ACES ON BRIDGE

There are very few tournament directors currently playing with national titles to their credit. In Australia, Richard Grenside was for many years one of the world’s top directors because he could understand the players’ problems from an expert’s perspective. Grenside has largely retired from directing, but is still an enthusiastic player. Here he is in action with his wife, Sue, from last year’s Gold Coast Congress in Brisbane, Australia. Incidentally, this is one of the world’s most enjoyable events, combining a great tournament with a spectacular location for relaxation, eating and drinking. As is typical in any auction where Richard is bidding, nobody held back, and the consequence was that he reached a grand slam where there appears to be an inevitable loser. However, in seven spades, Grenside won the club ace and played a diamond to dummy’s ace. He ruffed a diamond high in hand and played a spade to dummy. He ruffed another diamond high and entered dummy again with a trump. A third diamond was ruffed with the spade king, Grenside’s last trump. He then crossed to dummy with a heart to the queen, pitching the club loser from his hand on the spade ace. Unsurprisingly, plus-1,510 was a big gain for his team. The play Grenside used is called a Dummy Reversal. By ruffing three times in the long hand and using the short hand to draw trumps, Grenside manufactured six trump tricks out of five.