october_19

English 2019 אוקטובר 194 גיליון 57 The Spingold Final was evenly poised at half-time. The third quarter was probably the decider. It finished with a slam hand where declarer had to guess the whereabouts of the diamond queen. Board 15. Dealer South. Vul N/S 6 KQ9876543 K53 - 842 AK97 JT 2 Q72 86 AKT62 J97543 QJT53 A AJT94 Q8 The bidding was identical at both tables: West North East South 1♠ Pass 2 ♥ Pass 3 ♦ Pass 3 ♥ Pass 4 ♥ Pass 4NT Pass 5 ♥ Pass 6 ♥ All Pass Both players in the East seat led ♠K and switched to a trump. The play is not very complicated: North enters his hand with a club ruff, draws trumps, continues trumps in an attempt to squeeze his opponents and finally there comes the moment when he has to guess the queen. Michal Nowosadzki played out his trumps, noticing that East/West discarded all their clubs. They had five diamonds and one spade left. Since the ♠A was marked at East, he knew that West started with three diamonds and played the percentages: diamond ace, then run the jack. Result: +1430. At the other table, Tor Hellness played all his trumps but one (so he had less information than Nowosadzki) and then laid down… the diamond king for an unfortunate minus 100. The Zimmermann team, hoping to win the event for the second year in a row, could not overcome this 17-IMP blow. In the final quarter they yielded another big swing in the following interesting hand: Board 19. Dealer South. Vul E/W K63 K8 AKJ872 96 JT954 AQ72 J742 A9 T6 943 43 QJ72 8 QT653 Q5 AKT85 The Spingold Final (2) // Ram Soffer