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      a full room at The Mount. 

Slamming at “The Mount”.

It is wonderful to see live bridge becoming more popular again post Covid. It is even better when that popularity is seen in Intermediate, Junior and Novice tournaments. So, it is great to be able to celebrate the full bridge room the Mt Maunganui Bridge Club had for its Intermediate, Junior and Novice tournaments last Saturday.

There were 24 Intermediate, 32 Junior and 8 Novice pairs taking part in their own competitions, one session for the Novices and 2 for the other 2 events. That’s 32 tables in all, a great tribute to the club for running such a day and a very successful one too.

The winners were as follows:                                                  Totals

Intermediate Deidre Gunn and Jackie Blue (Tauranga)         118.94%

Junior             Bill Barwood and Jiwan Dhaliwal (Hamilton)     133.29%

Novice           Jill Walker and Lorraine Howard (Waihi)             61.11%

 
Novice winners from Waihi: Jill Walker and Lorraine Howard 
(along with Mt Maunganui President, Michele Larnder)

Bill and Jiwan were certainly the stars of the day with rounds of 67.60% and 65.69%. Deidre and Jackie scored 60.61% and 58.33%.

 

       
Deidre Gunn (middle) and Jackie Blue (right)                  Jiwan Dhaliwal and Bill Barwood
                                                       with Michele Larnder, presenting the prizes

The following board proved too hard for all bar one pair in the Intermediate and Junior events.

The first problem came in what to open the West hand:

 

That’s a good-looking 21 hcp hand, well not so good-looking since that K is of dubious value and the hand has no long suit. So, it really qualifies as a 1 -level, 1, “one below the singleton” opener.

As expected, partner bids 1. (Relief for West: at least they bid something!)  Now jump to 2 showing a game-forcing hand with at least 4 spades and 4 diamonds. Assuming it is game-forcing, East’s next bid is 4 saying they are not that strong but do have 4 spades.

With partner’s 1 response certainly improving our hand, we could try ace-asking (the same here as Roman Key Card as we hold KQ) and when East surprises us by showing 2, we can jump to 6. Partner’s 4 sign-off would put off any thoughts of grand-slam.

North leads 9 and this is what we see:

 

Plan the play.

It is the kind of deal when friendly breaks should ensure 12 tricks. We would need to ruff twice in the West hand to set up hearts and that would prove awkward with limited entries to the East hand. So, the better way to get 12 tricks would be by cross-ruffing.

Win Q and cash K, A and then K discarding 7 from the East hand. Had the opposition ruffed the third club, it would be annoying but by no means terminal. They did not. Next play A and ruff a diamond. Cash A discarding a diamond…2 discard produces the same ending. So far, we have taken the first 7 tricks and these cards remain:

Ruff a heart low and then ruff a diamond low too. Now, ruff a heart with Q and play 2. North is helpless with just 3 trumps left and ruffs low as 10 scores declarer’s 11^th trick. The last 2 tricks are made independently by K and A with North under-ruffing each time. That’s all 13 tricks.

These were the four hands:

 

Some pairs missed their spade fit and played in no-trumps. If West had opened 2NT (a possibility), East should bid 3 transfer and then 3 over the 3 response. The spade fit should still be found.

6 pairs found 6NT impossible to make (only 10 tricks in that contract) while 3 more were unsuccessful in 6. Most of the rest played in 4 or 3NT but only one pair made 12 tricks in spades. However, top of the pack were local “Mount” pair Dianne Beveridge and Michele Rogers  who bid and made 6 after receiving a diamond lead….and they were in the Junior event.

Good bidding and good play from that pair and all up a good and encouraging day for one of our more proactive clubs.

Richard Solomon

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