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The fateful take-out double.

Lysandra Zheng and Tim Pan have fast been showing as one of the most promising new pairs in the country with several impressive results. They added to that list with a fine performance in the Open Regional competition with Auckland-Northland finishing just 1.  Vps behind the winning Wellington team. Here, we see Lysandra in action.

She said she had a difficult first bid with this hand:

 

2 was Precision style, 11-15  with 6+ clubs or 5 clubs with a 4 card major. What would your choice be?

Double would be fine if partner responded in hearts or even diamonds though if partner was very weak and responded 2, she would be awkwardly placed. Similarly, with a poor club hold, 2NT while very adequate in value, might again be a very poor spot as opposed to playing in hearts if West could not bid over that call.

So, Lysandra contented herself with a very heavy 2 overcall. After all, that heart suit was no great suit to introduce at the 3 level if she doubled first of all.

This bid seemed to work out well as the bidding continued:

 

3 had a pre-emptive look to it, though Lysandra was stronger than Tim may have imagined. South led 5. How would you play?

Lysandra was the only declarer in the Open section to make bid and make 4. As she commented:

“The take-out double from North made the entire board reasonably transparent as they are almost marked with 4036 or 4045. Possibly but very unlikely a 4135. In any case the correct play in hearts cannot be to start with the ace as would be intuitive.”

The low club from dummy at trick 1 produced Q from North. Lysandra took her ace and followed the above thought process by playing a low trump to 9. With South holding KJ, she could almost certainly place all the remaining side-suit honours with North.

These were the 4 hands:

 

7 from dummy was covered by Q and taken by Lysandra’s ace. Next came 2 top spades and then a diamond to dummy’s 10 and North’s K. North took their club trick and exited with a third round of diamonds won by declarer’s J, a club being discarded from dummy.

She ruffed her losing diamond in dummy, South discarding their remaining spade and at that point Lysandra had 7 of the first 9 tricks with these cards remaining:

 

Lysandra played 9 covered by Q. She ruffed with Q and South had no answer. They had to overruff or else declarer would have a marked finesse..yet, that same finesse occurred when East exited their club.

Had South discarded 10 (Lysandra knew South held this card from the play to trick 1) instead of 10, Lysandra could ruff a spade back to hand and lead low towards A10 to make a certain 10 tricks.

 

 
     Tim and Lysandra

Nicely played drawing the correct inference from the take-out double. In the 4 events, 16 declarers played 4 and only 6 were successful.

Richard Solomon

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