Bridge The young can play well

Yesterday, I highlighted Andrew Chen, the youngest-ever life master in the American Contract Bridge League. Here is another deal featuring a youngster. The declarer in three no-trump was Vanessa Ng from Canberra, the capital of Australia. She was seven at the time and playing against two seniors, Len Dixon (a well-known journalist) and George Jesner (an eccentric and affable Scotwho lived in Canberra and died in 2010). North was George’s wife, Dorothy, who was Ng’s teacher.

After Dixon led the spade queen, Ng noted that she had only six top tricks: two spades, two hearts, one diamond and one club. If the club finesse was winning, there wouldn’t be any problems, but in case East had the club king, declarer ducked the first trick, took West’s spade continuation and correctly played a lowclub (in caseWest had the singleton king) to dummy’s queen. When the finesse worked, South crossed to the heart king and continued with the club jack: king, ace. Back to hand with a club to her 10, declarer led a diamond to dummy’s queen. Now came a third finesse with a heart to the jack. Ng played a diamond to the ace, hoping the king would drop, and returned to the heart ace, happy to see the 3-3split. Finally, she cashed the spade king, discarding dummy’s low diamond, overtook her club four with dummy’s seven and claimed the heart nine for plus 490and a top. Jesner looked at his partner and with a broad Scottish accent said, “It’s frightening, isn’t it?”

“Don’t worry, George,” Dixon replied, “it will be a long time before Vanessa is eligible for the senior events!”