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Daily Bridge in New Zealand

Easter in-doors and on-line!

A weekend for playing bridge, even easier when one did not have to get wet or blown over by the elements as one was playing from one’s own home. I promised you an Easter problem or two. Try this one. You are defending a 4H contract as below:

 

Bridge in NZ.pngnz map.jpg

Board 3
South Deals
E-W Vul

A K 9 7 5 2

Q 10 7

Q 6 4

4

   

N

W

 

E

S

 

Q 8 6 3

6 3 2

8 5

A 8 6 3

 

West

North

East

South

 

dummy

you

 

 

 

 

1 

2 

2 ♠

Pass

3 ♣

Pass

4 

All pass

 

 

The bidding is all natural and your partner leads the top two diamonds and switches to SJ. This is won in dummy with declarer calling for dummy’s club. Plan your defence.

The on-line Bridge Congress came courtesy of the Auckland Bridge Club. Saturday saw both 10A and 8B Pairs, with 46 and 20 pairs respectively in the 2 events. These were the top 5 in each:

10A                                                                                     mps

1

Liz

Fisher

 

Blair

Fisher

 

1772.82

2

Arleen

Schwartz

Murat

Genc

 

1747.68

3

William

Liu

 

Steve

Boughey

1717.50

4

Graeme

Stout

 

Jeff

Miller

 

1712.86

5

Setsuko

Lichtnecker

Peer

Bach

 

1683.27

 

8B

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

             

%

 

1

Joy

Zeng

 

Eddy

Tan

 

128.42

 

2

Mereana

Cullen

 

Kevin

Birch

 

119.52

 

3

Betty

Hopley

 

Helene

Labreche

113.42

 

4

Liz

Ewart

 

Tony

Morcom

110.22

 

5

Nichola

Dallas

 

Robyn

Orton

 

109.01

 

               

 

                             

The Open Teams had 42 teams competing with 8 teams qualifying for the second day. Unlucky 9th were John Buckleton- Douglas Russell, Pam Marsland – Paula Boughey who missed out by 0. 15 vp.

The final saw 7 x 8 board matches with the top 5 teams being:

 

             

 

         

vps

1

Michael

Ware

 

Malcolm

Mayer

 

Matt

Brown

 

Hugh

McGann

153.20

2

Jan

Alabaster

Pam

Livingston

Jan

Cormack

Tim

Schumacher

130.59

3

Russell

Wilson

 

Bob

Hurley

 

Jane

Beeby

 

Michael

Wilkinson

127.31

4

Steph

Jacob

 

Rachelle

Pelkman

Tom

Jacob

 

Brian

Mace

 

126.63

5

Jeremy

Fraser Hoskin

Jack

James

 

Herman

Yuan

 

Shi

Zeng

 

125.51

 

Monday also saw a 3A Match-Point Swiss Pairs, in total with the top 5 being:

             

mps

1

Kevin

Skoropada

Moss

Wylie

 

2017.85

2

Peter

Ramsey

 

Noel

Woodhall

1997.15

3

Karen

Harris

 

Yuzhong

Chen

 

1985.82

4

Grant

Jarvis

 

Jonathan

Westoby

1980.85

5

Jenny

Millington

Barry

Jones

 

1975.00

Back then to the defensive problem which occurred in the Teams qualifying. I hope you played low to the singleton club lead because if you did not, there was no hope for the defence.

Go low joe!.jpg

"Go low, Joe!"

Board 3
South Deals
E-W Vul

A K 9 7 5 2

Q 10 7

Q 6 4

4

J 4

8 4

A K J 10 7 2

Q 5 2

 

N

W

 

E

S

 

Q 8 6 3

6 3 2

8 5

A 8 6 3

 

10

A K J 9 5

9 3

K J 10 9 7

 

West

North

East

South

 

 

 

1 

2 

2 ♠

Pass

3 ♣

Pass

4 

All pass

 

 

Two high rounds of diamonds were followed by a deceptive Spade-small4 switch from Hugh McGann, West. Declarer won to play dummy’s club and were East to win the Club-smallA, the Club-smallQ would soon be ruffed out and South would make a comfortable 10 tricks.

 

However, for the eventual winners, Matt Brown, East, ducked. What would you play as South? With an overcall from West, the play of Club-small9 from hand seemed to be the best play, but not a winning one for South. McGann again exited in spades but the Club-smallA proved to be hard to get from Matt’s hand and the contract was defeated by a trick.

In fact, South probably was wrong to play that little club in the first place. At another table, after the defence started with three rounds of diamonds, the third round ruffed and over-ruffed, Grant Jarvis never touched clubs at all. As long as the trump break was 3-2 and the spade break no worse than 4-2, spades could be set up for a minimum 3 discards. After a 4-2 spade break, at worst, Grant would have the same club guess at trick 12.

So, spade to the ace and a high spade ruff in hand. A trump to dummy and a second high ruff. A second trump to dummy and Grant had his three discards and could still ruff a club in dummy thanks to the kind trump situation. Had East not ruffed the third diamond, Grant would have had an extra discard available.

Matt knew the declarer had at least four clubs and therefore he could withhold his East and hope something favourable would happen…and it did.

Seen this hand before….or something like it?

Of course, you do. You have one similar all the time, or so it seems. No problems with what to do with it, are there? Well, let’s find out.

East Deals
None Vul

   

6 2

10 9 7 2

10 9 4

J 10 7 2

 

N

W

 

E

S

   

 

West

North

East

South

 

 

2 ♣

2 ♠

?

 

 

 

2Club-small is what you might expect, forcing to game. If your partner is balanced, they will have at least 24 hcps. Well?

 

Richard Solomon

 

 

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