Loving The Spingold Semifinal – Updated

This was wonderful bridge to watch.  I watched a bit of the earlier parts of the semifinals and a fair bit of the fourth quarter.  While the score was closer in the Lynch-Meltzer match I decided I just had to watch Brad and Fred in the Jansma-Diamond match.

Here is a hand from the third quarter.   When you started the third quarter you were down by 11 imps but you may have a feeling that things haven’t been going quite your way.    You arrive in 6♣ after an aggressive auction.  (The deal has been rotated).

Gitelman

♠ KQ52

♥ 85

♦ J92

♣ QJ65

Moss

♠ J

♥ AQ72

♦ AQ10

♣ AK872

You get lead of the ♦6 and it turns out the ♦K is onside although that is the finesse you least need since you might be able to pitch diamonds on spades and ruff a couple of hearts or something like that.  What you really need is the heart finesse.  You draw trump in three rounds and your left hand opponent throws a spade and a heart.   You then lead the ♠J and RHO (East) wins the♠A and continues the ♦7 as East follows with the ♦3 and you win the ♦Q.   As it will turn out play of the ♦K at trick one has given you a small extra chance once RHO did not return a heart.

What do you think the situation is now?  It looks like West started with one club, possibly two diamonds and lots of cards in the majors with a t least five of them being spades (based on the spade discard).  But this is by no means certain.   Why didn’t East want to return a heart?  Is that because he is looking at the king?  Who has the heart king?

If you decide the distribution is 5-5-2-1 and you take your winners ending in hand you will squeeze West who is after all more likely to hold the heart king.  But East who is a fine defender could have broken up the squeeze with a heart return.  Still he can’t see your hand so maybe that is not as clear.  Do you finesse or not?  As they used to say; “You pays your money and you takes your choice.”

Moss finessed and it was wrong.  Perhaps he could have run some tricks before taking the finesse.  He would have become certain of the distribution and that East did hold 5-5-2-1.  But why no heart return.  I suspect that he would still have taken the failing heart finesse.  This guess was a swing of 21 imps.

Dealer: East Vul:E-W VUL		North: Gitelman
		♠	KQ52
		♥	85
		♦	J92
		♣	QJ65
West: Verhees				East: Jansma
♠	109643			♠	A87
♥	K9643			♥	J10
♦	63			♦	K8754
♣	4			♣	1093
		South: Moss
		♠	J
		♥	AQ72
		♦	AQ10
		♣	AK872

Bad slams have certainly been a theme for me in this tournament.  Here is one of those auction where you just wish you were still in bed having a nightmare.

Dealer: East Vul:E-W VUL		North: Gromov
		♠	8
		♥	AK8543
		♦	VOID
		♣	AQ10976
West				East
♠	7632			♠	1054
♥	QJ1096			♥	72
♦	Q083			♦	K94
♣	VOID			♣	J5432
		South: Dubinin
		♠	AKQJ9
		♥	VOID
		♦	AJ7652
		♣	K8

Berkowitz	Gromov	Cohen	Dubinin
pass	1♣	pass	1♥
pass	1♠	pass	3♣
pass	3♦	pass	5♦
pass	6♦	pass	6♥
pass	6♠	pass	7♣
all pass

South, Dubinin started things off on this massive misfit with a strong club and things were natural after that until North Gromov bid 5D. In some auction a jump to 5D would be exclusion but here there is no agreement at all on a possible trump suit. The jump can’t explicitly set the last bid suit as trump and be exclusion in diamonds since diamonds were just bid naturally. This is not an auction I would want to spring on my partner (even Colin).   Dubinin started to his shake his head confused (as you or I would have been). Once he bid 6D the partnership was “endplayed” into bidding 7♣ .

Now actually 7♣ isn’t a terrible contract when clubs break but on this lie of the cards there is no chance. At the other table Helness and Sontag stopped in a wimpy 4♠ . You have twelve tricks in clubs almost all the time. When you are in the luck even your soft results win imps. In the other match it was a push when one pair got to 7♣ down 1 and the other to 6♠ down 1.

One of the most fascinating deals for me was this wonderful deal where Brad Moss engineered a big swing. Brad held this hand with South dealer white on red:

Moss

♠ A3

♥ AK95432

♦ 106

♣ AJ

South passed and Brad bid 1H. North Verhees doubled and Fred Gitelman bid 3♦ which probably shows a modest four card raise. Now Brad made an interesting choice. With his nice black cards and his seven card suit he decided to bid 3NT which might be an easier game. Frankly I don’t think that bid would have even occurred to me. Now Verhees doubled again. At that point people were talking about whether Brad would have the guts to pass 3NT doubled without a diamond stopper. Let’s look at the whole deal now.

Dealer: East Vul:E-W VUL		Verhees
		♠	KQ95
		♥	VOID
		♦	AJ42
		♣	KQ876
Moss				Gitelman
♠	A3			♠	J1087
♥	AK95432			♥	QJ106
♦	106			♦	Q5
♣	AJ			♣	943
		Jansma
		♠	642
		♥	87
		♦	K9873
		♣	1052

On a normal club lead this hand has nine tricks. Only an unlikely diamond lead will defeat the contract. As you can also see four hearts, the contract bid in the other room, does not make. Some of the commentators said that with Brad would run but I didn’t think so. He was down in the match and there was no reason to believe that North would find the killing lead if there was one. As Joey Silver pointed out if Verhees had running diamonds he wouldn’t have doubled. I said that it was more likely for South to run. Partner should have diamonds for this auction and a nice hand. But really he has no reason to run. He must trust partner. And so they duly played in 3NT doubled and duly got a club lead. Brad quickly claimed 12 imps. Much too little, much too late. But a nice try anyhow.

It is wonderful to be able to create action and to be able to find just the right thing to do. Brad Moss is an impressive player and fun to watch.

……………………….

Thanks to Mark Horton for corrections on the first hand where I reversed East and West quite a few times.