THE ACES ON BRIDGE

“Even victors are by victories undone.” -- John Dryden .....................

All this week’s deals come from Cavendish tournaments. Going into the final match of the 1999 Cavendish Teams, there were three squads with realistic chances of taking the title. Lou Ann O’Rourke was in the lead, but that team lost heavily to Peter Boyd, the team in third place that switched places with them. This meant that the Chip Martel team, in second spot, could take the title if they could win their encounter with Gabriel Chagas (playing with Zia Mahmood) by more than 10 IMPs. They were 1 IMP down with just today’s deal to score up.

In the auction shown, Chagas as East passed his partner’s five-spade bid, and Howard Weinstein as South sacrificed in six hearts, doubled by Mahmood. This figured to be a reasonable enough result for NorthSouth. Better still, after a top diamond lead, Mahmood erred by shifting to the spade king, thus collecting only 500.

When Chagas’ teammates bid as far as six hearts with the North-South cards, Chip Martel as East tried six spades and North sacrificed in seven hearts. After the lead of the two top diamonds, Martel pitched a discouraging spade, so Lew Stansby played a third diamond, collecting an overruff and the club ace for 1100, and 12 IMPs to his side. That meant Martel’s team won the event by the smallest possible margin.

Incidentally, at another table, when Fred Gitelman as East defended six hearts doubled on this deal, he thoughtfully threw the spade ace away at trick two to ensure that his partner played a third diamond!