39th World Team Championships Page 8 Bulletin 14 - Saturday 12 September 2009


Debbie's Delight and Welland's Wish

by Patrick Jourdain

Your reporter joined a squad in the World Transnational Open Teams with four Brazilians and one American. After two days, we were doing well enough to meet a former teammate from my Scottish era, Michael Rosenberg, now of the USA, and his wife, Debbie. I didn’t spot any deals worth reporting from our match but heard later of Debbie’s fine inference on this hand from the event:

Board 1. Dealer West. N/S Vul.
 ♠ A K 6
A 4
9 6
♣ A J 9 8 6 4

♠ 10 9
Q 8 5
A K J 8 5 4 2
♣ 5
Bridge deal
♠ J 7 3
K J 9 7 3
7
♣ Q 10 7 3
 ♠ Q 8 5 4 2
10 6 2
Q 10 3
♣ K 2

WestNorthEastSouth
2(1)3♣PassPass
DblePass3Pass
4DblePass4♠
PassPassDbleAll Pass

(1) 9-13 diamonds, unbalanced

Michael Rosenberg’s double of 4 was intended for penalties but Debbie expected this to be suitable for spades. The opponents can hold their loss to one trick, so it was right to be in Four Spades despite the work required to succeed in that contract.

The defenders led two top diamonds and East signalled for a heart by pitching the 3.

West obediently shifted to the 5, suggesting three. Debbie needed the spades to be 3-2, and West had ten red cards, so she placed him with short clubs.

Having drawn this conclusion, Rosenberg now found the fine move of advancing the ♣J. Had this held the trick she would have drawn two trumps with the ace and king then unblocked clubs and pitched the heart loser on the diamond queen. Whether East ruffed or not declarer could ruff one heart and throw the other on the club ace.

In fact East covered the club jack so declarer took the trump ace and queen, set up the clubs via the ruffing finesse, and made 11 tricks.

Here is another deal from the WTOT, actually the last of the qualifying Swiss.

Welland wished to make the top eight to get into the knockouts, and he decided he needed a big swing to do so. This was the deal.

Board 1. Dealer East. None Vul.
 ♠ J 9 5
A J 9 7 3
2
♣ A 10 8 5

♠ 10 8 7 6
Q 8 4
8
♣ Q J 9 4 2
Bridge deal
♠ K 3
K 5 2
K Q 9 5 4 3
♣ K 6
 ♠ A Q 4 2
10 6
A J 10 7 6
♣ 7 3

WestNorthEastSouth
WellandKamil
  1Pass
1♠Dble2Dble
All Pass    

The defence to Two Diamonds Doubled started with heart ten which went round to the king. North let the club king hold in case East had the spade ace, but took the next club to switch to a low spade to the king and ace. Back came a heart to the jack. Welland carefully avoided cashing the heart ace, first leading a trump through. This told Kamil that Welland still had an entry, which had to be the spade jack. The diamond went to the king and ace, and Kamil underled his spade queen to Welland’s jack. Now came the heart ace on which South pitched a spade, and the fourth round of hearts promoted a fourth trump trick for South for down 800.

Welland’s wish was granted. The swing was enough for his team to make the knockouts.



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