Suffolk Green Point Swiss Pairs
Suffolk staged a Green Point event last weekend in Ipswich. These events were once extraordinarily popular and the Association organisers might well have been disappointed to note that the entry was down on the last occasion a few years ago. The answer became apparent to me at least when I received the English Bridge Union press release for the weekend; there were no fewer than six of these events on the Sunday (including Ipswich) and three more on the Saturday. There was some dispersion nationally but Bedford (taking Cambridgeshire players) and London (Essex) were local competitors. The EBU has to be careful not to kill this type of competition with saturation, especially the weekend before the start of the Summer Festival in Brighton.
As I indicated in last week's article, the temperament for match-point eludes me and after a reasonable start this is how the third match began:
| ♠ 108432 | ||||
| ♥ 62 | ||||
| ♦ 1064 | ||||
| ♣ K109 | ||||
| ♠ A7 | ♠ KQJ65 | |||
| ♥ A95 | ♥ KJ104 | |||
| ♦ AJ52 | ♦ Q73 | |||
| ♣ A842 | ♣ 5 | |||
| ♠ 9 | ||||
| ♥ Q873 | ||||
| ♦ K98 | ||||
| ♣ QJ763 | ||||
Six diamonds by west was the contract, I won't burden you with the bidding sequence suffice to say that east had described his hand shape exactly and west had revealed nothing at all. I don't claim that this is a great contract, though the diamond ten would dramatically improve it, but you need to ride some fortune to win pairs events (so I'm told). North led a low spade and west won in hand and tried a diamond to the queen, south won and played a club. Assuming trumps behaved, declarer now seemed to have enough tricks in sight - a club, two hearts, three diamonds plus a ruff and five spades.
Exercising a modicum of caution however, after the club ruff and drawing trumps, he played the last diamond. Only now did he set about the spades finding they would yield only four tricks. This was the position:
| ♠ none | ♠ 6 | ||||||
| ♥ A95 | ♥ KJ | ||||||
| ♦ none | ♦ none | ||||||
| ♣ none | ♣ none | ||||||
It is true he wasn't out of shots yet - had south been solely responsible for clubs then they would only be able to hold two hearts, likewise north who had spade obligations. But the discards were fairly convincing that the heart queen was guarded in south. The small error? On the third and fourth round of trumps, the ten and knave of hearts should be pitched, that way the position is more flexible and you can take a finesse against south if you think it is right.
EBU and Suffolk Swiss Pairs
| 1 | Ray Cornell / David Clark (Essex) | 94 VP | |||
| 2 | Rod Oakford / Sue Oakford (Cambs & Hunts) | 91 VP | |||
| 3 | John L'Estrange / Janet L'Estrange (Essex) | 87 VP | |||
Published Saturday 11.Aug.2001