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Problems Getting in and out ……but all good while there.

That might sum up the National Open Teams held over the last weekend at the Nelson Bridge Club. There were some minor issues over the start time and some major ones involving many out-of-towners being unable to leave Nelson until the following day. (Not only were Aucklanders accused of having brought the wet weather with them but the low cloud prevented most of them from leaving!)

However, the bridge was the thing and with the days unsuitable for anything outdoors, 28 teams could enjoy themselves playing a 7 round by 14 boards Swiss. They came from all over the country, Kerikeri down to Invercargill, and were treated to fascinating deals.

The team which handled the boards the best were the Auckland pair, Grant Jarvis – Gary Chen and Wellington’s Kate Davies and John Patterson, formerly Marlborough players. These were the top placings:

	Team	vps
1.	Kate Davies-John Patterson, Gary Chen – Grant Jarvis	97.67
2.	Carol Richardson – Andi Boughey, Alister Stuck – Russell Wilson	94.20
3.	Alan Grant- Jane Lennon, Jan Alabaster – Pam Livingston	92.71
4.	Ken and Kathy Yule, Malcolm Mayer – Dong Huang	90.91
5.	Steve Gray - Lindsey Guy, Jim Jessep – Maurice Carter	86.51
6.	GeO Tislevoll – Nick Jacob, Michael Ware – Tim Schumacher	85.71
7.	Michael Johnstone- Paula Gregory – John Kruiniger – Richard Solomon	83.63

                              
2nd place for Russell Wilson, Andi Boughey,       3rd placed Pam Livingston, Jan Alabaster,
Alister Stuck and Carol Richardson                      Jane Lennon and Alan Grant

A couple of problems for you to mull over, one bidding, one declarer play.

1. As East, you hold:

 72               765               K4                AJT874

And after starting the ball rolling with a very reasonable 3 favourable vulnerability pre-empt, you hear the following:

West              North             East                South

                                                3              Pass

3                  Pass                3NT                Pass

4                  Pass                ?

You make the normal 3NT bid with a respectable pre-empt but no liking for spades and hear your partner bid on. What now?

2. You reach a reasonable looking 6 slam as North with all being fairly normal until your right-hand opponent, who had made a weak jump overcall (nil vul) doubles. This is Lightner style suggesting or should we say demanding that partner does not lead their overcalled suit (hearts) but to find an unusual lead which may well be dummy’s first bid suit.

Often in such cases, it is right to bid 6NT as your right-hand opponent will have a void but you are not confident that would be the right action here. With left-hand opponent leading a diamond, this is what you see:

 

(5 showed 1 or 4 key cards)

You duck the 10 lead but before you can win your queen, West ruffs with 5. So, Q withheld! West returns7. Which card do you play from the North hand?

All went extremely smoothly during the two days with good catering and the event flowing very well. One board of particular interest was the following:

 

If you covered up the North-South hands and knew that South had a 5 or 6 card heart suit, then you would certainly want to be in 6. If you knew that South had an 8-card heart suit, then you would still want to be in 6 but only if West had bid the suit first!

Of the 28 tables, two played in a contract below game. Three more played in no-trumps where the limit was 11 tricks…and all recorded plus scores. 9 stopped accurately in 5 making 11 tricks and 2 more recorded an overtrick. 6 North-Souths bought the board in 4/5 conceding 500 or 800….which brings us to the excitement.

Two North players were very pleased with their partner’s A lead against 6and were very soon writing down +50. Two West players did get to bid diamonds first including a Precision pair whose great opening bid was indeed 1. However, one East player did manage to make 6. Sneaky, inventive: call it what you like but South did not want their A and see it ruffed at trick 1 and thus experimented with 3 as their opening lead! While any non-heart lead allows the slam to make, this is the most unusual of unusual leads. We hope that North will give their partner full marks for inventiveness but alas no mark in the “imps in” column!

However, the best is yet to come! Maybe Bill Humphrey and Paul Carson had an inkling that their teammates had conceded 800 in 5x but they set out to record a big in swing. They bid to 7…by West. Maybe you would like to work out the odds of being able to avoid a non-heart lead…miniscule! North led 10 and on the basis that North would be very unlikely to lead away from the K against a grand-slam, the declarer had to play for doubleton king  (either hand would do!)or a squeeze. Both eventuated, one quicker than the other though the end result was a rather underserved 1440.

“All’s fair in love, war” and bridge?

So, let's return to our first problem.  

Playing in a cue-bid

That is not always a good thing to do. There are times, well perhaps one time, the only time, when it is right!

West              North             East                South

                                                3               Pass

3                  Pass                3NT                Pass

4                  Pass                ?

What did you bid..or are you still thinking!

 72               765               K4                AJT874

Wayne Burrows was almost certainly the only East to have this problem..and not because he was the only one to open 3. Surely others did! Wayne decided that 4 was a slam try and therefore having a reasonable hand with an outside king, cue-bid 4. He may have expected his partner, Clair Miao, to use key-card or even jump to a club slam.

He was wrong! That was the end of the bidding! It’s time for Clair to be exposed:

 

3 was just a little psyche with 4 being to play. However, when Wayne produced his diamond cue-bid, she decided that playing in Wayne’s cue would be a rather good idea! She was right…well, almost as she should have raised to the diamond game because a rather surprised Wayne made 11 tricks when South led a trump.

Had South led either ace (maybe they would against 5!), then the defence could have taken 5 tricks and recorded just a small loss (although the spade game is cold, as indeed is 4, it was only bid at 7 tables and not by Clair and Wayne’s teammates), the trump lead against 4 ensured an 8 imp pick-up, a fine return for playing in one’s cue-bid!

National Teams winners: Gary Chen, Kate Davies, John Patterson and Grant Jarvis

Back, though, to the event winners and Grant Jarvis saved his side big-time with his actions against 6. Did you take the spade finesse or did you go for the drop of the singleton king? One play would earn your team 7 imps while the other would cost you 14!

 

Had Grant passed 6, his partner would have led his singleton heart. Declarer could now work out that the hearts were 6-1 and therefore if the spade finesse failed, there would be no setting heart trick. So, ruff a club (an 8-1 club break is rather less likely than a 6-0 diamond break…but touching diamonds could be dangerous even if West had a singleton diamond) and take the trump finesse making an overtrick.

So, the Lightner double gave Grant's side a chance. 6NT was making but so was 6 x if North finessed. Grant had shown the declarer the 5 and 7. Did he have 6 as well? Was the K singleton with East? You can see the winning line. Perhaps the most compelling argument to finesse was that Grant must know that the declarer held A and A or else would not have bid slam missing two key cards. Had Grant not held the spade honour, he would probably lead a club looking for the defender's ace. Yet, Grant played a trump. Declarer could/ should have guessed that Grant knew where the missing key card was..he was looking at it! He did not try to find it in his partner's hand. So, the finesse should have been taken. With Kate Davies and John Patterson collecting 800 from 2x at the other table, +100 was a very valuable score for the winning team.

Prizes were also awarded to the top finishing teams in the second half of the field (the field having been divided before play started.) Below are the top two teams in this second group, finishing 12th and 13th respectively overall.
  West Coasters                   and from    Marlborough                      and sporting new shades...

                 
Phil Rutherford, Ash Hamilton         Robin Young, Marge Scott,                Flush with new shades...but will
Wayne Smith and Ray Curnow       Carolyn Wood and Jane Jordan        John Pemberton be able to read
                                                                                                                    his partner's bids?

The tournament had an excellent sponsor, local optician, Matthews Eyewear Eyecare. There were two lucky draws for some designer sun-glasses. The first winner was Christchurch's Sarah Garland with the second prize being drawn by Golden Bay player John Pemberton. John made a good selection as you can see above!

Richard Solomon

 

 

 

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