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            Matchsticks….

It can be hard concentrating while you are playing bridge especially when you are playing 72 boards in one day. You need a period or two of “wind down”. The experts say the only time you can afford to do that is when you are dummy…but they only say that because expert declarers never revoke! (Do you believe that?).

However, when you have nothing to say during the bidding, you can for a second or two just, well, think of dinner, what you are going to do at the end of play, all the kind of things which you should not be thinking about at the bridge table.

So, have you seen this sequence before?

                        West                          East

                        1                               3

                        4                             

You are North, have an opening hand, but after West’s opening bid have nothing to say.

Maybe the sequence was slightly longer

                        West                          East

                        1                            4 club shortage, spade support

                        4 (A)                  4

                        Pass

Are you still there?

I will show you the North hand:

 AKQJ            105     975      Q853

I repeat. That is the North not the West hand! Your opposition want to play in 4 and there is just a slight chance you can beat that contract. Come on now, you have doubled on worse and the contract has not always made! Barring a revoke, you are on safe ground this time. Were you awake?

It’s time to reveal all four hands and what happened at all 32 tables in the qualifying rounds of the Auckland Easter Teams.

Now, I am on slightly dangerous ground in offering 5 North players some      as at 5 tables, 4 was the contract but there was no double. I would offer a double dose of

to the North player who failed to find a double of 5! Perhaps they were waiting to hear their opponents bid slam?

Now, my nervousness is because were any East feeling inspired, they could have removed the contract to 4NT (I would be a little apprehensive of the club position) because you could be a real hero and make this game as long as East is declarer. (I will not challenge you to the opening lead in 4NT if West is declarer!)

For those of you not interested in throw-in plays, please skip the next paragraph. To make 4NT East must win the opening lead, say a diamond, cash A,and play three top hearts and three more top diamonds. There are 5 cards left. North is likely to throw a spade to keep  Q8. Declarer exits a spade which gives North 3 tricks but East the last 2 in clubs..10 tricks made.

If North is a real hero,and discards down to 4 spades and the Q, East can give South their heart and diamond tricks but next comes a club and seeing through the back of the cards, declarer goes up with the K to score two club tricks to make 10.

Perhaps, the 5 North players who passed 4 had worked all that out?

11 North players certainly had not for they had   

and doubled 4. Not one East player ran! Actually, 13 North players doubled 4and two were very impressed to see their West opponent reach for the blue redouble card. I know how those West players felt. North will be in for an awful shock as dummy will have a trump honour  and playing trumps would now be easy for declarer. They were correct about the last comment though I do have to reprimand those North players who boringly led top of a sequence. It would much more inventive to drop the Q on the table as the opening lead and express disgust that you had dropped it by mistake..and ask if you could change the lead! Style…come on. We are here to enjoy this game.

Let’s move on as we have only covered 19 of the 32 tables so far. At the risk of being reported on the Bridge Zone weekly program, I can report that Barry Jones’ excellent partner, Jenny Millington,as West, asked Barry how good his trumps were by raising 4 to 5. Barry never got a chance to answer as North did. At their table, North was very wide awake and was loving the auction. He thought Barry might decline the invite and so doubled 5. 9 West’s experienced that fate at the 5 level. Two still had ambition and sent the double back…and all were very disappointed.

Stopping in 4 is not that obvious as West has a very good hand (in three suits) and their partnership has every ace and king outside trumps…and more! However, 2 East-Wests ploughed on regardless to 6 and no matter who had used Blackwood, or not, there was no hope or reprieve from the double. At least, neither table saw the redouble card used.

30 out of 32 tables. That leaves us with two very good news stories. Congratulations to James Yang and William Wang who somehow diagnosed that 3NT was the place to be…and even though West got to the wheel, North could only cash 4 winners before declarer took 9. To add insult to gross injury, this match saw one of the 6x contracts at the other table, a nasty or lovely 14 imp swing, depending on your seat at the two tables.

However, we finish with the bizarre. Have you heard about lead-directing doubles? Well, at a low level, you really need to be sure, to be sure… and North was to find that the double in the following sequence was “not sure”.

West              North            East                South

1                   Pass                1                  Pass

2                   Pass                2                 Pass

2                   x                      xx                    All Pass

You understand the sequence? I doubt it!

1 was a normal Precision Club with 1 showing 11-13 balanced or a club suit. 2 asked East which they had with 2showing 11-13 balanced. ( 4441 is treated as a balanced hand.) West now asked their partner whether they liked spades…. and two players answered “Yes” we do. Unfortunately for North, the other one was East, who showed 0-2 controls in the process with the redouble. That ended West’s slam ambitions but it also ended the bidding. Unfortunately, for North, the score for 2XX making an overtrick was -840.

While there is a lesson for North about low level penalty or lead directional doubles, the result is a nice reward for Sylvester Riddell and Mark Robertson who have put a lot of work into quite a complex system. You win some: you lose a few. This was a real “win,win” for them. For North, the only advice I can give is that they should have thrown away those 

in an auction which did not concern them. Not that they should have thought about dinner, either, but a red card was shown just a little too soon.

Richard Solomon

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