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A question for you. Michael Cornell has won the Canberra National Open Teams  five times, with a different partner each time. Name his five partners.  Reading the next piece will give you a clue to one of them.

Mention the names of Michael Cornell and Ashley Bach along with Michael Whibley and Matt Brown anywhere near a Bridge Tournament these days….and start looking at the top of the ladder for their finishing position. We have another tournament success for these two pairs whose team along with Australians Tony Leibowitz and David Beauchamp have won the National Open Teams in Canberra.

122 teams started this week long event and after four days  and 12 rounds of qualifying, the Cornell team were in second place with 9 wins,  1 draw (an “Australian draw”..a loss by 4 imps) and 2 losses. At that point, Cornell- Bach were on top of the datums with Whibley – Brown in 6^th place.

In the quarter finals, they beat Barbara Travis’ team by 55 imps. In the semi-finals, they demolished David Appleton’s team by 83 imps. In the final, they came up against the other really in- form team, Avi Kanetkar- Bruce Neill, Warren Lazer – Pauline Gumby, Arjuna De Livera – Andy Braithwaite, the team that had won the qualifying in great style (though Cornell had won the head to head battle by25 imps.

    Ashley Bach and Michael Cornell

In the 4 stanza 64 board final, Cornell got off to a great start with a 33 imp win in the first stanza and lost a net 3 imps in the other three to win 119-89.1. The first five boards of the final had seen Cornell  get off to a flying start, 47-0; 11 imps when Michael Whibley made a 3NT beaten at the other table, 7 for a double part-score swing, 13 when Cornell- Bach stayed out of a no play slam and 13 more for this:

 

1 denied a major suit (Brown-Whibley play transfer responses to their 1 opener). Matt's 3 forced his partner to bid 3 with 3NT showing a mild slam try in diamonds. With only a small doubleton trump holding, Michael declined. Interestingly, 6 played by West would have made had Pauline Gumby chosen the same lead as she made to 3NT, a club. Michael Whibley made short work of scoring 12 tricks. Meanwhile,

West                     North                    East                        South

Braithwaite         Cornell                  De Livera                      Bach

1                           Pass                    1                           Pass

2NT                        Pass                       3                           Pass

3NT                        Pass                       4                           Pass

4NT                        Pass                       6                           All Pass

A similar start but Arjuna De Livera introduced his own suit and pushed on to slam despite some negative responses from his partner, Andy Braithwaite.

A spade lead would have defeated the slam very quickly but that’s way too aggressive a lead. Ashley Bach started with 10..and there was a way to make. Arjuna made a good start by taking the ace, drawing trumps and leading a second heart. He would make whenever Ashley held the K but Ashley could not play the card he did not hold…and playing for a 3-3 heart break or a successful club finesse seemed much better odds than the line of playing the 2 from dummy on the second round (the winning line). Thus, on the second round of hearts, the J was played from dummy.

Mike Cornell won and had to switch to a low spade. Declarer won, tested hearts without success and then ran trumps. Mike Cornell had to discard his spades and the losing club finesse saw the contract one down.

On the last of four stanzas, there was just one significant swing to each side. Both New Zealand pairs did well on Board 23:

 

Gumby-Lazer soon found their club fit. With an ace and a singleton club, Matt Brown decided that the 5 level dive would not be too expensive. Had the Australians attacked spades, they would have scored one trick in each suit for down 2. However, after the 10 lead to the ace, a club taken by North and a spade exit, Michael Whibley exited a heart and Pauline Gumby played diamonds one time too many setting up the 8 for a spade discard…just +200 to the Australians.

West                     North                    East                        South

Kanetka               Cornell                     Neill                          Bach

                                                                                             1

3                           x                              4                           x

Pass                       5                           All Pass

Both negative style doubles left a more uncertain feel to the auction. Eventually, Mike Cornell bid his long suit, though neither opponent saw fit to disturb this contract. The fate of this contract came down to the diamond suit.

Bruce Neil led a heart. Mike Cornell, won, drew trumps and lay down A. Noting the fall of the Q, he exited a spade. The defence played three rounds of the suit…and the moment had come…10 and that card held the trick giving Cornell 9 imps for +600. With the pre-emptor, West, having shown two clubs and three spades along with a probable seven hearts, the diamond finesse seemed to be a near certainty.

Cornell was thus home by a comfortable 30imps, an excellent result.

                                    Michael Whibley and Matthew Brown

Another couple of “adopted Kiwis” also had very good tournaments. Michael Courtney’s team of 4 reached the semi-finals before running out of steam against Kanetkar while with Michael Ware having a rare break from Bridge, GeO Tislevoll’s  team did well to reach the quarter-final stage where they lost a very close match to Appleton by 8 imps.

Spare, also, a thought for the mixed Australian-New Zealand team of Andy Hung- Sartaj Hans, Tom Jacob- Brian Mace and Nick Jacob- Nabil Edgtton. They were in the top 8 with one qualifying match to go and lost that by 11 imps to miss out the knock-out stage by 1.18 vps.

However, we finish where we started. Who have been the players other than Ashley Bach whom Michael Cornell has guided to success in this event?

Lionel Wright, Rysyard Jedrychowski, Tony Taylor and Dwayne Crombie. Unfortunately, Lionel and Tony are no longer with us while Dwayne no longer plays. Michael? He seems to have more enthusiasm for the game than ever.

Richard Solomon

 

 

 

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