| 3rd European Open Bridge Championships | Page 3 | Bulletin 8 - Saturday 23 June 2007 |
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Rondo a la Turca From the Mixed Pairs Qualifying, this board threw up a defensive gem.
The defenders cashed their spade and diamond winners and led a third diamond. Declarer ruffed, cashed his club winners, and led a third top club on which North threw a diamond. (Yes ruffing in with the heart jack and leading another spade might be an easier way to set the contract). Now came a fourth club, ruffed with the heart ten in dummy as both North and South threw spades, and a spade ruff back to hand. This was the ending:
Declarer led a winning club from hand, ruffed by North and overruffed by South, Susan Karavil. She now returned her remaining trump and whether declarer covered or not, the defenders had three of the last four tricks. All well and good; but consider the beauty of the ending if the trump spots are slightly changed.
Now on the lead of the club, what should North do? If he ruffs with the four, East overruffs with the eight and now when South returns the six, West ducks, to endplay North. If North ruffs with the seven, East discards rather than overuffing. South must take the trick with the heart nine to avoid the endplay, but when she returns the six, declarer plays low and dummy’s eight prevents North from ducking. Seniority Nevena Senior had the pleasure of executing a textbook endplay in her semi-final match in the Mixed Teams against the eventual winners. She was declaring Four Spades.
South, Matilda Poplipov led a small club to Lilo Poplilov’s queen. Lilo returned the heart king. Nevena drew trumps (North followed once), and took stock. Assuming North had eight clubs and two hearts she could give up a heart, later ruff the club jack, and finally play all the trumps discarding a diamond from West to squeeze South in the red suits. But that would be trivial she told herself. I shall pretend that my trumps are blocked without enough entries to both take the club ruff and draw the trumps. Thus she simply cashed the heart queen and both diamond honours ending in dummy. The club jack followed, on which Nevena discarded her diamond. North had to surrender. On the forced club return East ruffed, and there went dummy’s heart loser. Textbook play, my foot! I hear you exclaim. Well, this particular book was written for senior students. And here is another cute ending of Nevena’s in a contract of four spades:
Nevena received a diamond lead to the ace, and immediately played two rounds of hearts to dispose of her diamond loser. A club from dummy was won by North, who returned a diamond which Nevena ruffed. There followed a club ruff and a heart ruff with no annoying overruffs. She ruffed her penultimate club to arrive at the following position having lost one trick:
To play a trump now would result in one down if South had AQ or AJ, and she covered the queen, or if North had all the trumps. Nevena had no problem choosing a heart instead, caterng for all 2-1 breaks in trumps plus all three in the North hand. She would throw her club unless North ruffed. If South ruffed he would have to give dummy an entry for the trump finesse. If the heart was ruffed by North she would overruff. South might also overruff and draw one round of trumps but there would still be a trump left in dummy to take care of the last club. Better Once than Never, for Never too Late by Erdal Sirdar
The ending that was produced on this deal caused much consternation amongst the experts. When given the deal as a problem, none of them could solve the problem at single-dummy. Since Karen McCallum had not cracked the problem at the table, she wanted to see if anyone could spot the line. Eventually it was Salvador Assael, a member of the Turkish National Team, who came up with the answer. On the lead of the diamond seven to the ace, and a diamond back to the king, South wins in hand and pitches a heart and a spade from dummy. Now comes a spade to the queen, a top club from dummy, to find the bad news, and now the masterstroke, a small spade from dummy! This play is strongly indicated by the auction – West appears to have only two spades from East’s bid of One No-trump, and his choice of diamond rebid suggests 4-7 in the red suits. Now that West is in with the spade king he has to open up a red suit.
West has a number of choices, all disastrous. Let’s look at them in turn. After the diamond queen and another diamond, declarer pitches a club then a heart from dummy and East must do the same or pitch two hearts. Declarer now takes the heart ace and endplays East with a club to lead spades. If West exits with a low diamond without cashing the queen, dummy lets go a heart, and what is East to do? If he pitches a black card declarer establishes a long card in that suit, if he pitches a heart declarer cashes the heart ace and endplays East with a club to lead spades. If West exits in the above ending with a top heart declarer wins and leads back a heart to his ten. If West wins he is immediately endplayed to concede the ninth trick. If he ducks, East is subsequently endplayed in the usual fashion with a club, to lead spades. |
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