BRIDGE

Famous hand

The 2006 Rosenblum Cup was won by a team composed of four Americans and two Norwegians, who defeated another composite team of two Americans and four Swedes in the 64-board final.

The victors – Rose Meltzer, Kyle Larsen, Roger Bates, Alan Sontag and Norwegians Geir Helgemo and Tor Helness – defeated Christal Henner-Welland, Marc Jacobus, and Sweden’s Magnus Lindkvist, Peter Fredin, Peter Bertheau and Fredrik Nystrom by the comfortable margin of 46 International Match Points.

Throughout the final, the Norwegian pair exhibited excellent judgment in competitive situations. Today’s deal shows them in action. Helgemo was North and Helness South when the auction shown unfolded. Helness’ three-heart bid showed a singleton or void in hearts and was forcing to game.

After Bertheau bid four hearts, Helgemo showed his club suit and bid them again after Nystrom’s five-heart bid was passed around to him. In bidding six clubs, Helgemo took into account his partner’s failure to double five hearts, which invited Helgemo to continue bidding if he thought a slam was in the offing. Helness then corrected six clubs to six diamonds, and with the A-J-3 of diamonds onside, the slam was easily made for a score of 1 370. At the other table, Henner-Welland and Jacobus elected to double five hearts in a similarly competitive auction, and did not find the defense that would nett them +800 for down four: ace of spades, spade to the king, spade ruff, plus two clubs and the ace of hearts. Instead, North led a diamond, allowing declarer to get rid of a club loser on the diamond ace, and then did not play the ace and another spade after gaining the lead with the ace of hearts. Plus 300 for North-South left them with a 1 070-point net deficit for a loss of 14 IMPs.