French Slam

By Patrick Jourdain (Wales)

This slam, made with a squeeze by Catherine D'Ovidio is described on the French page by Guy Dupont, but it deserves a wider audience, so here is another report. It arose in the third session of the semifinal between France and USA II.

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

West	North	East	South
Bessis	Jackson	D'Ovidio	Hamman
	Pass	1ª	Pass
3ª	Pass	3NT	Pass
4§	Pass	4¨	Pass
4©	Pass	4ª	Pass
5¨	Dble	6ª	All Pass

3NT was a serious slam try. This was followed by cuebids.

South, Petra Hamman, led her singleton diamond. North won and returned a heart to declarer's ace.
There are several lines now which work. Drawing trumps and ruffing out the clubs succeeds because the trumps are 2-2 and the clubs 4-3. Very lucky!
D'Ovidio quite naturally looked for something better. She began by leading a second diamond. South ruffed with six and dummy over-ruffed with the queen. Declarer returned to hand with a round of trumps. Both defenders followed, but who had the last trump?
If this was North declarer could cash the king of diamonds and cross-ruff safely. But did she need to take this risk?
D'Ovidio realised there was an alternative line that required only that South, who had shown up with the singleton diamond, held the long clubs, a heavy odds-on shot.
She started on clubs to isolate the menace. At trick five she led the queen of clubs, covered by king and ace, ruffed a club, drew the last trump, ruffed a diamond, ruffed a club, laid down the king of diamonds and then played the last trump. North was known to be keeping the last diamond, so would not be able to keep hearts. Provided South had the club guard, as she did, she would be squeezed. It was a double squeeze ending, though as the cards lay, only South was squeezed.
D'Ovidio's line was an excellent one. It was unlucky perhaps to find that other inferior choices were also working.
At the other table USA II made 12 tricks in Four Spades, so France won 11 IMPs.
Germany's Pony Nehmert also made this slam on a similar line - which goes some way to the Venice Cup finalists. Editor

Six Clubs Revisited

The table recording at major championships is sometimes not all that it might be, and sometimes also a journalist misreads what is actually an accurate recording. Whatever the cause on this particular occasion, the play described on the 6§ hand from Austria v Germany in yesterday morning's bulletin bore no relation to reality. Here is how the hand was actually played.

Board 9. Dealer North. E/W Vul.
	ª Q 8 6 © J 8 7 3 ¨ Q 9 8 5 § K J
ª A J 9 3 © A ¨ K 7 2 § Q 10 7 5 4		ª K 10 © 10 5 4 ¨ A J 10 4 § A 9 8 3
	ª 7 5 4 2 © K Q 9 6 2 ¨ 6 3 § 6 2

West	North	East	South
Weigkricht	Nehmert	Fischer	Rauscheid
	Pass	1¨	2©
Dble	4©	Pass	Pass
5§	Pass	6§	All Pass

Pony Nehmert led a heart to Terry Weigkricht's bare ace. Weigkricht played the queen of clubs to the king and ace. Superficially, the slam depends on a winning guess for one of the missing queens, but Weigkricht found something rather better. She continued with three rounds of spades, ruffing out the queen, then ruffed a heart back to hand. The winning spade was now led and North was powerless; whether or not she ruffed in, the last heart went from dummy. When she discarded, Weigkricht's club exit endplayed North to either give a ruff and discard or open up the diamond suit. Either way, there was no longer a guess. Nicely played.

A Bridge Mystery

By Michael Courtney

What do you think of these two deals?

You get a heart lead in this ambitious 3NT. Hopeless? Not really all you need is 2-2 diamonds! The recommended line is to win the heart king; cash two top diamonds in your hand and pray that they are 2-2.
When they break simply cash the spade queen, then the club queen. After they hold you claim. The idea is that the defenders will withhold their black honours to prevent entry to the apparently isolated diamond winners.

You play 3NT on a spade lead. Looks difficult but ducking two spades will succeed if they continue the suit. The snap with the major suit aces does the trick unless the heart king is with a five card spade suit.

So what do you think of those two deals? Yawn perhaps - the idea that falsecards must deceive by two cards rather than one (now that players play count signals) was well portrayed in works by Reese and Bird in the late eighties. The unblocking discard on the second deal is also hardly "new-in-bridge".

But these deals were published in 1912! Royal Auction Bridge by Ernst Bergholt is arguably the best book on card-play ever written (apologies to Reese and Ottlick). What I want to know is this:
Who was Ernst Bergholt?
In particular what country did he come from? I have only seen his books in English, but much negative evidence suggests that he was not permanently resident there. If anyone does know more of this remarkable author please contact Michael Courtney.

For No Reward

Having just won an award for reporting the best auction of 2001, your Editor was provided with an early opportunity to lay claim to the prize in 2002 with a deal from the Transnational semifinals in the match between Grinberg and Bureau.

Board 14. Dealer East. None Vul.
	ª K Q 10 6 3 2 © 7 3 ¨ K Q 4 2 § 6
ª 8 4 © A 9 2 ¨ J 9 7 3 § Q 10 4 2		ª 7 © K Q J 10 8 6 ¨ A 8 § A K J 3
	ª A J 9 5 © 5 4 ¨ 10 6 5 § 9 8 7 5

In the Closed Room East/West for Bureau bid to Six Hearts, a contract that had no chance at all.
This was the auction in the Open Room:

West	North	East	South
Barel		Aviram
		1©	Pass
2©	Pass	2ª*	Pass
2NT*	Pass	3ª*	Pass
4§*	Pass	4¨*	Pass
4©*	Pass	6§	All Pass

2ª Promising a short suit somewhere
2NT Forced
3ª Spade shortage, slam interest
4§ Natural
4¨ Cue bid
4© Promising a high honour

Alas, when North led the king of diamonds, the 4-1 trump break spelt defeat, but it was a bravura performance in the bidding.