Eastbourne by Foxymoron

It was good to see eight and a half tables at the Woodberry Weekend in Eastbourne, excellently organised by Shelley Shieff. Non-members are encouraged to join these events and the Allworth Salver, the main event of the weekend, was won by Tim Pelling and Naomi Cohen, occasional visitors to the Woodberry. We hope they will come more often.

The dealing program had created a number of interesting hands. The following was in the Alan Parker Teams, traditionally held on the Saturday afternoon. Alan always wanted to make at least one slam in a session, preferably a success when the opponents failed to cash the ace and king of a side-suit, and if it was doubled all the better!

This was quite a tricky slam, flat in our match, but not bid and made at any other table. We bid 2NT-3C-3S-6S. 2NT showed 20-22 and 3C was simple Stayman. Many have not discussed whether 4NT after 3S is Key Card Blackwood or quantitative and whether one is playing "3041" or "1430". I prefer the latter, as it is the score for making 6H or 6S, vulnerable! There are pitfalls here. Say West leads a diamond and you start on trumps as one does. You lead the queen of spades and West ducks. Now if you continue with another spade you cannot make it. West ducks again and there is no way to untangle 12 tricks. Another unsuccessful line, after a round of spades, is to play three rounds of hearts, ruffing in South. Again you cannot make it. West ducks the next round of spades, wins the third round, and exits with a diamond, and you cannot draw the trump and enjoy four clubs. And equally frustrating is if you try to ruff a heart immediately you fail, provided West ducks two rounds of spades.

The winning line on the diamond lead is to cash the other top diamond and now ruff a diamond, cross to the king of hearts and ruff another diamond. Now you play on trumps and are home and dry. This seems to be a military expression from the 19th century when you finished an exercise conducted in wet weather.

The teams was won by Elsa Nelson, Roy Cooper, Nigel Freake and Chantal Girardin, pictured below. The first two were top of the X-imps as well. Well done!"

Saturday night was a quiz, well run by Stefanie Rohan and Andrew Clery with an excellent picture round from Shelley Shieff. It was won by Anne Catchpole, Peter Rogers, Nigel Freake and Chantal Girardin.

The name Eastbourne is a corruption of East Burn, with Burn being a stream. Appropriately the winners of the Sunday morning pairs were Stefanie Rohan and David Burn. 

And I nearly forgot. The weakest possible bridge hand is a "41", 432 432 432 432 with a 5 in any of the suits, totalling 41 pips. It cannot win a trick in no-trumps, whereas all "42"s can! And 41 is the atomic number of Niobium, which was originally Columbium.

Yarborough by Foxymoron

The term Yarborough originated from whist. The Earl of Yarborough, believed to be in 1874, offered the odds of 1,000 to 1 against someone being dealt a hand in whist with no card above a nine. The true odds are 1828 to 1, so he was taking a rake of over 40%, not bad if you can afford the odd hit.

The North Lincolnshire village of Yarborough has a long history, with evidence of human occupation dating back to the Iron Age. The village was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Earburg", meaning "eagle fortification". The crest above is spectacular.

There was a difficult quiz question once. What links the chemical element Niobium with the weakest possible bridge hand? I don't expect this to detain you too long. Answer next blog. Post "solved" in the comments. 

I picked up a Yarborough last week at the Woodberry and was surprised to become declarer.

East opened a very sound 2S and South doubled. North bid 2NT, the Lebensohl convention, showing any weak hand and asking his partner to bid 3C. South, however, had too good a hand for a sign-off, and tried 3NT but North corrected to 4H.

East had a tricky lead. The king of spades was sure to be on his left, so he tried the ace of spades, on which partner played the two. This should be suit-preference for clubs, but could also, of course, be a singleton. Given that East has only three diamonds, I think the club switch is now percentage, as declarer will be able to draw trumps and may discard a club on a long diamond if they are 3-3.

A difficult decision, but Harvey Fox, East, played a second spade and a club went away on a top diamond. Two of the four declarers in 4H made, and two went off, so the defence is not obvious.