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A lead ..but who was “leading” at the end of the trials?

Waitangi Weekend saw on-line trials to help select New Zealand international teams for 2023. Our Women’s and Seniors’ teams are being selected though there have been enough entries to have trials for both Open and Mixed teams to see who will represent us at Marrakech at the World Championships later in the year. 

Try, first,  this opening lead problem:

 

Don’t be too confused. Your partner opened 1 showing 4+ spades, 8-11 hcp and yet you are defending 4 by West! No misprint! 2 was natural but could be a longer suit than the spade suit. You are North and you are on lead…and your choice is?

Our Mixed Team trials were quite complex. There were 9 entries who played 8 shortish matches on Day 1. The idea was not to finish in the bottom three because one of those pairs would be eliminated by the selectors. The unlucky pair were Barry Jones and Jenny Millington. The remaining 8 formed themselves into 4 teams and played 3 x 20 board matches with the top two teams qualifying for the final.

That resulted in Fisher (Liz and Blair Fisher, Jo and Sam Simpson) playing Burrows (Wayne Burrows- Clair Miao, Mindy Wu – Maruisz Tumilowicz) in a 64 board final. Fisher had a head to head advantage from the previous stage but at the end of the 64 boards, it was Burrows who had their nose in front, 166-156 including the carry-forward. Fisher led for most of the match but the last 11 boards saw Burrows win 37-1 in imps to record a great come-back victory.

 Thus, Wayne, Clair, Mindy and Mariusz will be the New Zealand Mixed Team at the World Championships in Marrakech later this year. Liz and Blair Fisher will be the third pair in that team with Jo and Sam Simpson the reserve pair.

Open Trial

There were 8 pairs formed into four teams for the Open trial. They played a single round-robin of board matches with the top two teams going forward to a 128 board final. The final resulted in a match between Cornell (Michael Cornell- Ashley Bach and Michael Whibley – Matt Brown) and Newell (Peter Newell- Martin Reid and Tom Jacob – Brian Mace). After 96 boards, Cornell led 214-140 with their opponents then conceding. So, our Open Team for Marrakech will be the very familiar names of Michael Cornell- Ashley Bach and Michael Whibley – Matt Brown with Malcolm Mayer – Michael Ware being selected as third pair and Peter Newell – Martin Reid as reserves.

Teams for the Asia Pacific Bridge Federation championships in Hong Kong in June are still to be selected.

So, congratulations to all those who have made the Open and Mixed teams. For three members of the Mixed team, Liz Fisher, Mindy Wu and Mariusz Tumilowicz  it will be their international debuts.

 
Mariusz and Mindy celebrating a previous success

 
      similarly, Clair and Wayne

Back then to our lead problem from the Open Team trial. It’s not often you get to play in game in the suit opened by your opponent. Is that a good enough reason to lead your trump?

 

When Michael Whibley, East, re-opened 2 in the pass-out seat, Matt Brown (West) emerged from his previous silence to bid the spade game. North, Tom Jacob, hoped perhaps to give his partner, Brian Mace, a heart ruff as he started with A and then Q.

No joy on this day. Matt won with dummy’s king to play K, overtaken and ruffed. Matt returned to dummy with A to discard a heart on Q, ruffed a third round of diamonds with dummy’s trump and could afford to lose two trump tricks and make his contract.

The one trick the defence can deny declarer is that ruff in dummy and to do that, they have to lead a trump at trick 1. Did you?

However, the board was an imp pick-up for Tom Jacob and Brian Mace because Cornell- Bach also had problems with the North-South cards at the other table.

West              North             East                South

Reid               Cornell          Newell          Bach
                                                                     1

3                   x                      All Pass

Well, you can see why Ashley Bach thought he could take a safe plus by passing 3 x but he could not. Dutifully, Michael Cornell led a low diamond. Martin Reid did all that Matt Brown did but in a slightly different order. At trick 11, Ashley actually got to ruff the second round of hearts as declarer played a heart to the king but his “reward” was not being able to score his J as Martin won the last two tricks even though Ashley still had J8 left. So, Martin also made 10 tricks and that was 7 imps to Newell though the day and victory belonged to their opponents.

Richard Solomon

 

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