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Inter-Provincial Championships: Day 1 Report
7 regions, 4 grades (Open, Women’s Intermediate, Seniors), 12 matches of 12 boards (+2 byes) over 3 days…that’s the formula for this year’s Inter-Provincial Championships at the Christchurch Bridge Club.
Here are three problems for you from Day 1.
- West North East South
1
x 2
4
4 ?
2 = 6 card suit, less than 6hcp
What do you bid as East with:
KT52 T93 AK8 
AT7
- Dealer West. E/W Vul.
As West, you hold : KQ J8 AKQ543 QJT
West North East South
1 Pass 2 3
?
- You are West and observe the following sequence:
Board 4
West Deals
Both Vul♠ A Q 5 4 ♥ A 3 2 ♦ 10 ♣ K 10 9 8 5 ♠ J 9 3 ♥ 10 8 7 5 4 ♦ K 7 4 ♣ A 6 N W E S West North East South You Dummy Pass 1 ♦ 1 ♥ Dbl 2 ♥ 3 ♦ 4 ♥ 6 ♠ All pass 1
is any three-suited hand. Dbl shows 4+ spades. 3 confirms a diamond shortage and within a flash, you are on lead to 6.You choose a low heart, won by the ace with declarer discarding the
7. Declarer then plays three rounds of trumps finishing in hand with the K. Your partner had no spades and discarded a couple of small hearts and a small diamond.Next comes
J from the South hand…..and you? POINTS ON THE BOARD
A good start is a good moral booster (not bad on one’s score, either) and Wellington’s Seniors got that in their first match of the day, winning by 40 imps (18.78 vps) against Central Districts. 16 of those imps came on Board 5.
Board 5
North Deals
N-S Vul♠ A 8 4 ♥ A Q J 6 5 4 ♦ 4 ♣ K 5 2 ♠ — ♥ 8 7 2 ♦ Q J 7 5 3 2 ♣ Q J 6 3 N W E S ♠ K 10 5 2 ♥ 10 9 3 ♦ A K 8 ♣ A 10 7 ♠ Q J 9 7 6 3 ♥ K ♦ 10 9 6 ♣ 9 8 4 West North East South 1 ♥ Dbl 1 ♠ 2 ♦ Dbl 3 ♦ 3 ♠ Pass 4 ♠ All pass With Pat D’Arcy’s double as North showing 3 card spade support, Pete Benham,South, decided to compete over a making 3
. He was then raised to game by Pat. West led Q and had to find a switch. East had to play 8 and West was in the hot seat. Whatever the outcome, the Q seemed to have most to gain for the defence and would have beaten this contract by 2 tricks. However, the heart switch was welcome news for the declarer who followed up with a spade to the ace and three more rounds of hearts. +650 was the result. Hard at work
Pete Benham....happy with the lead That's director for the event, Murray Wiggins
he received in 4 and the scorer, Caroline Wiggins. This is just to
prove that the event is not scored by hand. Indeed,
all very efficient scoring...Wellington’s East-West pair bid to 5
as follows:- West North East South
1
x 24
4 5 All Pass2
= 6 card suit, less than 6hcpwith North in the hot seat.
A lead …down 1. A lead making 5. Alas for the defenders, the A was chosen and Wellington had their 16 imps.In our first question, you could have taken + 500 from 4
x though East’s decision to bid on to 5 produced +400 and, on this day, a bundle of imps in as well.Small wins in the Intermediates
The Intermediate event started as a very close competition. Top of The South, with their bye, led after match 1 with a clear advantage. They were on 12vps while 7th placed Auckland-Northland were on 8.62 vps. The imp margin in the 3 matches were 4, 3 and 1. This trend continued into Round 2 where the margins in 2 of the three matches was just 4 and 6 imps. After that, the winning margins increased. So did the losing ones!
The best dressed man at the I/Ps The Inter-Provincial Silverware
That's local Christchurch player, and These are the 5 trophies for which
member of the Canterbury Open team, the 112 players are competing, with
Les Frater. Les was dressed for the occasion. the overall Dougal McLean trophy in
Not the I/Ps but was able to disappear during the middle.
one of the breaks to attend his granddaughter's
wedding.
WHY MUST THEY PRE-EMPT!
The following hand challenged East-West pairs in round 2.
The bidding so far had been:
West North East South
1
Pass 2 3?
If West chose 3NT, it was up to East to make a forward move. These were the 4 hands:
Board 16
West Deals
E-W Vul♠ 10 9 ♥ 9 7 3 2 ♦ 9 7 6 2 ♣ 9 7 3 ♠ K Q ♥ J 8 ♦ A K Q 5 4 3 ♣ Q J 10 N W E S ♠ 6 3 ♥ A K 5 4 ♦ J 10 ♣ A K 6 5 2 ♠ A J 8 7 5 4 2 ♥ Q 10 6 ♦ 8 ♣ 8 4 West North East South 1 ♦ Pass 2 ♣ 3 ♠ 3 NT Pass 4 NT Pass 6 NT All pass 3NT following a 2
response, whether or not you were playing “2 over 1 game force” is rather negative. 4 seems a better forward move (or even a slam try 4) and must surely be a slam try rather than a competitive bid. However, East is still worth a second bid even if West calls 3NT and a quantitative 4NT seems the best answer.One approach when responding (positively!) to this 4NT bid is to show the number of aces you hold if you have less than 2 since you do not want to be in a slam off 2 aces. So, 5
from West here would say “yes, I want to go to slam but I only have one ace, partner”. Thus, East can determine the number of missing aces and bid accordingly.Only 3 Open, 4 Women and 1 Senior pair bid to a small slam. One Seniors pair bid to 7NT which, South, not on lead, doubled. This is a dangerous double if North were to interpret the double as “do not lead the suit I bid but a different suit”, Lightner style. There was no slip as North led a spade though there are 13 top winners without playing spades on any other suit lead.
Beating a slam…
Do you want to? As a defender, of course you do. So, have you planned what you would do should declarer produce the
J? It could happen. Indeed, it just did! Did you win the trick with your ace? Did you hesitate and play low? If the answer to either question was “yes”, then write down -1430? Your only chance was to play low smoothly…. Board 4
West Deals
Both Vul♠ A Q 5 4 ♥ A 3 2 ♦ 10 ♣ K 10 9 8 5 ♠ J 9 3 ♥ 10 8 7 5 4 ♦ K 7 4 ♣ A 6 N W E S ♠ — ♥ K Q J 9 6 ♦ Q J 9 6 2 ♣ Q 4 2 ♠ K 10 8 7 6 2 ♥ — ♦ A 8 5 3 ♣ J 7 3 West North East South You Dummy Pass 1 ♦ 1 ♥ Dbl 2 ♥ 3 ♦ 4 ♥ 6 ♠ All pass North was Alan Grant, South the very cunning Anthony Ker. On trick 1, Anthony threw
7, a cunning false card, hiding 3 from view. After drawing trumps, he produced the card that West might have anticipated, the J…and when West took his ace, it was “game, set and small slam!”. That was 15imps to Wellington when Karl Hayes and Nigel Kearney found an excellent 5X sacrifice, just down 1, at the other table.The only other pair in the four competitions to attempt 6
were Denis Apperley-Arthur Bennett of Central Districts (Open). They failed which gained 14 imps for Otago-Southland when Ross Sherwood- made 5 x… no overtrick!Day 1 Scores
It was a great day for the South Island with Otago-Southland’s Open and Women’s teams unbeaten while Otago-Southland and Canterbury’s Seniors (also unbeaten) leading their events by large margins. The North Island has its nose in front only in the Intermediates in the shape of Wellington.
However, it is Wellington who lead the Dougal McLean competition narrowly from Otago-Southland with some consistent results from Top of The South seeing that region in 3rd equal position.
Open
1st
Otago-Southland
69.24
2nd
Wellington
67.89
3rd
Auckland-Northland
59.72
4th
Waikato-Bays
54.30
5th
Central Districts
45.66
6th
Canterbury
32.11
7th
Top of The South
31.08
Women
1st
Otago-Southland
77.02
2nd
Auckland-Northland
57.05
3rd
Wellington
55.88
4th
Top of the South
55.10
5th
Waikato Bays
54.53
6th
Canterbury
43.19
7th
Central Districts
17.23
Seniors
1st
Canterbury
83.96
2nd
Top of the South
59.16
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