Lordly play softens defeat

Press, 2 September 1986, Page 16

Lordly play softens defeat

CONTRACT BRIDGE

J.R. Wignail

The twelfth annual encounter’ between the bridge experts of the British Houses of Parliament for the Guardian trophy was held at the Inn on the Park and won by the Commons, who thus squared the series at six matches all. The Lords, however, were below strength because their star player, the Labour Party finance expert, Lord Lever, was absent, attending a shrewdly arranged conference in Washington.

Not far behind him in ability is Lord Smith, a retired surgeon with a formidable record at the rubber bridge table, who won the prize for the bestplayed hand of the event. Both sides were vulnerable when East dealt this hand:

Let us look first at what happened in the other room. After one club — two no-trumps — three spades, North selfishly continued with three notrumps and everyone passed.

East led the ace and queen of hearts. North al-

lowed the queen to win, but took the continuation of the jack of hearts with the king. He then led a club to the queen and king, and when West produced another heart East took two more tricks to put the contract one down. When Lord Smith was South his partner, the Duke of Atholl, gave him preference to four clubs after the three spade bid, and he carried on to five.

The opening lead was a cunning nine of diamonds which the declarer won in hand. Then he laid down the ace of clubs, intending, if no honour card appeared, to cross to dummy and lead a second club towards his queen. In this way he gave himself the best chance of losing only one trick in the suit.

When the king of clubs dropped under the ace, the rest was easy. Dummy was entered with a spade to the ace, the marked finesse against East’s jack of trumps was taken and the declarer claimed 12 tricks, allowing the de-

fenders to make only the ace of hearts. The Commons struck back by reaching a good game on minimum values on this hand dealt by East with only North-South vulnerable:

North’s double at his first opportunity was an excellent bid, offering his

partner the choice of playing in hearts or in clubs. When East rebid his diamonds, South was able to make a free bid of two hearts which was all the encouragement North needed to bid game. There were no problems in the play. The opening lead of a diamond was ruffed in dummy, the trumps were drawn in two rounds, then the ace and king of clubs were cashed. A third round of clubs was ruffed, dropping the queen and establishing the remainder of the suit. Dummy was re-entered by trumping a diamond, and the three good clubs were run off. That was 12 tricks — five in hearts in the declarer’s hand, five clubs in dummy and two diamond ruffs on the table.

But of course a more aggressive East-West might have sacrificed in five diamonds, against which the defenders can make only four tricks, two hearts and two clubs. Since the declarer could claim a bonus of 100’for holding four honour cards in his trump suit, that would be a mere 200 net to North-South, and something of a disappointment.

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