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Daily Bridge in New Zealand

 

A Lighter Look.    

“Memories”.

 For many years, our National Congress featured an “Even Homer Nods” award where an award was made at the end of Congress for the top player who made a bit of a fool of him/herself at the bridge table. We used to have several nominations each Congress and some hefty debate as to whom the winner should be.

Either our top players have become that much better in more recent years or else less forthcoming about what happened. (We will excuse the lack of nominations in 2020!) As an example of what used to happen, this recent happening would probably have been worthy of a nomination.

Our declarer was in 2NT having very firmly and swiftly turned down his partner’s invitation to game. 

 

South Deals
None Vul
10 8 6
A K 7 5 3
A 10 9
A 3
K 9 7 3 2
Q 6 4 2
6
K 9 2
 
N
W   E
S
 
A Q
10 8
Q 8 5 3
Q J 8 5 4
 
J 5 4
J 9
K J 7 4 2
10 7 6
West North East South
      Pass
Pass 1  Pass 1 NT
Pass 2 NT All pass  

 

West led a low spade but the spade attack ceased after two rounds. However, South was not impressed with the switch to the Club-small5 by East, which went to their Club-small6 and West’s Club-small9.

So, South had a little think that it might just be a good idea to duck one round of clubs so that if the diamond finesse lost, as it always does at such a critical moment, that the defence might not be able to communicate in clubs. (Now, there was some element of truth to this on the actual deal. If you are interested, check out the diamond pips.) However, our expert had made rather a bad little miscalculation. 5 spade losers and the club duck put an end to their chances of making 2NT! “One down” said DealMaster Pro  and one down was the table result but there was just a little “egg” on declarer’s face…. which brings us back to our question from yesterday:

Bridge in NZ.pngnz map.jpg

 

East Deals
N-S Vul
   
K 8 5 3
A 8 3
Q 10 5
Q 6 5
 
N
W   E
S
 
Q J 2
9 2
A K 3 2
J 8 7 3
West North East South
    1 NT 2 
Pass 2  Pass Pass
Dbl Rdbl 3  3 
Pass Pass 4  Pass
Pass Dbl 4  Pass
Pass Dbl All pass  

 

Look at the above bidding sequence and the East-West hands. The final contract was defeated by four tricks, doubled -800 but East was soon very happy. Why?

“Even Homer Nods” was the brainchild of the Congress Bulletin Editor of many years, Alan Taylor. Back in 2012, he reported this one.

 homer.jpg    homer.jpg   homer.jpg    homer.jpg

     

                             The “Doh” Boys

“In the final of the New Zealand Pairs, there are, of course, our finest exponents. Their every intellectual and technical skill is functioning at the highest level. Consider this example:

 

Board 18
East Deals
N-S Vul
6
10 7 6 5
9 8 7 4
A K 4 2
K 8 5 3
A 8 3
Q 10 5
Q 6 5
 
N
W   E
S
 
Q J 2
9 2
A K 3 2
J 8 7 3
 
A 10 9 7 4
K Q J 4
J 6
10 9
West North East South
    1 NT 2 
Pass 2  Pass Pass
Dbl Rdbl 3  3 
Pass Pass 4  Pass
Pass Dbl 4  Pass
Pass Dbl All pass  

 

Deal Master Pro has North-South making 2Heart-small and East-West being able to make 7 tricks in clubs, diamonds or no trumps.

East opened 1NT. South overcalled 2Club-small for the majors after which North chose 2Heart-small which went round to West who doubled. North redoubled to encourage his partner to compete further and East tried 3Club-small. 3Heart-small from South went back to East who tried again with 4Club-small. North doubled this and also East’s 4Diamond-small which followed.

The sun set on East-West -800.

Two questions:

1. Why was East smiling shortly thereafter?

2. Why are there 4 Homer busts heading this article?

Before answering those, let me introduce the dramatis personae. Their current masterpoint totals (that is updated to 2021) are shown next to the names. Just imagine the intellectual and mnemonic skills required to amass that lot…and they were concentrating!

The total of A and B points of the 4 players is 26,701. We did not think adding in C Points was necessary to make the point! We can only surmise what the total would have been if Michael Ware had been involved!

So, it was a little embarrassing when they realised that it was a whole 15 minutes since they had last played the board. Yes, this was board 18 revisited rather than board 20 which should have been in play. Let me
introduce the "doh boys":
  
homer.jpg                Grant Jarvis                                9,214         Grant Jarvis 1.png

homer.jpg                   Tom Jacob                                  4,834        Tom jacob  .jpg

homer.jpg                  Ken Yule                                     4,393        Ken Yule .jpg

homer.jpg               Patrick Carter                                8,260        Pat Carter .jpg

So, please make sure you let us know if a luminary in our bridge world has what can only be described as a “senior moment”. Come on, reading this must make you feel just a little bit better?

The psychological side of the game

 

East Deals
N-S Vul
6 4 2
A J 6
4
10 9 8 4 3 2
   
N
W   E
S
 
A K J 9 5
Q 10 9 8 5 4
5
Q
West North East South
  YOU DUMMY  
    1  Pass
2  Pass 2  Pass
3  Pass 3  Pass
4 NT Pass 5  Pass
6 NT All pass    

 

Your opponents were playing 2 over 1 Game Force style, 5 card majors. Hence, they were in game force from the natural 2Diamond-small onwards. 3Heart-small showed three hearts and a strong hand and 3Spade-small was first or second round control in that suit. Key Card did the rest with 5Club-small showing one or four.

 

You lead Club-small10 with dummy’s queen scoring. Declarer plays Heart-small4 to Heart-small3, their own king and your ace. What now?

 

Richard Solomon

 

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