Page 17 - ABF Newsletter February 2025

on lead, to give the defense any chance a diamond underlead away from the ace of diamonds is re- quired, and that is exactly what Dunga did. First hurdle cleared!
Hu won his king, and duly shifted to the five of spades. Chiu’s ten was taken by Dunga’s jack. Now, it was time for some serious thought. Based on the bidding and play so far, Dunga was able to correct- ly deduce the actual layout, but was there a way to beat 4[? Even the expert tournament commenta- tors were unable to figure it out when looking at all four hands, until Dunga put the six of spades on the table.
At the first glance, this seemed to solve declarer’s problem in spades, but a closer look reveals that it was actually a big trouble-maker. The bridge bet- ween the declarer and dummy was broken! Declarer could no longer set up the clubs and clear trumps at the same time.
In reality, declarer took dummy’s nine, and ruffed a diamond back before drawing trumps. When he tried the king of clubs from dummy next, Dunga could score his ace along with two diamond winners for two down.
It took two marvelous moves by Dunga to defeat this solid contract: an underlead to his partner first, then a free finesse for the declarer next. A candidate for next year’s best defense award?
In the other room declarer had no trouble taking 11 tricks:
WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH Mak Liu Jing Lai Zhuang
pass 1NT dbl 2} pass 2[ pass 3NT pass 4[
all pass
Zhuang started with an offshape 1NT and was trans- ferred to hearts, while West’s double of 1NT showed a four-card major and 5+ minor.
The defense here was straightforward: Mak start- ed with the ace of diamonds and another diamond. Zhuang ruffed in hand and played a club. Mak grabbed the club ace, which was the last trick for the defense. Having set up the club suit, Zhuang claimed 11 tricks seconds later.
DICK FREEMAN AWARD FOR JUNIORS Tomas Popowsky & Francisco Guerra Journalist: Carlos Pellegrini
Carlos Pellegrini, non-playing captain of Argentina’s under-21 team, provided this deal from his team’s match against England.
Board 7. Dealer South. Both sides vulnerable.
]AQJ [Q96 }AK432 {Q5
]4
[ A K 10 7 5 2 }QJ6
{ K 10 3
]9875
[ 8 4 3
}— {J87642
NORTH EAST
Hutton Feintuch Sanderson
pass 1NT pass 2[
2] pass 3}
3] pass 4]
NORTH EAST SOUTH E’borda A’katis Guerra
pass dbl 3[ 3]
4] all pass Both Wests opened 1[.
For England, Aaron Hutton overcalled 1NT and Liam Sanderson transferred to spades then showed his diamonds, and the partnership were soon in 4].
Clara Feintuch led a heart and Tomas Popowsky won the king and switched to the six of diamonds, a nice play. Hutton put up the ace and Feintuch ruffed – and the contract was doomed, all thanks to that nice low diamond switch. There simply hadn’t been enough EW bidding for declarer to be sure of the diamond layout.
At the other table, Baltazar Etchepareborda, for Ar- gentina, doubled the opening bid and Sam Anoyr- katis added to the list of manic preemptive bids we have seen in the last ten days with a jump to 3[ on his three small. 3[ did not prove to be sufficient to silence South, Francisco Guerra, who competed with 3] and was raised to game by Etchepareborda.
Daniel Winter led the king of hearts and, on seeing dummy and partner’s count card, also made the same nice switch to the six of diamonds – but Guerra made an even nicer play, when he called for a low card from dummy! Anoyrkatis got his ruff, but there was just one club to come and declarer was home with his vulnerable game. Very well played.
WEST Popowsky
1[ pass pass all pass
WEST Winter
SOUTH
1[ pass
] K 10 6 3 2 [J
} 10 9 8 7 5 {A9
Australian Bridge Federation Ltd. Newsletter: February 2025
Page: 17