Wales in the Camrose: Oxford January 2007

Many thanks are due to Patrick Shields for providing us with some highlights from the Wales performance in the first Camrose weekend of the newest format.  There are 6 teams playing - as well as England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales - we have the Holders (last year's Republic of Ireland Team - the European Championship Silver Medallists) plus a new Republic of Ireland Team. The Welsh team (see photo) was Tim Rees & Filip Kurbalija, Paul Denning & Patrick Shields, Mark Roderick & Mike Best, with Jill Casey as NPC.

The first match for Wales was against England.  The match went 38-55 imps in England's favour with only one large gain for Wales when Armstrong & Holland bid a reasonable slam but took a slightly odd view in the play and went down.  One interesting hand to bid was this:

T764 AQ6 9652 K3

AKQJ KJ4 4 AJT97

The bidding by the Hackett twins started P-1C-1S and at this point opener jumped to 3D, agreeing spades and showing short diamonds.  He continued after that with a further slam try and his partner had no difficulty recognising the value of his few cards and they bid to 6S.  In the other room Shields & Denning started with 1C (any 16+ hand) -1NT (balanced), then found the spade fit and also splintered to reach the same good slam.  It was bid at 4 of the six tables but was a flat board only in this match.

After this match Wales had only 12/30 VPs and were at the bottom of the table.

In the second match, Wales played the very strong "Holders" team.  The 32-board match saw only one double figure swing in each column (compared with 8 and 10 such swings in the other matches).  The big loss was 18 imps away on this beauty:

K752 AT J AKJ853

--- KQ972 T9863 Q42

In most rooms the bidding started with 1S-P-raise.  When Wales bounced to 3S, the Irishman sitting West recognised his partner's spade shortage and bid 5C all by himself.  His partner raised to 6C and this was an easy make when the hearts came in.  In the other room, after 1S-P-2S West for Wales bid 3C and then had a nasty decision when his partner responded 3H.  His choice of 3NT  didn’t seem so terrible until North led a diamond to his partner's king and the spade through netted the defence 5 spade tricks and a total of +400 to go with the +1370 in the other room.

Apart from this hand there were only 30 imps in the minus column and the margin was -23 at the end.  Wales were still sitting last in the table, but it was very close.

For the third match, Mark Roderick and Mike Best made their debut against Northern Ireland.  On their first board they bid a lay-down grand slam which was missed in the other room for 11 imps to Wales.  Then they gained 13 imps on the second board by not overcalling 1S on a 4cd suit (albeit KQJ4) - an action which led to a penalty of 800 in the other room.  An interesting play hand was this:

K AKQJT9 K7 K852

J5 2 JT9632 AJ73

West ended in 4H after South had opened 1S and North had supported.  The lead was a spade to the ace and the SQ came back, ruffed.  At this point there is only one way to make the contract.  Can you see it?  After the ruff West looked closely at his trumps and realised there weren't many of them.  If he lost the lead and was forced he'd be in trouble - so he led out the king of diamonds - aiming to set up dummy's suit while the H2 in dummy protected him from any force.  And the DK held!  But there was still more to do.  He continued diamonds, won the trump return and drew trumps.  Now a small club towards dummy drew the C9, CJ and CQ so that South's four card club holding could be picked up with a finesse on the way back.  The singleton club lead at the other tables made the contract much simpler.

We won both sets in that match by 18 imps to win the match 21-9 and move up to 1 VP below average.

The next match was against the Republic of Ireland.  We gained 15 imps in the first half but lost 49 in the last 6 boards to lose the match 19-11.  This 3NT hand proved fascinating:

	32 8754 T3 AQ62		The usual lead was the H7 which was ducked by South.  For England, one Hackett cashed the top spades and then led up to the SJ - the best chance for a third spade trick, but when that lost the defence had 2 spades, a club and could get two heart tricks. In our match one declarer with a heart lead tried a spade to the jack at trick two.  South who returned a spade had no further chance.  The other declarer had a spade lead and tried that suit early; when he lost a spade and the C4 came back the contract was going off until North got muddled in discarding.  Discussion afterwards suggested that playing at least two rounds of hearts early is best, and only once the heart ace is gone does declarer go after the 9th trick.
754 KJ9 AQ92 J53		AKJ6 Q32 KJ87 K9
	QT98 AT6 65 T874

The final match was against Scotland, who like us had only won one match to this point.  The bridge wasn't as good in this match and we ended 50-51 for a losing draw.  One wild hand was flat in our match:

	T95 85 KQJT63 94		In one room, Scotland opened a strong or weak 1C with the West hand and North’s methods forced him to pass.  East transferred into diamonds and 2D ended the auction.  After a club lead to the CQ and a heart switch, declarer played to the diamond ace, noted the bad break, but played on the majors and North ended with only his 4 trump tricks. Other tables started 1C-1D-P-P and now a takeout double saw X-P-P-XX.  The Irishman sitting North braved it out and conceded 1000.  The two tables who bid 1C-2D-P-P-X got out more cheaply  losing only 800, but the Scotsman who bid 1S over the redouble got out best when the opponents settled in 1NT.
AKQ7 AK32 5 J832		J8 964 A98742 K6
	6432 QJT7 --- AQT75

Our final position was fourth, just behind Northern Ireland (who finished with a big win), and 5 VPs below average.