Watermark Bridge Classic
I did some commentary on the Watermark Bridge Classic being played in Australia right now. We had the Gill team and the Mill team playing each other. Unfortunately the team names were input incorrectly into BBO reversing the two names. This caused a fair bit of confusing but Cathy Chua was able to clarify for everyone. It was sort of funny and reminded me of a logic problem: There were three teams playing in a bridge competition Gill, Mill and Will. Who was sitting South at table one? In the end the Gill team had the best of it winning every board but the first and scoring 40-6 in a 14 board match.
There was one neat hand that I enjoyed and there was some discussion about whether this was good luck or good bidding. With everyone vulnerable in third seat you hold a hand that you usually only dream about:
S AKJ1076532 H AQ7 D void C 7
You are fourth to speak and at one table it is passed to you. What is your pleasure. At the table Markey for Mill opened 4S. This is not a bid I would have made although it may work well.
At the other table Hingle for Mill opened 2H which apparently showed hearts and a minor and I am guessing here but say a bit less than an opener. Lazer for Gill just bid 6S.
As it turns out 6S is not cold although you are likely to get it right but West led the DA which ended any problems for declarer on the hand. Partner held
S Q8 H 852 D K843 C KJ43
As expected the HK is onside and if forced to play clubs the queen is onside while the ace is in the offside hand.
I found this deal to be an interesting play problem.
| S Q10843 | ||
| H 72 | ||
| D 10832 | ||
| C K6 | ||
| S K962 | S AJ | |
| H 106 | H AQ8543 | |
| D KJ64 | D A5 | |
| C A54 | C J97 | |
| S 75 | ||
| H KJ8 | ||
| D Q97 | ||
| C Q10832 |
Declarer got a club lead at both tables and if you duck the first club they continued clubs. What is the right line? You have a lot of finesses you could take. One choice might be to play the diamond finesse (or if you prefer the spade finesse. If that works you can discard a club on it. If it works you are pretty much home free. If it doesn’t work you might still be able to play hearts for no losers. You can also finesse the trump queen if that works you can lay down the ace and if trumps break you are home (if not you can still tru a diamond finesse for a club discard. It seems that the latter is the better line and that is the latter chosen at one table while the other finessed the diamond and made the contract.
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On the first hand you mention, the auction wasnt quite like that, but a result of computer problems for the BBO operator who had to abbreviate the auction. I believe East opened 1H, South Xed, West bid 2C and North despite holding 9 hcp passed, hardly a crime with Qx, Qxx, Jxxx, KJxx or thereabouts.
So Markey punted what he knew he could make, hence 4S.
… OK there werent 2 heart queens.
It is hard to get the Vugraph perfect on BBO although the operators do a remarkable job. In a later session I was in the closed room and the room kept crashing every few minutes. I have no idea how the BBO operator was able to do as well as they did getting us caught up.