Page 11 - ABF Newsletter December 2024

direction chose 7] as their final contract, and that went seven down for -350. Or the one where 7[ failed when declarer, needing two club tricks with Q10 opposite Ax ran the queen losing to a singleton king.
Back to the winners
It is a curious thing, but until she became my screen- mate during the final I had never encountered Sophie Ashton. She confused me by apologising to her partner after the first board, because I couldn’t think of anything she had done wrong or could have done differently. Only later did I realise that she apol- ogised to her partner after EVERY hand where they got a minus score! That makes some sense – you wouldn’t get many minus scores sitting opposite a master craftsman like David Wiltshire. But Sophie has the traits that everyone should be looking for in a partner. She is competent, calm, alert and exudes kindness to everyone at the table.
Phil Markey and Joachim Haffer arrived at the event as the in-form pair in the nation. They racked up a phenomenal score in the pair datums of the Open Teams in the Spring Nationals just before the play- off, and with Ashton - Wiltshire won that event. Both Markey and Haffer put maximum pressure on their opponents in the bidding and the play. This was the first board of the final stanza with the Markey gang holding a slender lead.
Chris Depasquale and Michael Courtney
In the bidding the West hand had denied a four-card major so I assumed that West had begun with 3-2- 4-4 distribution, thinking he would have played the hand differently with five diamonds. When Michael exited with the {10 that reinforced my view of West’s distribution. This became, what Hercule Poirot liked to call the Idée Fixée, so when declarer won the ace and cashed two more clubs (on which he discard- ed dummy’s diamond ten) I failed to notice partner follow suit on the third round! When two diamonds were cashed, and I was down to ]Jxx and {J I let go a spade, keeping the irrelevant 13th club! This let the contract make for -600. At the other table our teammates were +500 defeating 3[ doubled, so my rookie error cost 15 imps in a match decided by less than that.
On the bright side, I will no longer wake up scream- ing from the nightmares about those chess moves I played last century...
Earlier in the event I also had to choose between taking a low percentage shot at a genuine way to make or testing the opponents discards and signals. This is what I began with as declarer in 6NT.
]K42 [QJ }A83 {AKQ53
] A Q J 10 [A3
} Q 10 6 4 {987
The lead of 7[ went queen-king-ace. On the second top club East showed out. There are some diamond configurations that enable you to make the con- tract, such as both missing honours in the East hand, or exactly Jxx with East but I didn’t like it. Empirically
]A62
[ 10 3 }86542 {KQ8
]Q3 [QJ975 }QJ9
{ 10 6 5
]J854 [K862 }3 {J974
]K1097 [A4 }AK107 {A32
Haffer, West, declared 3NT. Courtney led his fourth- best 7 of hearts. The genuine way to make on the layout is the double finesse in diamonds, which is (empirically) only about a 25% chance. Playing for 2-2 diamonds is (empirically) better at around 40%. Haffer went for the suicide squeeze instead, winning the ace at trick one and returning one. We all know the percentages for various breaks and finesses, but what are the true odds of both defenders keeping all the correct cards for the endgame? On the hearts Haffer discarded three diamonds from hand and a spade, diamond and club from dummy, while I dis- carded a spade.
Australian Bridge Federation Ltd. Newsletter: December 2024
Page 11