Final Act - Swiss Pairs

At the end of last week's Swiss Pairs session, my partner and I were lying comfortably ahead of the field and we extended our winning streak for two further matches. Going into the final set of eight boards we were some 16VP's ahead of the field - all we needed to do was to avoid losing by 3-17 VP's or worse in our final match: superficially an easy enough goal.

For our final match, we were playing against Rod & Sue Oakford who had also won all their matches but by somewhat smaller margins.

The first board started well enough for us: we bid and made a thin but unbeatable 3NT - but  things then went into a rapid decline. We bid 3NT rather than 5♣ and then lost the first six tricks when the diamond honours were split (a 50% chance - had they been in the same hand or not led, we would have made 10 or 11 tricks for a good score, rather than a bottom). We then followed by (my) overbidding to game on a combined 24 count, and a fourth deal when Sue and Rod stayed low on a misfit and other pairs got too high. On those four boards, we had amassed a mere 26/88 matchpoints!

We gained a brief respite on the next board when Sue & Rod played in an inferior slam, but the remaining nails in our coffin were duly applied over the next three boards.by Rod brilliantly choosing his moment to eschew an obvious 4♠ contract for a less obvious 3NT,  and by opening 1NT on a 10 count, propelling his side into an unbeatable 3NT on a combined 24 count.  That was a further 19/66 matchpoints. The remaining board was a further zero for us as we missed an easy vulnerable game when I made a tactical underbid - but the margin was so great that even had we scored above average on this board, we were still heading for a 20-0 defeat.

Here is the first of those three hands:

East (Sue)	North	West (Rod)	South
1♠	Pass	2♣ (1)	Pass
3♠	Pass	3NT (2)	Pass
Pass	Pass

(1)                A 2♥ bid would show  a five card suit

(2)                Without a ruffing value in hand and hoping for solid spades opposite

My partner having little information to go on, had to chose between a “safe” diamond lead from J10 or a speculative heart lead from "rubbish". Unsurprisingly, he chose the former.

Rod then played the hand nicely. Winning the diamond in hand, he led a spade towards dummy and was delighted to see the king appear. Returning to hand via a top club, he led a second spade and, on seeing North show out, played the queen and another spade, putting South on lead. In a forlorn hope, I now played a heart to dummy’s ace (a club lead does not work since declarer can finesse without risk).  Rod now cashed all dummy’s winners and  effected a show-up squeeze on me. With three cards left, the position was:

	♠None
	♥7
	♦J
	♣10
♠None		♠10
♥Q		♥None
♦None		♦None
♣AJ		♣98
	♠None
	♥K
	♦None
	♣Q7

On the last spade, I had to discard either my ♥K or my ♣7. If I chose the latter, my ♣Q would appear when the ♣9 was led next off dummy, leaving declarer with no guess as to risk the finesse or not. I rightly threw the ♥K in the hope that partner might have the ♥Q – but it was not to be. Declarer simply discarded his ♣J and made the last two tricks and twelve in all, for a complete top outscoring all the +480's.

Congratulations to Rod & Sue Oakford who were worthy winners of the competition.

Finally - a big thank you to the organisers. Ken Riley and especially Colin Sills who made the event possible. The turnout was excellent and I hope that this encourages the club to attempt to put on more special events.