All News

Paul Carson and Jeremy Fraser-Hoskin had only previously played a fun Christmas event about two years ago but they played on-line in this week’s Butler Swiss Pairs from Sydney to record a fine victory. For Paul it was a case of both an unfamiliar partner and system too in a major event. 

        Paul and  Jeremy

    

The one-day event consisted of 6 x 8 board matches and attracted 92 pairs. Paul and Jeremy started slowly with a small loss to John Davidson and Steph Jacob and then two even smaller wins. However, they timed their run to perfection averaging 18.40 vps over the last three rounds to win by 1.59 vps when the previous leaders were beaten in the final round.

The following board occurred during one of those two earlier small wins. Paul describes:

“There is nothing worse than starting a Swiss pairs match watching your opponents bid to a cold slam that is against the odds but cannot be defeated. Our 3rd round match started that way with our opponents bidding to 6NT after they bid up to it with 28 points combined and two out of two finesses working successfully. 

 

However, on this occasion, we got our revenge of sorts on the last board of the match bidding to a diamond slam that was against the odds but ultimately successful.

 

 

The bidding was relatively standard although partner made a good decision to show his 6th heart rather than a club hold for no trumps after I had bid 4th suit forcing 3. On the hand 3NT will go 3 light on either a heart or a club lead. However we are cold for game in spades or diamonds with slam in diamonds possible.

After 3 I bid Keycard in diamonds (4) and partner showed me 0 or 3 (4) so that the slam was bid. With a 9 card fit, asking for the queen seemed unnecessary and on a really good day, my partner would have the right key-cards (no A but A).

The lead was the 7 which was won with the A discarding a club followed by a diamond to the . . . . . king and then another diamond. Slam made as with trumps drawn a club could be discarded on the A and the spades could be set up to make dummy high.

 Why did my partner play the slam this way? Most people with these cards will play to the Jack and hope for the cards to be the other way around in the defenders’ hands. All my partner had to work off was seeing the 9 from his left hand opponent and the lead of the 7. 

His reasoning after the match was that the 7  looked like a passive lead which meant that the defender didn't want to give away a trick and had cards in all of the other suits.

it was almost a certainty that West now had the8. If West had the A, Jeremy felt West would have made a more aggressive lead, eg. heart or club honour lead. 

 

Well reasoned from my partner and that result on the board turned a small loss into a small win and from there we managed to have three good wins to come out on top.”

 

Go Back View All News Items