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A New and Inspired “Leader”

I am delighted to see that the Wellington Club Manager, Bridget Hannaway, has taken over my role for the National Congress. I am sure she will lead the organising team really well into producing a great National Congress each year, starting this September.

 
A new Congress...and successful "leader"

Last weekend, she was playing in the National Open on-line Pairs and found herself on lead to a slam bid by the formidable partnership of Michael Ware and Scott Smith. What would your choice be?

 

 

In case you think that Michael Ware had suddenly become very aggressive with the East cards, Michael and Scott play a change of suit by opener as forcing for one round. Hence, he could have up to 19/20 hcp for his 2 bid. 3NT was to play while 5NT said “pick a slam”. Scott chose 6NT.

No unbid suit lead for Bridget. She only had one of that suit and declarer seemed to have clubs under control. She went for something a little more inventive, 3 and hit the dream lay-out, for a creative defender, that is!

 

 

Prospects looked pretty good for Scott assuming hearts broke and if they did not, there was always clubs to fall back on in reserve. However, there was the rather annoying issue that he had to gain the lead first.

Well, he did what we would all do, play low from dummy. No-one in Wellington or elsewhere, leads away from an ace against a slam. South, Tony Quinlivan, had no choice but to “sacrifice” his queen…and a few seconds later realised that he had won the first trick. Returning partner’s lead at trick 2 seemed like a very good idea.

Underleading an ace in such a situation is much riskier at Pairs than at Teams. It may give the declarer an impossible 13^th trick, hardly significant at Teams if there were always 12 on top.

That lead turned a near bottom into a near top. After a bit of untangling of the black suits, in 6NT, a declarer has 12 top tricks without having to worry about the diamond suit. Greg Lee- Alan Currie did the best of all with the East-West cards with East playing 6NT. Michael Whibley- Matt Brown and Jane Lennon- Max Morrison also bid to 6NT but by the potentially dangerous West seat. However, neither North could match Bridget, both leading a spade.

About half the field bid to slam with danger awaiting those who bid to 6, with East at the wheel. Only on a diamond lead is this a safe contract as then trumps can be drawn after North takes A and continues the suit. Now, only 2 discards are required and then AK can be cashed safely before crossing to dummy by overtaking K.

However, on any other lead, those declarers who cashed AK after taking just one round of trumps met a quick defeat. They aimed to throw two diamonds on AQ though they then had to hope clubs were 3-3 or that North held A.

If you are going to require one of those two good things to happen, then playing as Wayne Burrows did seem a better shot. He won the J lead and immediately drew three rounds of trumps, well a fourth in case of favourable discarding, before playing K and then overtaking with K.

There was no 3-3 club break but he was still alive to play for the A to be where he wanted. Not only had he survived the 5-1 club break but had there been a 3-3 break in that suit, he could have discarded all 4 of his diamonds for a very valuable overtrick.
A great result for Wayne but an equally satisfying one for Tony and our new (Congress) leader.

Richard Solomon

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