis will be back for better luck next year.

Richard Solomon

Link to the full results, click here.

 

 

 

 

 

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