Oxfordshire v Warwickshire

The county team enjoyed two comfortable wins in the league matches against Warwickshire last Sunday. The A team won 17-3 and the B team 19-1. Oxfordshire also just shaded a simultaneous "Bridge for All" teams match.

Given these other (unofficial) results:

Leics A bt Glos A 12-8. Leics B bt Glos B 14-6

Notts A bt Derby A 19-1. Derby B bt Notts B 14-6

By my calculation this means that in the Dawes (A) division Leics and Notts both have 79, Glos have 73 and Oxon have 68 (I don't know about Worcs, who had 56 before yesterday).

In the Porter (B) division Oxon have 95, Glos and Warws have 69 and Leics have 68. No other scores matter, so we appear to have won with a match to spare. Great stuff – well done to all!

I was very proud of myself for remembering to bring to club keys for the match. It seemed to me that Warwickshire had sent by no means their best team to play us – perhaps they underestimated us! The hands seemed very distributional and interesting in the main – including one hand where it was eminently possible to play a slam as either E/W or N/S. Here are a few adventures.

Hand 4 provided some fun and games. The Bygotts present the events at their table as a quiz. Try it as a bidding problem.

Board 4, game all, dealer North.

S K9

H A4

D KQ985

C AT82

At the table, North tried 4C. The sequence continued:

Amusingly, Rob and Nick did well to score +620 the other way – but lost 7 imps when Marian and Nick conceded –930 in 3H doubled.

Plus or minus 140 in a spade part score was the usual result on board 5. We ended in 4S which gave me a chance for some glory (I think Richard must have overbid to get us there).

Our bidding was 1S – 2S - 4S, which at least did not tell the opponents much.

West started with a top diamond, fetching the ten from his partner (giving count). Best defence cashed four top minor suit winners now! Luckily for me, west decided to play a heart. Although this gives me the chance of throwing a losing club on the third round of hearts, it does not actually increase my number of winners much nearer the required ten tricks. Still, win two hearts in hand, trump to dummy and cash a heart throwing a club and now jack of clubs (?) to the queen and ace. West now feels like he has a problem. He cannot cash a diamond or play a club (which would set this suit up) and did not want to give a ruff and discard by playing a heart (although this actually works for the defence). So he plays a - spade won in dummy, east following with the ten, which looked like his last trump. Now I played the nine of diamonds from dummy, covered and ducked all round [west could still have prevailed by overtaking this D and playing his third trump]. East, for similar reasons to above, and having no hearts played another diamond ruffed in dummy. With the other top diamond this meant that the queen of diamonds was the tenth trick – another success for the overbidders!

It is often very difficult to judge whether to bid 4 of a major or 3NT. What would you do with this one?

762

Q7

Q62

AKQ98

You open one no trump and partner transfers to spades and then bids 3NT. Do you pass or bid 4S. At least you will be playing either contract so that is one factor to rule out! In favour of passing is chance of protecting doubleton QH and the good club suit. However, if the clubs don’t break then you may never get back to enjoy them in 3NT. Tim Pike decided to pass and this turned out to be the wrong decision when partner only held Kx in hearts.

Hand 10 was the next interesting hand:

At Game All, third to speak, you hold.

87

KJ3

AKQ842

A6

Partner opens 4S and next hand passes.

At one table, Rob Proctor pulled out the stop card in tempo and then paused to think about what he might actually want to bid! Eventually, he settled for 6S. Nick held AKQJ962 97 7 532. I won the D lead, ruffed a D and when Ds were no worse than 4-2, claimed 1460. The heart AQ were offside so I would have gone off on a H lead, but it's still around 60% on that auction. How would one play it on a club lead? Is 6N better? Well, you are protected from the H lead but there's not much play if Ds aren't 3-3, so I think Rob made the right call. The best spot is actually 6S by SOUTH!!! Impossible to bid you say? Tim and Alan heard North open 4D (showing a good 4S bid) and then south did bid 6S. Well bid Warwickshire.

Keith and Steve had more chances to bid a slam because Keith had opened only 1S. However, once west had doubled south 3H bid later in the auction, they subsided in 4S rather than 6NT.

The Bygotts came within a whisker of defeating 3NT on hand 13 after a small heart lead to the ACE and a cunning small heart to the jack enabled the defence to cash the first four heart tricks. With precious little information, David did not now find the killing club switch. Still, Lonsdale/McPhee managed to get +800 on this board (could have been more!) when north decided to open a sub-minimum 1NT.

Hand 19 provided a big mix of results. Interestingly three out of four A team pairs bid game on this hand while only one B team table bid game. Game is not a great contract on the hand, so I’m not sure what this proves!

Dealer South, East West Vulnerable:

Tim and Alan ended safely in 4H after south had opened 3D. Not an easy hand to bid after that opener. I gave Richard a chance to achieve a lifelong ambition by upgrading the south hand a little and opening 3NT (well, it was favourable vulnerability). After some thought, Richard jumped to 5D on the north cards to become declarer voluntarily while holding a trump void!

Just in case you think that 5D is automatic on these cards after a 3NT opener, happily for Nick/Robus, the Warks player with these cards decided to pass 3N. Nick made the textbook lead and led SA (from Axx) so pard took the next 6 tricks, +150. Our man should have seen this coming. Even if I have the other black ace and lead it, this dummy is going to make me switch to a highish spade. All in all, I'd say 5D is the right bid.

Everyone was talking about hand 31 and everyone had a story to tell. Vul v not, you deal with:

109873

none

2

QJ108754

Nick Smith comments: With those spades, some would say that opening 3C is a "not in this lifetime" sort of call - well, I opened 3C and I think that was the majority decision [Ed: Not sure if I have found anyone else that did this!]. He felt that if oppos bid (say) 3H - 4H, then he would come back in with 4S and pard would have a very good picture of my hand. It was a bit of a bonus when pard responded 3S!

Say it goes:

What now? (If you pass, pard will double and it's back round to you). This was the hand:

Once pard calls 3S, Nick did not think he could let the oppos play the hand at the 5-level and felt the choice was between bidding 5S and 6S. Given that choice, you can guess which one I opted for (pard plays them so well) - you could see the smoke rising from pard's chair but the sight of dummy cheered him up a little, especially on HA lead. At first sight, 6S looks to have excellent chances - DA, HK and all 10 trumps on the cross-ruff. Plus the D finesse looks safe enough. Rob took that successfully and tried to cash DA but LHO ruffed in with SK and led another trump - now Rob ran out of trumps and had to concede the 13th trick.

CQ was not quite set up. If you finesse DQ and cash CK (but not DA), then cross-ruff, LHO will still have to ruff in at some point and lead a trump. Can we now ruff four times in dummy while retaining 2 high trumps in hand, one to ruff back with and the other to draw LHO's last little trump, with DA as the last trick? I believe you can, so perhaps Rob missed a chance here? (Ed – We managed to beat 5S doubled by one trick somehow, not that this is much evidence either way on such a wild hand)

Jeremy Bygott describes the same hand as a his "Desert Island Disaster Lead hand". He was on lead after the following auction:

I have no idea how people can afford to pass with hands like north and east above, but it does look like Jeremy has at least a sporting double of 5D!! It looks like just the hand for a forcing defence? Jeremy thinks so too now. Unfortunately, he led the three of diamonds to the four, two and five. When he subsequently covered the jack of hearts he was chalking up –550. Some hands just look too easy to defeat.

On hand 26, west held:

AKT3

None

JT762

KT96

At most tables west had to decide what to bid after:

1C 1H ?

Sometimes it was a 2H overcall. Those who elected to double seemed to find it hard to catch up after heart raises. I decided to assume that clubs was our spot and started with a 3H splinter – this seemed to propel us to a good six club contract that did not seem to be bid elsewhere.

Anyway, a fun match and everyone seemed to play pretty well. Well done all and particular congratulations for winning the Porter league. Have we ever done that before?