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ALIVE and VERY WELL.

That’s the New Zealand Men’s team in the Asia Cup competition which reaches its climax today in Jakarta and rather against the odds, our team, that is Ashley Bach- Malcolm Mayer, Jack James- Jeremy Fraser-Hoskin and Michael Ware- Leon Meier have made it to the final in the most dramatic fashion. They will play China Hong Kong in a 48- board final today.

 
Young brigade standing. That's  Jack, Jeremy and Leon giving up their seats to 
Ashley, Malcolm and Michael.

New Zealand started the double-round robin 10-team qualifying slowly. They were 6^th at the half-way point, 12vps off 4^th. The top 4 would make the semi-finals. There was a big improvement in the second Round Robin where they won 7 out of 9 matches along with a 3- imp loss to Japan. The only blemish was a heavy defeat to bottom placed Bangladesh. Nevertheless, they finished comfortably in 3^rd place.

On then to the 3 stanza 48-board semi-final against Japan… and it did not start well for the Kiwis. They had a 1.33 imp advantage coming into the semi-final but lost the first 16 boards 24-41 and the next 16 15-33. That meant with 16 to play, they were 33.67 imps behind.

The final round started well for New Zealand with Japan bidding and failing in a small slam off 2 cashing aces. Both teams bid a grand-slam which failed when one opponent held JT94 of trumps (neither pair bid grand in the other semi-final). New Zealand lost a game swing but won single-figure imps on a series of boards. With just board 16 remaining, The Kiwis were ahead by 25 imps in the set. They needed something big on the last board:

 

Malcolm Mayer stole a point or two for his opening bid. With 1 always being unbalanced, he had to open 1. Ashley doubled to show 4 spades and Malcolm’s jump to 2 showed no more than 13 hcp and usually a weak no-trump. The opening bid ensured game would be reached.

A successful trump finesse and both heart honours being where they should be considering East’s overcall ensured that 4 was successful..+ 420. All the Japanese pair had to do at the other table was to record a plus spade score, not even game, (+100 would do)and they would advance to the final.

However, there was much less bidding at the other table:

West              North             East                South

Ware                                   Meier

Pass                Pass                1                   All Pass

Both North and South found reasons not to make take-out doubles and elected to defend. 1 can be defeated by 1 trick and it looked like the Japanese pair might have been on their way to do so. South led a top spade and switched to a diamond to North’s king. A trump switch was ducked to South’s jack.

South continued a diamond to the ace..  North tried J before the second trump. Correctly, Leon covered to prevent the second trump being played…and now he could score that valuable ruff. Back to hand he could play two rounds of trumps and eventually a successful second round of clubs to record + 80. Had the Japanese beaten 1, they would have lost 8 imps on the board but have won the match by 0.67 imps.

Even if North had played a second trump instead of J, the defence could only have taken 2 spade tricks as there were no further entries to the North hand. It looks like to beat 1, South must not lead a spade, a passive club being the best option for the defence.

+80 along with +420 gave Kiwis +11 imps and victory by an almost comfortable 2.33 imps. Whew!

The other semi-final was between China Hong Kong and India. China Hong Kong had a 12-imp carry-forward and increased that lead by 14 in the first stanza. However, the second stanza went to India by 22. The last set was drawn leaving China Hong Kong ahead by just 4imps. Their last board was a flat spade partial making just 9 tricks. What might have been. 

Look out for the final today on BBO starting at 3.00pm NZ time.

Richard Solomon  

 

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