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Christine and Jenna Gibbons.

“Doubled” and Victorious.

A very experienced and a first time partnership combined to win the Hamilton Club’s 5A Teams event last Saturday. “The experience” were Christine and Jenna Gibbons and “the first-timers” were Karen Harris and John Buckleton.

The following board from the last round certainly cemented their victory. Firstly, a bidding problem:

 

1NT was 14-16 and 2 Stayman. 3 denied 4 hearts (and by implication held 4 spades) and asked Jenna, East, to do something sensible. What would you bid as East here?

Jenna chose the tougher of 2 assignments. She bid 4 and was doubled by South, often bad news! These were the four hands:

 

3NT would have been a much easier make. On the expected club lead and continuation, East can negotiate 3 spade tricks and two tricks in each other suit quite comfortably. However, Jenna needed 10 tricks and was off to a bad start when South led their club to North's ace and ruffed the club return, Jenna putting in J on the second round.

 

 

After ruffing, South exited 7 and Jenna would have been relieved that North produced 9. 5-0 breaks can be even more unpleasant! There were now 2 ways to make 10 tricks. Jenna could have won Q, ruffed 2 diamonds in her own hand, using K as an entry to dummy. Then A and K would have given South no escape. Whether they ruff or do not ruff with their K,their last remaining trump, the heart loser goes from dummy and Jenna would have 10 tricks, losing just 2 spades and the A.

However, she went for the squeeze. She won the spade exit with A in hand and then played a low spade. South won and exited their remaining trump. She won this in dummy and played K and then a heart to the ace in the East hand, in case Q was doubleton.

At that point, these cards remained:

 

She now played K and South had no answer. If they threw the heart, Jenna, who discarded a heart from dummy, could ruff the 4 and set up J for her 10^th trick. If they discarded a diamond, Jenna could play 2 rounds of diamonds, ruffing, setting up the long diamond in dummy again for her 10^th trick, a nice squeeze.

 

Karen, John, Jenna and Christine along with event sponsor, Irenee Stewart, representing AFT Pharmaceuticals. 

+ 790 was worth 13 imps when 4 undoubled went 1 down at the other table. 2 declarers made 4 undoubled including Colin Carryer, who also squeezed South while 4 declarers failed in 4 undoubled. Meanwhile 3 East players made and 2 failed in 3NT.

That nice squeeze secured victory for Jenna’s team by 6.74 vps.

Richard Solomon

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