All News

You may have noticed that one particular team have been doing rather well recently. They are our Open International Team, Michael Cornell – Ashley Bach, Michael Ware – GeO Tislevoll and Michael Whibley – Matthew Brown. They have been mixing it with the best on the international scene…and have not been doing too badly on the local scene either.

With Ware-Tislevoll playing separately with different partners at Auckland’s Easter Congress and having the recent Queens Birthday off altogether, the other four teamed up. To say they had two emphatic wins would be an understatement. Both events ran with 6 round Swiss qualifying and 4 round finals. They won both Swiss events emphatically. At Easter, they won the final by 16 vps while at Queen’s Birthday, the final margin was a massive 35 vps…and that was just the gap between first and second!

They went through both events unbeaten…that’s quite an achievement. 20 straight wins.

There are many attributes required for such consistent winning. Let’s focus here on just one of them, having methods to deal with problem hands. Both the following boards came from the final rounds of the recent Queens Birthday event.

First of all, here is Matt Brown and Michael Whibley:

West	East
Michael	Matt
AJ5	QT986
K	A4
AK9764	82
Q32	AJT8

 

 

A natural auction might go:

West	East
1	1
3	3NT
Pass

East does not have a good second bid over 3. 3 would show a 6 card suit while 3 would show a heart stop but would look for a club hold from partner for no-trumps, not the hand East holds. The trick is to find the 5-3 spade fit and then bid on to slam. Here is how Matt and Michael achieved that:

Michael	Matt
1	1
3	3
4	4NT
5	6
Pass

 

 

The key system bid was 3 which is game-forcing and artificial showing six diamonds with three card spade support. 3 said Matt was interested in slam (had he bid 4, that would be a sign-off).

(You may wish to skip the next paragraph, a little technical.)

Michael’s next task was to show any shortage held which they show in steps: 3NT denying a shortage, 4 short club, 4 short heart...i.e. bidding shortages "up the line".

Matt then used Roman Key-Card and got the response (5) showing 2 without the trump queen. Matt had that card and bid to the excellent slam which made an overtrick when the K and diamond break were respectively favourable and normal.

 

Note that 6 requires you to take the right black suit finesse. As you know, we are generally incapable of doing that!

 
Michael, Ashley, Michael and Matthew along with Auckland player, Jeter Liu, whose family business,
Taishan Building Group Ltd provided as per previous years most generous sponsorship for the Congress.
The presentation was very much a family affair with Jeter's wife,Qiao, daughter, Jenny, and granddaughter,
Chelsea, all present.

On then to Ashley Bach – Michael Cornell. How would you fare with these hands:

West	East
AQ9	74
AK532	Q987
AK6	85
AJ	K8765

7 has chances but you would certainly want to be in small slam. Many pairs now play that a 2NT rebid after an opening 2 shows 24+ high card points (avoiding the need to jump to 3NT with 25, an ugly space-using bid). However, there is another difficulty here even if you do. Let’s suppose you use 3 as a major suit enquiry in the sequence:

West	East
2	2
2NT	3

and that West’s response of 3 shows a 5 card suit. What should East do? 4 would certainly end the auction. You may wish to agree hearts as trumps and cue-bid 4 to show partner you have some interest in slam and hold one of the top two club cards. However, say you had bid 3 with 4 spades and a 5 or 6 card club suit which you now want to show by bidding 4.     4 cannot mean both heart support and be a natural bid. Michael and Ashley have the answer. Here was their sequence:

West	East
Ashley	Michael
2	2
2NT	3
3	3 The bid of the other major is a slam try agreeing partner’s 5 card suit.
3NT	4
4	6
Pass

3NT was waiting, allowing Michael to show his K. 4 was also a cue-bid after which Michael ended proceedings. Here are the four hands:

 

Note had Michael held a long club suit, instead of having heart support, he would have bid 4 over 3.

Such artificial bids occur very rarely. (The “rainy day” heading applied in more than one sense this “long" week-end.) It is one thing having such artificial bids. One must remember them too.

Thus, catering for the unusual is just one way our top players can succeed regularly. The above two boards showed one reason why this team has the edge over their opponents locally while at the same time can challenge the world’s best internationally.

Richard Solomon

Go Back View All News Items