The fourth round of matches in the season brought a needed uplift in the County’s fortunes. The A team won by 79 IMPs (19-1 VPs) and the B team by 106 IMPs (20-0 VPs). No league tables are available currently (not everyone is efficient in communicating results and there is a complicating factor in that Northants have withdrawn from the league partway through the season - this will give us a free weekend on 3rd February next year).

The results were achieved as follows:

A - Claridge/Williams, Day/Price +24

Lonsdale/McPhee, Hayes/Landy +55

B - Talbots, Constable/Jalie +50

Bygotts, Webley/Wilkes +56

Cross-IMPed over the whole field, performance by pairs was as follows:

Bygotts (N/S) +67.5 IMPs

Talbots (E/W) +61.5

Lonsdale/McPhee (N/S) +53

Day/Price (E/W) +41.25

Hayes/Landy (E/W) +39.75

Constable/Jalie (N/S) +32.25

Webley/Wilkes (E/W) +29

Claridge/Williams (N/S) +18.75

The Staffs A team was pretty weak, so it is a reasonable assumption that the B team was worse. All Oxfordshire pairs played well, by contrast, and the size of their plusses depends mostly on the number of gifts they were able to accept. Board 27 was also critical: there is one making slam available and therefore a severe penalty awaits for missing it or, even worse, bidding the wrong one (the one Oxon pair with a deserved bonus was the Bygotts); pairs sitting opposite stood only to gain as no Staffs pair managed the 920 available.

There are two points of interest here. One is that this is a good hand for those open such collections as Wests’s with 1§ rather than 1¨ (as Brian and I do, for instance). Here, one is guaranteed never to have to defend 4ª when 5§ is cold for 10 tricks. The other is that over the more usual 1¨ opening, North needs to have an intermediate 2ª available (say, 10-14 HCPs and a 6-card suit) for its pre-emptive value (after 1ª , East will surely find 2§ but 2ª may shut him up). Left to his own devices, of course, declarer might well go off in 4ª by losing to © Q. At my table West opened 1© (!), the sort of thing Blue Club pairs do, which induced his partner to lead © Q at trick 1. Pity I’d decided to raise Brian’s intermediate 2ª to 3ª pre-emptively, rather than via 3© invitationally, but game had seemed an awful long way off. Our +200 from 3ª +2 was actually the second-best score on the board: only Constable/Jalie and Day/Price’s opponents were allowed to get away with a making game.

I guess everyone went 1ª -4ª . At my table Brian led © 10 and I ducked this to declarer’s Q (in case the lead was from Q109). Declarer played one round of trumps, on which Brian threw a McKenny ¨ 4, before reverting to hearts. I won, cashed ¨ A, underled § A and got a ruff for 1 down. At another table the opening lead was a club, killing the ruff, but Stuart McPhee switched to a trump (with the intention of continuing trumps whenever possible) and declarer later gave him his ruff anyway by trying to cash ¨ K before drawing trumps. In fact declarer has only two tricks outside trumps unless the defence panics, and therefore needs to ruff three losers in dummy, so the wonder is how Day/Price, Hayes/Landy and the Talbots all made their game. The Bigotts didn’t need to rely on defeating 4ª as they got into the bidding with a vengeance, making 5© * for +850, a terrific effort.

North ª A3 © A976543 ¨ none § A1054 South ª 1086 © 2 ¨ KJ964 § KJ32

You open 1© and partner responds 1NT. What now? You only need a couple of fitting cards from partner for game to have prospects so the proper rebid at teams is 4© . Only Webley/Wilkes managed this for Oxon, though Day/Price managed to get doubled in 2© (!) for +670. The lucky pairs who didn’t have game bid against them were Lonsdale/McPhee and the Bygotts and the unlucky pairs who did were Claridge/Williams and Constable/Jalie.

West ª AJ10 © A10742 ¨ Q8 § K86 East ª Q964 © 83 ¨ A64 § QJ105

We bid 1© -1ª -2ª -pass for +140 and thought no more about it until we discovered two highly enterprising gains for Oxon when Lonsdale/McPhee and Constable/Jalie both sailed into 3NT for +660 and +600 respectively. I guess the two 10s persuaded West to rebid a 15-16 1NT and a third plus the vulnerability persuaded East to go all the way. Stirring stuff!

South ª K5 © K5 ¨ A1032 § AQ1092 North ª AQJ764 © A98 ¨ KQ § J4

Everybody on either side was up to reaching 6ª or 6NT on this one but the Talbots for Oxon played 7ª . It’s a good job it wasn’t 7NT because no squeeze seems to work (East has only to keep a guarded © Q and although West has § K and ¨ JXXX he is discarding after South). In 7ª, of course, you have only to ruff a heart in dummy for your 13th trick - well bid Talbots!

you have only to guess between the finesse and the ruffing finesse in clubs - or is it the comparative composure of East and West? Anyway, the ruffing finesse was chosen and all was well.

The world seems to be divided between those who open the North hand and those who don’t. No matter here because South has just enough to double a weak 2© for T.O and we’re back at the races. It looks normal now to push E/W to 5© and for South to double it for +300. Lonsdale/McPhee and Constable/Jalie did this for Oxon whilst Day/Price lost the same. At my table Brian judged to get in first with 5ª over 5© and assuming he wasn’t going to drop § K, he was headed for an adverse swing until presented with a second round of hearts at trick 2! Our result was duplicated by the Talbots, who sold out to 4ª .

If East is in range for 1NT and South finds a double, NS will probably wind up with a slightly disappointing penalty against 2¨ * or will go down in game. However, it looks as though East opened 1ª everywhere, intending to rebid in NTs. The first point of interest is what South does next, the choices being pass, double or 1NT I guess. All are flawed for one reason or another. I opted for a TO double: at least I had the other major and if partner bid an unwelcome 2§ I was going to have to remove to 2¨ and hope to stay alive. Some play this sequence as strong and single-suited (the sort of strong jump overcall that no one seems to play any more) and some play that if you double suit A and remove partner’s suit B, you promise 5 cards in the suit you remove to (C) plus four in suit D, and a good hand. As always, it matters less what you play than having a firm agreement and guaranteeing to remember it. Let’s say we’ve doubled. Attention then focusses on North when 1ª * arrives at his door. Here the possibilities are pass, 1NT or 2NT (3§ seems neither fish nor fowl). Again, each bid is flawed. Pass should show long and sequencial trumps (QJ109XX or such), the theory being that partner is required to lead a trump and that you will eventually draw them and enjoy side-suit winners in partner’s hand. If they run, of course, partner must have enough in the three suits he has promised to punish them equally. However, you not only have the wrong here by that token, but the vulnerability is wrong too. Against that, 1NT is a slight underbid and 2NT is a slight overbid. At my table, Brian opted for 2NT - I’ve every sympathy with that at the vulnerability - I had enough to go on to game and a careful defence saw 3NT go 2 down. There were various partscores making for NS but the Bygotts scooped the pool by defending 1ª *, down 5 for +1100. So what do I know about anything? Well, enough not to argue with success. Well done!

West ª KQ5 © AQ93 ¨ 8 § AQJ93 East ª J7 © K5 ¨ AQ7432 § K74

There is one making slam (the diamond finesse is wrong, and no squeeze) and that is obviously 6§ . Only two pairs in the field managed to bid it - the Bygotts for Oxon and Cope/Edwards for Staffs (Cope found a way to go off by promoting a trump trick for Day/Price, to their relief and that of team-mates). I like the Staffs auction, however:

1§ -1¨ -2© -3§ -6§ (all right, there may have been some fine tuning between the last two bids but they were heading in only direction). 2© is a game-forcing jump reverse showing 4 hearts and longer clubs. There is much nonsense talked these days about avoiding bids which consume too much space: if they describe strength and hand-type in one go, they’re making excellent use of that space. Consider the alternative, via two auctions I know about:

McPhee/Lonsdale: 1§ -1¨ -1© -1ª (4th suit)-3NT-pass

Claridge/Williams: 1§ -1¨ -1© -2ª (4th suit - 1ª would be natural)-3ª (any hand which is very good for the auction to date)-4¨ -4NT-5¨ -6NT

In the first auction 3 NT was an attempt to recover, showing 19-20 points (but not longer clubs than hearts) and pass presumably disagreed with the 19-20 points. Many pairs play that use of the 4th suit promises, say, 10+ points - as in the auction 1¨ -1ª -2§ -2© , where a hand such as ª J © KJX-¨ QJXXX § AJXX is meant to bid 2NT now to show the heart stops, knowing that partner has the high cards to underwrite the contract. Replace ¨ J with ¨ A and the bid is 3NT. In the Claridge/Williams auction the 1© rebid promised only 3+ clubs and the next two bids used up acres of space. East then had to decide between 4§ and 4¨ and could see no merit in showing support for a minor of 3 or 4 cards at the expense of repeating a 6-card suit of his own. It’s a case of the dog which didn’t bark, ie partner with a hand as strong as advertised would have taken the chance to show club length on the second round, if he had it.

East (I was he) held Q98 © QJ84 ¨ KJ10965 § none and being a brave soul, opened 1¨ after two passes. West reponded 1ª . The next thing I saw was a bidding card bearing the legend 2ª , clasped in the hand of a congenital idiot. I then realised that the hand was mine. While I was still contemplating the possibly superior merit of 2¨ , West reached deep into his box and produced 4ª . His hand was ª A652 © K96 ¨ 32 § A642. In a desperate attempt to get close to the 10 tricks required, declarer went down 5, mercifully undoubled and non-vul.. 3¨ meanwhile proved a comfortable make at several tables. One Staffs B team declarer showed that there are fools as big as me in the world by also reaching 4ª (down 3) and another was down 3 in 3NT (the pitiful auction that must have led to this can too easily be imagined).

West ª 862 © J7653 ¨ K6 § J108 East ª KQJ4 © A ¨ AQ10873 § K6

In urgent need of redemption, I found myself in 3NT from the East seat. This would have proved a doddle (diamonds behave) on any lead but the © 10 found at the table. I won perforce and led ª K but LHO won this and persisted with © 9, ducked and © 8, covered by J and Q. The good news was that I had blocked the hearts because RHO now

had no more. The bad news was that I had had to find two discards on the hearts, one of which was ª 4 and the other - ? Had he known it, the same RHO could have cashed A and Q of clubs at this point, but he switched learnedly back to spades. Day/Price had the luxury of defending 5ª by EW on this board but 3NT made in all four times.

I thought there were some really instructive boards on view here, but then I maybe need instruction more than the rest of you.

I’ve also missed out several boards which might otherwise have warranted comment.

JOHN WILLIAMS

1ST October 2001