Tournaments challenging contest
1H NB NB NB 2H 3NT NB
NB
All Pass 2C 2S
The New Zealand Wide Pairs Tournament is usually held at this time of year. It sees bridge clubs from throughout the country play the same set of hands. At the end of the night, the competitors are given a small book advising them of what they should (or shouldn’t) have done. There is a countrywide winner, who invariably scores well over over 70%.
Playing in this event is somewhat unsettling because of the temptation to secondguess the compiler’s point to each hand. Today’s deal may help give you an idea of what the tournament involves.
Our East spurned a onenotrump overcall in the hope of richer pickings.
Now fourth in hand bidding after an opener and two passes may be quite aggressive. For instance, many pairs play a onenotrump overcall in this position as showing eleven to 14 points.
West could sense his partner was desperate for a reopening double (the lesson, perhaps?) which would have been passed out like a shot, although South might rescue into diamonds. However, West’s hand was so poor defensively he had sufficent courage only for his twoclub call.
There was more agony for West after East’s forcing bid because his two spades sounded like a hand with extra values. Consequently, West was a little embarrassed when he had to spread his hand as dummy.
South led the jack of diamonds to dummy’s queen, North’s king and declarer’s two. If North had continued diamonds, East would duck again and win the third round. He couldn’t then afford to use up his entry to the table for the club finesse, so would play the ace (lucky) then later take the marked heart finesse for 11 tricks.
Our North switched to a spade at trick two in an attempt to dislodge dummy’s entry to dummy. East won and took the club finesse, which lost. South continued a diamond, although she does better to give her partner his two spade winners. Ten tricks.
East/West ended up with a very good score on the board but, even so, East would have loved a chance to defend against North’s one heart, doubled.