Tollemache 2011

The Tollemache is the annual EBU inter-county championship for teams of eight, though most counties take five pairs to allow for a break in what is a very intensive programme. Team selection has often been a contentious issue in the past, but this year the county committee asked pairs to apply and as only five pairs volunteered the team selected itself.

Ron and Lynne Heath
Margot Wilson and John Gardner
Mark Hooper and Phil Norman
Tim Dunsby and Krzysztof Ginda
Ann Sharples and Bob Mott

The teams are split into four groups of nine or ten teams with the leading two teams going through to the final. Dorset teams have always found the Tolle hard going in recent years so mid-table respectability rather than a top-two finish was a realistic objective.

The weekend started better than we could have hoped for with a 19-1 in the local derby against Devon, and after scoring 9 and 15 in our other two matches we found ourselves in the lead after the first session.

Unaccustomed to such dizzy heights and suspecting that it was too good to last, some members of our team took a photo of the leader board at this point. I was more hopeful, having been around long enough to remember the annus mirabilis when Dorset topped the leader board at the end of the weekend, but the pessimists were proved right as we failed to win another match and slowly slipped down the table to finish a disappointing eighth out of ten teams.

Some of the team discussing the hands after the first session, when the scoreboard looked like this (photos from Tim)

This was an interesting hand in our match against Cambridgeshire, the eventual winners, which we lost narrowly 11-9. Looking at just the East-West cards, the best contract is a diamond part score. Tim and Krzysz managed to stop in a sensible 3 Diamonds, but the other three tables all stretched to poor game contracts.



At our table we had three opponents as the lady international sitting West was heavily pregnant. Her partner was a former British chess champion, who tries to cultivate a mad professor image (he is actually a maths professor in real life) by not bothering to waste any money at the hairdressers.

A heart would have been the best lead against 3NT, but I led a normal six of clubs which ran to declarer's ten. Now she played ace, king and a low diamond to Ann's queen, discarding a spade and two hearts from dummy. South should really play the queen of hearts now - declarer is marked with eight diamonds and at least two clubs, and presumably has something in spades, so there is not room for more than one heart, and dummy still has a double stop in clubs. However, I had done my best to put Ann off by playing a Smith peter to encourage a club continuation, so Ann dutifully played back a club to the queen, king and ace.

Now declarer played a low spade off the board and went into the tank when Ann played low. It may look a pure guess whether to play the queen or the ten, but the queen is the correct play, in theory if not in practice. If the queen wins you are home and dry, while even if the ten draws North's ace the defence may be able to run at least three heart tricks.

You would have hoped that an international player would see this quite quickly but it took at least ten minutes before she played a card. As this was the last match of the day, well past my bedtime and the opponents had already been very slow I was not best pleased, but eventually declarer worked it out and played the queen so I won and played jack and another club. Stranded in dummy, declarer exited with a heart to my seven so I cashed my last club, forcing dummy to discard down to K of spades and K 8 of hearts.

Normally I would just cash the ace of hearts and claim two down, but I was a grumpy old man by this stage and so I decided to insult declarer by playing the jack of hearts. This prompted another interminable pause but, no doubt exhausted by all that thinking, she played low (a clear error this time) so I could cash my remaining hearts for down four.

Can you see where declarer went wrong in the middle of the hand? When she played a low spade from dummy, it would be better to play the king, as it would be very difficult for a defender to duck smoothly without giving away the location of the ace. On the actual hand my singleton ace would remove any need for a guess in spades.

At another table Phil Norman declared 3NT from the East seat after North had made a rather wild 3 club overcall. South led a club and Phil won and played a club back. North won and erred in a big way by cashing the ace of spades and switching to ace and another heart. Two winning clubs now squeezed South and 3NT was made.

At the fourth table the Cambridge West played in 5 Diamonds. With North being endplayed at trick 1, there is no defence and the contract made.

This was an instructive hand where Ann and I managed to mangle an easy defence. First though, you are declarer as South in 3NT on the lead of the jack of diamonds. Which card do you use to win the first trick?



If you think that's a pointless question, look at what happened



Declarer won with the queen and played the queen of hearts, ducked and the jack of hearts to the ace. Now East switched to the king of spades, West giving count with the five, and played a low spade to West's ace. Now West had two options; on the actual hand you need to cash out in spades, but if declarer has the queen of spades and partner the ace of diamonds you must play a club to stick the lead in dummy and hope for two diamond tricks at the end. I was West and it goes without saying that I chose the wrong option.

If declarer is missing the ace of diamonds he is a bit light for his bidding but I had expected partner to play the queen of spades if she had it. The play of the king did not promise the queen, as partner had to assume that I had the ace of spades for us to have a chance. But there was another clue that I missed at the time - East had followed with the two on the first round of hearts. The way we play Smith peters that was a discouraging card in my first suit (diamonds) and should have pointed me to the winning play.

Now you see why declarer was right to play the queen of trick one. If he had played the ace or king, even I could not have got this wrong.

A Textbook Hand

It is not often that you deal a hand straight out of the textbook, but this deal came up at Dorchester this week




It's a decent enough slam, but our opponents were the only pair to bid it after South opened with a slight overbid of 2 clubs. You can follow the correct line of play by clicking 'Next'. The crucial point of the hand comes after drawing trumps, when you should play three rounds of spades ending in hand.

West is guarding spades and East is guarding clubs so you have a classic double squeeze, and the contract is cold regardless of the position of the queen of diamonds. But if you play spades instinctively by playing the king, queen and ace, you are stuck in dummy and playing a diamond to hand will break up the entries for the squeeze.

As the cards lie, the same squeeze operates if you cash the king and queen of spades and then run the trumps, but the spade position is not clear and you may go wrong by discarding a winning spade from dummy when the spades were breaking 3-3.

At the table declarer preferred to take a mundane diamond finesse, but her luck was in and we ended with a bottom on the board.

Senior Moments

Against my better judgement I was persuaded to have a go at the Senior Pairs at Brighton. The second day was a game of two halves. In the semi-final we made a few mistakes and apparently normal results always seemed to give us a poor score, so we were consigned to the Also Rans Final. Then it was the other way round - we made fewer errors, luck was on our side, the opponents were often in a generous mood and we managed to win.

My partner is well known for her rose-tinted spectacles, so I normally bid rather conservatively to compensate. It is not usually a good plan for both partners to overbid on the same hand, but when your luck is in...



My partner did not think much of my opening bid, although it does conform to the rule of 19 and the Losing Trick Count. Ann's 2NT showed a good four-card raise in hearts (a fit-jump of Three Diamonds might have been more descriptive) and Four Spades was a Sharples game-try (you bid it and then try to make it). No worries. When the trumps broke the contract was secure and even though I mis-guessed the diamonds to make only ten tricks we still got a huge score for bidding game.

This was another hand where we were a bit fortunate. East might (should?) have bid Four Spades over the double but he fancied his chances in defence against Four Hearts.

I could have bid 3NT over the double and taken ten top tricks, but the play in Four Hearts was more interesting. East must have been quite confident when dummy went down with the top heart honours, but he was soon to be disappointed. Even after the 5-0 break is revealed, the contract is cold provided that East has at least two diamonds, as a simple elimination leads to East being endplayed. Click on 'Next' to follow the play.



At this point East could choose his poison. If he leads the spade I ruff in hand and play a diamond, forcing East to ruff and lead a trump into the KJ. Alternatively, if he leads a trump I can cash the other trump and play a diamond winner. At the table East chose to play a trump, which at least gave him the small satisfaction of only being endplayed once rather than twice.

Trying to Lose

In our fourth round Silver Plate match against a team from Devon, both sides seemed to be doing their best to avoid progressing into the next round, but we managed to squeak home by 5 imps. At our table the opponents started by playing a laydown Six Clubs in an equally laydown 3NT. Dummy compounded the error by putting the clubs down on his right, so that declarer forgot the contract and fell foul of Burn's Third Law - 'you cannot make 3NT on a cross-ruff' - to go three down.

This was an interesting declarer play problem - how do you play after the king of spades lead, East following with the four?



In our room North bid a rose-tinted Four Hearts at his second turn, which encouraged his parther to bid a hopeless slam. When I played briefly with Mike Pownall, he taught me a rule for supporting partner after intervention - you should allow yourself to be pushed one level higher than normal but not two levels. On this hand North would have rebid Two Hearts if West had passed. So he can bid Three Hearts over a Two Spade overcall, but should pass after a Three Spade overcall.

Back to earth in Four Hearts. If trumps are 3-2, the contract is a simple make by drawing two rounds of trumps and ruffing spades in dummy, but this will fail if trumps are 4-1, which is of course much more likely than normal when the missing spades are known to be 7-1. According to my unreliable arithmetic, the chance of East having four trumps is 35%, and a 3-2 break is still the favourite at 54%.

At the table Chris was worried about a possible bad trump break and started with ace and another diamond, but West held a doubleton diamond and the defenders were able to cross ruff in diamonds and spades for one down. I think a better line is to cash the ace of trumps and then lead a low diamond from hand, covering West's card. Win the return, unblock the ace of diamonds and cross to the king of trumps. If trumps are 3-2 you are home, but if East has four trumps you ruff a diamond, cross to a top club, ruff another diamond and continue clubs, making if the clubs are 3-3. Of course you will look silly if West started with a singleton diamond, but this is much less likely than a singleton trump.

This was the full deal

Deauville Debut

After several years of wondering we finally arranged to play in France at the Festival Mondial in Deauville. The food and drink were excellent but the bridge was described by my partner as 'challenging'. There may be some connection between these two statements. After finishing on average after the first of three sessions we slowly slipped down the field to finish near the bottom.

We had been warned about the table etiquette in France but some of the goings on were still a surprise. Convention cards were almost non-existent (although most people played the standard French system of 15-17 no trump and 5-card majors) and our announcement that we were playing a sans-atout faible - 12-14 not 10-12 - provoked a frantic discussion about defensive methods as if we had announced some obscure brown-sticker convention. Asking pointed questions during the auction seemed perfectly acceptable, and when you reached an inferior contract it was common to conduct a heated post-mortem during the play of the hand to encourage the opponents to lose concentration and misdefend.

The 'Patton' teams of four was played as a multiple teams with four board rounds and 16 VP at stake in each round - 8 for point-a-board and 8 on the imp swing. The boards were dealt at the table so there were no hand records, and although most boards had English cards there were occasional boards with French cards to keep you on your toes.

The highlight of the event was undoubtedly the first match on Day 2. Ann and I played against France's most famous player, Paul Chemla, and his partner Alain Levy, both former world champions, while Hilary and Chris faced French internationals Jean-Christophe Quantin and Robert Reiplinger. On the first board both tables played in three spades with nine trumps missing the queen. Levy played for the drop but Chris, warned by a take-out double in the auction, took the winning line of a finesse.

The other three boards were all of interest. This was a tough defence (or at least it was too tough for me).



Ann led the 7 of spades (playing standard English leads) to the ten, queen and ace. Levy played a trump to the king and another trump to Ann's ace. Now Ann played the 5 of spades and declarer played low from dummy. Unclear about the spade position, I went up with the king and that was the end of the defence. At the other table Chris and Hilary bid and made Three Hearts so we lost the board and a 6 imp swing.

To beat the contract I must play the 8 of spades and switch to a diamond. Should I have got this right? Ann's carding is consistent with 9765 or 95 of spades, but the four card holding is more likely (as Ann has only two trumps) and with a doubleton Ann might have gone up with the ace on the first round of trumps. So I think that it's right to play the eight of spades and switch to a minor, but it seems to be a guess which suit to play. Declarer's minor suits could have been ♦ A 10 x x ♣ A Q x, where a club switch is needed.

Next came a marginal slam, bid by Chris and Hilary while Levy and Chemla stopped in Four Spades. How do you play on the queen of diamonds lead?



There are two possible lines. The first is to cross to the king of hearts and take a heart finesse. If it wins you can throw a diamond and hope to ruff the losing diamond. This is how Chemla played at our table but the heart finesse lost and he made 11 tricks.

Hilary played the same way as Chemla (which is some consolation) but that meant an 11 imp loss. The alternative line is to try for clubs 3-3 by playing king, ace and ruffing a club. If East follows to the third round of clubs you have to ruff with the nine to reduce the risk of an over-ruff. This would have worked at the table as the clubs were 3-3.

Which is the best line? Playing on hearts needs more than just a simple finesse - the missing hearts need to be 5-3 or 4-4 (about 80%), and you also need the diamonds 4-3 or 5-2 with the doubleton on your left (about 78%). The combined chance is about 31%. And playing off the red suits increases the chance of the defence being able to promote the 10 of trumps.

The chance of a 3-3 club break is 36% and a 4-2 break will not necessarily be fatal as you will be able to revert to Plan A if you have not suffered an over-ruff. So playing on clubs seems to be the better line.

We repaired the damage on the final hand, Chris and Hilary's finest hour. At our table events unfolded as follows



4 hearts is cold for East-West, but it hardly obvious to bid it with a balanced 11 count opposite a passed hand. Against Four Clubs, Ann led the king and ace of spades. I showed count by playing the three, but on the second round I mistakenly played the jack as suit preference for hearts. Levy ruffed the heart, ruffed his losing spade, ruffed another heart and drew trumps. He can now endplay me by playing a diamond and covering West's card, but he played a diamond to the ace, ruffed a heart to hand and led a diamond up to finish one down. I don't know why he did this, as the animated post-mortem was way beyond the comprehension of my schoolboy French. A diamond switch at trick three would give declarer no chance.

At the other table the auction was more exciting



Three Clubs showed an invitational hand with long clubs. Reiplinger's double was intended to show a solid suit somewhere, but his partner thought that it just showed a good holding in clubs and led a low heart, so that Hilary could wrap up 9 tricks for + 750. The 13 imp swing meant that we won the board and the match ended with an 8-8 draw. But if we had defeated 4 hearts and made the slam it would have been 16-0. That would have been a tale to tell.

Torquay Trials

In the Swiss Pairs at Torquay Ann and I made a serious tactical error by winning each of our first three matches 18-2, obliging us to play the rest of the event at the top three tables. We managed to keep our heads above the water (albeit with some unexpected help from allegedly strong opponents) until a disastrous last round dropped us to 13th.

I started the rot with a stupid Smith Peter from 10 x which allowed a no-play 3NT to make. Then I had a couple of close bidding decisions and got both wrong






On the first hand the favourable vulnerability tempted me to sacrifice in 4 spades but the full deal was like this


and I went for 800. On the second hand I chose to pass 2 spades and again this was the wrong move



as partner had a very suitable hand and the cards lay well so that eleven tricks were easy. On reflection I think that this was a little unlucky, as a simulation(generating 20 random deals where North held 5 to 9 points with at least 3 spades) shows that game was only making about 20% of the time, while 8 tricks were the limit about 30% of the time.

The most costly mistake was this hand, where we had earned a near-top in the bidding only to misdefend and concede a bottom.



I led the king of diamonds and partner played the 7. I switched to a club on which partner played the king and declarer ducked. Now a club continuation allowed declarer to cross ruff for 11 tricks.
We both should have done better. North's seven of diamonds is most likely to be the second highest from four cards or the lowest from three. In both cases a trump switch at trick 2 cannot cost. And North should certainly have switched to a trump at trick 3 as declarer is marked with the ace of clubs.

At least we managed to improve on our 21st place of the previous two years and win a modest prize.

Garden Cities Regional Final

In the Garden Cities regional final Weymouth finished 3rd out of nine teams, ahead of a strong Bristol team but some way behind Worcester and Cheltenham. We did have our chances to do better - details of the hand where I went down in an easy 3 clubs doubled are subject to a superinjunction - but here are two declarer play problems that were not solved at the table. They share a common theme which you may be able to spot.



At our table North put down dummy and left the room for a fag, commenting that he hoped his huge hand would be good enough to avoid any problems. He was soon to be disappointed.

Declarer won the heart lead and drew two rounds of trumps with the ace and king to get the bad news. Next came the queen and ace of clubs and a low club ruffed. Stuck in dummy, declarer cut loose with a heart, but I could win and lead another heart which was ruffed and overruffed. Ann returned a diamond and declarer had to try the finesse, but when it lost I could play back a heart to promote Ann's jack of trumps as the setting trick.

Declarer could have avoided the problem by ruffing a club before touching trumps, but this risks going down if the clubs are 5-2 or 6-1, which is more likely than a bad trump break. The error was to exit with a heart after the club ruff in dummy - if declarer plays ace and another diamond the defence have no chance.

One of our team followed the same line, and it took us a while to find the correct play in the pub afterwards. The problem was the queen of diamonds, which somehow makes it counter intuitive to play diamonds from dummy. If dummy had held a small diamond instead of the queen, I'm sure that the contract would have been made.

This was another one that got away



West led a club and declarer played a top spade to East's ace. Now East made a very far sighted play - the nine of hearts. Declarer finessed the queen, cashed the ace of diamonds and played another diamond to the jack and queen. East returned the king of hearts. Declarer had not heard the tale of Greeks bearing gifts and played the eight of hearts - now a master - to draw East's seven, but had no way to reach the winners in dummy and finished two down.

That would have been a great defence if East's hearts had been K92, but on the actual hand declarer could have had the last laugh by leading a low trump to East's seven, endplaying him to lead a diamond or spade to dummy. Declarer's hand was too good - with the seven of hearts instead of the eight there would be no way to get it wrong.

Endplaying East with a trump will only work if the missing clubs are 7-1. As West may well have a 6 card suit at this vulnerablity, I think a better line is to finesse the queen of trumps at trick two and ruff a club in dummy. If East can overruff it is likely to be at the expense of a natural trump trick. On the actual hand, East overruffs but now declarer can draw the remaining trumps, knock out the ace of spades and make the contract easily.

Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

A few days after the Bath debacle, we played in the Garden Cities qualifier, with the main opposition coming from an Allendale squad that had brought out their big guns. We were in second place until near the end, when errors on this deal at both tables led to a 13 imp swing that turned our match around and gave us a narrow overall victory.



With Hilary and Chris sitting East-West, the auction was as shown in the diagram. After South had doubled to show four spades, a spade contract was always going to be played by North. 4♠ is solid from this side, so Hilary's raise to 5♥ was very well judged and sent the opponents overboard. North's decision to remove to 5♠ was not unreasonable (South would have bid the same way with the ace of clubs and three small hearts), but 6♠ was from another planet. 6♠ drifted two down.

At the other table, a completely different auction occurred after West opened an off-centre 1NT (allegedly 10-12). Ann overcalled 2♦ (spades and another suit), East bid 2♥ and my 4♠ ended the auction.

4♠ is a much less secure contract when played by South as the defence can force dummy in hearts. West duly led a heart, which seemed to mark East with the ace of hearts and a club honour (West would have led a top club with AK), so the diamond finesse was sure to fail. There is one legitimate chance for the contract - East needs to have exactly two trumps.

I ruffed the opening lead, cashed dummy's top trumps and led a diamond to the queen and king. West returned another heart which I ruffed in dummy and played a diamond. If East ruffs he can cash a heart and two clubs for two down, but he threw a heart, so that I was now able to draw the last trump and cash the diamonds to make an unlikely overtrick.

When I led the second round of diamonds off dummy, East should have reasoned that his partner would have led a top diamond with AK, so that declarer almost certainly held the ace, in which case West had to hold the ace of clubs. Ruffing the second round of diamonds might cost an extra undertrick, but was certain to defeat the contract.

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

In the the Bath Swiss teams we were leading after six of the seven rounds, but then proceeded to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by losing 19-1 in the final round, when a 16-4 loss would have been enough to win the event.

The last match was a comedy of errors - a routine 6 Hearts was played in grand slam at one table and game at the other, and the opponents let through 3NT by allowing Ann to make three tricks with a holding of A 9 7 opposite Q 4 3. Although it turned out to be a flat board, this was an interesting declarer play problem from the match.

The best line of play can be followed by clicking 'Next'. Did I manage all this? Not quite. I started correctly but when East ruffed the Ace of diamonds at trick 5 I discarded a club instead of overruffing. Now there are two ways for the defence to get a trump promotion; the easier is for East to play a spade now, followed by another spade when he wins the King of hearts. Fortunately my mistake did not cost as East played two rounds of clubs, so I was able to play Ace and a low trump to restrict the defence to one more trick.

The defence missed another chance, as West could have dropped the Jack or 10 of hearts under the Ace to give me a losing option. Even if I believe that my opponent is capable of this subterfuge (and she was a former world champion), I should not be deflected by the false card as playing a low heart wins when West started with ♥KJ, ♥K10 or ♥J10x, much more likely than specifically ♥J10 doubleton.

In the other room declarer took a different tack by playing the Jack of diamonds at trick 1, then cashing the top spades and ruffing a spade. This is a much inferior line as it requires the Queen of spades to fall in three rounds as well as the diamond finesse. Declarer's luck was in and he could cross to dummy's Ace of diamonds and discard a club on the Jack of spades. West had to ruff but when the 10 of hearts fell under the Ace declarer had a choice - had West started with ♥J10x or ♥K10x? Restricted choice makes K10x more likely so he followed with a small trump. This should have led to defeat but West played a diamond and East, still musing over a previous hand, ruffed with the King, allowing declarer to dispose of his last club loser.

Weak two-suited openers are very fashionable at the moment but they can sometimes be a double-edged sword when they encourage opponents into making contracts that they might not otherwise have bid. This deal from an early round against one of the joint winners was a case in point.

The 2♦ opener showed a weak hand with at least 5-4 in the majors. Our agreement against these bids is that an initial double shows a balanced 13-15 or a very strong hand, and that subsequent doubles are for take-out. So North's two doubles showed a rather stronger hand, but her rose-tinted spectacles had already made one successful appearance that afternoon so I could hardly complain. No doubt she would have bid differently without the 9 and 10 of hearts.

West led a spade to partner's Ace, East returned a heart to my Queen and West went into the tank for a while. I was willing him to cover with the king and when he did it was easy - I cashed the ace of trumps, played a trump to my 9, ruffed a spade, drew trumps via a second finesse, unblocked the jack of hearts and crossed to dummy with the Ace of clubs to cash two more winning hearts.

It seemed a clear mistake for West to cover the queen of hearts, and at the time I thought that ducking would defeat the contract, but Deep Finesse showed that there is still a winning line with an unusual squeeze and endplay. Click on 'Next' to follow the play. (West might have tried to avoid the endplay by unblocking the Ace of clubs, hoping that partner held the Queen, but to no avail on the actual hand.) Would I have been up to this at the table? I don't think so somehow.

East's return of a heart at trick 2 was also an error - if he plays a club I have no chance.

Yet another missed chance

This hand from the Christchurch Friday duplicate was yet another missed opportunity.

The best contract is 4♥ by East. This is unbeatable, but requires some text book declarer play. Let's say South leads his diamond. Declarer should win, unblock the top spades and then take two rounds of trumps, first with the King and then with the Ace (or Queen). If the trumps break, draw the last trump and claim. When the second round of trumps reveals the 4-1 split, play dummy's spades. South can ruff and cash two clubs, but declarer can win the return, play a trump to dummy's Queen (drawing South's last trump) and cash winning spades.

I held the East cards - did I find the correct play at the table and not just in the bar afterwards? Unfortunately not, as South found a frivolous 2♣ overcall (at green) to disrupt our bidding, so that we had this auction

West	North	East	South
		1♥	2♣
2♠	pass	3♣	pass
3♥	pass	3♠	pass
4♠

and my Grandmaster partner did not allow me to play the contract. Quite right too. Against 4♠, North cashed two clubs and switched to a heart. Declarer cashed the top spades and tried to get to hand with a diamond ruff. The bad news was that South had a singleton diamond, but the good news was that he had no more trumps. The even better news was that the run of the trumps squeezed South in the rounded suits and Grandmaster made an overtrick.

Only one declarer made 4♥, and that was due to a defensive error, so I don't think that anyone found the correct play. Meanwhile, 4♠ + 1 was a somewhat fortuitous top.

To defeat 4♠, South needs to overtake the second round of clubs and continue with the Jack, allowing North to discard her heart. Not easy, but South might reflect that his partner would raise to 3♣ with KQx, and that declarer is marked with most of the missing high cards, so some sort of trump promotion is the best chance for the defence.