July
11-17, 1999: Canada's Bridge Week. The venue:
Toronto's Yorkdale Holiday Inn. On the
seventh day of the Open Teams Event (the
CNTC), all but two of the original 28 teams
from the six Canadian zones had been
eliminated. The 72-board final featured two
of the betting favourites, BARAN (Boris
Baran, George Mittelman, Allan Graves, J
Markland Molson, Eric Kokish) and LEBI (Robert
Lebi-Nader Hanna, John "JC" Carruthers-Drew
Cannell). The score was close in the second
quarter, when this deal arrived:
Neither side vulnerable; North deals
West |
North |
East |
South |
|
Cannell |
|
Carr'thrs |
|
|
|
1 |
2 |
Dbl(1) |
3(2) |
4 |
Pass |
4 |
Pass |
6 |
Pass |
Pass |
Pass |
|
(1) Negative, takeout; (2) Short spades,
heart fit
Opening Lead:
J
BARAN's North/South pair had stopped in 4,
but Carruthers-Cannell were more ambitious.
Carruthers knew that 4
was not forcing, but he wanted to show his
side length for slam purposes, and his
opponents had indicated they would bid again
if North could not. Cannell's preference to
spades prompted Carruthers to take a shot at
slam, and dummy, with four key honours in
the black suits, proved quite suitable.
Declarer ruffed the opening lead, drew three rounds of trumps, ruffing a
second heart en route, and led the
4
from hand. East, placing declarer with
7-0-1-5 pattern for his bidding, had
discarded a diamond and heart to keep all
his clubs, so declarer could win the diamond
return with the ace, cross to the
Q,
and ruff a diamond, establishing dummy's
fourth diamond for a club discard; plus 980.
11 IMPs to LEBI, ahead now by 16.
It might appear that East's diamond discard gave away the contract, but
that was not so. If instead he discards a
heart or a club, declarer uses a club entry
to dummy to ruff the third diamond and run
his remaining trumps. East would not be able
to keep both a club guard and the high
diamond, succumbing to a minor-suit squeeze.
It would have been slightly better for
declarer to start diamonds by playing ace
and another, keeping his communications
intact, but on the actual lie it did not
matter. It is remarkable that West could
have defeated the contract at trick one by
leading his singleton club, perhaps the
least likely choice on the auction.
LEBI also gained substantially on the next two deals, and these three
boards decided a match that was otherwise
virtually even. LEBI won by 35 IMPs. The
players dedicated their victory to their
longtime friend and teammate, Ted Horning,
who died just a few hours after completion
of play. Now renamed Team HORNING, the
winners will add a third pair and will
represent Canada at the World Bridge Teams
Olympiad in the Netherlands in autumn, 2000,
If they play as well then as they did in the
CNTC, we can look forward to reporting their
future achievements in this feature.