Tollemache Qualifier
The fortunes of Suffolk at last weekend's annual qualifier for the Tollemache Cup, the national championship for counties, bore a superficial likeness to last year's. Suffolk finished slightly above average in points won and slightly below midway in the ranking, having won four matches, lost four and drawn one. But that summary does disservice to the prevailing conditions; this year we found ourselves in the 'group of death'.
There are four sections each of which receives two seeds, one top four finalist one lower, with non-qualifiers from the previous year drawn randomly. Some counties are stronger than others and will have narrowly missed out last year; on Saturday, most of those found themselves in our ten team group.
It is hard to give a flavour of the competition in print. Suffice to say it is perhaps the one event in the calendar for counties that breaches the barrier between top class bridge and county/club. More deals will appear in due course but here is one that goes some way to showing what I mean.
- AK
- A932
- A543
- KJ10
1) Weak; 3-7
2) Not constructive (North-South open a strong no-trump)
At your club this would no doubt be routine; you start with double, partner would reply at the one level and you would show your range, just above a 15-18 no-trump overcall, by bidding 1NT second time around. The opponents, clearly outgunned in high cards, would remain respectfully silent throughout. Not last weekend.
Established partnerships have met this sort of thing before and have methods to mitigate it. Most give up on a penalty double by West; that call would be 'responsive', indicating a desire to bid but no clear action. West's 2NT also will be sacrificed; that bid introducing a weak suit, naming it immediately will be stronger. All that helps you to make your decision but choosing pass and expecting +50 or so could be wrong if partner has five or six of a red suit or perhaps king-queen of diamonds. Another action – double? 3NT? – will be expensive if partner is just balanced with a single knave or queen.
On Saturday the best score East-West was to reach 3NT for +600. To give you some idea of the difficultly, only three of the twenty tables managed that.
Suffolk at the Tollemache qualifier 2007
Represented by:
P. Gemmell / P. Sutcliffe
J. Moore / D. Price
E. Lockhart / J. Green
J. Gobert / C. Chambers
D. Sutcliffe (NPC)
Beat: Essex 20-0, Staffordshire & Shropshire 18-2, London 16-4, Wales East (Q2) 12-2
Drew: North East 10-10
Lost: Derbyshire 9-11, Manchester 4-16, Berkshire & Buckinghamshire 2-18; Kent (Q1) 0-20
Published Saturday 1.Dec.2007