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Shirley Newton, Margaret Burgess, Sue Southen and Pam Tibble. 

Canterbury Success in the Women’s Regional Championships. 

It has been a while since Canterbury have won the Women’s event in the Regional (formerly Interprovincial) Championships. Success this time was a major factor in this region winning the Dougal McLean Trophy.

While Shirley Newton is vastly experienced in Women’s Bridge, her partnership with Margaret Burgess is fairly new. They were playing what Shirley described as “simple Acol”. Their teammates, Pam Tibble and Sue Southen, also a reasonably new partnership, were playing Standard.

Neither North-South pair reached the best contract on this board though the onus was on the defence at both tables to beat 4.

What would you lead as West after one of the following auctions?

 

 1NT was 15-17 and 3 “Puppet” checking on South’s majors. South owned up to 5 spades and North raised. Or try this:

 

Slightly different auctions, to be sure, and the opening lead proved crucial.

There is no “right” opening lead to either auction though there do seem wrong leads and that was the case when against Canterbury, West started with A against the second auction. This was compounded when West continued diamonds:

 

The declarer, Shirley Newton, took her K and was very pleased with her “catch” from East. With only one diamond loser, she could afford one loser in each other side-suit and made 10 tricks in some comfort.

2 could have been a genuine suit though here was a “waiting-bid” since 2 would have shown 5+ hearts. While holding the all important A, there seemed no rush to make a speculative ace lead in a side-suit. Of course, a low diamond lead at trick 1 would have been outstandingly successful this time though could easily leave West with a lot of “egg on their face”.

At the other table, 3 was simply check-back. It looks like South had upgraded their 14 count to a strong 1NT opening.  For Canterbury,  Sue Southen opted to lead a trump. It seemed North could easily have a short side-suit or the lead would be passive. South had a lot to do after that “give away nothing” lead.

South drew trumps and went for diamonds but was in poor shape when she lost a diamond to Pam Tibble’s Q. Pam played back a second diamond and Sue won to continue the suit. Clubs offered no joy for South and the contract finished down 2 with 11 imps going to Canterbury, earnt mainly from a better lead at trick 1.

South could have made 4 after the trump lead by playing 2 rounds of hearts, A and a second heart, after drawing trumps. Had West held K, there would be an immediate diamond discard available and since East had K, they could not quickly threaten declarer (though club to ace and a small diamond exit from West puts South to the test).

However, the North hand looks so “no-trumpish” especially after a 1NT opening that simple Stayman followed by 3NT if there is no heart fit, seems a good action. Even after bidding 2 where South had opened 1, North could try 2NT and South should be happy to play 3NT. With 5 certain spade tricks, 2+ for sure in hearts and a certain club trick, getting 9 tricks there seems much more appealing than trying for 10 in spades.

In the 4 fields, 22 pairs attempted game. 3NT made 4 times in 6 attempts and 4 made and failed 8 times each.

Canterbury had a small win in the 2^nd Round Robin over Otago-Southland thanks to the following board:

 

Shirley and Margaret did just enough to put their opponents going to game. East’s opening only promised 3+ diamonds and 2NT showed 12-14. Thus, West was cautious.

Not so at the other table:

Pam won the opening heart lead in dummy and played a diamond to her ace to discard a spade on the A. Now, she made the correct play in trumps (low to 9), and exited a spade to South. South exited a club (though Pam could always get to dummy to lead a low club away from A). North’s spade exit allowed Pam to discard one club on K after she had drawn Q. However, after losing to K, cashing Q and then A, dummy's 5th club would come good after Pam ruffed a club in her own hand. It was a wise precaution not to draw the last trump immediately as she might have needed an extra entry to dummy. 

At worst, it might have come down to a ruffing spade finesse. The end result was 10 very useful imps to Canterbury at the “business end” of the event.

Richard Solomon

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