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A Big S(win)g in Rotorua.

The team of Liz and Blair Fisher, Alan Grant and Jeremy Fraser-Hoskin scored an emphatic win in the Kelly Peirse Memorial Teams at Rotorua on Saturday, winning all 6 of their matches and being 14.75 vps clear at the end. Today’s board produced the biggest swing of the day. We will give you two problems today which you should look at independently:

 

 

A slow auction which might have petered out in 3 ended two levels higher! 1 was Precision style 9-14 hcp. Fearing that an opening club lead may get ruffed (an accurate presumption), you lead A, receive an encouraging signal from partner and continue a second heart to their J, West following low. On the third round of hearts, your partner plays K and declarer J. What do you discard? Seeing as you doubled the final contract, it is extra important you discard well.

Meanwhile, we have an opening lead problem for you. You hold:

South opens 1, Precision style, and with no interference, North relays and sets the final contract as 6, with South the declarer. South’s shape is known to be  4504 and South has 0-3 controls (Ace=2 King=1) and has at least one honour (ace, king or queen) in spades and hearts. What then would you lead?

The board provided a huge 17 imp swing for the winners when both the doubled game and the small slam made….and both could have been defeated!

 

At our first table, we had the very competitive auction to 5x. North did well to lead hearts, with the club void appearing in dummy. However, on the third round of hearts, North discarded a club. Now, West could play their top two spades and ruff a spade with 7. After that, it was simply a case of ruffing dummy’s remaining spade and heart with  AK and ruffing clubs in the West hand, with North under-ruffing….contract made.

Had North discarded a spade, the 9 in the North hand would have meant that only 2 out of 3 small major cards could be ruffed successfully and the contract would have to fail.

       
Jeremy Fraser-Hoskin                Alan Grant 
the relieved declarer in 5x

Meanwhile, 6 by South was a somewhat ambitious contract. Liz and Blair Fisher did well to make South declarer. West opted for safety and led A but declarer could ruff two diamonds in the South hand and, after drawing trumps, discard three spades (or two spades and a diamond) on South’s hearts to lose just one trick at the end.

While a spade would obviously be a very successful lead for the defence, a heart, too, combined with the 4-0 trump break, makes 6 too hard to make. South would like to use A as a second entry to dummy to ruff diamonds in their hand but preserving that blocks the heart suit. All would be well for South had there been a better club break but the 4-0 break makes it too tough to score 12 tricks.

Even a trump lead may not beat the slam. On a low trump lead, South would be well advised to insert 8 or else they will be stuck in their hand after the second diamond ruff. If West leads a high club, declarer can ruff the second diamond with J and take a marked trump finesse back to hand. This shows the value of leading a low trump, which may indeed beat the contract.

Most tables either played this board in part-score or in 5 by North, failing through a spade ruff. That was far from the case in the match featuring the Fisher team. 17 very useful imps on their way to an emphatic victory.

Richard Solomon

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