By Christer Andersson

If you find the bidding in the Junior Teams World Championship a bit too optimistic, it is nothing in comparison to the bidding in the Swiss Pairs that finished yesterday. I made a few short visits during the play, and here are two examples from the match between the overnight leaders Taweesith/Jaturong from Thailand and the USA/Chinese Hong Kong combination Pahk and Ieong, The first board that caught my eye was not wild but showed the art of deduction – all boards have been switched to make South declarer:

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

West	North	East	South
Ieong	Jaturong	Pahk	Taweesith
			1 NT
Pass	2 §	Pass	2 ©
Pass	3 §	Pass	3 ª
Pass	4 §	Pass	4 ª
Pass	4 NT	All Pass

After the strong no trump (15-17 HCP), North forced to game showing clubs and subsequently asked for number of key cards. When South showed two key cards and no queen of clubs Jaturong chose 4 NT as the final contract.
Samuel Ieong found the only lead to hold his opponents to five tricks in no trump, a small diamond, ¨6, but unfortunately his partner, Joon Pakh started to count. With the declarer and dummy each having 15 HCP, and having 7 HCP himself, partner can at most have 3 HCP. As partner needs Qxx in clubs to stop the clubs running he can have no honour cards in diamonds. Therefore it must be a better use of the king of diamonds to kill the jack on the table than to establish an extra diamond trick for declarer by playing the king on thin air, thought Pahk, and was satisfied with giving an encouraging signal on the lead. Declarer, somewhat surprised, won with his eight. When East noticed how surprised declarer became he asked dummy if they could open on 14 HCP. The answer was that it had happened. It had again – only a tiny overbid. I think the elegant deduction should have been worth more than –5 IMPs.

The following board was a bit wilder:

N/S Vul. Dealer North.
	ª K 9 4 © Q 3 ¨ 2 § Q J 10 9 8 6 4
ª Q 3 © 10 9 8 7 6 5 2 ¨ Q § A K 7		ª J 8 5 2 © K J ¨ A 10 9 8 7 5 4 § -
	ª A 10 7 6 © A 4 ¨ K J 6 3 § 5 3 2

West	North	East	South
Pahk	Taweesith	Ieong	Jaturong
	3 §	3 ¨	3 NT
Dble	All Pass

West led the ©10, declarer tried the queen from the dummy, East contributed the king, and South directly took his ace to block the suit. A club to the table gave a trick to the queen but the continuation was won by West as East gave a high-low in diamonds. The heart continuation was won by East who tried a small spade. At this stage the declarer could have taken the trick in dummy and then finessed over East to collect four spade tricks and only go three or possibly two down (if he finds the unlikely continuation of the ¨K from hand). Having faith in his contract declarer, however, went up with the ace in spades and played his last club. West had to win it and now had five high hearts to cash. Five down (–1400) gave North/South one of the worst scores of the Pairs Championship (–16). But no sour faces!

The reason why Jaturong did not escape to 4§ was probably that a guy with a notebook was sitting beside him. Note that Ieong is endplayed already on opening lead if Jaturong escapes to the club contract. A spade will give declarer at least three tricks in that suit and time to establish a diamond trick, a heart will eliminate declarer’s potential heart loser (and give away the tempo to establish a diamond), and a diamond will establish a diamond for declarer to discard a loosing heart. 130 would have given the Thai pair an absolute top. All theory of course.