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A Second Day Unbeaten.

That’s the story of the New Zealand Open Team at the APBF Championships in Hong Kong. They made steady progress, retained pole position and each match scored more vps than their opponents. These are their results on and the leading positions of the top group after Day 2:

1	New Zealand		99.49
2	India		86.47
3	China		85.72
4	Singapore		82.20
5	Chinese Taipei		80.37

 

Round
4	v	China Macau	54-23	17.19
5	v	China Hong Kong	26-24	10.66
6	v	Indonesia	24-22	10.66
7	v	Australia	43-27	14.42

 

Before we check on the other two Kiwi teams, put yourselves in the position of Ashley Bach and Michael Whibley as there are three decisions to take:

 

2 is a poor Weak 2 in a major (4-7 ish hcp) and 3 said maximum with spades.

 

Your 1 is 2+. 2 shows both Majors, Michael’s style. You double on-going but now what?

 

Your lead?

 

Here are yesterday’s results and current positions of the other Kiwi teams:

Women

							Round
1	China		96.16				4	v	Chinese Taipei	22-53	2.81
							5	v	Korea	18-17	10.33
2	Singapore		93.69				6	v	Thailand	40-25	14.19
							7	v	Indonesia	22-38	5.58
3	China Hong Kong		91.01
7	Thailand		63.85
8	New Zealand		63.10

 

Mixed                                                                                                  Round

1	China		105.36				4		India	30-39	7.29
							5		Singapore	20-48	3.28
7	Thailand		64.86				6		Australia	32-41	7.29
							7		Chinese Taipei	22-32	7.03
8	China Hong Kong		64.21
9	Korea		64.21
10	New Zealand		51.11
11	Philippines		48.84

 

All three problems above came from the New Zealand Open Team’s match against China Hong Kong.

In the first, it seemed normal for Ashley Bach (South) to use Roman Key Card and bid 6 on hearing his partner held one of the missing aces. Surely it would be the A but it was not!

 

That was not terminal but when the J refused to appear in two rounds, the slam had to fail. When the China Hong Kong North did not open, the damage could have been really bad. However, to the partial rescue came Michael (“who needs high cards to open”) Whibley!

West              North             East                South

Brown                                    Whibley
Pass                Pass                1!                  x

1                   3                   Pass                4

Pass                5                   All Pass

North-South found the suit where slam could be made. 1 showed hearts and this time, 1 showed not very much at all! The damage was thus restricted to 10 imps. 

NZ Open Team in Hong Kong

 
Only Michael Cornell may be smiling but the 6 players have much to be happy 
about after 2 days of competition. 
from the front: Matt Brown and Michael Cornell 
                        Ashley Bach and Michael Whibley
                        Peter Newell and Martin Reid

Ashley was again in the hot seat when he held his 20 count and everyone else seemed to be doing a lot of bidding with not very much. Trusting his partner for his free bid of 3, he jumped to the club slam and was not to be disappointed:

 

After drawing trumps, he could discard one spade on the 4^th round of diamonds losing just a spade for + 920. That gained 11 imps for New Zealand when after Whibley-Brown bid up to 3 on the East-West cards, China Hong Kong settled for 5.

Do you lead your suit or your partner’s against the opponents’ no trump contract? Michael Whibley had a decent suit of his own but no outside entries. His partner had shown 6 hearts and could have entries to run his heart suit. So, Michael chose his singleton 8….and a wise choice it was:

 

North had to lose the lead twice to Matt in diamonds and that enabled the defence to take four heart tricks, two diamonds and A for down 2. Meanwhile, the stakes were even higher at the other table as Michael Cornell, North, had jumped to 3NT.

East chose to lead a low spade and Michael would have thought he was not going to be successful. He gave up a diamond to West but there was no second spade return. Instead, after a long pause, West chose a small heart which Michael passed to dummy’s 10. Suddenly, Michael had three tricks in each red suit, a spade and AK…+600  and 13 very valuable imps.

We will be back tomorrow to report on Day 3 and with more stories.

Richard Solomon

 

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