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Alan Grant (Wellington Region Chairperson), Blair and Liz Fisher, Leon Meier and Ashley Bach. 

Another successful Wellington Congress.

That’s the recent ANZAC Congress held over three days at the Wellington Bridge Club. Good numbers, a well organised event and plenty of interesting bridge. The various event winners were:

Congress Provincial Pairs:        Leon Meier and Ashley Bach

Congress Intermediate Pairs: Susan Brown and Denise Barnett

Congress Junior Pairs:             Stephanie Grummitt and David Haynes

These three events had 44, 24 and 16 pairs taking part, 42 tables in total on ANZAC Day.

Congress Intermediate Teams: Susan Brown, Denise Barnett, Karen Eriksen, Jude Lucas

An excellent double then for Susan and Denise.

Congress Swiss Pairs:              Lysandra Zheng and Tim Pan

Congress Provincial Teams:    Liz and Blair Fisher, Ashley Bach and Leon Meier

60 pairs took part in the Swiss Pairs while the top 6 teams contested the Teams final. 28 teams had originally entered while the Intermediate Teams event had 14 teams. Like Susan and Denise, it was a double success for Ashley and Leon. 

Susan Brown, Karen Eriksen, Jude Lucas and Denise Barnett.
A double success for Susan and Denise in the 2 Intermediate events over the weekend. 

The Open Teams final was decided in a head to head clash between the eventual winners and the team of Ian Berrington, Graeme Tuffnell, Malcolm Mayer and Brian Mace. Before the start of the final match, Berrington had 67.39 vps and Fisher 60.32. Fisher needed to score at least 14vps, not easy in what was a tight match. Today and tomorrow, we will feature two boards from that match.

Blair Fisher found himself in “a bit of a spot” on this board. Both he and Liz had been “guilty” of a little overbidding.

 

2 showed 4-7 hcp and a 6 card suit. Blair felt that if either member of his partnership was going to balance over 2, it would have to be him. Looking at Liz’s hand, he was quite correct though 2 was destined to be defeated.

After 3, Liz obviously fancied her diamond holding and anticipated 6 diamond tricks, one she could see in hearts and a couple of tricks elsewhere if Blair had a spade hold. So she asked and what could he do but accept the challenge!

South led 3 top clubs with North discarding a low spade (low like) and then led a fourth club. Another low spade came from North. What should Blair discard? Like North, he chose two low spades. It was an all or many down deal. An extra -50 was not going to matter that much!

Blair reasoned that from North’s discarding and the fact that South had opened the bidding that South was more likely to hold Q. Of course, North could hold it as well as A but Blair had to make a decision. QTx in the South hand would give him no play. He could either go for the drop (a doubleton Q) or else play North to hold 10.

Thus, after winning the fourth club in dummy, Blair played a heart to his hand and advanced J, intending to play North for the 10 if South covered. However, there was no cover and Blair let the jack run. ….

 

There were no overtricks but Blair soon had his 9 tricks. It is not often one bids to 3NT on a combined 22 hcp, with no particularly long suit and make game. That was  worth 7 very valuable imps in  when his teammates failed by 2 tricks in 2 at the other table. Blair could have cashed his 3 heart tricks first to gain an idea of North’s shape but felt he might need a heart entry to hand if for instance, North had the singleton 10 and South did not cover.  

Of the 6 East-Wests in the final, Blair and Liz alone were in game. One pair bid and made 3 (helped no doubt by an early spade ruff) while the other 4 took 2 of either black suit down. Played correctly, 3NT was unbeatable. That did not mean it was lay-down. Far from it.

Tomorrow, we will feature another hand from the final.

Richard Solomon

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