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Beware!  Alarm bells

The third round of the Trans-Tasman Challenge took place last Friday evening with the Australian Senior 1 team still leading the way. The other team to have recorded three wins so far is the New Zealand Mixed 1, represented in match 3 by Jo and Sam Simpson and Liz and Blair Fisher. The New Zealand Open 1 team suffered a small loss to the leaders and dropped two places to 4^th. Here then are the current top 5:

 

Round 3					Round 2		Round 3		Round 3		Round 3
Position							v		Score		Cum Score
1			Aust Seniors 1		33.64	1st	NZ Open 1		12.03		45.67
2			NZ Mixed 1		27.7	4th	Aust Open 2		15.19		42.89
3			Aust Open 1		22.65	6th	NZ Seniors 1		17.17		39.82
4			NZ Open 1		29.95	2nd	Aust Seniors 1		7.97		37.92
5			NZ Women 2		22.36	8th	Aust Women 1		14.39		36.75

 

The following board provided imps, serious imps out, for four of the 18 teams. Firstly, what would your next bid be with the following South hand:

 

 

2NT was Jacoby style, game force with 4+ card spade support. 3 showed no more than one diamond.

When your partner owns up to a singleton or void in a suit where you have honour cards except for the ace, alarm bells should be ringing if you are thinking of a slam, or indeed, in a different situation, even if you were wondering whether or not to bid a possible game. Unless you have very strong holdings in other suits, you should err on the side of caution as your honours, in the above hand, your diamond honours will just not be that useful. Watch:

 

 On this occasion, the 5-level was, or should have been safe. The most common lead was 10, an immediate danger for those in the nervy 5-level. With 9 in declarer’s hand, this was surely a singleton or doubleton. So, up with the A to play K on which North can throw a heart. East wins to play a low heart to the king and North’s ace. Now, draw trumps in three rounds to be followed by KQ discarding two more hearts.

4 goes to West’s K and the remaining small club can still be ruffed in dummy as declarer loses just a heart and K. Alternatively, and better, when in with K, play one trump to dummy and ruff a low diamond. Draw trumps and you have three diamond winners, though still two losers. This is not a slam hand.

South’s diamond honours are a warning while the North hand is not strong enough to overrule partner’s sign-off. Most but not all declarers made 11 tricks and the 5 and 6 levels were too high for four declarers.

The next round of this competition is on Friday May 26^th.

Richard Solomon  

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