CONTRACT BRIDGE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22864, 20 October 1937, Page 8

CONTRACT BRIDGE

TIMING PRECISION ESTABLISHMENT OF SUITS BT O. L. EASTGATE How often does the sucess of a contract depend to a largo extent upon proper timing. In many cases a side suit has to be established, and a trick or two *picked up in another suit, and this may be complicated by the difficulty of maintaining proper trump control, as in the following hand: — East, dealer Both vul,

East South West North Paw paw 1 A P"« 2 4k pass pass double pass 3 0 pass pass 3 4k 4 Jfr pass pass double pa»» P a " P a " This was match-point bidding, and at rubber bridge AA est's opening spade call -would be unjustified, but at duplicate, light third hand opening bidjs are necessary. When it appeared that two spades was the limit of the East-West bidding, North stepped m with a double. It is interesting to note that while at rubber bridge this delayed double should be taken as strictly for penalties, in duplicate it may mean that the doubler requires close co-operation from partner. East's double, also, was justified only at duplicate. West opened with the king of spades, won by the ace in dummy, and a low diamond from the North hand was passed by East, South winning with the jack. The problem was to establish diamonds, and if a trump trick were to be lost (as seemed likely) to snatch at least one heart trick. Diamonds could be led from either hand, but hearts had to be led up to dummy. Declarer therefore led a heart, and when West played low, put on the king from dummy on the assumption that if East held the diamond ace (as had been virtually proved) West must hold the heart ace to justify his bid. The king winning, the diamond queen was continued. East won, and forced declarer with a spade. The 10 of diamonds having dropped from West on the second round, declarer saw that it might be necessary to ruff out the suit, and therefore led a low diamond and ruffed it in dummy. The lead of ace and another club kept the defenders to the club king as their third trick. Had the declarer failed to pick up his heart trick at an early stage, before knocking out the club king, he would probably have found himself too short of trumps to do this and at the same time to bring home his diamond suit.

*AK South is in alcontract of four spades, and West leads three rounds of hearts. On the third round South ruffs with the spade eight. He now leads the spade nine to the king and finesses the return trump lead. Aoe and king of clubs are then cashed, followed by the ace, king and small diamond. East is thrown on lead, and cannot return a trump without giving declarer a free finesse; ho therefore exits with a club. Declarer ruffs this with the carefullypreserved two of trumps and overruffs with dummy's spade three. He then comes through East's Q-7 of spades for the last two tricks. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS M.F., Wanganui.—Would you kindly give me the bidding on the following two hands: — South, dealer North-South vul. South AAlOx xx x A9xx xx 0— A North: Axx Vx oAQ9xxxx.^Kxx In my opinion the should go as follows: — South North 1A 2 0 2V 3 0 4V 4 A pass , South bids his two suits in the routine order, and then rebids the lower ranking suit to show two suits of equal length. North should rebid his diamonds once, but not any more, merely showing a preference for the spades.

CURRENT EVENTS The sixth and final round of the Courtney par-contract series was held at the Northern Contract Bridge Club last week, and winners were as follows: —North-South: Dr. B, Mackenzie and Cavendish and Morgan and Watson, equal, with 106 points. EastWest: Mrs. de Clive Lowe and Miss P. Coutts, 122 points, 1; Misses MacCormick (2), 93 points, 2. The winner for the year, best five out of six, was N. 0. Morgan, with 78.9 per cent, closely followed by R. K. Wylie, with a fraction under, 78.8 per cent, and N. Watson, 78.5 per cent, Dr. B. Mackenzie, 77.7 per cent, and C. Bruce-Smith, 77.3 per cent. The competition was a very successful one, and presented many interesting points. It might be suggested that next year with this type of tournament a little more time be given to solve some of the knotty problems of bidding and play, and the number of hands per session, 24, cut down to a maximum of 20.

At the overseas match-point monthly pairs tourney, the results were as follows :V-North-South: L. McKillop and C. L. Eastgate, 69.6 per cent, 1: Dr. B. Mackenzie and A. N. Lamb, 68.4 per cent, 2; Nelson Mitchell and C. Bruce-Smith, -56.1 per cent, 3. EastWest: J. A. Cahill and E. Stratton, 59.4 per cent, 1; Mesdames Cleghorn and Cadman, 55.5 per cent, 2; Mesdames Wilson and Green, 53.8 per cent, 3.