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    Jeremy Fraser-Hoskin: with some key decisions.

Youth to the Fore: The New Zealand Open Trial.

They have not won yet but in three days of bridge, the team of Zachary Yan, Jeremy Fraser- Hoskin, Lysandra Zheng and Tim Pan have taken big steps towards making the New Zealand Open Team to compete in the Bermuda Bowl in Denmark next August.

Four teams have taken part in a 4-day trial this past weekend to find 2 pairs to join the already selected Michael Whibley and Matt Brown. The semi-finals and final were both over two days, 3 matches of 16 boards per day.

In the semi-finals, Jeremy, Zachary, Lysandra and Tim seemed to have a huge task in taking on Peter Newell- Martin Reid and Nick Jacob- Ashley Bach. Yet, the scores, especially on Day 1, were all in favour of the Yan team. They won the three sets by 13, by 9 and then most significantly by a massive 50 imps, a 72 imp lead at the half-way point.

Newell recovered to win the next two sets by 6 and 36 imps to trail by 30 imps with 16 boards to play. Yet, in a high-scoring final set, Yan won 56-40 to win overall by 227 to 181.

Meanwhile in the other semi-final, Mace (Brian Mace-Malcolm Mayer, Ian Berrington – Graeme Tuffnell) took on Crombie (Dwayne Crombie – Stephen Henry, Jack James – Wayne Burrows). This was closer. Mace won the first and third sets by 23 and 22 imps but lost the second by 7 imps, an overall half-way lead of 38 imps.

That increased by a further 20 imps in set 4 but then Crombie had a big set winning Set 5 by 35 imps. Mace’s lead was just 23 imps going into the final 16 boards. Crombie won the last set but only by 7 imps and so Mace won overall by 223 -207 imps.

While most of the names are familiar to those who follow our major bridge events, many of the partnerships are not. Indeed, only Newell- Reid and Berrington- Tuffnell, maybe Burrows-James,  are partnerships of some longevity though Tim Pan – Lysandra Zheng have played together, with breaks, since they learnt the game, along with Zachary Yan, at Macleans’ College in Howick over 10 years ago.

Yan continued their great form into the final. They lost the first set by 3 imps but won the next two by 7 and 23 imps to lead Mace 111-84 at the half-way point.

Friday and Saturday were not days Nick Jacob and Ashley Bach will remember fondly though they did produce one great moment to earn their team 13 imps when it looked like those imps were going the other way:

 

 

3 was Michael’s style, showing both red suits. 3 was game-forcing or better with spade support. Jeremy took up the challenge with Key-Card. The 2 Key-Card response was enough for Jeremy to go for slam.

Despite missing an ace and the trump queen and having a foul club break, 6 by South could be made with K and A (you just have to finesse after discovering the bad club break)) providing places to discard two small clubs. This assumes A or any other lead than the lead Ashley found. In perfect tempo, he led 6.

Yes, Jeremy should (there can be very little gain in playing low) have tried K but it is more natural to play low than  believe why West might have under-led his ace. So, Nick scored his Q and could tell Ashley had led his lowest heart away from the ace for a reason. A club at trick 2 saw the imps go to Newell instead of to Yan as game was played at the other table as indeed it was at both tables in the other semi-final.

Jeremy and Zachary recovered quickly to bid a 32 hcp grand-slam to tie the next board.

No imps in either semi-final changed hands on this following board but Jeremy could easily have been lulled into a conservative approach when as West, he heard this bidding:

 

To save you counting, that is a 24 count and both opponents have already bid. Say opener had 11 hcp and responder 5 hcp, that would leave less than nothing for your partner!

Jeremy was not impressed and bid an immediate 3NT and Zachary’s dummy was amazingly a golden 3 count:

 

All 4 tables played 3NT and somewhat strangely, a different suit was led each time, the diamond lead coming from South when East managed, presumably not voluntarily, got to bid no trumps first.

With both minor suits breaking amazingly and unusually in a very friendly way, all 4 declarers made 11 tricks. As Jeremy demonstrated, do not believe everything the opponents say!

Monday, then, is crunch day in the final. We will review and congratulate the new New Zealand Open Team tomorrow morning.

Richard Solomon

 

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