by Catherine Ashment
Sarah Waddington, Giles Woodruff, Julian Foster and I won
the County Knock-Out Teams, after a nailbiting final against
the other university team of Alistair Flutter, Ben Zalin, Jon
Green and Graham Hazel.
The first set was action-packed in the slam zone. Sarah and
I were in 6
after a bidding mishap -
one down - and on another hand Jon and Graham had a
misunderstanding to reach 7
requiring
hearts breaking 3-3 (which they duly were!). However this was
not complete disaster as in the other room our pair were in
6 redoubled which with the overtrick
would have scored 2230 and gained us 3 IMPs - but unfortunately
declarer was so relieved to make the redoubled slam he didn't
notice the chance for an overtrick! So after the first set we
were 27 IMPs down...
We slowly clawed a few imps back in the next two sets and
then bid and made a 22 point, 10%, 3NT contract in the last set
to scrape a win.
This victory entitled us to represent Cambs and Hunts in the
Pachabo, the inter-county teams of four competition. This is
held in early June in West Bromwich, quite handy from Cambridge
- an easy two hour drive. So we set off at the crack of dawn
for a 1pm start as our captain informed us it would be jammed
solid on the A14 out of Cambridge, stationary on the M6 and
going backwards at the M6/M5 interchange...After an easy two
hour drive we had plenty of time to check in, have lunch and
relax.
You may think we would now be in the perfect frame of mind
to play good bridge, but we had omitted to take the captain's
other piece of advice about getting an early night, and instead
had gone on an evening punt trip to Granchester. Fortunately
the captain (who had gone to bed very early) was playing as
badly as the rest of us so he couldn't complain!
After a poor start we hovered around average for the
remaining sessions and tailed away again slightly at the end.
This was also partly due to the scoring system (well, we have
to blame something!). It is in fact a very good method but is
so unusual that it takes a bit of getting used to. You play
three board matches against each other county and each match is
scored out of 10 VPs. 6 of these are available as a
point-a-board score, so each board gives you 2 if you beat your
opponents score, 1 if you draw and 0 if you do worse. The other
4 VPs are a measure of how big the swings were. Like teams you
have to bid and make games, but if you think your opponents are
going to be in the same contract at the other table then you
should try and make more tricks than them to win the
point-a-board VPs.
Here is an example hand that shows the scoring method in
action. It was in our match against local rivals
Northamptonshire, so tensions were running high. The first two
boards were completely flat, so the match hung on the final
board...
|
|
|
West |
North |
East |
South |
3 |
3NT |
P |
4 |
| P |
P |
P |
|
|
|
|
The auction was straightforward, so the first problem was
the lead. At both tables the 9 was
chosen. There are two reasons for leading from shortage here -
firstly to get a ruff, which is unlikely as you only have one
trump, and secondly to set up tricks in your partner's hand.
This second reason implies a heart lead is best as if dummy has
a good suit for his 3NT bid it is going to be diamonds rather
than hearts. On the actual hand a heart lead defeats the
contract (providing East is awake enough to duck the first
round) as he will get in with the ace of trumps and play a club
to his partner's ace for a heart return (but how can we
prevent partner from trying to give us a club ruff? - ed.)
However both declarers were given a second chance.
The lead was won in hand and the king of spades played to
East's ace. Now the defence faced its second problem. East can
see the K,Q and J of clubs so he knows his partner must have
seven clubs to the ace for his vulnerable preempt. This means
that the defence have three aces and if partner has led a
singleton diamond there could be a ruff. However, if East leads
a diamond back and West has a doubleton, declarer will be able
to throw his singleton club on the third round of diamonds. So
maybe East should cash his partner's ace of clubs, get back on
lead with the ace of hearts and then try to give West the ruff.
The snag with this is that partner may think you have the
singleton club rather than declarer and try to give you a club
ruff, giving declarer enough discards for all his hearts.
A solution to problems of this sort is to cash an ace and
get a signal from partner as to whether they want a ruff or
not. However this runs into another problem, which is how
should West signal. Generally when asking partner if they want
a ruff in their first led suit they would encourage
(i.e. play a high card) in the new suit to say he
doesn't want a ruff. However in this situation when cashing
the ace solidifies dummy's holding in the suit it is perfectly
reasonable to assume that this is a suit preference situation
as partner is going to have to switch (like when you lead an
ace and dummy has a singleton). Therefore West could play a
high heart to say he prefers diamonds to clubs i.e.
wants a ruff.
At neither table was West put to the test of trying to
decide what signal he should play, as both Easts just returned
a diamond. This gave declarer the final problem. When West
follows to the trick declarer could keep the lead in hand, draw
trumps and lose two more aces, discarding his third heart on
the ace of diamonds when he gets to dummy with the Q of hearts.
This is the teams line to be sure of making ten tricks.
Alternatively, declarer could overtake the diamond and cash
a third round, throwing a club. If West can't ruff this then
you will make an overtrick, but if West can ruff it and then
switches to a heart you will have two heart losers and go one
down - the sort of risk you might take at pairs.
But what should declarer do at this form of scoring which is
a mixture of the two? Making the overtrick will win the point a
board resulting in a 6-4 win, but going off will lose the point
a board and more VPs for the swing - a 3-7 loss. The Northants
declarer cashed his ten sure tricks, but I decided to risk the
contract to make my overtrick, duly winning the match.