All News

John Wang and Gary Chen. 

A Hard Way to a Top Score.

In the last two days, we featured boards from the Auckland Provincial Teams. Also, this past weekend, the Auckland Provincial Pairs took place. Despite a fine 70.37 % off the 27 board first session by Pam Livingston and Michael Ware, this event was won by Gary Chen and John Wang who recorded 62.32% in the 39 board second session to go with 62.22% in the first session. That consistency saw them beat Lysandra Zheng and Tim Pan by just over 22 matchpoints with Liz and Blair Fisher a further 74 matchpoints behind. The unlucky Michael and Pam, who could only just top 50% in the second round finished 4^th, just one matchpoint behind Liz and Blair.

The following board certainly helped Gary and John on their way.

 

What would you do here? After agreeing hearts and forcing to game, you tell your partner you would like to penalise 4. However, your partner, whose 4 was a cue-bid suggesting slam, declined. What now?

It seemed obvious to Gary Chen that his partner was void in spades. Apart from J, all his own honours seemed useful to partner. So, he raised John to 6.

John ducked the opening K lead and ruffed the A continuation. He played a club to the J and then A. Then, Q to the ace and a diamond ruff followed by a second spade and then a second diamond ruff. These cards remained:

A high-level cross-ruff ensured the last five tricks, with North having to under-ruff four times! The key was to secure two club tricks and two diamond ruffs before North could discard a minor card on the fourth round of spades.

That was a hard way to gain a 100% board. 4x going at least for 500 and normally for 800 would still have been a 98% board. (equal nil vul.) Playing Teams, “taking the money” would definitely have been correct! Only three of the remaining 30 pairs made 12 tricks playing in hearts, at the game level.

Richard Solomon

Go Back View All News Items