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Small Turn-out but good competition at the National Open Teams.

The only disappointment for those taking part in the National Open Teams in Palmerston North this past weekend was the comparatively small turn-out of 14 teams. With the tournament run efficiently as ever by director Lorraine Stachurski and scorer Kevin Walker, and the local club, the players could concentrate on their bridge.

The small turn-out meant that the event was run as a round-robin of 13 by 8 board matches. Many players do prefer longer matches, especially at the Open end of our tournaments, though the randomness of Swiss was eliminated.

 
time's up but they certainly are the winners: Annette and Stephen Henry, Jane Lennon and David Taylor

The winning margin for the Lennon team (Jane Lennon, David Taylor, Annette and Stephen Henry) was relatively comfortable though this slam proved critical at the business end/ final match. What would you lead against this 6 slam bid bid as follows:

 

That’s a lot of bidding. 1NT was 15-17. 3 was a Major Suit enquiry and 3 said East held at least 1 4-card major. 3 showed 4 spades and 3 set trumps. The next 6 bids were all cue-bids (1^st/2^nd round cues bid together) with West finally bidding the spade slam. Well?

The choice seems to be a passive looking trump, one’s singleton, or top of a sequence Q. A heart is of course always possible too! So, 4 suits and 13 cards!

Here then are top five finishers:

1

Jane

Lennon

David

Taylor

Annette

Henry

Stephen

Henry

187.86

2

Michael

Ware

Matthew

McManus

Jack

James

John

Davidson

180.86

3

Clair

Miao

Wayne

Burrows

Russell

Wilson

Bob

Hurley

180.00

4

Blair

Fisher

George

Masters

Alan

Grant

Anthony

Ker

178.45

5

Mariusz

Tumilowicz

Mindy

Wu

Kate

Terry

Judy

Pawson

162.20

 

Lennon had powered their way into a comfortable lead with three wins of 18 or more at the crucial time and won comfortably despite suffering what was only their third loss in the final round. The lead problem we gave you above came from the last round and the outcome of this slam could have been crucial to the overall result.

South could tell that West had a heart shortage because both East and West had shown a heart control and South held the king. Both opponents had also shown controls in clubs. So, leading Q would be safe if East held 10 but less so if West held that card.

Both had also shown a diamond control. So, leading a diamond was dangerous unless North had a high trump to win the lead quickly. That was possible and probably what South hoped for by leading a diamond. This time, that lead did not help the defence.

 

If North had ducked trick 1, Stephen Henry, East, would still have had to guess where the Q was though at the table, Q was played. The slam was made comfortably for the loss of a club trick.

On a neutral trump or this time safe Q or heart lead, Stephen would have to guess to play diamonds himself. He could draw trumps and play three rounds of clubs, noting North’s singleton. If the hearts were reasonably evenly split, and North having only two trumps, the odds would suggest that diamond length was with North.

The winning margin was greater than the 22 imp swing on this board (the opposition were in game) but nevertheless a crucial decision for both sides.

Tomorrow, we will review a hand featuring the other successful pair.

Richard Solomon

The three New Zealand youth pairs (well, 5 +1 Australian) completed rounds 4-6 of the Youth Pairs qualifying on Friday. Leon Meier and Sebastian Langdon-McMillan were the closest of the three pairs regarding qualifying for the 3 session final of the various age events. They finished 20^th out of 40 pairs with a 50.36% average though that was 2 places and 0.32% short of qualifying for the Under 21 final.

The World Youth Teams event starts today in Veldhoven, the Netherlands. New Zealand is participating in the 20 team Round Robin Under 21 event qualifying event, 4 x 14 board matches each day. First up are matches against Australia, USA 2, India and Hong Kong, China.

 

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