Merry Cheatmas

                                                         North                            

                                                               ª A943
                                                               © AK84
                                                               ¨ QT84
                                                               § 5

 

                                                        South

                                                               ª K2

                                                               © 32  

                                                               ¨ A32

                                                               § AQJ432

The EBU were very suspicious of the above online hand where the Rueful Rabbit had made 7NT. South opened 2C, intended as Precision, showing 11-15 with 5+ clubs, and North bid 2D, intended as a relay opposite an Acol 2C. South rebid 2NT showing a non minimum with 6 clubs and North thought this was 23-24 so raised to 7NT. West led a neutral seven of spades, How do you make this contract And what lead would beat it?

The above hand from the Woodberry Xmas Party, (liar - Ed.) reminded me of one from the Xmas party three years ago in non-Covid times. We had two visitors who were slightly suspicious:

Belsnickel and Krampus, two of the Woodberry's seasonal visitors, reached a poor 6NT by South in the Santa Claus Pairs 3 years ago. How should "Belly" play it on the lead of the king of diamonds from Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer, West? RRR's nose let him down here. Which lead would have beaten the contract, which was cold on the actual lead?

And if you want to know the solution, then why not turn up at the Woodberry on 4th January, when we will resume F2F play at the club. Lateral flow tests highly recommended and masks obligatory 

Space Odyssey by Foxymoron

The Woodberry Bridge Club used modern technology to play in the 2001 US Nationals, and scored in a field of people they had never met. In 2001 there were several thousand tables in the US, so the scores were indeed indicative of how well you did. They will be on the Woodberry website in a couple of days.

There was one grand, on board 4, and it was a tricky one to play:

Richard and Debbie had the misfortune to see the Robot and Sam Nim reaching grand here, with East reversing and then bidding Key Card Blackwood. On the diamond lead, Debbie covered so that was that, but I think the Robot would have played the simple line of ruffing the third spade and made anyway. It is somewhat better than Hal was as you can see.

Reaching 7H is not easy. Richard Pavlicek recommends the uncontested auction 1D-1H-2C-2S-3H-4NT (simple Blackwood!; it was in 2001 and probably in 2010, the year we made contact)-5D-5NT-6D-7H. But it is easy with hindsight. And how do you play it? Well on say the QS lead you cash a top trump and discover the bad break. Now you can ruff a spade in dummy for your 13th trick, but that might not work as you might be overruffed. Or you can play the club-spade squeeze, and that does not work. Or some double squeeze. So many lines. If you made 7H you would get a top - in 2001, in 2010 or in 2021. And 7NT does not make.

And you can view all the hands at one of these links, depending on your browser security:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6gv32nsd7tajxzq/7u01.pdf?dl=0

https://tinyurl.com/kynnuvja

https://tinyurl.com/2p98wppm

All three seem to work. The last is presented nicely.

And the full results at the Woodberry, laboriously compiled by scorer Nigel Freake, are at:

https://tinyurl.com/3mvt9b82