West District Pairs Semi-Final

Norman and I played in the West District Pairs semi-final last Tuesday. There is a 7 table final, and there were only 21 pairs in the semi-final, so we were hoping not to have any problems with qualifying, and so it proved - we won the semi-final comfortably, with a score of 67%, and so hopefully head into the final as favourites (although there are obviously several other pairs who could win it).

Here's one board where we didn't do so well:

We bid to 6♠, after I opened 1♦, and rebid 2NT. Norman didn't make this. Every table played in spades, and 4 out of 10 managed to make 12 tricks. I think you probably should, although I did stare at it for quite a while before figuring it out.

Double dummy, you're cold for 12 tricks - win the ♠ lead (the only lead which makes it even slightly awkward), and knock out the ♥A. W doesn't have another trump to return, so now you can pitch both your clubs on diamonds and ruff two hearts.

I think the right way to play it is actually to win the spade lead and ruff a small diamond before knocking out the ♥A. That way, if the trumps are 2-2 all along, you still have the chance to ruff one heart and set up the 5th diamond to discard another (all this without taking into account the fact that you can sometimes make an extra trick with the ♣ finesse). Playing this way, you'll make any time the trumps are 2-2 and the ♦Q comes down in 4 rounds, or any time the trumps are 3-1, and the ♥A isn't with the 3 trumps, and probably a lot of the time the ♣K is onside. I don't think you can ever make on any other lay-outs.

Norman used a second trump entry to ruff a second ♦ before he knocked out the ♥A, so went off as there cards lie, as there was now no chance of ruffing two ♥s. As I said, it took me a fair amount of time staring at this hand before I came up with the above analysis, so it's quite possible I've missed something, and in any case, it's certainly not easy to get the timing right to combine all your chances for 12 tricks.

As I said, despite this, we were comfortably ahead of the field, and so we're looking pretty good going into the final, which is on March 15th at the Buchanan.