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Blair and Liz Fisher.

Big Teams Victory at New Plymouth.

Six teams competed in the finals of the Teams competition at the Taranaki Bridge Congress but there was only ever going to be one winning team. Zachary Yan and Malcolm Mayer and Liz and Blair Fisher had shown themselves to be in-form form pairs by finishing 2^nd and 3^rd respectively in the Marion Hill Open Pairs and they combined to record a most comfortable victory in the Teams final.

They had qualified 2^nd behind Pam Livingston – Lysandra Zheng and Jo and Sam Simpson but there was only one team in it the finals. Three big victories in their first three matches saw Yan lead Livingston by over 22 vps. They carried on to win all five matches with a 16.22 average vps and finished 35.03 vps ahead of 2^nd placed Ken and Kathy Yule and Christine and Jenna Gibbons. Jeremy Fraser- Hoskin – Moss Wylie and George Masters- Leon Meier finished a further 3.45 vps behind in third place.

A good performance is built around doing the basics right. Here is a 3NT contract from the qualifying rounds where Zachary had to play carefully to make his contract. What’s your plan?

 

Zachary’s 1NT rebid showed 15-17 with Malcolm giving him a challenge by raising him to game. West led K on which East contributed 9.

Zachary had 8 certain tricks in one spade, two hearts and five club tricks. The problem was to generate the 9^th without being exposed to a diamond attack, fine if East held the ace though West’s overcall suggested that that may well not be the case.

Therefore, Zachary was keen to keep East off lead. He won A and played a club to dummy with the intention of ducking a heart to West. So, club to the jack and then 3 towards 9. However, East thwarted that plan by playing J on this trick. These were the four hands:

 

Zachary had to win K and then play off his four remaining club winners. Zach discarded a heart on the 5^th club while West discarded a spade and a heart. East discarded a heart, a spade and two diamonds.

The heart discards confirmed for Zach that West had started with 2 hearts and East with 4. Thus, he cashed A in dummy (had J fallen, he would have got his 9th trick), forcing a diamond discard from West. Zach could now exit a spade to West who could take his three spade winners but would then have to cash A and give declarer his 9^th trick, K at trick 13.

Had West thrown a diamond instead of a spade, and hence a second diamond on the A, Zach could play a diamond from dummy knowing that if West’s ace took the trick, West would have only spades left, presenting him with J as his 9^th trick.

 
Malcolm Mayer and Zachary Yan

Mission accomplished. 11 imps in as their opponents failed by a trick in 3 at the other table.

The 54 pair 3A Swiss Pairs was won by Herman Yuan and Yuzhong Chen from Di and Hugh McAlister and Kate Terry and  Rachelle Pelkman.

Thus, by all reports, a most successful three days of bridge at New Plymouth with Lorraine Stachurski directing and Jan Spaans scoring with their usual aplomb.

Richard Solomon

(pictures courtesy of Taranaki Bridge Congress organisers)

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