All News

 

Trans- Tasman Round 3.

The 3^rd round of the Trans- Tasman Teams took place last Friday night. New Zealand teams still occupy 6 of the top 8 positions in the 16 team competition though the leaders are now Australian Mixed Team who had a large victory over Skipper in Friday’s round. New Zealand teams recorded 4 wins and a draw in the third round. The top 8 positions are now:

			B/FWD		Latest		Opponent		Current Score
					result
1		Aus Mixed	27.71		19.25		Skipper		46.96
2		Cornell	33.13		9.39		Aus Women		42.52
3		Livingston	21.68		17.85		Aus Free		39.53
4		Terry	33.61		5.00		Aus Seniors		38.61
5		Fisher	26.08		10.00		Aus Youth		36.08
6		Carter	22.39		13.04		Aus Women U 26		35.43
7		Aus Seniors	18.58		15.00		Terry		33.58
8		Skipper	28.91		0.75		Aus Mixed		29.66

 

On the following board, most East-West pairs were in game and were not thus overly worried by a bad trump break. However, the stakes were higher for those in slam:

Most played in game from the East seat after a 2 opening from East who rebid 2NT. West transferred and East ended in game from the slightly safer East seat.

The slam would normally need the spade finesse to work as except on a diamond lead from South and where North does not put up an honour, there will be a diamond loser. However, that assumes trumps break normally. Whatever the lead and whichever player was declarer, one round of trumps brought some disturbing news as all five were with South.

These were the four hands:

One declarer was in slam from the West seat and had received J lead. They won and played dummy’s two hearts. They needed both finesses to work. Assuming they did, in theory, declarer had six side-suit tricks in the East hand and had three top trumps. If they could score three ruffs in the West hand, they would be home. There was, though, a further problem.

They played K and on the third round of clubs, South discarded a diamond. Ruff number 1 was followed by the successful diamond finesse (10, J, Q) and now it was essential that West cashed the A before ruffing the remaining club. Failure to do so enabled South to discard their remaining diamond and allowed South to ruff the A after West took a successful spade finesse.

Had the A been cashed immediately after Q scored, South has no dangerous discard. Declarer can ruff dummy’s last club, take the spade finesse and play A and ruff a spade with 10 (ruff number 3). A then takes trick 12 and North’s diamond winner and South’s winning trump fall together on trick 13.

The fourth round of the competition is on Friday June 15^th. After Round 3, the Kiwi teams still have a substantial lead overall, 274.57 – 205.43 vps

Richard Solomon

Go Back View All News Items