Day 2 of the The New Zealand Bridge Congress Restricted Teams saw the final 4 matches of the event. Starting the day in third place, team Edler suffered two substantial losses in the morning, before rallying to win our final two matches to finish in 14th place. Today was a tough draw, playing team 20 (the eventual winners), along with the 1st, 2nd and 3rd seeds!
Here is one hand amongst the gloom of the morning that stood out. Sometimes a bit of assistance from the opponents is all you need.
Our teammates bid to a quiet 2H NS, making for +110. Double dummy it can be defeated, but it requires EW to get a club ruff by W with their singleton heart.
I sat East at our table where the auction went:
Jane’s 2S bid can be fairly wide ranging, so I closed my eyes and bid 3NT. Things weren’t as good as I hoped when dummy came down, but at least the opponents had led a heart, giving me a fifth trick, still well short of nine. Winning HJ, I now led D10, which both opponents ducked (six tricks now). I next played D8, South now decided to rise DK, crashing his partner’s DA. North now just returned a heart (now I suddenly have 9 tricks, 3 Hearts, 4 Diamonds and 2 Clubs). Winning with HA, I now ran dummy’s diamonds, and both North and South pitched clubs, so the club 7 became my 10th trick. +630 to go with +110 from the other table for a 12 imp gain!
Pam and Barbara bid board 23 in our final match well to play in 7S when the opponents at our table stopped in 6S for a 13 imp gain.
NZ Restricted Teams Final Results are here.
Good luck to team Coutts in the NZ Open Teams Quarter finals on day 3. Pam and Barbara will be playing in the NZ Restricted swiss pairs over the next two days. Jane and Simon are having two days off. We’ll be back together for a one day teams event on Wednesday.