Junior PAirs - Session 2 (The First Six Boards)

by Patrick Jourdain

This time I followed Julien Gavard and Thomas Bessis of France, lying second at the time. They certainly clocked up enough on the boards I saw to take themselves into the top spot, at least temporarily:

Board 1. Dealer North. None Vul.
	♠ 3 ♥ A J 10 ♦ A K ♣ A Q 9 6 4 3 2
♠ A Q J ♥ 8 7 6 2 ♦ Q 8 3 2 ♣ 8 5		♠ K 8 7 2 ♥ K Q 3 ♦ 10 6 5 ♣ K 10 7
	♠ 10 9 6 5 4 ♥ 9 5 4 ♦ J 9 7 4 ♣ J

West	North	East	South
Martinovic	Bessis	Stanicic	Gaviard
	2♣	Pass	2♦
Pass	3♣	All Pass

Their first opponents were Ognjen Stanicic & Slavica Martinovic from Croatia. An artificial strong Two Clubs was followed by a natural, 9-trick type Three Clubs to end the auction. Stanicic made the natural lead of a top heart and that gave declarer his tenth trick. This was 64% for the French as the result was quite popular.

The next board proved more interesting:

Board 2. Dealer East. N-S Vul.
	♠ A K 10 9 8 ♥ K Q J 9 5 ♦ K Q ♣ 3
♠ Q J 4 2 ♥ A 3 ♦ 6 5 ♣ K Q 9 8 2		♠ 7 5 ♥ 7 4 2 ♦ 10 9 8 3 ♣ A J 10 6
	♠ 6 3 ♥ 10 8 6 ♦ A J 7 4 2 ♣ 7 5 4

West	North	East	South
Martinovic	Bessis	Stanicic	Gaviard
		Pass	Pass
1♣	2♦ (i)	Pass	2♥
Pass	2NT (ii)	Pass	4♥
All Pass

(i) The majors
(ii) See Text

Bessis called Two Diamonds to show both majors and then thought for some time before continuing with Two Notrumps over partner’s Two Hearts. Not many partnerships have discussed the continuations in this sort of sequence but the logical scheme is to bid the fragment when you are 5-5-3-0, to bid the six-card major when you are 6-5-1-1 and to reserve 2NT for the 5-5-2-1 shapes.

This treatment allowed Gaviard to know his ace of diamonds was working and, with a ruffing value as well, he could easily jump to game.

Martinovic found the best lead of the ace of trumps. This went: jack, two, six. One would have thought the sight of dummy would call for a club switch, and if you are looking for other clues, declarer’s unblock reveals he has the ten, and partner’s first trump here should perhaps be McKenney. Had the defence taken their ace of clubs and played a second trump declarer would have two options for taking the remaining tricks:

Ruff a spade, return to dummy with a diamond, run the rest of the trumps, and finally overtake the second diamond. This works whenever the spades are 3-3, the diamonds are 3-3 or one defender guards both and is squeezed.

Unblock the diamonds, draw the last trump with the ten, and run diamonds throwing the losing spades.

Line (b) only fails when the diamonds are 5-1 and the defender with the singleton has the last trump. Line (a) fails with the actual lie of the cards when neither suit breaks and the guards are in different hands. We prefer (b), uninfluenced by what works! So we assume Gaviard would have made 11 tricks.

However, at trick two West decided to play a second trump giving Gaviard further choices, including trying for 12 tricks. Eventually he settled for unblocking diamonds, drawing the last trump and running diamonds. The losing club went away, but there was a losing spade instead, and West split her honours when South led it from hand at the end 68% for N/S. The next pair to arrive was Peter Marjai & Gabor Minarik of Hungary. The deal proved to be a bidding problem:

Board 3. Dealer South. E-W Vul.
	♠ 10 9 4 ♥ Q 10 ♦ 9 6 5 3 ♣ K J 4 3
♠ 3 ♥ A K 8 5 2 ♦ A K Q 4 2 ♣ A 2		♠ J 8 7 5 ♥ 9 7 3 ♦ J 10 8 ♣ 7 6 5
	♠ A K Q 6 2 ♥ J 6 4 ♦ 7 ♣ Q 10 9 8

West	North	East	South
Marjai	Bessis	Minarik	Gaviard
			1♠
2♠ (i)	Pass	3♣ (ii)	Pass
5♦(iii)	All Pass

(i) Michael’s Cuebid showing hearts and a minor
(ii) This was for the minor, though East would do better to bid 3♥
(iii) West assumed his partner had at most two hearts

The final contract of Five Diamonds had no chance. Bessis led a trump, and declarer had to concede one off in due course. Here East must take the blame. With three cards in each side suit he should prefer the major. West would have raised to 4♥ and that would make in comfort. When East showed preference for West’s minor West was entitled to assume East had a doubleton heart and therefore, playing in diamonds, he would be able to ruff out the hearts opposite very little. That error gave the French 86%.

Board 4 was a dull affair with 11 easy tricks in either major and two aces missing but next to arrive was a Danish pair who suffered two disasters:

Board 5. Dealer North. N-S Vul.
	♠ A J 9 ♥ Q J 7 5 ♦ 9 8 3 ♣ 10 4 2
♠ Q 3 ♥ K 9 ♦ A K Q 10 ♣ Q J 8 6 3		♠ 10 8 7 5 4 ♥ A 6 4 2 ♦ 7 ♣ K 7 5
	♠ K 6 2 ♥ 10 8 3 ♦ J 6 5 4 2 ♣ A 9

West	North	East	South
	Pass	Pass	Pass
1♣	Pass	1♠	Pass
2♦	Pass	2♥	Pass
3♦?	Pass	3♠??	All Pass!

The auction started normally enough but later both players seemed to have an aversion to bidding notrumps. East tried a fourth-suit Two Hearts rather than showing the club support (he might have been intending to show a weak support hand) and then West instead of bidding a natural 2NT repeated the diamonds.

As they have an easy nine tricks in 3NT, it was unlikely that 3♠ would score much, so the fact that declarer, no doubt worrying about the bidding, absent-mindedly forgot to cash his diamond winners and went two off, made little difference. Gaviard-Bessis scored 99%.

Board 6. Dealer East. East-West Vul.
	♠ – ♥ A 9 3 ♦ A Q 8 7 2 ♣ Q 9 6 4 2
♠ 8 7 ♥ Q J 10 8 7 6 5 ♦ 10 5 3 ♣ J		♠ A J 6 4 3 ♥ 4 2 ♦ J 9 6 ♣ K 7 3
	♠ K Q 10 9 5 2 ♥ K ♦ K 4 ♣ A 10 8 5

West	North	East	South
		Pass	1♠
3♥	Dble (i)	Pass	4♠
Pass	Pass	Dble?	Pass
Pass	4NT (ii)	Pass	5♣
Pass	Pass	Dble??	All Pass

(1) Take-out
(ii) For the minors

Gaviard opened One Spade, West made a weak jump overcall, Bessis a take-out double and then Gaviard jumped to Four Spades. Deep Finesse refuses to say how many tricks declarer can make when there are less than seven trumps, but I suspect the game would have made.

East doubled with more confidence than was justified by his cards, but when Bessis decided to run he might have got back to reasonable matchpoint by passing for it’s possible North/South would have scored 420 for 5♣+1 and shared with some 4♠ just made.

However, it was a matter of honour for East to double the escape. Gaviard won the heart lead in hand, crossed to dummy with a diamond to the queen, and tried the queen of clubs. When that pinned the jack, and the rest of the hand behaved as well, he had all 13 tricks for +750 and an 82% score.