Small field, but an exciting finish

Press, 25 May 1977, Page 25

Small field, but an exciting finish

The Canterbury teams ofi four championship again attracted a most disappoint-; ing entry, only 14 teams j assembling at Crockfords | Club for what should be one of the most enjoyable weekends on the bridge calendar. Though it is true that in teams bridge, where luck is to a large extent eliminated, the better players will eventually win, there is still plenty of scope for the less favoured sides to produce upsets, and there were lots of these this year. One of the problems seems to be that in Canterbury there are a few quite strong teams, one of which will i generally win, so that other I competitors, it is said, are ■ discouraged from taking part, lit would appear that a new I format is required, with attractive prizes for senior, intermediate and junior teams, even if this means inviting some sort of commercial sponsorship. It is worth noting that OtagoSouthland teams events invariably attract capacity entries.

This year’s Canterbury championship produced possibly the most exciting finish imaginable. Right up to the final match in the roundrobin, no fewer than four sides were in close contention. One of them fell by the wayside by losing the last match, but the others all won, so that the event resulted in a three-wav tie for first. D. Green’s Otago quartet (S. Burgess, J. Verdoner and H. Verkade) had a poor start, but recovered strongly

and fully deserved their success, while the other two winning teams came from Christchurch—J. D. Thomson (Mrs V. Brightling, Mrs W. A. Sadler and P. J- Oakley)

and J. R. Wignail (Mrs R. P. Kerr, R. J- Brightling, R. P. Kerr and K. G. Woolles).

Of the many deals played during the week-end one that appealed to me on account of a splendid piece of defensive larceny was this: N. A JlOB6 V 1042 ♦ KB6 ♦ 654 W. E. ♦ 742 AAQS V 97 VAQJ3 ♦ AQ 10 974AJ53 ♦ 82 ♦AK? S. ♦ K 9 3 VKB6S ♦ 2 ♦ Q J 10 93 With West the dealer, proceedings got away to a confused start when after only two passes, South opened out of turn with a bid of one club. East quickly called him to order, bid a firm two notrumps and was raised to three by West. South led the queen of clubs, East won with the ace, and went after the diamonds by leading the jack and playing low from dummy. Correctly North held off, in the hope that the declarer had started with only. two diamonds, but when East continued with a diamond to the 10. she had to win with the king. North returned a club which the declarer ducked allowing South to win and another club ran round to East’s king. At this stage, East had nine sure tricks, five in diamonds, the two top clubs and two aces. But it did not go quite like that. On the diamonds, South’s first three discards were his three small hearts, followed by the nine and three of spades. Refusing to believe that her left hand opponent now held two singleton kings, and in a greedy search for overtricks, East led a heart from dummy

to her queen. Gratefully, South made his king then two more tricks in club to defeat the apparently unbreakable contract. The perpetrator of this deception was the president of the Canterbury Bridge Centre, M. T. Enright. On a slightly more elevated plane was this test of good technique in declarer Play: N. V A 4 ♦ 2 ♦ KQ74 ♦ AKJ963 W. E. ♦ 6 AQJB4 VJB6S V 10 73 2 ♦ 532 <396 ♦ Q 10872 +54 S. ♦ AK109753 VKQ9 ♦ A 10 8 ♦ - As South you finish in the reasonable contract of six spades, and with no losers in the side suits all depends on how you play the trumps so as to lose only one trick. A quick glance at the diagram indicates that the way to do this is to lead dummy’s two of spades and when East follows with the four to put in the nine. When this wins, you cash the ace and king then give up a trick to the queen and claim the rest of the tricks.

But is this the best percentage play? The best way to answer this question is to recall that there are only five spades missing. If they are all in one hand, the contract is not going to be made, anyway. If they are split three in one hand and two in the other, any play will succeed. The critical cases occur when West has a singleton. Since there are only two honour cards missing and three small cards, clearly the odds favour West’s singleton being the eight, six or four. So undoubtedly the best line of play is a small spade to the nine or 10 in hand.

H. R. Abbott duly found this line, and finished with a well-earned 12 tricks.