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 Steph Jacob (substitute), Rachelle Pelkman and Tauranga President, Kate Terry

The National Pairs took place at the Tauranga Bridge Club during the past weekend. Perhaps because this event followed too closely on the heels of major Congresses over Queens’ Birthday Weekend, the field had Tauranga was relatively small, just 14 tables. However, 14 tables is the number in the final of the New Zealand Pairs and the quality of the field made this equate to the final of the New Zealand Pairs, the only difference being that there had been no qualifying rounds to get there!

The event was barometered with every pair playing 4 boards against the other 27 pairs, 108 boards; good and plenty of bridge, well directed and scored by Martin Oyston and Kevin Walker.

 

Try this one:

 

One consistent fact during the event was the name on the leader-board. I use the word “name” carefully in the singular. Rachelle Pelkman (ably assisted by Nick Jacob) got off to a flier with a near 63% first round and after a little dip over the following 8 boards did even better scoring 67.07% in the next 20 to establish a good lead by the end of day 1.

However, a bad bout of flu struck Nick Jacob overnight and although he struggled through the Sunday morning session, he could not continue. For the last session, Nick’s mother, Steph, who had been in Tauranga to spend the weekend with her grandchildren, was the most adequate replacement. Although they were challenged strongly by GeO Tislevoll and Ella Jacob, Rachelle and either Nick or Steph never relinquished their lead, which was 27 match-points at the end of the event, an excellent consistent performance.

 

							%
1	Rachelle	Pelkman		Nick/Steph		Jacob	58.26
2	GeO	Tislevoll		Ella		Jacob	57.30
3	Michael	Ware		Malcolm		Mayer	57.09
4	Clair	Miao		Wayne		Burrows	55.13
5	Gary	Chen		John		Wang	53.81
6	John	Davidson		Jeremy		Fraser-Hoskin	53.45
7	Ian	Berrington		Graeme		Tuffnell	52.10

 

Back then to the above problem.

 

Your attempt at closing off the auction in 4 had failed miserably. It looked very much, if you bid 6 that you would have a diamond loser and then there was the case of playing the majors without loss. Spades would probably be fine and it would come down to who had the A. Well, it was not your partner but it was still the right decision to bid 6:

 

There was always one heart trick for the defence but as long as East was declarer, that was all. Playing Teams, it would seem easier to bid 6 as 6 seemed to be a rather cheap sacrifice over a making spade game but in Pairs?  Many South players would have used a Michaels’ 2 over East’s opening though West above still had enough information that there was freaky distribution around the table.

Two pairs made it to 6, Sandra Calvert and Colin Carryer and not unsurprisingly Nick Jacob and Rachelle Pelkman.

On the edge of a precipice

 

 

Your opponents are playing 5-card majors. 3 is 0-5, maybe a poor 6-count with 4 spades, Bergen style. What to do?

Richard Solomon

 

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