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Jan Cormack.

Jan’s Day: After the Olympics: the Olympiad

Today’s deal takes us back to a tough deal at a past bridge Olympiad, a deal where the sting in the tail proved to be quite harmless and satisfactory from New Zealand’s point of view. We left you yesterday with this defensive situation:

 

 Your partner leads A with declarer contributing 7. Next comes 4 with declarer playing K from dummy and 9 from their own hand. What now?

Locked in dummy in Olympiad encounter

“The 6^th World Teams Olympiad held at Valkenburg, Netherlands, saw France beat USA narrowly in the Open field, USA being decisive winners in the Women’s section.

Both Open and Women’s New Zealand teams achieved very creditable results with victories over some highly seeded countries. This was the first time New Zealand fielded a Women’s team at the Olympiad and as one of the lucky members of this team, I can verify how tough and exciting the competition was.

We played 29 x 20 board matches, starting each day at 12.30pm and finishing at 11.30pm. The following deal against Sweden was one of the most interesting.

 

I got to be declarer after my partner made a very light-weight double of West’s overcall. West led A and switched to their singleton club. East won and had they continued with a second club, the contract would be automatically defeated (two aces and two trump tricks, whatever South did).

However, East did not know her partner held J and so switched to 10. I won, cashed A, noting the fall of the J and followed with K and a spade ruff.

If East had over-ruffed, that would have been the third and last trick for the defence. However, my Swedish opponent was too astute and discarded a club. I tried 10 which was covered correctly by Q. If I ducked this, East would play K forcing me to ruff in dummy, setting up a trick for East’s 7.

However, I was no better off by winning the heart trick in hand.

 

If I played a trump, I would be stuck in dummy. Even though my spades were established, I could not get back to hand and enjoy them as East would ruff with their remaining trump and cash K for down 1. There was no way and the contract was indeed one down.

However, a surprise was in store when we came to the score-up. This was the bidding at our teammates’ table:

West              North             East                South
                                                                        1

3                   Pass                3                   Pass

3NT                All Pass

3 promised at least six diamonds and an opening hand. West decided that Q95 was a good enough hold for no trumps and played in 3NT, cold on any lead (thanks to that J).

That was, therefore, an 11 imp swing to New Zealand.”

Wishing makes it happen: for less experienced players..and others.

 

1NT showed 15-17. Your partner liked their shape and controls even though they had minimum hcp. However, you turned down their invitation, somewhat surprisingly as you were maximum for your 2 sign-off! Maybe that was because you were playing Pairs.

West leads 4. Plan the play.

Richard Solomon

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