Dealer W
Vulnerability Love All |
Despite
not qualifying for the Tollemache final, Derbyshire did score a moral
victory on this hand v Yorkshire. The bidding and lead was as in table
1 but South insisted on a full description of each of the bids.
After some thought Mary eventually played dummy's spade10, which was
covered immediately by the queen. Mary paused for about 3/4 seconds to
take in what had happened and played the king. She then ran the 9 of
clubs to south's 10 and south thought for an age before returning the J
of hearts! Mary now cashed four clubs, three diamond and the ace of
hearts, claiming 9 tricks. The hand was duly scored and after a
few caustic comments by north, we took out the hands for the
final board. At this point south called for the director and
rather apologetically claimed he had been damaged by West's hesitation
before playing the king of spades. The facts were established with the
director and all agreed that Mary's pause had been brief. Later we were
told that the pause may have affected south's defence and we were given
an adjusted score, which was a proportion of 3NT making and going minus
one.
|
|
| Table 1 |
West
Mary Marshall
|
North
Sarah Teshome
|
East
David Marshall
|
South
Richard Winter |
| 1C (a) |
1S |
Pass (b) |
Pass |
| 1NT (c) |
Pass) |
3NT |
Pass
|
| Pass |
Pass |
|
|
|
- |
- |
- |
(a) Strong
Club, 16+ HCPs.
(b) 6-8 points
(c) 17-19 balanced
Contract 3NT
Declarer W
Opening Lead 5 Spades
Result 9 tricks +400 to EW |
|
The Outcome
After a long discussion with team mates and others, we decided to
appeal the ruling. Derbyshire have a poor record on winning
rulings in events like these but Pym Berry and Andy Wells represented
us the next day in absentia. They argued that south had no rational
defence but to return his partner's suit and won the appeal. A minor
triumph for Derbyshire!
The contract is cold even on a spade lead but few people made it.
Apparently on the same defence John Squibb had thought an age before
playing his spade king. He gave up on clubs, using them as entries for
the heart finesse and an attempt to set up a fourth diamond. When this
proved unsuccessful the other Yorkshire pair had no need to resort to
the rules in their defence. Can you see how the contract can be made
legitimately?
Answers to david@dcmarshall.freeserve.co.uk
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