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To Win the Yeh Cup Online Teams.

“Slowly but Surely”

Were this a normal year, then the prestigious Yeh Bros Invitation Teams would have been taking place. This is no normal year and an on-line invitation Teams event took place over the period 14^th-16^TH August. There were two invited New Zealand teams (with a touch of Australia) and these were:

NZ1  Nick Jacob, GeO Tislevoll, James Coutts, Justin Mill, Matthew McManus and Michael Ware

NZ2 Michael Cornell, Ashley Bach, Michael Whibley, Matthew Brown, Peter Newell, Martin Reid, Jonathan Westoby

28 teams took part.  There was a round robin of 7 board matches with the field divided in two groups. NZ1 won their group though NZ2 failed to qualify in the top 4. NZ1 then won their quarter and semi-finals and played an Indian team, Dhampur Sugar Mills in a 24- board final which they won 67-43 coming back from a 14 imp deficit at the half-way point.

Here is one reason why:

You like a Challenge?

Well, then, open the West hand below 1. If you do not, it will be your partner who will have the pleasure of trying to make 4. It is no easy task which Nick Jacob gave himself as you will see.

 Well, you can count to 11 hcp and you opened. Your partner's 1 showed 4+ spades with your jump to 2 being a minimum. No arguments there! You were soon in game with  Q lead. The lead either was a shortage or from KQ doubleton. Given that it is the former, and that you have 4 losers, two hearts, a club and K, how are you going to make your contract? (North holds A.)

Firstly, Nick did not know the extra pieces of information we gave you above. A reliable kibitzer recounted that this board took 25 minutes to play with the bidding probably not occupying much more than one of those minutes. However, the thought processes were all worthwhile in the end. Nick was the first to admit he could have played the hand better and need not have required a couple of slight defensive mistakes, though he still did pretty well.

He won the opening lead and played a trump to dummy’s queen and then ace and was a little surprised to see North with only one trump, discarding a diamond. At that point, he guessed that North’s shape was 1264. Let’s see all four hands:

 

He exited a club to the ace with North playing 10, ducked. North exited with a low club to South’s jack and Nick’s Q, with a heart being discarded from dummy. Next came 7 ruffed with South’s last spade being drawn and Nick back in hand with K. He exited 8 which was won by North’s 10 with North being left with just four diamonds and being forced to lead away from K, enabling Nick to avoid a diamond loser.

Nicely done though South could have beaten the contract by playing 9 not J early in the play, thus winning the fourth round of clubs to play a diamond while North could also have beaten the contract by discarding the 10 on the third round of trumps.

Nick could actually have made the contract without misdefence. Duck Q and win the 10 continuation and then play a spade to the ace and then K. North wins and surely would exit a trump if they had one. So, when North exits a club, ruff with 9 in dummy (preserving 4) and now play 4 and finesse 10!(see shortly why the trump finesse is necessary)

Now Q discarding a heart and a club ruff in dummy and play A and a diamond to the queen. North is left with just diamonds and that gives declarer a ruff and discard to avoid the second heart loser. The spade finesse was needed to prevent South scoring a trick with 10 when a third round of diamonds was played. Easy? No! Good counting required. Nick reckoned he might have needed 1 hour 25 minutes!

At the other table, East was declarer after the lead of a diamond to the jack and K exit to be followed by K. Declarer’s plan was a heart end-play and had got himself into a good position to do so but cashed the K and thus lost out to the 10 after exiting with the second round of hearts and was thus down 1 with NZ1 picking up 10 imps, "slowly but surely"!

ANY ACTION?

 

It’s Pairs. It’s your turn to bid. Well?

Richard Solomon

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