JUST IN TIME
The National Open Teams have concluded in Canberra with the final won by the defending team the Ashton team from the the Ziggy team.
Justin Mill is a young professional player from Melbourne. Aside from being one of Australia’s most talented players, Justin is genuinely nice person, a credit to Cathy and Andrew’s upbringing.
To underline this point, rarely has the same player won awards for their brilliance at the table and an international award for displaying great sportsmanship. Justin has done both.
At a precarious moment in the NOT quarter-final, Justin (Ziggy team) found himself declaring 7S on the following cards.
If trumps are 2-1, declarer can easily make their contract via CA, DAK, HAK and 8 trump tricks. However, when declarer wins the opening CK lead in order to play a trump to dummy’s SK, the 3-0 trump break causes problems.
Declarer cannot afford to draw 3 rounds of trumps as this will leave them a trick short. However, if declarer can cross-trump enough tricks they can still come to 13 winners.
The fly in the ointment though, is declarer would be required to trump one club in dummy with a low spade. Based on East’s 4C bid likely being at least a 7-card suit, this would leave West with only a singleton club and they would over-trump dummy when declarer played the 2nd round in that suit.
Declarer decided to embark on another line of play – setting up dummy’s 5th heart by trumping 2 hearts in declarer’s hand.
Here was the key though. Justin didn’t blindly draw all of West’s trumps. This proved to be his masterstroke when hearts failed to break 4-3.
With West showing out on the 3rd round of hearts, Justin showed his true class trumping a diamond in dummy to come to the following ending;
Declarer led the S4 to take the ‘marked’ finesse against West’s SJ.
This led to the following 6-card ending;
On the SQ lead East was cooked.
If East discarded a club, declarer would play dummy’s S8 (keeping the lead in declarer’s hand) and trump a club in dummy setting up the C9 for the 13th trick.
Alternatively, if East discarded the H7, declarer would overtake with dummy’s SK to trump a heart in hand setting up dummy’s HJ to land the grand slam.
This very rare ending is referred to as an entry shifting squeeze. Brilliant stuff
ONLINE LESSONS WITH MATT
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2nd – ‘REFRESH YOUR BALANCED HANDS’
Re-establish which shapes are considered balanced and how to show all of the different HCP ranges. We will also cover declarer play technique for playing No-trump contracts.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9th – ‘REFRESH YOUR UNBALANCED HANDS’
Re-establish which shapes are considered unbalanced and how to describe them accurately. We will also cover declarer play technique for playing Trump contracts.
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2nd – ‘REFRESH YOUR DEFENCE & OPENING LEADS’
Learn the most effective leads vs both trump and no-trump contracts and how to encourage or discourage partner to lead a particular suit.
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