Hubert Phillips Plate

In the quarter final of the Hubert Phillips plate we were drawn against John Williams' Oxford team. This was an early hand where the Reverend tried to dispel his reputation for cautious bidding.

4♣ was maybe a tad optimistic (3♣ wouild have been forcing after fourth suit), but the slam had reasonable chances. How do you play when West leads the queen of spades?

I ducked this and  when West continued spades I was able to play on cross-ruff lines, ruffing hearts in dummy and spades in hand to come to 12 tricks. The reason for ducking the first trick is that if the defence find a trump switch, you have an alternative line of setting up dummy's diamonds with the ace of spades as a late entry. I think the best line is to win the trump switch in dummy, take the ace of hearts and ruff a heart, then cash the top diamonds and ruff a diamond with the eight. If diamonds are 3-3 you can now claim, but if diamonds are 4-2 and West has not over-ruffed, you can ruff another heart, ruff a diamond with the ten, draw trumps (needing a 3-2 break) and cross to the ace of spades to cash the thirteenth diamond. I would have gone two down on the actual lie of the cards, so there were a lot of points resting on West's play at trick 2.

After two sets the match was almost level, but then we got almost all of the decisions right on a tricky set of boards to run out comfortable winners by almost 2000, though this was a missed opportunity.

I ponderered for a long while over Ann's 3NT opener; my options were to pass 3NT, bid 4♣ and let Ann play in 4♦, or bid 5♦ and keep my hand concealed. 5♦ was the winning move, though I was very fortunate to get a singleton spade in dummy and find the ace of clubs with East.

In the other room West opened 2♠, weak with spades and a minor, and the opponents bid 3♦ - 3♥ - 4♥.  West kicked off with the king of spades but East ducked this and the contract made with an overtrick.

It's a tough defence for East to find but I think the clues are all there - West has at most nine points and you know five of them, so the contract cannot be defeated with high cards and the only chance is to find West with a diamond void. Much easier in retrospect than at the table though..