CONTRACT BRIDGE Successful Central Otago Tournament

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32392, 3 September 1970, Page 8

CONTRACT BRIDGE Successful Central Otago Tournament

(Contributed by J R W ) i At this time of the year ! the bridge-players of Otago move en masse to the Golden Central Motor Inn at Alexandra where the management sponsors the Otago Central open pairs championship. Being hospitable by nature they invite outsiders, and it is a tribute both to the sponsorship and the organisation that despite the rival calls of a full tournament calendar, the school holidays and the prevailing influenza there was again a full house. ’ Since in this event most contestants place more emphasis on enjoying themselves than on winning, few of them play with their regular partners. This provides plenty of scope for unusual pairings and there! was general satisfaction this' year when one of these won! the championship. One New Zealand inter-! national, R. R. Hudson, and his son P. R. Hudson com-, bined so well that they finished a considerable way! ahead of the rest of the field.] This was the conclusion of a! very successful week’s bridge for -the junior half of the partnership, for he spent the first part of it helping the Otago team win the bridge section in the New Zealand Universities Arts Festival. It appears in fact that Otago won the golf, the bridge and the beauty contests at the festival, but not one gathers with the same team.

Hudson senior was quite definite that his son was responsible for at least his fair share of their joint success, and certainly his performance on this deal bears this out. He was South with his father North:

I S. W. N. E. I IS No 3NT No 4H All pass Playing what has become known as the Otago system, they do not bother too much with the minor suits, so when South opened one spade, North, with an opening bid of his own. was sure there was a game contract somewhere and called three no-

trumps. South, with an unsatisfactory distribution for this, rebid four hearts and everyone passed. West found the best lead, the jack of diamonds which the declarer took with the ace. After crossing to the ace of clubs he played off the king, discarding his losing diamond. He next led the eight of spades, and when East followed with the four he played the queen. A small spade was ruffed with dummy’s eight of hearts, felling the king, the ace of hearts was made, and Hudson returned to hand by ruffing a diamond. Then he ruffed a small spade with the jack of hearts, to produce this position:

The declarer led a club from dummy, ruffed with his

six, over-ruffed by West’s 10. The latter led the jack of spades, Hudson took his ace and produced the coup de grace. He threw the lead to West with the 10 of spades, at which stage the latter had to lead away from the queen and three of hearts into the king and seven. Hudson thus made 11 tricks, and the best score on the board a suitable reward for extremely good play. The runners-up were Mrs M. J. Goodall and H. Ebbing from Invercargill, and the third place went to Miss J. A. Herring and J. R. Wignall from Crockfords Club, Christchurch, who had a spot of luck in this deal when they defeated the four heart contract reached by their opponents.