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Top team: Hugh McGann, Michael Ware, GeO Tislevoll and Matthew McManus. 

National Open Teams….a Double Shot!

The Wellington Bridge Club hosted a wonderful event this past weekend, the National Open Teams, in conjuncture with the local Regional Committee. Whether you finished 1^st or 24^th, you got wonderful value, whether in terms of splendid hands, even more splendid food and general excellent bon amie. Congratulations to Bridget and her team and to Caroline Wiggins and Kevin Walker, the director and scorer.

Clear victors were Michael Ware – Matthew McManus and Hugh McGann – GeO Tislevoll. They lost significantly to the second finishing Jacob team and one other match by one imp but their other 6 matches (14 board matches) resulted in large wins by 15.85vps or more. These were the top 5 finishing teams:

										vps
1	Ware	Michael Ware		Matthew McManus		Hugh McGann		GeO Tislevoll		118.43
2	Jacob	Steph Jacob		Tom Jacob		Brad Johnston		Zachary Yan		104.05
3	Davidson	Johnny Davidson		Ashley Bach		Tim Pan		Lysandra Zheng		98.10
4	Yule	Kathy Yule		Ken Yule		Liz Fisher		Blair Fisher		96.82
5	Wu	Mindy Wu		Kate Terry		Di & Hugh McAlister Sandra Coleman				91.97

 

 
2nd placed Brad Johnston, Steph and Tom Jacob and Zachary Yan

Do you like your coffee with a double shot? Well, GeO Tislevoll does..except we are talking about leads rather than the strength of his coffee!

 

1NT was a forcing relay and 2NT showed one of 2 hand types, either a balanced hand, 5332 style 13-14 hcp or 5 hearts and 4 clubs. 5 asked how good were his partner’s hearts and Russell Wilson said they were good enough for slam.

What would you lead?

The double was Lightner style and it seemed natural for GeO to lead a spade expecting his partner to be ruffing that. However, that was not going to happen when dummy produced a spade void!

Russell ruffed in dummy and played a heart to the Q and then a diamond to dummy. Russell then played two further rounds of diamonds discarding spades with GeO scoring his 9. He had a rethink about the reason for the double and switched to a club which was ruffed by Hugh McGann.

K then fell under A though the contract was 1 down. Naturally, Hugh had expected or hoped that his partner had a lot of clubs to make the opening lead clear. The opposition’s club suit was well hidden in the bidding and it seemed obvious to GeO that his partner wanted a spade lead. Bob Hurley commented afterwards that he should have enquired which hand type his partner held rather than presume that it was not clubs. 6 is, of course, a very comfortable contract.

Yet, a club ruff at trick 1 actually makes declarer’s task somewhat easier. South is likely to exit a diamond. Odds surely favour a trump finesse. If North wins the K and gives their partner a second club ruff, the contract could even go 2 down, 2 heart ruffs and K. One or two down in the slam would make little difference to a disappointed declarer.

However, after the finesse is successful, declarer has no choice but to lay down A and trust the king falls (10 from South on the first round of trumps suggests this will happen), as it does. The 6-2 diamond break is somewhat unlucky but drawing trumps seems more urgent than discarding spades on high diamonds. If South started with 4 hearts to the king, the contract just has to fail with declarer already ruffing a spade at trick 1. It seems a shame to go down when the trump break is very friendly.

At the other table, McManus – Ware relayed to 6 thus resulting in a 14 imp gain to the Ware team. Matthew (East) knew his partner's shape, that he held one or four aces and that he held either K or both black kings. Since he could not hold both K and K, Matthew settled for 6. 

All bar 3 pairs reached slam. 11 pairs played in the safety of 6. Two pairs got lucky, one in 7 and the other in 6NT. 4 pairs made 6, one time after a Lightner double. 3 pairs failed in 6, the other two pairs with no double and after Q lead.

A neat hand and a great result over the weekend for four very good bridge players.

Some more “double dipping” possibly tomorrow.

Thanks to comments re the this hand from both Russell Wilson, the unfortunate declarer above and from Brad Johnston. After a spade lead, whether or not there was a double, a trump finesse followed by 3 rounds of diamonds seems a good approach. Brad points out that a good North would duck the first trump finesse and then cash a spade winner if declarer repeats the finesse, assuming spades had not been discarded on diamonds. He feels that taking an immediate trump finesse would be best if one did not suspect that South had a club void (ie no double). With the double, he leans towards abandoning a 4-1 trump break possibility and of repeating the trump finesse. 

Russell was pretty sure East had a club void from the double and thus after a spade lead would be in trouble if his first round trump finesse lost without having discarded spades on high diamonds. Hence, he trusted that playing diamonds first was the best approach and he is likely to be correct, except on this day. 

Richard Solomon

Congratulations to 3 Australians and our own Michael Whibley who finished 1^st and 2^nd in the final of the World Tour Pairs, an event held last week in Memphis featuring 16 top class pairs. Winners were Andy Hung and Sartaj Hans with Michael Whibley and Nabil Edgtton finishing right behind them in second place, a wonderful result for all 4 players.

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