august2016

English 55 The 50 th International Festival of Tel Aviv (June 2016 ) hosted a strong Turkish team. This team took 1 st place in the open Teams event. In the following hand, Gur Okay demonstrated declarer ability of the highest level. Here is the full distribution and the bidding: ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ A 975 852 Q 987 J3 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ KJT 84 Q6 J3 AK 97 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 2 9 KT 6542 86542 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ Q63 AKJT 743 A QT West North East South Pass 1 ♥ 1♠ 2 ♥ Pass 2NT Pass 3 ♦ Dbl 4 ♥ Pass Pass Pass South holds a special hand, intending to bid game anyway. His 2NT bid is forcing, asking partner to describe his hand further. North's 3 ♦ bid showed something in that suit, and East intervened with a lead-directing double. However, West led ♣A, followed by the ♣K. The distribution of the suit was clear due to the fall of ♣QT from South and East's count signal. After long deliberation, West decided to continue with ♥Q, as he didn't want to assist South in the play of the other suits. Declarer took the ♥ AK and cashed ♦ A as well, West dropped the ♦ J under the ace in order to avoid an endplay in case South has a small diamond in addition to the ace (In such case, South could try a small diamond, not covering the ♦J). Next, declarer played a spade towards dummy, overtaking West's ♠T with the ♠A. He continued with ♦Q! East covered with ♦ K and South discarded a spade. Poor East won the trick but he was endplayed. He didn't have a spade to give his partner a trick with the ♠K. He had to choose between giving a ruff and discard in clubs and playing another diamond. He tried a small diamond to keep declarer guessing, but declarer read the distribution perfectly and discarded the ♠Q while dummy's ♦ 9 won the trick. This was indeed a brilliant performance. Brilliant Turkish Performance Joseph Engel