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Jonathan Westoby.

Bravo…the Chef!

Yesterday, we looked at a game contract which seemed destined for defeat though a little thought enabled the declarer to survive and record a making game. We are going to continue that theme again today.

 

A reasonable 5-card major, an adequate holding in the opposition’s suit and a partner with hopefully the right values and shape. That all seemed to add up to having a shot at game.

West leads K. How are you feeling? Well, partner could have had a little more in high cards. The missing red aces is a worry as East is likely to hold them both. There is the chance that West holds one of them. Also, you can set up a discard in the heart suit but by that time, the defence will have taken their club trick… and West need to have held a rather strong pre-empt if indeed they have A.

So, do you win the opening lead? Maybe if you duck, West will not find a diamond switch. That is possible but you are still looking at four losers unless East holds Axx and West A. Oh, there is also a chance of a bad trump break. So much could go wrong.

Our South decided to win trick 1 and embark on drawing trumps. Only East, surely, could hold 4 spades and if they did, then any end-play chances would likely vanish. Thus, a spade to dummy’s ace and when West produced J, the chances of their holding a red ace diminished even further (A and KQ if not KQJ!).

South then played Q and 10 from dummy with West discarding two clubs. Could a club and three red suit tricks be avoided especially if East held both red aces?

There was nothing better to do than play a heart to J which scored and then a second heart to Q and A. It looked like if East had a club, they could exit with that card with the defence taking A, a club and 2 diamond tricks, unless West held A and three hearts.

Yet, the play did not go like that!

 

With three rounds of spades, one round of clubs and two rounds of hearts played, East was left with same 7 diamonds with which they started! They cashed A and exited Q which a rather surprised declarer took with K and then after cashing K (why not!), exited with a third diamond. A fourth diamond from East enabled South to discard their club loser as they ruffed in dummy. Contract made for the loss of two diamonds and A. Freaky? Of course. South really followed their only course, an unlikely A with West and hearts 3-3.

Declarer did not panic and was rewarded. Of course, West might have opened 4 but they did not! East might have called 3 after the double (I would) with the lack of a diamond lead from West being quite revealing.

Of course, had South ducked the opening lead, a club ruff would have defeated the contract very quickly.

The end result was a triumph for doing nothing spectacular and hoping that a rare lay-out of the side-suits occurred. Declarer could hardly have envisaged the actual lay-out at trick 1.

Chef on form

The declarer in both yesterday’s and today’s hand was Jonathan Westoby who is the Chef de Mission of our four international teams who are taking part in the Asia Pacific Bridge Federation Championships which start this coming Saturday in China and last for just over one week.

The four teams include two brand new young pairs in our Open Team with Ashley Bach being unusually the “wise old head” of the team. The team is:

Ashley Bach – Nick Jacob, Jeremy Fraser-Hoskin – Zachary Yan, Lysandra Zheng – Tim Pan. Now well established in our top group of players, Zachary, Lysandra and Tim are former pupils who learnt the game a decade ago at Macleans College in Howick. Jonathan is also acting as their npc.

Our Women’s team has a familiar ring to it: Andi Boughey- Carol Richardson,  Kate Terry – Mindy Wu, Candice Smith- Kinga Hajmasi.  Kris Wooles is the npc.

Our other two teams have playing captains, Graeme Tuffnell and Michael Cornell. The Mixed Team is Graeme Tuffnell- Jan Alabaster, Ian Berrington – Fuxia Wen and Liz and Blair Fisher.

In the Seniors team are Michael Cornell – GeO Tislevoll, Murat Genc – Anne Somerville and Malcolm Mayer – Brian Mace.

Play starts on Saturday and we hope to bring reports from China next week.

In the last two days, the Chef de Mission has set a good playing yardstick.

Richard Solomon

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