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More Kiwis win “In” Australia.

It was an Australasian team which won the Victor Champion Cup Open Swiss Teams which was played on Real Bridge this past weekend. The winning team was well-balanced between North Island (Auckland’s Tom Jacob and Brian Mace), South Island (Dunedin’s Brad Johnston and Sam Coutts) and Australia (Matt Smith and Andrew Spooner).

Sam Coutts

They won their first 7 (14 board) matches, losing the last narrowly to their closest challengers, Milne, though they still won by 7.62 vps.

The field was full of Kiwis with the following being the best results of the rest (Kiwis in NZ only).

4. Fleisher  Michael Whibley

6. Chen      Gary Chen – John Wang, June Lei – Jeter Liu

8. Dalley     Ashley Bach

9. Jacob     Steph Jacob- John Davidson, Tim Schumacher -Leon Meier

15. Fisher  Liz and Blair Fisher, Jo and Sam Simpson, GeO Tislevoll – Nick Jacob

17. Moskovsky Ella Jacob

20. Livingston Pam Livingston- Jeff Miller, Michael Cornell, Malcolm Mayer, Ian Berrington

There were 56 teams in the field.

Before reading on, decide how you would play the following board in 7. That was the task facing Tom Jacob, for the winners:

 

The lead is a low trump.

Their bidding needs a little explaining. 1 was 2+ clubs and 2NT 15+ balanced. 3 was natural, unbalanced and denied diamonds with 3 being natural.

Brian then asked for Key Cards with 4 and the 6 response showed two Key Cards, the Q, no outside kings and extra trump length.

Is Brian looking confused about the
appearance of a second Q?

That got Brian thinking. He looked at the Q in his own hand and deduced that Tom must have enough clubs not to worry that the Q was missing. Since his partner could have as few as three clubs, that meant Tom must have a 7-card suit. So, Brian bid one more….leaving Tom the hard job. He had 12 tricks on top and plenty of opportunities for a 13^th.

 

On the trump lead, Tom drew the four rounds necessary but also played a fifth round. He threw two hearts and a spade from dummy. North threw a diamond and South four hearts and a diamond.

Next came two top diamonds and a diamond ruff. No joy, yet. Then, he played a spade to the king and a second spade…to the ace! That did bring a smile!

 
Could this be Tom having just made 7 on Real Bridge? 

Had the queen not appeared, he would have played his last trump. Had North the guarded Q, they would have to throw a heart while so would South if they were guarding the Q. The hearts would have to be 1-1 and dummy’s two hearts would take tricks 12 and 13.

While 7 is a better contract than 7NT, since a declarer can ruff a diamond hopefully bringing down the queen in 3 rounds, in practice, those East players who bid 7NT were in better shape as South was effectively end-played in three suits before the opening lead. Any spade lead from South gives East three tricks in the suit as long as they do not insert J.

 

A “Tasty Number”

The number is “24” as that is the number of high-card points you hold. Yet your partner starts the bidding with a weak 2 (6-card suit) What will be your approach to the bidding? If you ask, your partner will show a poor weak 2 and then no key-cards. What will be your final contract?

 

Richard Solomon

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