South prizes evenly divided

Press, 19 August 1981, Page 14

South prizes evenly divided

CONTRACT BRIDGE

J.R. Wignail

This year's South Island Pairs championship run by Otago Bridge Club developed into the usual rivalry between Canterbury and Otago, which ended with honours fairly even. The eventual winners, who over the .first three sessions built up such .a useful lead that they could afford the luxury of an indifferent final round, were S. R. Burgess and R. P. Kerr of Christchurch. The former, however, has played so much of his bridge in Dunedin as to rank as a home town product. The runners-up, who finished very strongly to leapfrog many places up the table, were H. Levy and D. McCaughan of the Otago Club. Third place was won by F. P. S. Lu and M. Sykes, and here again the former has strong connections with Dunedin. Fourth was the

young Otago partnership of C. Thomas and G. Stout. This hand, dealt by West with both sides vulnerable, had a significant bearing on the final outcome of the tournament, though at the time of course the players were not aware of this:

When this, deal reached their table the winners were North-South against the

runners-up, and the auction was:- .

After Levy had opened one heart on the West hand, Kerr in the North seat made the slightly unorthodox over-call of one spade. This was followed by two passes, so West re-opened with a double. Though this was of course a takeout double, inviting his partner

to call his best suit. East was delighted, with his length in spades, to pass for penalties. Naturally, however, Burgess was having none of this and promptly retreated into two clubs, a call that was duly passed out in varying degrees of satisfaction.

There was little the defenders could do to defeat this contract and in fact in trying a little too hard they allowed the declarer to make an overtrick- Not that it mattered, for, although the same hand was played at all 23 tables, Burgess and Kerr were one of the very few North-South pairs to register a plus score.

The vast majority of EastW'est’s were playing the hand themselves in spades, usually at the two level, after an auction along these lines:

Although East had to lose a couple of tricks in trumps, he usually managed to scramble eight tricks in total for a plus score his way. But how could Levy and McCaughan reach a spade contract, after Kerr had stolen their suit? The winners were not so fortunate on a subsequent deal against the third placed

pair. Lu and Sykes. North was the dealer:

North elected, on his modest values, to open the bidding with one heart, and Sykes initiated a long drawnout relay sequence to learnhis partner’s exact distribution and high cards.

When in the course of the auction West doubled an arti-, ficial bid in spades, East pricked up his ears. If his partner held that suit and East himself held the hearts and clubs where would North-South make any tricks? When the auction eventually came to a halt in six notrumps, East could not double quickly enough, but he was soon disillusioned. West led a heart, dummy's ace won and nine rounds of diamonds followed. The two black aces brought the total to 12,. and East knew to his sorrow where the tricks had come from.