Shuffling the cards Interesting deals at South Island Teams

Press, 4 April 1989, Page 22

Shuffling the cards Interesting deals at South Island Teams

Collecting with Myrtle Duff

CONTRACT BRIDGE

J.R. Wignall

There were plenty of interesting distributional deals at the South Island Teams championship in Dunedin, which probably meant the players were shuffling the cards more than usual. In the match between the winners and the runners-up, I thought this one was handled pretty well by all the participants. South was the dealer, with only EastWest vulnerable: ■

With North-South playing Precision, the auction was: S W N E 1+ No If No 2V 34 4V No No 5f No No 5V No No Dble All Pass Over a Precision Club, one tends to bid obstructively on weak hands, so West passed on the first round and came in later, the accepted way to show good values. Eventually, he decided to push on to five diamonds when

North-South reached four hearts despite being vulnerable against not. It seemed to me that South's decision to bid five hearts was very well judged, and that she was unlucky to find the adverse trumps so badly divided. When she had to ruff the second round of diamonds, East held one more trump than her, so the defence duly won the ace of diamonds and clubs, plus a long heart to put the contract one down. At the other table, West also sacrificed in five diamonds and was doubled. The opening lead of a heart was ruffed, the declarer led a spade and the defenders were quick to switch to a trump. This meant West could ruff only two spades in dummy, so he finished with only 10 tricks — seven in diamonds, two ruffs on the table and the ace of clubs. The opening lead of a trump would have produced one more undertrick.

There were a lot of deals on which two-suited overcalls could be used with some success. This one was dealt by West with neither side vulnerable:

W N E S 14 2NT No 4V All Pass North’s two no-trump overcall showed a weak hand with at least five cards in both hearts and clubs, so South had just enough to jump to game in hearts. West, with a difficult hand to lead from, made the unlucky choice of the ace of diamonds. Too late, he switched to a spade but the declarer was in control. Winning the second trick with the ace of spades, he cashed the king of diamonds discarding dummy’s last spade before playing the ace and another heart.

When everything behaved kindly, the declarer lost tricks only to the diamond ace, the heart king and the ace of clubs, but an original spade lead would have established a vital fourth defensive trick.

At the other table, EastWest were allowed to play in three spades making in comfort so that was a very useful swing to their team.