Wales in the Camrose, March 2007

Wales in the Camrose: Aberdeen March 2007

More thanks to Patrick Shields now for providing us with some highlights from the Wales performance in the second 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.

Our team was Dafydd & Gary Jones, Filip Kurbalija & Tim Rees, Patrick Shields & Paul Denning, with Peter Garner-Gray as NPC. We were starting from a position of just below average, lying 4th of the 6 teams, having scored 70/150 VPs at the first weekend.

The first match for Wales was against Northern Ireland, against whom Wales has won its last four matches comfortably. Action started early - on board 2 you are third in hand at favourable vulnerability (green), looking at 1098652 - 10 - 4 - K10975. It seems clear to pre-empt. The four tables which chose 3S all saw the auction end in game, while the two tables who opened just 2S saw the opoonents bid the excellent slam (and make it). This cost Wales 13 imps and the Republic of Ireland 13 imps - but both teams bounced back. One of the most pleasing results was Tim Rees playing in 4H on this hand ...

876
KT8654
A
AQ8

Tim found himself in 4H after an auction in which East-West had bid and supported spades. The lead was the SA and then the CT to the CA. The trump suit looks particularly unfavourable, and East was looking particularly happy. But Tim knew nothing yet of the bad break!

At trick three Tim led to the spade king, and then back to the diamond ace., so he could ruff his last spade. Only now did he cash the HA and find the bad news. But he wasn't worried. He simply continued with a diamond ruff, and then back to the CK for another diamond ruff. That was eight tricks and he still had the KT8 of trumps left.

When he led out his third club winner, East had to ruff and had only trumps left. The HQ was ducked and the last two tricks were won by the heart king and ten. Contract made and 11 imps to Wales since Patrick Shields got to play in 2S, sitting West in the other room (going one off when he lost two diamond ruffs to North)

QJ953

---

KT952

J97

A42
QJ973
Q43
T5

KT
A2
J876
K6432

Wales won the match by 36 imps, giving it 21 VPs. The next match was against Scotland. If we forget about the 5 slam hand swings, the score was 15-6 imps over 32 boards - very flat. We lost the slam hands 3-2 . The only bad slam was one bid by them (2 off) but we missed two good slams which Scotland bid, and we bid two close ones of which one made and one didn't. There were also 2 excellent slams missed by both, one poor-ish slam missed by both, and one good slam bid by both. This hand felt odd ...

AQT96

Q532

KJT

It was dealer West and love all; all six tables saw an opening bid of 1S - but - and you might find this hard to believe - four of these came from West (and two from North). When North got to open, then North-South played in spades and both made 10 tricks.

At the other tables, two of the Easts passed (leading to 3N by North-South) while two of them responded with one no-trump and got a 2C response. One of these responses got passed out but Tom Townsend knew to double 2C as North, leading his partner to bid 3N.

The 3N contracts went down except where one defender cashed the CA and CK at the first two tricks, after an ambiguious signal from partner. The Welsh played 3N-1 and 2C making, for a gain of 1 imp.

The match ended with a total of 3 imps to the bad guys, but that was a 15-15 draw - the same result as in January!

87432
A4
73
AK82

---
T9876
A652
T765

KJ5

Q984

QJ43

Match number three was against England. This match started rather badly for us - being 40 imps down after the first 8 boards, of which part was a -800 penalty in each room. But the rot stopped after that and we moved up to only 22 imps down by the end of the 32 boards (and we could easily have won the match). One chance we had was this hand

QJ76
T9763
9
K93

This hand produced swngs in all three matches. Every East opened in clubs - four with 1C and two playing strong club systems with 2C. All but one of the Souths bid - four times jumping to 3D and once simply overcalling 1D.

Over 3D West had a difficut bid - and two of them passed (and got to defend for +800 when their partner had enough strength to double), while another doubled and the fourth bid 3N (which was also the contract after the1D overcall). Two tables played in clubs.

Against 3N the play is interesting. The D9 was led, and covered by the DT (necessary in case the lead was from a doubleton), and won by the DQ. With 7 tricks now available outside clubs, declarer has two choices. He can take the club finesse - which results in 13 tricks, or he can cash his major suit winners and throw South in with diamonds, to lead a club. That makes 8 tricks. Sorry to say our man chose the latter line.

982
AKJ2
Q873
J5

AK5
Q85
4
AQT872

T43
4
AKJT652
64

Match number four was against the Holders, who by this time had almost won the Camrose for the third year running. They played very well even though reduced to a team-of-4; we won the first half of the match by one imp but fell back in the end to lose by 13. This hand from the second half was interesting -

	A85 KJ763 AJT J7		Most tables ended in 4S. The lucky ones had West as declarer (after a start, from North, of 1H-2H-P-2S) and were not tested with a spade lead. Tim Rees was in 4S by East and he received the awkward DK lead. Since there are obvious problems with being forced, he discarded his losing heart on that and the defender switched to hearts. Now HA and a spade to the king, duck a spade, and take a diamond ruff. Declarer is down to Q6 of spades and the SA and SJ are still out. He led out another trump and crossed his fingers; when he looked up the trumps had all gone and the clubs were running to give him ten tricks. The other room had the very sensible auction 1H-2H(spades+minor)-P-2S, P-3C-end. That made 11 tricks. The Deep Finesse hand analysis software had us puzzled, saying that 4S can be made on any defence. It took us a long time to work out declarer's play if the defence starts and continues diamonds. Can you work it out?
74 AQ54 98532 94		KQ632 T9 -- AKQT82
	JT9 82 KQ764 653

The final match we played was against the Republic of Ireland team. We had lost to them by 25 imps in January but came storming through here to win by 55 imps. One favourite hand was this

	AJ42 K KQ AQ9862		East dealt at both vulnerable and passed. Half the Souths found themselves with an opening bid - most tables opened most 11 counts throughout this weekend - and two of them passed. When South opened 1D, North bid clubs and then spades and was supported in the latter. It proved irresistable to these Norths to bid Blackwood and when South showed up with only one ace (out of 5, counting the trump king) - he quickly signed off in 5S - already uncomfortably high. But it wasn't over yet - East could see this contract was in trouble - and said so - he doubled. This happend at two tables. Patrick Shields, sitting North, could see the issue was trump losers so he quickly converted to 5N and played there. Happily - although perhaps a little disappointed he hadn't converted to 6C or 6D, both of which make! When South passed initially, the bidding fizzled out at 4S and, of course, no one bothered to double and that drifted one off. Best for East not to be greedy!
8 T75432 982 753		KQT7 A986 765 J4
	9653 QJ AJT43 KT

The biggest gain in the other half of the match came from

K42

AQ8643

A94

AQT7

AKJ7642

North opened 1D and Dafydd Jones, sitting East overcalled 2C. His dad, Gary, continued with 2H and over the 2S continuation bid 3D. Dafydd showed his extra length in clubs with 5C and there it ended. In the other room, the 4117 hand chose to bid 4D over 3D and now when he heard 4S he didn't know if that was 3cd or 4cd support. He passed it out and a 5-1 spade break killed that contract, giving Wales 10 imps.

The final outcome was a 24-6 win in that match to give Wales 85 VPs from a possible 150 over the weekend. We won two matches by large margins, drew one, and lost two matches narrowly. The losses were both improvements on the previous weekend - in fact, no match result was worse than the first weekend! We moved up from 4th in the table to be a clear 3rd, 24 Vps ahead of Scotland who had moved up to be fourth. Wales has produced clearly better results in the second Camrose weekend in each of the past three years - I wonder what that tells us.