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Daily Bridge in New Zealand

North Island Teams: a “capital” tournament.

The North Island Teams was held at the Wellington Bridge Club and had all the players could ask, strong competition, excellent catering and an exciting finish. The event was played in an excellent atmosphere and in no small way helped by director and scorer, David Stephen and Kevin Walker. Thanks also to Bridget Hannaway and to all those local players who helped out during the weekend. 

The excellent atmosphere, conviviality etc was referred to in the victory speech from David Ackerley, for whom this is a very rare appearance at the bridge table. That is also true for his partner, Scott Smith, though their teammates, Jo and Sam Simpson are tournament regulars.

These then were the top five placings when the music stopped after 7 x 14 board rounds, though the statistics only tell part of the story:

1

Simpson

96.62

Jo Simpson

Sam Simpson

David Ackerley

Scott Smith

                       

2

Davies

 

90.84

Kate Davies

John Patterson

Anne Somerville

Murat Genc

                       

3

Schumacher

90.71

Tim Schumacher

David Skipper

Leon Meier

GeO Tislevoll

                       

4

Johnstone

89.76

Michael Johnstone

Paula Gregory

Moss Wylie

Kevin Skoropada

                       

5

Miao

 

84.60

Clair Miao

Wayne Burrows

Russell Wilson

Bob Hurley

                                                                Top Teams

David Ackerley Scott Smith Simpsons 24.jpg Murat Anns Somerville Kate and John 24.jpg

David, Jo, Sam and Scott: the winners                Murat, Anne, Kate and John in second place

Both pictures also feature Wellington Club President, Peter Newell

With one round left, Schumacher had less than 1 vp advantage over Ware (Michael Ware – Matthew McManus, Peter Newell – Martin Reid) with several other teams 8-10 vps behind. That was all to change when Simpson had a huge win over Ware, the margin being 19.74-0.26, which saw Simpson end up comfortable winners while Ware dropped to 8th . Meanwhile, it was much closer between Schumacher and Johnstone, the latter winning 13.48- 6.52.

Schumacher had started with 4 big wins including almost the full 20 off Ackerley though they finished with 3 small losses and only just held on to 3rd place at the end.

Meanwhile,   Miao performed perhaps one of the biggest “Swiss Rolls” ever. They lost their first four matches and were near the bottom of the field before scoring 58.05 vps out of 60 from their three matches on Day 2 to scrape past several teams into 5th place.

The following board from the last round was significant in several matches: 

Bridge in NZ.png nz map.jpg

West Deals
E-W Vul

K 9 6

K 3 2

A 9 6 5 3

6 2

   

N

W

 

E

S

   
 

5 3

A J 7 6

K J 4

A K J 10

 

West

North

East

South

Pass

Pass

Pass

1 NT

Pass

3 NT

All pass

 

The above was a typical strong no-trump auction. West would lead Spade-small2 and a declarer would play low from dummy, with East’s Spade-smallJ winning the first trick. East switches to a middlish Club-small5 or a high Club-small9. How would you plan the play from there?

More declarers made 9 tricks than did not but there were some casualties. It looks that South could take a finesse in any suit except spades, which if successful (the heart finesse would require a 3-3 break as well) would come to 9 tricks. However, all three finesses would seem to be to the danger hand, West, if they lost.

A losing finesse followed by a second spade would be decidedly unpleasant, especially since it appears that from that Spade-small2 lead, both defenders held 4 spades.

The diamond suit offers South a unique opportunity for a strange finesse through West. Losing a diamond to East would not be terminal as long as the suit breaks 3-2. Losing to Diamond-smallQ would mean a second finesse but there is a chance it just might not be needed.

So, there seems some value in  after winning Club-smallA at trick 2  to play Diamond-smallK followed by Diamond-smallJ finessing unless Diamond-smallQ appears. Whether or not it appeared, there was to be a fine reward for those South players who adopted this line. They were not to lose any diamond tricks!

West Deals
E-W Vul

K 9 6

K 3 2

A 9 6 5 3

6 2

Q 10 4 2

10 5

Q 7 2

Q 8 7 3

 

N

W

 

E

S

 

A J 8 7

Q 9 8 4

10 8

9 5 4

 

5 3

A J 7 6

K J 4

A K J 10

 

West

North

East

South

Pass

Pass

Pass

1 NT

Pass

3 NT

All pass

 

The normal finesse of Diamond-smallJ would see the defence take 4 spade tricks and a diamond. The above backward finesse sees South take 9 tricks without a second finesse needed.

Those who took the normal diamond finesse would not get a second chance to make their contract.

That was one of many interesting deals during the weekend. The only shame of the weekend was that there were only 22 teams taking part.

Richard Solomon

 

 

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