Four Musketeers from the Woodberry had a successful day at the London Metropolitan Bridge Association Teams of Four on 9th July. There were quite a few Woodberry members who also did well, in particular Andrew Clery and Bill Linton in the team that finished fifth.
One of the most interesting and complicated boards was the following:
Stefanie Rohan did well on this hand. East, Paul Lamford opened 1C and John Cox, also a Woodberry member, doubled as South. Stefanie, West, redoubled and David Willis, North, upped the ante with 2S. East and South passed and Stefanie made the practical bid of 3NT.
North led the seven of spades to the ace and South continued with the ace and another heart to West's ten (ducking works well) and North's queen. Now North switched to the eight of diamonds which South won with the king. At this point South needed to cut the link with a club shift, but instead missed his chance by playing a third heart. West won and cashed her red winners to squeeze North in the black suits. John, an expert who has won the Camrose for England, realised he had to play a club quite quickly afterwards.
As David Burn once said, "An expert is one who knows what he should have done just after he did something else".
The winning team, left to right, Paul Lamford, Stefanie Rohan, Chantelle Girardin, Ken Barnett.
Well done.
ReplyDeleteI think I would of just bid 2NT with a minimum redouble (not that it matters as East is raising anyway). Alternatively you could just double. Looks like you are getting +300 on a heart lead. Partner wont be sitting for it with a void spade so looks like only 16 total trumps at most.
And isn't playing low on the second heart strongly indicated? Playing the ten gains against AQJ4 with South but loses to AQ94 or AJ94.
Also worth noting that North switching to a club instead of a diamond will probably work for the defence too (think declarer will struggle for discards if they set up the clubs hoping to squeeze South in the reds).
Interesting to speculate how the auction might go if South doesn't bid (as X is hardly a 100% action). 1C-1D-3D-3NT or 1C-1H-2H seem likely candidates. I see the hand was played in 2H-2 by West at the other table so it looks like the defence went well!
I passed as South, and the bidding went as Ryan suggests, 1C-1H-2H. Chantal led the D8, ducked to my DK, and D9 back.
DeleteSpade to my SA, and a third Diamond. Straightforward so far, but Declarer was disappointed to find that I still had HAJ94.
Ken