Newmarket Open Swiss Teams
by Victor Milman
I was asked to write about the Newmarket Open Swiss Teams, a
nice homey competition that was won this year, quite
unexpectedly - especially for ourselves - by Eryl Howard, Sally
Dempster, Nadia Stelmashenko and myself. The team was put
together on a rather short notice and did not have high
ambitions until the penultimate round when we managed to beat
Giles Woodruff's team 17-3. This win put us in the second
position, and we had to play Dr Hair, the leading team, in the
last round. This was lucky since our fate was in our own hands,
and 15-5 was just enough to beat Giles' team by one VP!
Our teammates played solid bridge throughout, bidding and
making their games and slams. Here is an example of bridge
judgement by Sally from the match against Woodruff, the board
that probably decided the distribution of the prizes. Sally
held Qx Axxxx Qx AKQx and the bidding started identically at
both tables: 1
by her partner, 2
weak jump overcall by nonvulnerable
opponents. The difference, however, was that Eryl's 1 was precision, 11-15, while Giles's 1 was a normal unlimited Acol bid. At this point
Sally decided that the only chance of a slam was to find a
heart fit with her partner; without a fit they were unlikely to
have enough points and tricks for a slam. She then continued
with a forcing bid of 3
and passed
partner's 3NT response which denied fit. As it happens, 1 opener had a maximum, nice 15 count (Kxx
QJ AKJxx Jxx), and 6NT depended on a heart finesse which was
off. Eryl still managed to take 12 tricks in her vulnerable
game, but then defence to a cold 3NT is an ungrateful task at
IMPs. At our table events took a different turn when Steve
Siklos decided to double for takeout with his strong hand. Now
Giles jumped to 3NT, his partner very reasonably bid 6NT. On a
heart lead with the spade return declarer lost the first two
tricks: a very useful gain for our team.
Here is another hand from the same match where Eryl and
Sally stayed in a partscore, with opponents bidding to a
hopeless game. Sally (and Steve) both opened 1 in the third seat, and in both cases this showed a 5
card suit. Once again, Sally's bid was limited by 15 points,
while Steve's wasn't. At our table Nadia bravely overcalled
1 with 3 -
very weak, king to six and nothing else. Giles leapt to 4 on this hand: xx Axxx xxx AJxx. The
contract had no play since trumps broke 4-2, not unexpectedly
in view of the preempt, and the peaceful 2NT by our teammates
brought another badly needed swing.
The only game (as far as I recollect) that our teammates
missed still brought us one IMP, although on a rather unusual
score comparison: 2+2 by our
teammates, +170, and 6
-3, -150, by us!
The full hand, rotated for convenience, was):
Our bidding went very high very quickly:
|
VM |
West |
NS |
East |
| 1 |
1 |
P |
4 |
| 5 |
5 |
6 |
all pass. |
|
|
|
In fairness to my partner, she missed an easy sacrifice in
5 a few boards earlier and had been
mildly criticized for that. This time she was determined to
sacrifice at as high a level as was needed - thus 6. The bidding was so confident that nobody
could find an obvious double. I have sympathy with West, who
probably expected 4 to be of a
preemptive variety. On the other hand East was unhappy about
doubling with weak and finessible holdings in both minors. As
the cards are, 4 is the last making
spot for E-W, so our 6 turned a plus
into a minus - at least not a very big minus.
Teammates managed to stop in 2
after a scientific sequence:
|
SD |
West |
EH |
East |
| 1 |
1 |
P |
2 |
| P |
2 |
all |
pass. |
|
|
|
2 here showed support for spades
with at least invitational values; perhaps after 2 East has enough to either make another try or
just blast 4 - it's a vulnerable game
at teams, after all, and partner's minimum for a vulnerable
overcall will probably offer some play for the contract. It's
hard work getting 1 IMP in...
Brilliant defence by Sally and Eryl earned us a game swing
on the next hand.
At our table the bidding was
|
South |
West |
North |
East |
| 1 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
| 2NT |
P |
3NT |
all pass |
|
|
|
and was pretty similar at the other table, probably with a
negative double instead of the 1 bid.
2NT is a fairly aggressive enterprise on the South hand, but it
seems that the club suit is good enough to justify the bid. I
was lucky to get a diamond lead, so that nine top tricks were
available, and at the end West was endplayed with a spade and
conceded another diamond, +430 (it's hard to keep everything on
the run of clubs - are you tired of references to bad
defence?). Sally found an inspired lead of a small heart, and
now declarer can only take his top eight tricks he started
with. I think this defence illustrates a nice point. When you
bid a suit, even with partner supporting it, and opposition
bids confident no-trumps after that, it pays off to look for an
alternative lead. Once in a while they will be bluffing, but in
the long run their 2NT-3NT sequence shows that they do have the
suit stopped. If anything, let partner lead towards your broken
holding through the hand that announced the stopper first.
Another case of leading your suit regardless of the bidding
often occurs after a preempt. One can so frequently see the
bidding go (2) - 2 - P - 2NT, P - 3NT or some such, and preemptor on lead
still fishes out the fourth highest from a holding like K10xxxx
with at most one outside entry. I'd suggest that having some
respect for opponents' bidding will save a few tricks on hands
of this sort.
Back to the Newmarket competition. Nadia and myself
specialized on the day in bidding and making pretty thin
vulnerable games. The reasoning went as follows: we know pretty
well that defence is difficult; it's probably as difficult for
our opponents as it is for us; the normal odds for bidding a
vulnerable game at IMPs are at about 30%; let's add a
misdefence factor, and you have to bid 15-20% games...and so we
did...
Here is one example. The hands were Q10xxx x AJ1098 xx
opposite Kxxx Kxxxxx xx A, and the bidding was
straightforwardish: 2-4. The 2 opening showed
a weak 5-5 hand with spades and an unspecified suit; being
vulnerable, partner was expected to have a reasonable hand as
far as weak openings go. It seemed to me that 4 should have enough play opposite either minor. And
indeed, diamonds were established for one loser on the lead,
the ace of hearts was right although that was irrelevant. All
that was needed now was for Nadia to play trumps for one loser,
which needs either spades breaking 2-2 or finding a singleton
honour. Declarer thought that the best line would be a small
spade from hand to the king, and she dutifully tried performing
this at trick four, being in fact in dummy with the ace of
clubs. She was not allowed to play from the wrong hand and
decided to lead a small trump from the table instead which was
luckily covered with a singleton ace. There did not seem to be
much to choose between the two lines, but declarer would have
gone down if allowed to play according to her original
plan...
Another pushy vulnerable game was bid as follows: 1NT-2, 3-4, with the hands being Q9xx Kxx AKxx Ax
opposite KJ10xx xxx x xxxx. 1NT promised 15-17 points, the
transfer break showed four card support and 16-17 points. Now
Nadia decided that her hand, however weak, had sufficient
playing strength and went on to game. Note that this time we
had more points, the whole 20 of them instead of 17 in the
previous example. The A lead on a not
very informative auction solved all the problems. As it
happens, this is a roughly 65% game which requires A being onside or an original heart lead - see
above about defensive contributions to the odds...
If you think that this was quite enough overbidding for one
afternoon, here is the hand from the final match: AJ10 Qx AQJxx
KJx opposite xx J10xxxx Kx xxx. The bidding went 1-1, 2NT-4. The opening could in theory be on a three
card suit, but the 2NT rebid (i) showed 17-18 points; (ii)
denied four hearts; (iii) by inference promised at least a
four-card diamond suit. This meant that the Kx diamond holding
became nearly ideal, and another vulnerable game was bid. On a
lead of a small spade the play was simple, and defence not
quite accurate: ace of spades, three rounds of diamonds
discarding x (the first hurdle -
diamonds had to be 3-3). This was followed by declarer playing
on trumps, and the defence on spades. After seeing my RHO turn
up with king-queen of spades and ace-king of hearts it was easy
at the end to play a club to the king to bring home a game and
another 11 IMPs. Of course, a club switch at any time takes the
contract down - but remember, misdefence has been factored
in...
Our only disaster happened, not surprisingly, when it was
our turn to defend.
|
|
|
East |
South |
West |
North |
| 1 |
1 |
P |
2 |
| 2 |
2 |
3 |
X |
|
|
|
Perhaps the 2 bid was too
aggressive, and partner expected more from my hand, but it's
still hard to find the penalty double of a red two-suiter by
North. I passed as South because of nice controls, hopefully a
trump trick or a club ruff or two. Little did I know that
partner would return a high club for me to ruff, asking for a
spade, and then unblock the king of spades under the
ace...There was no way of defeating the contract from there. A
normal low spade under the ace, followed by a spade to the king
and another club ruff with the now bare king of trumps would
have netted +300.
This hand reminded me of a piece of advice I was given when
playing in my first ever teams competition. First of all, don't
double a partscore. Secondly, whatever you do, NEVER double a
partscore.