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A disappointingly low entry of 77 players from only three clubs took part in heats to qualify for a 20-player final.
Board 19 caused problems all round the room:
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The unopposed East-West auction began in four out of five
cases 1
- 1
-
1NT. The West players settled for 3NT at this point, perhaps
influenced by the pairs scoring and by having an unknown quantity
for a partner. West having shown extra values with the 1NT rebid,
a jump to 3 must be natural and forcing,
as in the Individual event no gadgets such as a 2 `checkback' are permitted. This might have enabled the
very good contract of 6 to be
reached.
After (say) a diamond lead, the plan is to ruff two spades in
dummy. A trump to hand at trick 2 suggests a 4-1 break, but the
9 is a good card to see. Play the King
and Ace of spades, ruff a spade with the 8, and play a heart to
establish a trick in that suit. Then you can win the return, ruff
the last spade with King, draw the rest of the trumps and you
have your twelve tricks.
All five declarers however played in notrumps (the fifth one having been propelled into 6NT by her partner.) I watched each declarer in turn take a successful spade finesse, and at some stage play a heart to the Queen, noting the fall of the Jack (or ten) from North. With eleven tricks assured whatever the lie of the cards, it can cost nothing to lead a heart back towards the King. When the other low heart honour conveniently pops up, the 9 in dummy becomes the twelfth trick. Sadly the declarers had all without exception cashed all their minor suit winners before trying the second heart, enabling South to take the last two tricks.
Congratulations to Sheila Barker on winning the event after a close tussle throughout with David Carmichael.
[In no trumps it does feel natural to play off the clubs
hoping someone throws a spade from 4. Once Q holds marking South with A,
cashing the diamonds can never gain against sensible defence.
North is under no pressure holding spade length, and if North
held 
Qxx, South will come down to
10x AJ, and on
the last diamond can afford to throw J.
So playing a second heart looks right, as Dave says. However, if
North finds the difficult play of following to the first two
spades with 9 and Q, declarer will almost certainly go wrong, playing to
endplay South. If North is good enough to do this, (s)he's
certainly good enough to drop the 10
from 10xx!
One good reason for playing off the clubs is that South has
an unpleasant guess with say 10xxx AJxx Jxxx 9. If you've been
fortunate to have had an unrevealing auction a spade discard is
very likely. If your auction began 1-1-1NT-2*-2-3,
however, it is much easier for South to throw red suits.
(ed)]
97