Roth, Soloway, Seres and Brock
2007 saw a number of famous players cut out of the game for the last time. Early in the year Alvin Roth, perhaps not a household name today but inventor of many modern bidding treatments most notably the negative double, died in his nineties. Later Paul Soloway was unable to take his place in the USA squad at the Shanghai Bermuda Bowl and, as they failed to reach the knock out stage, they obviously missed him at the table too. A true giant of the game, Tim Seres of Australia, possibly one of the most complete players of all time contested his last rubber in September.
And 2008 has not started well in this respect; new year's day saw the passing of Raymond Brock, one of the elder statesmen of British bridge - a description that appealed to him. Winning the Gold Cup and Crockfords on multiple occasions - sadly at the expense of my team more than once - he was part of the group of players that dominated the game in the eighties and nineties. Most notably part of the British team that last seriously competed for a world title, contesting the final of the Bermuda Bowl in Jamaica in 1987 against the USA.
Looking back over the tournament book for Jamaica one has to say that top level bridge seems, if anything, harder work even than today. This was the era when system development was yet to be restrained by regulators and the pressure of facing obscure methods was ever present. This is a relatively simple deal from the semi-final against Sweden:
| EW Vul. Dealer East | ♠ AKQ976 | ||||||
| ♥ Q86 | |||||||
| ♦ --- | |||||||
| ♣ QJ82 | |||||||
| ♠ 5 | ♠ 10832 | ||||||
| ♥ 109753 | ♥ A | ||||||
| ♦ QJ98 | ♦ AK543 | ||||||
| ♣ 974 | ♣ A63 | ||||||
| ♠ J4 | |||||||
| ♥ KJ42 | |||||||
| ♦ 10762 | |||||||
| ♣ K105 | |||||||
| West | North | East | South | ||||
| Forrester | Lindkvist | Brock | Fallenius | ||||
| 1♦ | Pass | ||||||
| 2♦ | 2♠ | X | Pass | ||||
| 4♦ | Pass | Pass | 4♠ | ||||
| Pass | Pass | X | End | ||||
North declared spades at all eight tables (four semi-finals, open and women's), game being reached five times. Ten or more tricks were made at five tables and at one more declarer misplayed in a partscore with ten available. Often east did something odd; either leading the heart ace or, after a top diamond, switching to a trump (!) or a club.
Brock made no mistake. With only poor trumps to annoy declarer, forcing north to use his spades just to ruff diamonds was the obvious plan. With the opening lead and the aces of clubs and hearts Brock could force Lindkvist to ruff three times and establish his trump ten. The best declarer could do was to draw all the trumps and take just six spades and three hearts for one down. Jeremy Flint in the other room was a beneficiary of one of the misdefences to four spades and, this being board six of the 160 deal match, Britain were off to a great start.
Published Saturday 12.Jan.2008