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Daily Bridge in New Zealand
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Jeremy and Jack.
Stepping – Stone to Canberra.
Jack James and Jeremy Fraser-Hoskin are two of our keenest “go anywhere” bridge players, anywhere for bridge, that is! Naturally, therefore, they spent last week and a few days earlier at the Canberra Festival of Bridge. They had a pretty successful time, too. In the main South West Pacific Teams, their team, with Annette and Stephen Henry, finished 15th out of the 82 teams, only 6.8 vps short of the 8th qualifying place for the knock-out stage. They also finished 6th in the Chris Diment Match Point Swiss Pairs and won from 82 pairs the one day Fixed Income Solutions Swiss Pairs.
Today’s deal comes from the Match Point Swiss Pairs.
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West |
North |
East |
South |
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Pass |
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Pass |
1 |
? |
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Double would take you to rather uncertain waters. You are a wee bit too good for 1NT. So, Jack elected for a quiet pass, rather hopeful for a re-opening double from his partner.
It is doubtful he would have received that though South intervened first. Then, when Jeremy found a bid of his own, Jack headed to 3NT. These were the four hands:
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South Deals |
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West |
North |
East |
South |
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Pass |
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Pass |
1 |
Pass |
1 NT |
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2 |
Pass |
3 NT |
All pass |
South knew not lead partner’s suit after that jump to game. However, they did not find the killing diamond lead where the defence can take 5 tricks but went for their own long suit, clubs.
This was not a contract for a declarer to lose the lead very quickly. However, Lady Luck favoured the declarer with 
Q coming down in 2 rounds. The contract was now secure and he could outscore those in hearts where 11 tricks was the maximum.
Yet, Jack did even better. He crossed to dummy with a spade and ran 4 more rounds of hearts. North found the going a little tough as they had to keep 4 spades as well as the 
A. Jack could discard 4 of his minor suit losers from hand. He knew North had started with 5 spades. There were just 5 tricks remaining.
Thus, he cashed 
10 and then played K, confident that North would just be left with three spades, Jack’s final three tricks in hand courtesy of a nice stepping-stone squeeze…and 88% of the match-points.
New Zealand had success in the National Open Teams final, with Geeske Joel being in the winning team which had further ex-Kiwi influence with Liam Milne and James Coutts, aided by Andy Hung and Shane Harrison. The losing finalists included Ashley Bach. We will return to that match later in the week.
Richard Solomon
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