A successful Australian tour for N.Z. team

Press, 13 June 1979, Page 14

A successful Australian tour for N.Z. team

CONTRACT BRIDGE

By,

J.R.Wignall

Over' Queen’s Birthday week-end the New Zealand national open bridge team completed a most successful tour of Australia. Commencing with an overwhelming victory when they met the Victorian state team, they continued by convincingly beating South Australia before moving to Sydney for a match against the Australian national team. In a game that was always close but in which Australia clung to a narrow lead for most of the time, New Zealand staged a magnificent final rally to snatch victory at the very end. The final margin of 33 international match points in a score of 277 to 244 probably reflected the respective merits of the teams over the two days play. The tour concluded with a visit to Brisbane and a victory over the Queensland state side and the narrowest victory of the tour over the Queensland ladies’ team. After the first 15 hands of the test Australia had established a narrow lead all of which was collected on this hand dealt by North with both sides vulnerable: N. A Q 8 V J 10 6 ♦ 9653 A K 9 84 W. E. A 5 A AK632 V A 9754 V K 832 ♦ AK 10 ♦ .14 A AQ 106 A 72 S. A J 109 74 V Q ♦ Q 872 A J 5 3 Both sides reached a final contract of six hearts, and for New Zealand the declarer won the opening spade lead and drew two rounds of trumps finding that he had to lose a trick to the now established jack. To the two tricks already made he could add four more in trumps by crossruffing, the two top diamonds, tlte two top spades and the ace of clubs, a total of eleven only. The twelfth could come from a finesse against the queen of

diamonds or a finesse against the king of clubs if either of these cards were in the South hand. Guessing wrongly the declarer played the ace and king of diamonds in the hope that, the queen might drop then ruffed a diamond to hand and led a low club to the queen. When North made the king the contract was one down. Australia played the hand with East as declarer and the opening lead was the two of diamonds. When

Dummy put on the 10 it held the trick and the hand was all over. The gain of 17 points to Australia on the play of one card seemed an unnecessarily heavy blow. In the second session New Zealand fell a little further behind and after 45 boards Australia had established a convincing lead. Then began a New Zealand recovery which was to continue for the rest of the match. Coming into the final round a mere four international match point's separated the two teams, a negligible margin at this stage. As the Anal 15 boards were played the tension was quite dramatic. Slowly New Zealand made up the difference and then moved ahead by bidding and making a game contract missed by their Australian counterparts. Feeling the strain one of the most experienced Australians mis-played a hand to give the visitors a commanding lead but then anything might have happened on this particular deal, No. 117 of the 120-board match: N. A J 10 V AQJ7 ♦ A 9 2 ♦ J 982 W. E. A A 8763 A KQ9 V - 542 ♦ 74 V 654 A AQIO ♦ Q 65 654 A 7 S. A - V K 109832 ♦ KJ 10 8 3 ( A K 3 On a freakish deal like this, after South, the'dealer, with neither side vulnerable

had opened the bidding, trouble was bound to arise. With North and South bidding hearts and East and West spades, the New Zealand North was the first to run out of patience by doubling a contract of five spades. When he led the ace of hearts the outcome was disastrous. After ruffing in his hand West cashed the ace of clubs and trumped a club in dummy. Returning to hand with the ace of spades " he trumped a second small club on the table. The king of spades drew the outstanding trump, the declarer re-entered his hand by ruffing a heart, and ' on the queen, 10 and 6 of clubs all of dummy’s diamonds went away. For making all 13 tricks Australia scored 850 and New Zealand’s hopes had plummeted.

In the other room when the board was replayed with the Australians North and South they continued to a contract of six hearts but P. H. Marston and M. L. Sims for New Zealand just kept on bidding until they were doubled in six spades.

Though this contract could have been defeated by the defenders taking the first two tricks with the ace and king of diamonds, the play followed exactly the same course as in the other room, and the declarer had made his doubled slam contract with an over-trick. The score for this was 1310 and instead of losing on the board New Zealand had gained an unexpected 10 I.M.Ps. After this matters were again more or less even

and New Zealand had defeated their old enemy. Though throughout the tour all pairs played well at times, P. H. Marston (Chch) and M. L. Sims (Auck) were particularly effective during the test match. The new partnership of F. P. S. Lu and K. G. Wooles (Chch) made a splendid debut on the international scene, and R. P. Kerr and J. R. Wignall (Chch) provided experience