Expertise
Sunday 7th February Gazette Cup was played with 13 teams lined up. Peter Foster - John Roberts, Alec Smalley - Tom Slater, John Holland - Michael Byrne & Rodney Lighton - John Curriewon and will have the privilege of playing in the EBU’s Garden Cities competition - we wish them the best of luck.
This board from the competition that caught my eye:
Borad: 17
Dealer: North
Vul: None
North
♠ 82
♥ K10982
♦ 6
♣ J10643
West East
♠ KQJ107 ♠ A64
♥ Q74 ♥ A6
♦ 109732 ♦ AKQ
♣ - ♣ AK875
South
♠ 953
♥ J53
♦ J854
♣ Q92
West North East South
2♥ dbl pass
3♠ pass 4NT pass
5♥ pass 7♠ All pass
This is how the bidding went at the table where John Roberts and Peter Foster from the winning team was sitting North/South.
2 ♥ was weak and East/West rocketed themselves to the grand slam as the only pair in the competition.
North lead the single Diamond won with the Ace. West now continued with a small spade to the King followed by the Queen of Spade and a spade to the Ace. When the Diamond did not split, it was one down.
Can it be made? Lets give the pen to John Roberts:
“But declarer missed an extra chance.
Declarer should draw only two rounds of trumps before cashing a second top. diamond. If diamonds are 3-2 then revert to trumps and claim.
But if diamonds are 4-1 there is the slight extra chance that the hand with singleton diamond has only 2 spades, as was the case on this hand. The entries are there to cash the third diamond come to hand with a club ruff, ruff out the diamond suit before returning to hand to draw the last trump and claim.
If the Second top diamond is ruffed then the contract could not have been made anyway. This layout was quite likely after north's opening bid.
Fortunately for us, the failure to find this play converted what would have been an enormous minus for us into an enormous plus”
Lets hope they have the same skill and luck when they play in EBU’s Garden Cities!
Espen Gisvold
PS
If you see a hand you think is worth mentioning please leave me a note at: Espen
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