Wednesday, March 17, 2021

A few overtricks and endplay and an unneeded duck in trumps

 Ireland Open Imps Pairs at 8pm every night on BBO. This is a good training session as well as competition. You won't leave this event without some story. 

https://www.bridgewebs.com/irelandimps/

Last night I was running Malahide Regional when the following hand was played.


So we arrive in 2S contract by South. West fires off 4th highest club and all is going well. East grabs Club Ace and fires back Club Queen. 
West looks at this briefly and says club Queen wins all good so lets it win. A longer look might have revealed that only missing card is Club Jack and there is nothing bad can happen to overtake and play a club back. Its either club jack in East or East takes a ruff and the 3rd trick. Like West can see we are not getting in again and a losing club if there is one is going away on Heart AK. 
So we leave partner on lead to give up a trick for our side
East goes low spade won by South
and 2 rounds of hearts ruffing the 2nd. Does not even bother throwing losing club away yet. 
It gets worse ..South plays a trump and East chooses to duck setting the scene for South to execute the endplay.
Now South play another spade and East is goosed.
East wins Spade Ace ..and can play HEART for North to win all 3 hearts or can play diamond for North to win Queen and do same as above.
.....................
In the bidding East had opened 1NT with 16 hcp so the hand was open book for declarer after first 2 tricks. 
Clearly West held Club King. 
..........
On this same board in a different section we also had a different auction where North
opened a weak 2H bid and East produced an unalerted 3C bid. 
At the end North South complained about the unalerted 3C bid. 
On inquiry from East it was explained as "North opened 2H and I bid Hackett ..I had 16 hcp and thats right for Hackett okay " 
Sure its all okay but how would opponents know 3C does not mean CLUBS. 

A brief discussion on alerting followed before East agreed .."I suppose I should have alerted "
...........
Director has no choice but to remove the 4H bid and the double and score as whatever 4C makes. 
......................
We have been asking folk in Malahide to alert almost since start of COVID and told them you risk losing a good score if you don't. 
Note not all non-alerts will produce an adjustment ...its only if there is possible damage that has a link to the non-alert. On this board if one was told after 4C bid about 3C meaning and still went on and bid 4H getting doubled ..then you get nothing ... 
East might get a small procedural penalty or warning for not alerting in time. 












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