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Day 5 in Buenos Aires

Our Open team had a small loss to USA, a big win over Guadeloupe and an equally bad loss to Sweden which leaves them nearly 16 vps behind 8^th placed Romania. Their remaining opponents are South Africa who are a fraction of a vp ahead of NZ and lowly placed Hong Kong China.

Our Women had only one win but their losses were small and they have moved up a place and more importantly are 20vps above the 17^th placed team. Their remaining 3 matches are against Germany, Italy and USA, 3 teams above them in the ladder.

The Mixed Team finished the day 14^th after 2 wins and 3 losses and have a 7vp buffer over 17^th.  As well as a bye, they finish up with matches against England, Ireland and bottom of the table Morocco.

The Seniors lie 15 vps behind 16^th place and have a profitable bye (they were to play Chile and will score well from the bye) and matches against Columbia and Morocco to come.

Open			NZ vp	position		Mixed		NZ vp	position
Opening position				11th					13th
USA		22-28		8.24		China	6.-35	2.32
Guadeloupe		39-4		17.45		Israel	17-26	6.86
Sweden		12.-47		2.55		Columbia	28.-4	16.78
						HK China	26-41	5.20
						Norway	23.-12	13.72
Closing Position				12th					14th
Women				15th		Seniors			21st
Norway		17-19		10.71		Italy	18.-2	14.70
Brazil		28-34		12.01		bye		12.00
Poland		23-23		10.00		Turkey	32-47	5.54
Australia		22-13		7.10		Canada	23-27	8.62
Closing Position				14th					20th

 

Here is a lead situation featuring Barry Jones from the Mixed Team:

 

 

The bidding is natural. What is your choice?

What to lead as South? Jx of trumps didn’t look great or a club from xxx with dummy likely having good clubs. So,  Barry tried the 5 ,yes, underleading his ace!

 

 

Unsurprisingly, declarer played low and Jenny won the Q and switched to the K with Barry discouraging. So back came a spade to the ace. 

Declarer then proceeded to get the hearts wrong by playing A  and ducking the second round to Barry’s hoped for doubleton king: but not this time. J scored and with the K still to come that was 1 down against 2 making 4 in the other room in the match against Argentina, a 7 IMP gain on the way to a 51-22 Kiwi win.

 
Have you ever heard Barry say on Bridge Zone "don't underlead an ace against a suit contract at trick 1. "Do as I say not as I do!" 

Where there's no hope, find some!

 

 

Most of the field went down in this  4 game. However,  watch Michael Whibley at work.

The lead was J to Q,K and his ace.

Michael returned a spade knowing he needed lots of help from the defence on this board. Surely 4 has no play.

West returned a heart, surely not from the king. So, Michael played A and another heart. East won and exited their remaining heart Michael won in dummy  to play 2. West played K, which was an error. But worse to come.

Michael won the A, back to dummy with a trump and another club and West played......Q, and the roof caved in for the defence, J crashed under the Q, 10 tricks!

Let’s hope for more such effective declarer play from the Kiwis on the final day of qualifying.

Richard Solomon

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