Page 12 - ABF Newsletter August 2024

Round 10: South Australia vs Victoria.
Board 27. Dealer South. Neither side vulnerable.
] 10 8 3 [AJ984 }— {J9863
]42
[KQ3
} K Q J 10 9 7 {A5
WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH Redin Tomlin
pass 1[ dbl 2} pass 2] pass 3NT pass 4[
all pass
West led the ]2 to the king and ace. Ruffing a spade
immediately with the [Q didn’t look appealing since it was likely to set up a trump trick for the defence, so I went for the Morton’s Fork play of a low dia- mond towards the king, giving West a dilemma. I was hoping that they would duck, so I could pitch my second diamond on the {A, ruff a club, ruff a spade, ruff a club, then exit in spades enough times to hopefully score my [8 as well. That would have left me scoring six trump tricks in my hand, two black aces, a diamond and a spade ruff.
However, West accurately hopped up with the }A. The winning double dummy defence now is to give East a diamond ruff, who can return a trump and leave me with too many spade losers in my hand. Instead, West naturally played a trump to dummy’s queen. I ruffed a club back to hand and drew trumps, leaving this ending:
]—
[— }K96
{ A Q 10 8
]Q73
[—
} J 10
{K9 {J753
]8654 [J8 }Q
{—
Having only lost the }A, I needed five more tricks. On the [J, West let go a spade, so I unblocked the }Q and exited a spade, waiting for the opponents to give me access to dummy’s two winners to deal with my last two spades. At the time I thought the spade pitch was an error, but it turns out that West was squeezed in three suits. West can’t afford to pitch a card in the minors since I can overtake the }Q with the }K to gain access to any established winners.
At the end of the qualifying we were headed to play Victoria in the final for the third year in a row. The Seniors had NSW qualifying first with a substan- tial 126 VP lead over second place SA. The wom- en’s was reversed with SA qualifying first over NSW. The standings for the Open section were not clear until the final board. NSW had a huge lead over the field, but SA was 0.3 VP behind second place Victo- ria going into the last board of the NSW-VIC match. I was rooting for SA, and fortunately enough NSW
]AJ96 [5 }A862 { K Q 10 4
]KQ75 [10762 }543 {72
WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH Redin Tomlin
1NT pass 2} pass 2[ pass 2NT pass 4[
all pass
With three top black suit losers, I figured it was going to be difficult to establish dummy’s clubs and not lose a third spade trick. So I went after establish- ing my secret weapon. I won the {K lead with the {A and played the }K. I was relieved when this was covered and ruffed, but less happy when I played the [A and the [K to find the 4-1 split. More work to do!
I stopped drawing trumps, leaving the [Q as an entry to my hand, and played high diamonds pitch- ing spades from dummy. East ruffed the fourth round and played a club to his partner’s queen, who played a spade. With dummy now void in spades, I could ruff this and play the {J through East. They ruffed with their last trump, but I overruffed and claimed 11 tricks, pitching dummy’s last two clubs on my two top diamonds.
Round 13: South Australia vs ACT.
Board 14. Dealer East. Neither side vulnerable.
]9
[Q }K96542 { A Q 10 8 4
]Q732
[32
} A J 10 7
{K96 {J7532
]A8654 [AKJ876 }Q8
{—
] J 10 [ 10 }—
] K J 10 [ 10 9 5 4 }3
Page: 12
Australian Bridge Federation Ltd. Newsletter: August 2024