Page 9 - ABF Newsletter June 2024

The full deal: Board 3. Dealer South. East-West vulnerable. \]32 \[AJ763 \} J 10 8 2 \{K6 \]K \]AJ974 \[ K 4 \[ 10 5 \}9765 \}Q3 Board 7. Dealer South. Both sides vulnerable. \]95 \[K642 \}A6 \{QJ974 \]86 \{ A Q J 9 7 5 \] Q 10 8 6 5 \[Q982 \}AK4 \{3 \{ 10 8 4 2 \[Q87 \{83 \]AKJ104 \{102 ‘Ah yes’ I recovered sagely...’a residual chance !’ It would take longer than our readers would choose to spend cataloguing all the errors made in this deal. Good old partner sat there apparently not going through the fires of hell, though how he managed I cannot guess. There was only one bit of system Ashley tried to in- troduce, and it revolved around hands with either 25+ HCP, game in hearts or very strong with hearts and another. So when 2\{ is opened, responder bids 2\} relay, opener bids 2\[, and responder MUST bid 2\] to dis- cover what manner of 2\{ bid it was. So help me, it came up! 2\{ he said, and I obediently relayed with 2\} and alerted his 2\[. Then I had yet another senior moment and raised hearts to the three-level. The moment I had done that, before even the pass on my left, the penny dropped, and after Ashley’s 3NT I raised to 6NT (since he was 25+ after all). Board 24. Dealer West. Neither side vulnerable. \[ 10 \} J 10 5 \{AK65 West, on my right, had doubled our keycard re- sponse for a heart lead, which would have simplified matters, but East had been playing with Terry Brown all weekend so tried his own king of diamonds. Now we must bring in the spade suit, and the criti- cal moment was reached after drawing trumps. This time my poor play was not blessed by the Rueful Rabbit’s guardian angel. Reaching the point at which trumps are drawn, two rounds of spades have been played with all follow- ing and RHO follows small to the jack. What do you do? If you run it you make of course. Sadly I wasn’t up to it. Perhaps someone could point out how it should be played, and why. I have an uneasy feeling I should have been paying attention to East’s carding. Some Easts may have been sleepily giving count, but this East was clearly a good player and that would have been unlikely. For me the Monday morning was predictably my most feeble session, having played 56 boards on each of the three preceding days. The old battery was getting flat. My back had been to Michael Courtney for the entire four sessions of the Teams, so I was the victim of a number of whacks on or about the shoulders as boards moved about. Michael was gracious enough to apologise at the conclusion of the event on the grounds he thought I was someone else – so it wasn’t a complete accident! There was a super and encouraging performance by the youth team Reid (Lauren Morgan, Alex Goss, Jas- mine Skeate, Jeremy Reid), who made a late run into the runner up position. Very best wishes to them on their journey to Poland later in the year. Ashley is a super partner, and Duncan and Paula kept bringing back scorecards to die for, so old RR (alias Freddie) was able to have his horrors covered at both tables. We were all very proud to have been successful in the John Brockwell Teams. \]93 \[ Q J 10 9 5 \}K43 \{J75 \] A K 10 4 \[A3 \}AQJ \{ A K 10 4 As you can see, 6NT needs a bit of help, but it scored up well. Once again RR had landed on his feet. In the penultimate round we arrived in a very ordi- nary 6\{ from, inevitably, my North seat. \]J852 \[K42 \} 10 6 \{Q932 \]Q76 \[876 \}98752 \{86 \]Q732 \[AJ953 \}84 \}KQ9732 Australian Bridge Federation Ltd. Newsletter: June 2024 Page: 9