SLAMBITION TWO!

By Maureen Dennison

Yesterday I reported on the two slam swings earned by the English pair Brock-Courtney on Boards 4 and 8 from Round two. Well these boards were also lively in the Indonesia-Israel match. On the first one, Indonesia also bid the slam with ªAK off the top and they, too, were favoured with a club lead and made 6 plus1. Let me remind you of the layout of Board 8 on which we asked if any other pair had bid the good slam.

Board 8. Dealer West. None Vul.
	ª A 9 © J 10 8 6 ¨ A 10 § K J 10 7 3
ª J 7 6 © A K 9 7 4 ¨ Q J 9 § 6 2		ª 8 5 © Q 5 3 2 ¨ 8 6 5 4 3 2 § A
	ª K Q 10 4 3 2 © - ¨ K 7 § Q 9 8 5 4

Manoppo and Lasut did not have the best of auctions!

West	North	East	South
I.Yadlin	Manoppo	D.Yardlin	Lasut
	2§*	Pass	2¨*
2©	Dble	Pass	2ª
All Pass!

2§ was Precision, 5 clubs + a major or six clubs and 2¨ was asking. Obviously Lasut thought that his bid was forcing and the pair was certain they had a major loss on the board. Indeed the Israeli North-South did bid to a club slam via a cue bidding auction. Unfortunately they forgot to check up on the ace of trumps and finished in seven clubs. Needless to say Manoppo-Lasut were delighted to find they were 7 IMPs in rather that 12 out.

Duck Or No Dinner

By Barry Rigal

The fourth round match in the VC and BB qualifier produced a classic position for the defence; how to create a second trump trick when God had only created one.

Board 13. Dealer North. All Vul.
	ª 6 5 © J 10 ¨ J 9 8 7 5 2 § 10 4 2
ª K 10 9 8 © K 6 5 4 3 ¨ - § Q 8 6 5		ª A 7 2 © Q 9 2 ¨ A K Q 4 § J 9 7
	ª Q J 4 3 © A 8 7 ¨ 10 6 3 § A K 3

By far the most common contract on this deal was to play 4© here. And the contract made at almost every table, although in abstract the contract appears to be a terrible one because of the wasted values in diamonds. But at almost all tables a transfer auction enabled East to declare 4© and on the defence of three rounds of clubs declarer was in hand and chose to lead a heart to the king. Now there was no defence to the game, since declarer could hardly misguess hearts from here on in!

But there were some honourable exceptions - the game was beaten at five tables. When the Indonesian ladies, Sofyan and Bojoh were defending against 4©, Bojoh as South broke Rigal's first rule. When you have an ace-king combination, your problem will be what to lead at trick two, not what to lead at trick one! She chose to lead a trump, thereby presenting declarer with a valid alternative to the winning choice in the trump suit. When she chose to duck the second trump she was down off the top.

The four defensive partnerships worthy of a Gold Star are Arrigoni/Oliveira of Italy in the Venice Cup, and Brenner/Chagas, Sontag/Weichsel and Kwiecen/Pszczola of Brazil, USA2 and Poland respectively. The first named player in each case was defending to 4© as South and led three rounds of clubs. And in each case declarer manoeuvred his way to dummy (by using the king of spades, a diamond ruff, and the §Q respectively) to play a trump to the queen. All three Souths impassively played low on the ©Q, and obtained their reward when declarer elected quite reasonably to play North for the doubleton A-10 of hearts, and ducked the second trump. That let North score his ©J, and defeat the contract. Of course if South had taken his ©A declarer would have had no winning position in the heart suit but to find North with the bare ©J10.