Cavendish 2007 Henderson, Nevada

The Cavendish Teams and Auction Pairs were held in Henderson, just outside Las Vegas, this May. The format of the Teams is straightforward: a nine-round Swiss, with play-backs against previously met teams permitted over the last three matches. The Teams is run with a straight entry fee, winner getting about 30% of the pot, with prizes for the first three places and an ascender’s prize. Here are some of the deals that caught my eye.

Dealer South. E/W Vul.
	♠ Q 6 ♥ A 10 9 8 2 ♦ A K 10 ♣ 10 5 2
♠ J 8 7 4 ♥ K Q 5 3 ♦ Q 7 6 4 2 ♣		♠ K 10 9 5 3 2 ♥ J 6 ♦ 8 ♣ A 8 5 3
	♠ A ♥ 7 4 ♦ J 9 5 3 ♣ K Q J 9 7 6

You reach 5♣ doubled as South after East has overcalled 1♠, and win the spade lead to lay down the ♣K and find the bad news. RHO ducks this trick and the second top club as LHO pitches spades, suggesting he began with four. What next? Say you play a heart to dummy’s ace and a third club. RHO wins and leads the spade king. Plan the play.

If you ruff in, you will find yourself unable to execute a squeeze, even though your LHO has four hearts and the guarded ♦Q. You run out of trumps, or re-entries to hand. Best is to discard a heart now on the spade king, and when the defenders lead another spade, you can ruff, and run the trumps, having rectified the count with genuine pressure against West.

	♠ – ♥ 10 9 8 ♦ A K 10 ♣ –
♠ – ♥ K Q ♦ Q 7 6 4 ♣ –		♠ 5 3 2 ♥ J ♦ 8 ♣ 8
	♠ – ♥ – ♦ J 9 5 3 ♣ J 9

On the penultimate trump West still has to make a discard in the diagrammed ending, and whatever he does concedes the rest.

Note that at trick three the defenders can prevail if declarer ducks a heart, by simply winning and leading a top spade and then another spade when in with the club ace. Even more curiously, if declarer leads a low trump from hand at trick three to dummy’s ten, East can set the hand by ducking – and if he gets to win a heart must NOT cash the ♣A! By retaining the ♣A to ruff in with at a critical moment, the defence should always have the upper hand. This seems to run counter to all rules on defence, to the effect that you DON’T want to leave yourself with the master trump on defence, but should win it to leave yourself with a small trump. Ducking the club ace appears to cost at least one tempo, but the trick comes back with interest.

On our next exhibit declarer started well, then lost his way.

Dealer West. E/W Vul.
	♠ A 9 6 5 ♥ A 9 8 ♦ A K 8 3 ♣ 6 4
♠ 10 7 3 ♥ K J 7 2 ♦ 10 7 ♣ Q 10 8 5		♠ Q J 8 ♥ 5 3 ♦ Q J 9 6 2 ♣ K 7 2
	♠ K 4 2 ♥ Q 10 6 4 ♦ 5 4 ♣ A J 9 3

Playing against Meckstroth and Johnson, Pierre Zimmerman declared 3NT from the South seat here. This was after Franck Multon (North, playing a mini no-trump) had opened 1♦. After a club lead to the king and ace, he led a heart to the nine, a good start (though not as good as running the ♥10!). Now, however, he tried the ♥A and another heart, on which Meckstroth as East pitched an encouraging diamond. At this point Johnson’s shift to a diamond doomed South to one down. Ducking a spade at trick three might have been better both in theory and in practice to preserve communications. Meckstroth can win the ♠J to shift to the ♣7, covered all around, but now can do no better than to return a diamond won in dummy.

Declarer must be careful now. The winning line appears to be to cash the spade and diamond winners, ending up in dummy. After nine tricks (two clubs, two diamonds, one heart and four spades) declarer reduces to two clubs and two hearts in hand, but West keeps three hearts and a bare ♣Q. Declarer has no exit from dummy to endplay West and can only score one more trick, since East can keep enough diamond winners.

Instead declarer cashes only two diamond and two spades, ending in hand:

	♠ 9 ♥ A 9 ♦ 8 3 ♣ –
♠ – ♥ K J 7 ♦ – ♣ Q 8		♠ – ♥ 5 ♦ Q J 9 ♣ 2
	♠ – ♥ Q 10 5 ♦ – ♣ J 3

Declarer exits with the ♣J, letting West cash two clubs and then be endplayed to concede the rest.

At another table Mark Lair played 3NT from the North seat on the ♦Q lead, on which West was systemically obliged to unblock the ♦10. Lair ducked, won the high diamond continuation and led a spade, ducking East’s ♠J. Now East could not continue diamonds, and probably should just have played a spade. But he shifted to a heart. Lair carefully put up dummy’s ♥10, and when West covered it was all over. Declarer had three tricks in each major and three minor-suit winners for +400 and 11 IMPs.

A bidding problem next. As West you deal and pass with no one vulnerable, but soon face a high-level decision.

The hand opposite is:

So 6♠ makes by ruffing out diamonds, assuming no incredibly hostile breaks. Madala/Sementa reached slam using natural methods: @BIT1: Madala North Sementa South @bit2: Pass Pass 1♠ 2♣ 3♣ Pass 4♣ Pass 4♦ Pass 4♥ Pass 5♠ Pass 6♠ All Pass

Sementa’s 4♣ bid achieved its aim of making it clear at once that this was a slam-decision not a game-decision. Madala’s jump to 5♠ was well-conceived (good trumps, nothing else to say).

Bertheau and Nystrom also managed to get to slam, using as lot more delicate modern science.

The key here was that when Bertheau, as a passed hand, heard his partner make a slam try, he realized he was as good as could be; playing a strong club system he had denied even holding a jack more than he actually did. His 4♦ try denied a club control, so when his partner cooperated he knew he was facing a hand with a club control, and simply used Keycard to drive to slam, in spades of course.

Reaching slam here may not sound so impressive, but it turned out to be a very difficult hand for standard methods – very few pairs reached slam since even after a Drury auction it is hard for East to envisage both the good spades and the source of tricks from the passed hand.

Consider the South hand on our next exhibit. After the auction starts (1♥) – Pass – (1♠) to you it would be hard to quarrel with a call of 2♦; but minors are for children these days. Mark Jacobus tried 1NT and are promptly raised to 3NT. Now he had to play it on the lead of the club two.

Dealer North. N/S Vul.
	♠ A 9 5 4 ♥ 10 9 6 2 ♦ 4 ♣ K Q 5 4
♠ 8 2 ♥ Q 8 7 4 3 ♦ A 2 ♣ A J 6 2		♠ K Q 7 6 3 ♥ 5 ♦ 10 9 8 6 5 ♣ 8 3
	♠ J 10 ♥ A K J ♦ K Q J 7 3 ♣ 10 9 7

Mark ran the lead around to his hand and was delighted with the result. He cleared the clubs, and when West won the third club and shifted to spades, Jacobus ducked once, then won the heart shift, and knocked out the ♦A. Then he took the second spade, cutting the defenders’ communications, to cash ♣Q. At this point he simply took his heart and diamond winners (West pitching one heart on the third round of diamonds) to exit with the ♥J at trick 12 to West. At trick 13, that defender had to give dummy the ninth trick with the ♥10. That was good for 6 IMPs – the opponents in the same seats never bid, and defended 2♦ down 200.

The teams title came down to a four-way horse race. Kasle (Casen, Krekorian/Diamond, Chambers/Schermer) led going into the final match, and won it narrowly against Deutsch (Soloway, Cohen/Smith, Versace/Giubilo). That was enough for them to retain their lead, while Deutsch finished second, yet again (this is the third time in four years). They were one VP in front of Welland (Willenken, Madala/Sementa) who won their final match by enough to take third place from Narasimhan, and push the latter out of the prizes.

The format of the Pairs has been tinkered with over the years, but remains broadly the same: a field of close to 60 pairs with three-board rounds against all or most of the field. The key to the event is that all the partnerships are auctioned off the night before the event starts, and the main prizes go to the owners of the pairs, (who may well not be the players themselves) although there are some smaller prizes for the players. This year the format of the auction had been subtly modified – and as a consequence dramatically improved from the players’ perspectives. A pre-auction phase of 48 hours had let the favourites and everyone else be bid on by the general public.

Only those pairs who had been bid on went forward to the auction – the rest were sold to themselves for $12,500. Total auction proceeds went to just short of $1.2 M – a step up from last year, and a far more enjoyable process than one in which the auctioneer sits around in an embarrassed silence, waiting unsuccessfully for pairs to be bid on. As usual, Levin/Weinstein went at the top of the list, with Helness/Helgemo not far behind.

Cross-IMPs work like Butler IMPs; you compare your result and score up like in a team game with each of the other 26 pairs sitting the other way to you. So the numbers become inflated by a factor of 26. The only problem with the cross-IMP format is that one huge swing against you, which may not be your fault, can destroy a set. And this event there were a lot of slams, and what seemed like a remarkable number of bad splits (In one session the BEST trump break in a diamond slam was 4-0! There were two four-zero breaks and a five-zero break). But for the most part the players had their own fates in their hands.

On the following deal, for example, E/W have to do their best in the auction, N/S then have to provide the most challenging defence.

Dealer East. N/S Vul.
	♠ 6 4 ♥ A 6 4 ♦ J 8 5 ♣ K J 6 3 2
♠ A K Q 8 5 3 ♥ K 10 ♦ Q 9 ♣ Q 10 5		♠ 9 ♥ Q J 8 3 2 ♦ A K 4 3 2 ♣ 9 8
	♠ J 10 7 2 ♥ 9 7 5 ♦ 10 7 6 ♣ A 7 4

3NT by West is a fair spot (if you avoid four club losers, which you will do three-quarters of the time, you are still by no means home, though favourite to succeed). 4♠is considerably worse than needing spades 3-3. However, Tarek Sadek and Ahmed Hussein managed to find a way to 4♥ here, which looks to me to be the best game. Hussein responded 1♠, then used fourth suit (doubled by Wafik Abdou, North) and eventually arranged to give preference to hearts. On the lead of the ♣A and another club, Abdou got to play a third club and Sadek had to decide whether to ruff high or low. The percentage play might be to ruff low, or with the ♥8, but the double and the lead make it just a fraction closer than it might appear in abstract. Sadek erred by ruffing high, then led a heart to the ♥K. Abdou thoughtfully ducked, won the next heart, and led a fourth club to promote the ♥9 for down one. Quite a few pairs allowed 4♠ (or occasionally 3NT) to make but very few other pairs found their way to 4♥; Pszczola/Vainikonis bid 1♥ – 2♠ – 3♦ – 3♥ – 4♥ to earn their +420 on a less testing defence.

Dealer South. N/S Vul.
	♠ A Q 8 7 ♥ K 8 7 ♦ A Q 6 ♣ Q J 4
♠ – ♥ 9 5 2 ♦ K 10 9 7 3 ♣ 10 7 6 5 2		♠ 4 2 ♥ A Q J 6 ♦ J 4 2 ♣ A K 9 8
	♠ K J 10 9 6 5 3 ♥ 10 4 3 ♦ 8 5 ♣ 3

The most interesting declarer play deal of the Pairs event saw many declarers succeed, and some fail. At the table I was watching, Mike Passell was at the helm in 4♠ (Casen might have responded 3NT to 2♠ and had an easier time). Against 4♠, John Diamond led the ♦10. Passell finessed, then without stripping the diamonds, played a second trump and a club to the jack. Krekorian won and exited with a diamond. Passell now eliminated clubs before diamonds – a mistake? At this point in the four-card ending, with three hearts and a spade in both hands, he led a low heart. Diamond’s careful play of the ♥9 doomed him to down one.

Note that on the diamond lead, declarer surely does best to finesse then strip off diamonds in the process of drawing trumps. Now he leads a club to the ♣Q and ♣K. To give the defence a chance, East must win and smoothly return a low club! (Or in a similar position he must duck when declarer leads the bare club honour from the board.) Now if declarer falls for the bait he will assume the missing club honour is on the left and produce the same losing position as Passell took. +620 would have been worth 168 IMPs; -100 earned E/W 129 IMPs.

By contrast, at another table Hugh McGann played 4♠ on a club lead and ducked in dummy – a nice deceptive manoeuvre. Rodwell took the ♣K and ♣A. McGann ruffed and simply took both red-suit finesses to make his game (assuming that Rodwell might have come into the bidding with all four of the missing key-cards).

Ashley Bach played 4♠ after pre-empting 3♠, stolidly raised to 4♠ by Michael Cornell, over which Christiansen did not double. On a diamond lead he duplicated Passell’s approach of not eliminating diamonds or trumps before playing a club to the jack. He won the diamond return and led a low club from dummy, Christiansen flickering before ducking. So he ruffed, crossed to a second trump and ruffed a diamond, then drew a third trump and led the club jack, planning to discard a heart whether Christiansen covered or not.

Fredrik Nystrom played 4♠ after opening 2♠ with the South hand. On the accurate heart lead he ducked, won the trump shift and eliminated diamonds and trumps before playing a club to the jack and ace to endplay East. West’s discards and the opening lead had essentially forced him to get the position right. David Berkowitz got this position right – he had been doubled in 4♠ so it was even easier for him.

The best result on defence came when Bakkeren/Bertens defended 5♠ after a three-level pre-empt from their opponents. The defenders led a heart and shifted to trumps, and when declarer played on clubs before diamonds there was no longer any endplay for down one.

Of course, E/W could get into the auction– at their own risk. Roy Welland as West heard the auction go 2♠ – Pass – 3NT, back to him. He doubled (light take-out or penalties – and a great view!) and ran to 4♣ when it was redoubled. Willenken sacrificed in 5♣ over 4♠ and Welland ruffed the opening spade lead, tried a club to the ♣9 and claimed +750 for 297 IMPs! Well, perhaps claiming is not the right expression; 5♣ doubled might seem easy after that start – but it requires a little care. Compare what happened to two declarers here. Doub ruffed the spade, passed the ♣10, and when that held he took a heart finesse and clamed 11 tricks a few moments later. A less careful declarer led a club to the nine and ran the ♦J – and Hamman as North ducked! Nice play Bob; now declarer could ruff a spade to hand to take one heart finesse, but had no more entries to repeat the finesse, and had to go down one (of course had declarer led a diamond to the ♦10 this position could not have arisen).

And that is not the end of the story; against Woolsey, declarer led a low club at trick two – and Woolsey split his honours! Now declarer feared that if he took a diamond finesse he might run into a ruff, so he played for clubs 2-2 and simply cashed the club ace; down one! +100 was actually a small loss for N/S but a lot better than letting 5♣ make. At double-dummy declarer can succeed in 5♣ but he must be very careful. At trick three after North splits his club honours he leads a diamond to the ten and queen, and ruffs the spade return. Now he finesses in hearts, plays a diamond to the nine, ducked, and repeats the heart finesse, cashes the heart ace, and leads a third diamond. North wins and can do no better than lead a third spade, giving declarer the critical extra entry to hand for the trump finesse.

Just for reference; 13 pairs made game as N/S, six as E/W.

Quite a few of the field did not do very well in the auction on our next exhibit – but were given a friendly lead, quite the reverse of what happened at our featured table.

Dealer South. N/S Vul.
	♠ A 9 7 6 4 3 ♥ 6 ♦ K ♣ A Q 9 8 2
♠ 10 2 ♥ 9 5 4 3 ♦ A Q 7 ♣ J 7 6 5		♠ K Q 8 5 ♥ J 8 7 2 ♦ 8 3 2 ♣ 4 3
	♠ J ♥ A K Q 10 ♦ J 10 9 6 5 4 ♣ K 10

By contrast, Versace declared 3NT when Giubilo bid his black suits once, then gave up after his partner expressed no interest. However, David Birman did remarkably well when he led the ♠10 to the ♠Q and Altschuler shifted to the ♥7 and ♥K – on which Birman discouraged. Now came a diamond; Birman took the ♦A and played a second spade, ducked by Versace (who had to guess who had the ♦Q) around to the ♠8 for the critical club shift. Again, nicely defended. Birman covered Versace’s ♣10 with the ♣J and now there were no communications left between the two hands. So all Versace could do was come to the ♣K and try the ♦9. Birman took his ♦Q and exited with a club to dummy, and sat back for the third spade winner. Down one. Since 21 out of the 27 N/S pairs bid and made 3NT, many with overtricks, it looks like the Israeli E/W pair earned their IMPs here. Could declarer have done better? Yes, at double dummy, if he infers that the spades rate to be 4-2 with the opening leader quite likely to have the ♦Q (else he might have ducked the ♦A or given a little more thought to it?) Declarer takes the second spade and makes the critical move when he leads the ♣8 to the ♣K, overtakes the ♣10 with the ♣A, cashes the ♣Q and gets out with the ♣2 to the ♣J!

This manoeuvre prevents West from unblocking in clubs, so as to leave dummy on lead and endplayed. The defence have been gifted a club trick but now have to return a red suit around to declarer, and end up taking two diamonds, one club and just one spade trick. Now THAT would have given the brilliancy award to declarer, not the defenders!

Our next deal is another unusual declarer-play hand. I think N/S made three very nice decisions; first in the bidding, then at trick one, and finally at trick two.

Dealer East. N/S Vul.
	♠ Q 10 8 ♥ K Q 7 4 ♦ K 6 ♣ Q 8 3 2
♠ J 9 6 3 2 ♥ – ♦ J 10 5 3 ♣ J 6 5 4		♠ K 7 ♥ 10 8 5 3 2 ♦ A 9 8 2 ♣ K 7
	♠ A 5 4 ♥ A J 9 6 ♦ Q 7 4 ♣ A 10 9

Incidentally, Mike Passell played 4♥ on a low spade lead and guessed to put on the ♠8 as well. Now he had avoided a spade loser so when he found the 5-0 heart break, all he needed was to guess the clubs, which he did, and he had his contract.

Dealer South. E/W Vul.
	♠ J 9 8 ♥ 9 8 6 4 2 ♦ K 4 ♣ 7 5 4
♠ K 10 5 3 ♥ J 7 5 ♦ 5 3 ♣ Q 10 8 2		♠ A 7 ♥ A K 3 ♦ A 9 8 2 ♣ A J 6 3
	♠ Q 6 4 2 ♥ Q 10 ♦ Q J 10 7 6 ♣ K 9

In 3NT by East, you or I would know to lead fourth highest from our longest and strongest – wouldn’t we? Verhees led the normal ♦Q of course, and Rogoff guessed to overtake. When this was ducked, Rogoff returned the ♦4 and East put in the ♦9 on the second round. Verhees won and could see that he needed to shift; what was the right suit to play?

On a low spade shift (even assuming partner is kind enough to possess the ♠J and ♠9 so that the shift does not cost) declarer will surely win the ♠K and take a club finesse. Eventually he will have little option but to drop your ♥Q in the ending.

Verhees instead switched at trick three to the ♥10! Declarer did not put up the ♥J. Instead he won in hand, led a spade to the ♠K, and took a club finesse. Verhees won and returned a club, and declarer now went for the endplay. After the ♠A and two clubs he had reduced to:

	♠ J ♥ 9 8 5 4 ♦ – ♣ –
♠ 10 5 ♥ J 6 ♦ – ♣ Q		♠ – ♥ K 3 ♦ A 8 ♣ 6
	♠ Q 6 ♥ Q ♦ J 7 ♣ –

When he cashed the ♦A and crossed to dummy with a club, North bought into the game and pitched a low heart, then the ♠J. Now East could legitimately hope that North had begun life with ♠ QJxx and ♥ Qxxx. If that were so, a spade play would now endplay North to lead a heart around to the ♥J. Unlucky – down one and a sadder if not wiser declarer.

With one round to go the event had come down to a horse race between Weinstein/Levin and Casen/Passell, with Rogoff/Verhees still having an outside chance. What do you think your chances are like in game here?

Dealer North. All Vul.
	♠ 3 ♥ K Q J 8 3 ♦ K 8 3 ♣ K 10 7 6
♠ Q J 10 8 7 6 2 ♥ 4 ♦ 7 6 5 2 ♣ 5		♠ 5 ♥ A 9 6 5 2 ♦ A Q 10 9 ♣ A 4 2
	♠ A K 9 4 ♥ 10 7 ♦ J 4 ♣ Q J 9 8 3

Passell as North played a quiet 3♣, making +130, but Steve Weinstein was at the helm in 3NT:

	♠ – ♥ K Q J ♦ K 8 3 ♣ 10
♠ J 8 7 ♥ (7) ♦ 7 6 5 (2) ♣ –		♠ – ♥ A 9 6 ♦ A Q 10 9 ♣ –
	♠ A 9 ♥ (7) ♦ J 4 (2) ♣ J 9

The bracketed cards in the West and South hands represent the dilemma that East had. If South had begun with a 4-2-2-5 shape and an 11-count, the ace and queen of diamonds would leave declarer with eight tricks. If declarer had the 4-1-3-5 pattern a low diamond now would set the game and nothing else would work. East had several indications to get this right as well as some to get it wrong. Weinstein’s game-forcing 2♣ call on an 11-count was much more likely to have two trumps than one. And West might have pitched a heart to clarify the count there if he had possessed one. But West’s earlier defence might suggest he would not have found the heart discard even if he had had one!

Whatever the rights and wrongs of this, East did lead back a low diamond, and Weinstein put on the ♦J and claimed nine tricks a moment later, since he did indeed start life with the 4-2-2-5 shape.

So was your opinion that game should not make here? Wrong! When Roy Welland had the West cards he bid a natural (if frivolous) 2♠ as West at his first turn, and was raised to 4♠ by a partner without a sense of humour. Try and defeat the game when declarer first play in trumps is to lead a spade to the eight! For making 3NT Weinstein/Levin gained 280 IMPs; losing 200 would have cost them 141 IMPs – not quite enough to overturn the final results.