The Round 9 matches in the Orbis Bermuda Bowl & Orbis Venice Cup featured a quiet set of boards (well one of our reporters fell asleep at the table he was watching!) that suddenly exploded into life at the end. The featured match on VuGraph involved USAI and New Zealand. Despite the funereal pace of play, there was still a fair sized audience when the penultimate board (remember they start with boards 19 & 20) settled on the table.
With South on lead Six Clubs was not really at risk. East won the opening lead of the two of diamonds. There was no losing line from this point, and declarer quickly claimed 12 tricks and +920.
A complex auction led to Six Diamonds played from the short side. Everyone could see that a spade lead would be fatal, and that is what they expected Bob Hamman to put on the table. They were disappointed, as the opening lead was the three of clubs. When you have a powerful holding in the opponent's trump suit, it is usually a good idea to try and talk declarer out of a finesse, but this was the wrong time. Keep in mind there are inferences from the bidding that are not as clear as usual, as we are not exactly sure what information was available to North. Declarer won in hand and took a diamond finesse. When that held he returned to hand with a heart to the jack and repeated the diamond finesse. When South showed out, he cashed the ace of diamonds, pitching a club from his hand, and overtook the queen of hearts with the king to take a club finesse. Declarer could now cash the three aces in dummy in any order and exit with a spade, not caring who won it. A good recovery, but should he have been given the chance? This board cost Great Britain a mountain of points in their match against Denmark in the Orbis Venice Cup. In the Open Room, Drøgemüller & Steen-Møller reached 6NT played by East, and declarer used a heart entry to play on clubs, thereby securing five club tricks. That meant she could easily collect the remaining tricks she needed to record +990.
Three Spades was a transfer to 3NT, after which West made a slam try in clubs. North, who is doubtless ready to help a well-known American player with his opening leads, selected the ten of spades. Declarer won with dummy's ace, crossed to hand with the jack of hearts and ran the ten of clubs. The club suit behaved, but the entry position was such that declarer was no longer in a position take more than one diamond finesse. If declarer attacks clubs by playing the queen, unblocking the jack from dummy, then there are enough entries to bring home four diamond tricks. Is that a better line than the combination of the ruffing diamond finesse plus the chance of a singleton or doubleton queen of diamonds, or even ¨Qxx with South? Whatever, the contract had to go one down, and Denmark had 14 IMPs.
An efficient auction to the virtually laydown slam. Denmark +980.
You can see how popular it is to use 2NT to show a game forcing raise of partner's suit, as it was the response made at both tables. East showed a minimum with her rebid, and West decided to call it a day. She had a recollection that the jump to Four Hearts denied an ace. She was absolutely right, but unfortunately that was an agreement she had with another partner! That was another big swing for the runaway leaders, who had won the match at the death. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||