More hands from Day 4 - CNTC 2009

Our second last match was against Rayner's team - who had been at or near the top of the leaderboard the entire four days. Two hands of interest. Keith held 73 QJ972 KJ94 93. His LHO opened 1 club; his RHO said 1 heart. Keith passed, and his LHO bid 1 spade, and now RHO bid 2 Diamonds - fourth suit forcing. LHO said 2NT (I think) and RHO jumped to 4 spades.

I led the five of diamonds, and dummy was

Q965
A1085
A8
Q74

Again, Keith held 73 QJ972 KJ94 94

Declarer played low from dummy and Keith won the Ace. At the other table, the defender holding Keith's cards woodenly returned a diamond - and the game was made easily.

Keith shifted to the nine of clubs - and this actually gave declarer fits. There is a line to make now, but it requires winning (or ducking - it turns out not to matter) the club Ace, and playing Ace and another spade.

As leader, I had K108 K43 10752 K108.

Declarer in fact rose with the club Ace; he next crossed to the dummy to lead a spade to the jack - I was able to win the King, and play King and another club for Keith to ruff and down 1. Win 10 imps.

Peter Herold got his partnership's revenge shortly after by playing the wheels off 4 hearts on the following layout.

North

74
8763
AK73
QJ8

South

QJ6
AJ42
J6
AK107

With no intervention, a routine Stayman auction led to 4 hearts. Keith led the ten of diamonds; Peter played dummy's king and I dropped the queen.

Peter next played a heart to the jack - which held ! Now he correctly left trumps alone and played four rounds of clubs - pitching a spade from dummy as I followed suit helplessly.

Next Peter exited the spade Queen. This came around to me and I won the Ace and played back the King of hearts to get the kiddies off the dummy's street.

But next came the Jack of diamonds from Peter's hand and I really had no answer - ten tricks quickly followed. All that work to lose 1 imp - as Jeff and Paul bid and made 3 NT + 1 at the other table.

This low scoring match ended with Rayner's team winning by 5 against us. So we headed to the last match against Ray Jotcham, Lew Richardson; Steve Mackay, and Alan Lee - not a team you want to see when you need a big win.

Fortunately, we were strong in this last match - we picked up imps on five part score hands, and stole a game swing when we bid and made 3NT at our table while Jeff and Paul were quietly going down 1 undoubled in 4 hearts the other way.

On one hand I had to make 3 clubs on this layout :

North

974
107
AJ9
A7542

South

62
KQJ98
84
KJ98

I had opened 1 heart in first chair; white versus red. Keith responded 1NT forcing, and Ray overcalled 2 spades. This was passed around to Keith who reopened with double and was charmed to hear me respond 3 clubs - which everyone passed.

Lew led the five of spades, Ray won and played three rounds of spades in total. I had two spade losers; and the Ace of hearts and a diamond loser, and now my trump position was being threatened. Best I could do here was pitch my losing diamond from my hand as Lew discarded a diamond.

Ray then played a diabolical fourth spade - and now I had no room to wiggle - I had to get this right.

I pitched a heart from hand, and Lew ruffed ahead of dummy with the ten of clubs. I over ruffed and figured my best chance to make now was a first round finesse against the club queen in Ray's hand.

This worked, whew, and I played a diamond over to dummy's Ace for another hook - and chalked up +110.

I think defenders sometimes don't look enough for opportunities to attack declarer with the ruff sluff as an effective defense - it paid dividends on the first hand of our quarter final match on Wednesday too - which I will show you in my next blog entry.

If anyone would like to contact me directly I can be reached at rosstaylor999@hotmail.com