Summer is over!
Summer is over! Well, the 2008 Summer League is but the good news is that this Summer is just around the corner – ask if your club is entering, the competition has a wide a range of teams.
This year the tournament might change its name; to something like the 'Interclub League' but to be fair, except for knock-out phase, matches were completed some time ago. Colchester met Ipswich and Kesgrave in the final and it was a close affair. Colchester were 4 IMPs up at the half but as the final results were collated the second half seemed to have gone Ipswich's way. They had won 9 IMPs to lead by five but there was one board in play:
| NS Vul. Dealer East | ♠ 7 | ||
| ♥ J985 | |||
| ♦ 1084 | |||
| ♣ AKJ92 | |||
| ♠ A9632 | ♠ K5 | ||
| ♥ 1062 | ♥ AK74 | ||
| ♦ 2 | ♦ AKQ73 | ||
| ♣ Q1087 | ♣ 65 | ||
| ♠ QJ1084 | |||
| ♥ Q3 | |||
| ♦ J965 | |||
| ♣ 43 | |||
| West | North | East | South | |
| I&K | Colch. | I&K | Colch. | |
| 1♦ | Pass | |||
| 1♠1 | Pass | 2♥ | Pass | |
| 2NT2 | Pass | 3♣3 | Pass | |
| 3♥4 | Pass | 3♠ | End |
1. Five card suit
2. 'Blackout', an artificial use of 2NT to introduce a weak hand after a reverse
3. Required by the above, allowing west to complete the message
4. Weak hearts preference
South was waiting in the wings to double four spades but Jim Gobert knew there was only courtesy support opposite and, with no eight-card-fit, elected to play a part-score despite the combined 25 HCP. Even three spades wasn't easy; north started the defence well by cashing two top clubs and should have put matters beyond declarer by playing a third. In fact he switched to a heart, won in east for king and another spade. Had south played low on this I don't think west would have put in the nine but south contributed an honour and that was fatal.
South had to harmlessly follow suit to four rounds of diamonds (the last ruffed) then a heart to the king. Dummy's last diamond was led, south had ♠QJ8, the closed hand ♠96 (and a club) and could not be prevented from scoring the spade nine for his ninth trick.
The result-sheet was opened: two scores of north-south +50 cancelled each other and Ipswich had +100 (from 3NT-2) to go with +140 from the play above. That meant it was Ipswich who had 6 IMPs and a win by eleven.
Published Saturday 21.Mar.2009