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The second week-end of January saw the eleventh anniversary celebrations of the Thames Coromandel Summer Bridge Festival. The Congress was the idea of the late Allan Barclay and was started at the time when January was a relatively uncluttered period in our bridge calendar. The aims of Allan and his Thames based committee was to run a Congress which would attract all grades of players to compete in a most relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Now, 10 years on, we can say that those aims have been truly met. The only shame was that Allan, who died last June, was not there to celebrate the success.

Although the event has now been passed over to the Waikato Bays Regional Committee to run (and renamed Thames Summer Bridge Festival), the Barclay name was well represented with Allan’s wife, Denise, around all week-end to help out and Allan and Denise’s son, Greg, there to present the prizes for the very appropriately named Barclay Open 5A and Multigrade 8B Pairs. It was a pleasure to take part in a Congress with such a friendly atmosphere.

It all started on the Friday evening with the first of two sessions in the Walk In Pairs, the event being won by Brett Glass and Gary Foidl. Saturday saw the 8B Multigrade Teams and the John Eldridge 5A Teams. John was the initial director and was very much involved in the early years of the Congress. The Multigrade Teams was won by Ed Roggeveen, Jena Robinson, Linda Sloan and Heather Roggeveen while the Open Teams was won very narrowly by Cynthia and Ian Clayton and Pam and Ian Moore.

Ian and Pam Moore and Ian and Cynthia Clayton

Sunday was Pairs Day. Ed Roggeveen and Jena Robinson did the double when they won the Multigrade Pairs while the first recipients of the Barclay Open Pairs Trophy were Jenny Millington and Barry Jones. The Open events attracted a healthy 22 teams and 16 tables of Pairs while 6 teams and the equivalent number of pairs took part in the Multigrade events.

After a scrumptious afternoon tea, there was the prize-giving with speeches from Greg Barclay and Barry Jones, both in memory of Allan. The organizing committee was extremely well marshalled by Regional President, Rona Driscoll with Tony Morcom, the director, Jan Siegers, Congress Manager and Jan Spaans, the scorer, ensuring a smooth flow for the competitions.

A report on such an event must have just a little piece of bridge in it. Here are two slams which were very important to the winners of the Open Teams, both boards coming in the semi-final match between Clayton and Richardson. They show that it helps to have “Lady Luck” on your shoulder:

Dealer East, E/W Vul.

                        West                          East

                        ♠ KQ7                         ♠ AJ63

                        ♥ 843                         ♥ AQ72

                        ♦ AQ9                        ♦ K1082

                        ♣ AK83                      ♣ 10

            The bidding started in slightly unusual fashion:

                        West                          East

                                                            1♦

                        1♠                               3♠

after which West key-carded and settled in 6♠. A trump was led and all was well until trick 3 when one of West’s spades turned out to be a club! However, all was well for a shocked declarer as spades and diamonds broke 3-3 and the ♥K was doubleton with North…. making 12 tricks for a somewhat lucky slam pick-up.

There was also element of good fortune in the second slam deal:

Dealer South                                   North

Vul Nil                                                ♠ AK9

                                                          ♥ 3

                                                          ♦ A3

                                                          ♣ KQJ10973

                                    West                                      East

                                    ♠ J108                                   ♠ Q753

                                    ♥ 8642                                  ♥ AQJ107

                                    ♦ J107542                            ♦ K9

                                    ♣ -                                        ♣ 85

                                                            South

                                                            ♠ 642

                                                            ♥ K95

                                                            ♦ Q86

                                                            ♣ A642

                        West              North                        East                South

                                                1♣(16+ any)               x   (majors)   1NT

                        Pass                4NT                        Pass                  5♦ (I ace)

                        Pass                6♣                          All Pass

4NT was a good shot from North as if South held an ace, there was a reasonable chance of the ♠Q and ♥K as well. South was not wholly obliging but there were two ways of making this slam, the cold way or less cold squeeze approach. It’s “less cold” because it is a phantom squeeze. The cold way is to win the lead (let’s say a trump) in the North hand, play a second high trump and then lead a heart up. North wins and exits a spade. Declarer wins, cashes ♦A, plays ♣9 to the ace and ruffs a diamond and, eureka, the ♦Q is established to discard the ♠9….as long as you preserved ♣3 to play to the ♣6 to re-enter dummy.

I will leave you to surmise the line taken but the end result was 11 imps to the Clayton team.

I am sure Allan Barclay would produce one of his trademark smiles were he watching these slams make. Some days, the sun shines and to a greater or lesser degree, it shined on all at Thames that week-end.

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