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Victory at the National Congress…despite!

The National Congress is past and has been quite successful and now we look forward to the 2023 event. One excellent feature of this year’s event was the on-line daily Bulletins produced by Ed Roggeveen. They contained plenty of interesting and challenging deals. So, in finding some hands of the day, I must look a little deeper into this year’s event.

Not everyone can win national championships though this year's New Zealand Teams winners have won more than their share in recent years. There’s was an excellent performance especially as ill health forced Michael Cornell out of the event at the last minute. His replacement, Australian Paul Dalley, paired up with Ashley Bach. The other two pairs were Martin Reid and Peter Newell and Malcolm Mayer and Michael Ware, all very familiar names.

A Familiar Pose

 

It is not just familiar seeing Michael Ware, Ashley Bach, Paul Dalley,
Martin Reid, Peter Newell and Malcolm Mayer on the winners’ podium
but the sight of Michael Ware telling a good joke is also very familiar too.

It may thus seem strange to feature today a deal from this event which cost the WARE team 11 imps but deserved to gain them 14 imps. The loss of those imps was purely bad luck, out of their control but showed to great effect the simple style which Mayer-Ware display.

 

4NT was Key Card with 5 showing the two that Michael Ware was not looking at. 5NT was a try for grand-slam asking his partner what he thought and at the same time confirming the presence of all the key cards (and Q)…and Malcolm thought that his spade suit looked pretty good.

That was the good news. All it required was reasonable breaks, trumps no worse than 3-1, spades no worse than 4-2. It would have been a little more comforting had the partnership held 10 as well when a spade needed to be ruffed… but all up, a pretty reasonable grand, until:

K was led and Michael won ace to play K and discover that North was “the spoiler”. There was no hope, not even for the small slam, with the contract finishing down 2.

Fortunately, justice was done on most other boards with Michael, Malcolm and their teammates emerging as worthy victors in the New Zealand Teams.

A not so nice choice.

 

You could pass 3 in your sleep first time but what now? The vulnerability is not this time in your favour while you are playing Teams. Come on, the clock is ticking!

Richard Solomon

 

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