Marc Smith visits the opening rounds of Heat 7 in the New Alt Competition
Only three of the Group A teams from Heat 6 were available for this round of the monthly Alt competition, MOSS, BLACK and FREDIN. They would be joined by the leading teams from Group B, LEBOWITZ (USA/Denmark/Italy), SALVO (Turkey) and JEDI KNIGHTS (England/Wales).
As usual, we begin with some problems. We shall discover later how your choices would have worked. First, with just your side vulnerable, you are West with:
What action do you take?
Next, with just your side vulnerable, you hold as South:
What action do you take?
Finally, with both sides vulnerable, you are West with this collection:
What do you bid?
While you consider those, we start with the action from Round 1, which featured a number of deals with game/slam decisions.
Half of the six tables in Group A reached this contract after a similar auction. The defenders led diamonds and declarer quickly took his nine tricks: E/W +600.
Only one of the E/W pairs in Group A had to deal with a seriously contested auction, and they were severely tested:
Andrew Black might have made things easier for himself by overcalling at his first turn. When the auction came back to him at the four-level, though, he did well to back in despite the paucity of his support for either major suit. David Gold bid his four-card major and then had to play the Moysian fit.
Declarer won the diamond lead, ruffed a diamond, successfully played a trump to the queen, and ruffed his last diamond in dummy. A club to the ten then enabled him to cash the ♠A. Gold then simply played on clubs, essentially allowing the defenders to score two trump tricks whenever they liked. When North ruffed the second round of clubs and played a fourth diamond, Gold was able to ruff and play a trump, knowing that North had only hearts left. Declarer’s heart loser thus disappeared on dummy’s long clubs: a sweaty E/W +650 and 2 IMPs to BLACK.
By contrast, both E/W pairs in the match between MOSS and LEBOWITZ found their ten-card club fit.
The auction started with a multi-way Polish Club. Michal Nowosadzki showed clubs at his second turn and Jacek Kalita created a game-force with an artificial ‘third-suit’ 2♦ bid. Nowosadzki showed his spade support and his heart fragment, but then denied a major-suit control when Kalita cue-bid in diamonds. With a certain heart loser, Kalita knew that slam could never be better than the spade finesse (opposite something like ♠J10x) and, potentially, would be much worse. An excellent, controlled auction.
At first glance, the lack of a useful spade card in the West hand makes even game dependent on some sort of favourable spade position. However, the presence of the ♠9 in dummy enabled Nowosadzki to ensure his contract against any spade position. He won the diamond lead and ruffed a diamond high. He then played a heart to the ten. South won and continued diamonds, declarer again ruffing high. The ♥A, a trump to hand and a heart ruff eliminated the red suits. Declarer could now draw the last trump and play a spade towards dummy. Covering any card played by North ensured the contract, however the spades lay. E/W +600.
North/South got into the auction on the second round, John Hurd entering with a takeout double showing both red suits having passed initially. John Kranyak showed a good hand with his double of North’s 3 ♥ and then agreed clubs with a cue-bid. Vincent Demuy then advanced with 4NT, which was not alerted in the records, so I cannot tell you exactly what the implications of this are. Suffice it to say, though, that Kranyak now thought his hand was good enough to take a shot at slam. Even with the ♠K onside, though, that was one too high: E/W -100 and 12 IMPs to MOSS.
BLACK topped the table after the first match, their 39-19 victory over JEDI KNIGHTS the biggest win of the round. There were also small wins for LEBOWITZ and FREDIN. It was MOSS, the winners of three previous heats of this competition, who were the next opponents for the early leaders, and on the final board of this round a number of players were faced with the first of this week’s bidding problems.
David Gold pre-empted over Sylvia Moss’s nebulous 1♣ opening and Roger Lee suggested both majors with a negative double. Andrew Black raised to the limit but Moss was not tempted by the quality of her spade support and suggested defending.
The defence took the maximum. Lee started with a top heart and then accurately switched to the ♦K at trick two. Gold won with the ♦A and led the club from dummy, but Moss rose with the ace and continued with a second trump. Gold could ruff one club loser in dummy, but that was all. He still had a club to lose as well as two spades: E/W +500.
Faced with the identical problem, Tom Paske pressed onto 5♠ with the West cards. There appear to be only two losers, one in each minor, but amassing eleven tricks with neither of the key side-suits breaking is another matter.
Declarer won North’s heart lead and advanced the ♦K. Kevin Bathurst won with the ♦A and returned the ♥8. Paske ruffed high (North discarding a diamond), drew three rounds of trumps ending in dummy, and played a club to the queen. Declarer still had a trump and a top heart in dummy to deal with his two remaining diamond losers, but he could not handle the 4-1 club break and eventually finished two down. E/W -200 and 12 IMPs to MOSS, up and running with a 52-25 victory.
That win was not quite enough to carry MOSS to the top of the leaderboard. That prize went to FREDIN, who recorded their second victory, defeating LEBOWITZ 48-18. Fittingly, the Round 3 schedule pitted the two leading teams against each other.
All six South players in Group A faced some variation of this auction, the second of this week’s problems. Exactly how you view this problem may depend on how many clubs your partnership’s 1♣ opening promises. At four of the six tables in Group A, South did what Alon Apteker did here and bid on to 5♣. At the other three, South passed and collected +100. When Sylvia Moss chose to ignore the mantra that the five-level belongs to the opponents, she swapped her small plus for a similarly-sized minus. The real damage occurred at the other table, though.
For the Swedes, Marten Gustawsson chose a 1♠ overcall rather than Michels. Kevin Bathurst showed his invitational or better club raise and John Sylvan bid only 3♠ on the West hand. I have mixed feelings about John Hurd’s 3NT bid. Did Bathurst expect more defence and/or less in clubs? For whatever reason, he now passed when East carried on to game in spades. Perhaps he expected his partner to be able to double 4♠. Did he think pass was forcing and, indeed, it perhaps should be after North’s 3NT bid – a situation worth discussing with your regular partner. The result, though, was that the Swedes were allowed to play their spade game, to which there was no defence. E/W +420 and 11 IMPs to FREDIN, who collected almost maximum VPs for their impressive 62-7 victory over the pre-tournament favourites.
This win gave FREDIN a 15-VP lead over SALVO, who defeated BLACK 31-23 to climb into second place in the table. LEBOWITZ pipped JEDI KNIGHTS 35-34 in the other Round 3 match. Next up for the runaway leaders were JEDI KNIGHTS, the only team still looking for their first win of the week.
None of the six West players thought their hand in our final bidding problem worth even a vulnerable weak two opening, so all six then had to decide what to do when partner opened their six-card suit and RHO doubled.
For JEDI KNIGHTS, Pat Shield’s raise to the four-level shut out Peter Fredin’s spades. However, that seemed like good news for the Swedes, as 4♠ failed by a trick at the three of the four tables where that contract was played. East’s 4♦ suffered the same fate, down one: N/S +100.
There was one interesting technical point in the play. Alon Atpeker led the ♦J to his partner’s ace and Fredin returned the ♥10, covered by queen and king, which left South effectively endplayed. If, instead, North had switched to his low heart, South could have won with the king and returned the suit, establishing his ♥J as a defensive trick before declarer was able to get dummy’s third heart away on the clubs. It was only an extra undertrick this time, but some day in the future it may be the setting trick in a redoubled contract!
At some tables, West raised to 3♦ after South’s double, but that was not enough to keep North’s spades out, and South raised 3♠ to game. Here, John Sylvan’s redouble allowed Rob Cliffe to bid his suit at the one-level, although doing so in this auction did not promise any values. Alan Mayo still raised to 2♠, and now Cliffe made a game try when Sylvan showed his diamond support. Mayo accepted and they were in the same contract as a number of other N/S pairs.
At tables where a diamond was led against this contract, declarer lost the obvious two major-suit tricks and then found that East’s club spots meant that there were two losers in that suit. Against Cliffe, Anders Morath opened the ♣K, theoretically allowing declarer to avoid a second loser in that suit, but simultaneously setting up a club ruff for his partner. Cliffe won with the ♣A, crossed to hand in diamonds, and ran the ♠J. Sylvan did what was needed by returning a heart (the ♥6, second from bad suits), but Morath could not read the club position. Instead of cashing his high club and giving his partner a ruff, he returned a second heart. Cliffe ran this and, winning with the ♥10, was then able to draw trumps, pitch a club on the ♥K, and concede a club. N/S +620 and 11 IMPs to JEDI KNIGHTS, who scored their first win of the competition, 46-20 over the leaders.
Not that this defeat put that much of a dent into the FREDIN lead at the top of the table, with second-placed SALVO losing 11-19 against MOSS, and third-placed BLACK going down 31-41 against LEBOWITZ.
After four matches, these are the standings in Group A:
| FREDIN | 52.54 VPs |
| SALVO | 42.31 |
| MOSS | 37.74 |
| LEVOWITZ | 37.58 |
| JEDI KNIGHTS | 36.18 |
| BLACK | 33.65 |
Elsewhere, ULI (Austria/Italy) leads Group B ahead of MORAN (Ireland), whilst SELIGMAN (USA/Poland) heads HARRIS (England/Bulgaria) in Group C.
Next week, we will return to see the best of the action from the middle rounds of this heat.