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Easter in-doors and on-line!

A weekend for playing bridge, even easier when one did not have to get wet or blown over by the elements as one was playing from one’s own home. I promised you an Easter problem or two. Try this one. You are defending a 4H contract as below:

 

 

 

The bidding is all natural and your partner leads the top two diamonds and switches to SJ. This is won in dummy with declarer calling for dummy’s club. Plan your defence.

The on-line Bridge Congress came courtesy of the Auckland Bridge Club. Saturday saw both 10A and 8B Pairs, with 46 and 20 pairs respectively in the 2 events. These were the top 5 in each:

10A                                                                                     mps

1

Liz

Fisher

Blair

Fisher

1772.82

2

Arleen

Schwartz

Murat

Genc

1747.68

3

William

Liu

Steve

Boughey

1717.50

4

Graeme

Stout

Jeff

Miller

1712.86

5

Setsuko

Lichtnecker

Peer

Bach

1683.27

8B

%

1

Joy

Zeng

Eddy

Tan

128.42

2

Mereana

Cullen

Kevin

Birch

119.52

3

Betty

Hopley

Helene

Labreche

113.42

4

Liz

Ewart

Tony

Morcom

110.22

5

Nichola

Dallas

Robyn

Orton

109.01

The Open Teams had 42 teams competing with 8 teams qualifying for the second day. Unlucky 9^th were John Buckleton- Douglas Russell, Pam Marsland – Paula Boughey who missed out by 0. 15 vp.

The final saw 7 x 8 board matches with the top 5 teams being:

 

vps

1

Michael

Ware

Malcolm

Mayer

Matt

Brown

Hugh

McGann

153.20

2

Jan

Alabaster

Pam

Livingston

Jan

Cormack

Tim

Schumacher

130.59

3

Russell

Wilson

Bob

Hurley

Jane

Beeby

Michael

Wilkinson

127.31

4

Steph

Jacob

Rachelle

Pelkman

Tom

Jacob

Brian

Mace

126.63

5

Jeremy

Fraser Hoskin

Jack

James

Herman

Yuan

Shi

Zeng

125.51

 

Monday also saw a 3A Match-Point Swiss Pairs, in total with the top 5 being:

							mps
1	Kevin	Skoropada		Moss	Wylie		2017.85
2	Peter	Ramsey		Noel	Woodhall		1997.15
3	Karen	Harris		Yuzhong	Chen		1985.82
4	Grant	Jarvis		Jonathan	Westoby		1980.85
5	Jenny	Millington		Barry	Jones		1975.00

Back then to the defensive problem which occurred in the Teams qualifying. I hope you played low to the singleton club lead because if you did not, there was no hope for the defence.

"Go low, Joe!"

 

 

Two high rounds of diamonds were followed by a deceptive 4 switch from Hugh McGann, West. Declarer won to play dummy’s club and were East to win the A, the Q would soon be ruffed out and South would make a comfortable 10 tricks.

 

However, for the eventual winners, Matt Brown, East, ducked. What would you play as South? With an overcall from West, the play of 9 from hand seemed to be the best play, but not a winning one for South. McGann again exited in spades but the A proved to be hard to get from Matt’s hand and the contract was defeated by a trick.

In fact, South probably was wrong to play that little club in the first place. At another table, after the defence started with three rounds of diamonds, the third round ruffed and over-ruffed, Grant Jarvis never touched clubs at all. As long as the trump break was 3-2 and the spade break no worse than 4-2, spades could be set up for a minimum 3 discards. After a 4-2 spade break, at worst, Grant would have the same club guess at trick 12.

So, spade to the ace and a high spade ruff in hand. A trump to dummy and a second high ruff. A second trump to dummy and Grant had his three discards and could still ruff a club in dummy thanks to the kind trump situation. Had East not ruffed the third diamond, Grant would have had an extra discard available.

Matt knew the declarer had at least four clubs and therefore he could withhold his East and hope something favourable would happen…and it did.

Seen this hand before….or something like it?

Of course, you do. You have one similar all the time, or so it seems. No problems with what to do with it, are there? Well, let’s find out.

 

2 is what you might expect, forcing to game. If your partner is balanced, they will have at least 24 hcps. Well?

 

Richard Solomon

 

 

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