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Last weekend the Coffs Coast Gold Bridge Congress took place and this attracted players from both sides of the Tasman. It was no small event either with 50 Open and 20 Intermediate teams taking part.

Ex Kiwis Liam Milne and James Coutts had a great time winning the Swiss Pairs by nearly 7 vps and then going unbeaten in the Open Teams to win that event with Justin Mill and Justin Williams by over 18 vps.

A mainly Kiwi team, Ken and Kathy Yule, Ella and Nick Jacob and GeO Tislevoll, finished in second place and here is GeO’s write up of an interesting deal from this event:

 

“Against Ken and Kathy Yule, E/W bid to 6 played by West. How do you play it when Ken (North) leads the A and switches to a spade?

You have to guess the hearts, either having to be divided 2-2, or if you play an honor and the Jack or Queen appears under that honor, behind your other big heart, you have an option to finesse playing for stiff honor opposite honor third.

Say you start with the A, maybe suspecting North has a reason for his immediate lead of the A. Perhaps he has hopes for a trump trick.

On the A, the Jack drops from South. What now?

This is what is called Restricted Choice. Whether that Jack or Queen drops, the fact is that if South has the other honor as well (Q-J doubleton), they could have played the other honour: not true if their honour was singleton. This theory (restricted choice) can perhaps be discussed, but the maths-people claim one's best chance is to take the finesse. Ken and Kathy’s opponent did finesse, but that meant one down as South had not singleton honor, but Q-J doubleton:

 

Good lead by Ken, as with other leads there is no trouble for the declarer who discards West’s diamond on East’s spade honours.

At my table, we luckily played 6 from the East side.

I opened 1 (2+), 1 from Nick Jacob promising 4+ hearts (transfers over 1), and I bid 2NT (18-19 balanced). Nick’s 3, kind-of a check back bid promised at least five hearts. If the opener has not three hearts, West can assume a club slam is possible. After my 3, Nick realized the heart slam was likely.

Via Key-Card-Blackwood, he found out that one key card was missing, and also that the trump Queen was missing as well. Usually that means one should stop in game. However, we are known to have a nine-card heart fit. If that is A109- sixth opposite J-x-x, it is a great chance as that means the opener has the A. If the opener has K third, or even better K J x, 6 has a great chance. The trumps have to be played for no loser, but also the opponents might not get to cash their ace. Therefore, this is one rare exception where gambling on a slam is not a bad idea, even knowing one Keycard and the trump Queen are missing.

We ended in 6 by East, and when South did not find the diamond lead, it was 13 easy tricks, +1430.

This meant a very useful 17 IMPs for the Kiwi team.”

 

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