The Fourth of Sixth … Turnaround Time US Senior Trials

Starting the fourth segment Lynch had a 52 imp lead over Schwartz, 113 to 61 but as they say in Mary Poppins “an east wind was blowing” … change was coming and when the segment ended Schwartz had taken over the lead by 6 129 to 123.  In the next 15 boards there were 7 boards with swings of 6 or more imps.

Board One started the comeback.  It was an interesting defensive problem in the Open Room.  Let’s look at it double dummy.

Dealer: Vul:	Weichsel ♠ 9 ♥ 109864 ♦ J953 ♣ J65
Fisher ♠ QJ87 ♥ 72 ♦ Q642 ♣ Q107		Hamilton ♠ K4 ♥ AKQJ53 ♦ K10 ♣ 984
	Lair ♠ A106532 ♥ – ♦ A87 ♣ AK32

Weichsel was on lead and made a normal spade lead.  Fisher put up the King ducked by Lair.  Fisher had a reasonable expectation that he would have six heart trick and if he could make two spades and a diamond he was home.  So he played a spade from dummy winning the ♠ J.  Weichsel threw a club.  I think it was a count card showing three.  Fisher still thinking he was in no danger played a diamond to the king won by Lair with the ♦ A.  Lair switched to clubs.  A small club would have been better.  Not only would Fisher have to guess but it would have moved any pressure from the North hand.  Weichsel had to hold five hearts and two diamonds so he didn’t have a lot of spare cards.   Lair led the ♣ K and everybody followed this was the position:

Dealer: Vul:	Weichsel ♠ – ♥ 109864 ♦ J95 ♣ J
Fisher ♠ Q7 ♥ 72 ♦ Q42 ♣ Q10		Hamilton ♠ – ♥ AKQJ53 ♦ 10 ♣ 98
	Lair ♠ A1063 ♥ – ♦ 87 ♣ A32

I don’t know if Lair can work it out.  Maybe he was playing for Weichsel to hold the ♣ Q as his only hope.  After all it really looked like Fisher expected nine tricks when he got the lead (as he did.)  Lair continued the ♣ A.  While it is true that Fisher can make the hand double dummy now whatever Lair does in practice he will likely go down if Lair continues clubs or leads a diamond back.  (It’s fun to look at how Fisher can make the hand on a club return. )  But Lair was still under the impression that the defense had to cash out and cashed the ♠ A and it was all over.

In the Closed Room 3NT was played by East and Wolff started the CK.  When he got encouragement he continued with a small club and it was now easy for the defense to take five tricks.  10 imps to start the ball rolling for the big comeback.

In the Women’s the final has been close and continued close.  Starting Segment 4 the score was Moss 95 and Sprung 94.  Sprung took the lead by 5 (140-135) by the end of the segment.