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Our new Open Team. Along with previously selected Matthew Brown and Michael Whibley, here are Brian Mace, Malcolm Mayer, Ian Berrington and Graeme Tuffnell. 

Down to the wire: New Zealand Open Trial.

The trial to determine the two pairs who will represent New Zealand at August’s Bermuda Bowl in Denmark, along with Matt Brown and Michael Whibley, was finally decided 3 boards from the end of the 4 day trial.

At the start of the final day, Yan (Zachary Yan - Jeremy Fraser- Hoskin, Lysandra Zheng - Tim Pan led Mace (Brian Mace- Malcolm Mayer, Ian Berrington – Graeme Tuffnell) by 27 imps with 3 x 16 board sessions to play. Mace won the 4^th set by 17 imps and the fifth by just one imp. So, Yan led by just 9 imps going into the last 16. Mace picked up 2 game swings in the first 8 boards but Yan gained 16 imps in three smaller swings. Going into Board 14, Yan led by just 5 imps. There, a non-vulnerable game was missed at one table and Mace picked up 9 so valuable imps. The last two boards saw just 2 imps change hands, to Mace, when both East-West pairs failed in a game contract…and the match and victory had gone in dramatic fashion to the Mace team.

Congratulations then to the winners. Both partnerships are new to international competition. Indeed, it will be the first representative honours for Ian Berrington and Graeme Tuffnell. Brian Mace and Malcolm Mayer have been there many times before. Malcolm played in our Open team in Morocco last year and before that had played for the Open Team in 17 separate years dating back to 1976, mainly with Lionel Wright and Michael Cornell. Brian has played  7 years in the Open Team between 1992 and 2000, with either Tom Jacob or Denis Humphries, as well in our Seniors Team in 2019. Ironically, although they have played in so many Open Teams, they have never played in the same Open Team.

The end result was a tough pill for Zachary, Jeremy, Lysandra and Tim to swallow especially after having led for so much of the final as well as knocking out the strong Newell team in the semi-final. They will surely have their international success soon.

Here is one board, from the penultimate set, which contributed to the narrow victory.  

 

1 showed 8-14 hcp with 5+ spades. 3 was artificial game-forcing with spade support. 3 showed a minimum hcp hand with a shortage somewhere. Graeme Tuffnell did not enquire where.

How would you play 4 after South leads two top clubs? Trumps break 2-2. Would your line differ if East had passed in 1^st seat and South had opened a 12-14 1NT?

Let’s see all four hands:

 

Ian ruffed the 2^nd round of clubs and played 2 rounds of trumps and then ruffed dummy’s last club. Next came a diamond to the ace and a second diamond, ducking to South’s 10. South had the unenviable choice of cashing K, playing a heart or giving Ian a very welcome ruff and discard. The result of each was the same….4 making with no heart guess needed. 

 
Ian Berrington, celebrating more than a 
nicely played hand but a close victory.

At the other table, Brian Mace, South, had opened 1NT after East's initial pass, and been doubled by West. Wisely, he had  retreated to 2. Subsequently, a negative double had seen East jump to 4. Same lead and elimination of clubs as trumps were drawn. However, with only 15 hcp missing, East placed Q with South and took the heart finesse the wrong way without touching diamonds. North, Malcolm Mayer won and exited a heart.

Declarer had only lost two tricks and after cashing the third round of hearts led a low diamond away from the A. Had Malcolm played low, the 8 from East would have end-played South into a ruff and discard or leading away from K (South was marked with that card from their opening bid). However, Malcolm inserted J and now the declarer had to lose two diamond tricks and four tricks in all. That was 10 most valuable imps to Mace.

We will look at a couple more deals from the final later this week.

Richard Solomon

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