Vugraph Deals #140

Marc Smith visits the opening matches of the Lederer Memorial Trophy

Ten invited all-star teams congregated at the RAC Club in London to contest the 2022 Lederer Memorial Trophy. This prestigious event was first played in 1945 as a tribute to Richard Lederer, an important writer, teacher and international player in the formative years of the game in England. The current format was adopted in 1978, with an eight-team field and the Young Chelsea Bridge Clubs hosting the event. It expanded from eight teams to ten when it relocated to the RAC Club in 2013, and it has now been shown live on BBO VuGraph for more than a decade.

Scotland’s Victor Silverstone holds the record for appearances in the Lederer, having played in the event an incredible 31 times. Andrew Robson holds the record for most wins, with nine, just one ahead of Zia Mahmood (both of whom have played 22 times), and Silverstone third with seven victories.

The format is a complete round-robin of nine 10-board matches with a scoring method that is an unusual hybrid of Board-a-Match and IMPs. Each board is scored BAM style, with 2VPs for a win and 1 for a tie, giving a possible total of 20 VPs from each match. The IMP difference is then also converted to VPs on a 15-15 scale and each team’s two VP tallies are added together to produce an overall score for the match with a maximum win of 50-0.

As usual, we begin with some problems for you to consider. Firstly, with just the opponents vulnerable, you are South holding:

What action, if any, do you take? 

Next, with both sides vulnerable, you hold as North:

What do you bid?

Suppose you compete to 3♣. What do you then do if partner raises to 4♣ ?

While you consider those, we start in Round 1 with two of the hot pre-tournament favourites clashing head-to-head. This match featured three of the defending champions from the last pre-COVID running of the event, two years ago, Alexander Allfrey and Andrew Robson on the ALLFREY team and Tom Paske playing for BLACK. The large crowd who braved the noon start to tune in to BBO VuGraph were treated to a thrilling opening match.

The action began early, on what may at first glance have appeared to be a dull partscore deal. Making 2♠ would be relatively straightforward, despite the 4-1 trump split. Getting to that contract when an opponent has bid the suit first, though, understandably proved to be beyond either pair:

Tom Paske’s wafer-thin balance left his partner with only unenviable options, and thus East ended in a less-than ideal spot. Tony Forrester led the ♥9 and, if the defenders start with three rounds of trumps, declarer can make just three spades, two clubs and two trumps. However, Graham Osborne understandably followed with the ♥5 at trick one, guaranteeing three trump winners but giving declarer a chance. McIntosh won with the ♥J, and played three rounds of clubs, ruffing. When declarer then led the ♦J, Forrester rose (literally) to the task, going up with the ♦A to fire a second round of trumps through dummy. Osborne was now able to draw trumps and cash two more diamond winners to put the contract one down. E/W -100.

After the same start, Gunnar Hallberg did not correct to diamonds but, when 1NT was passed around to him, Andrew Robson also refused to sell out on the West cards. With spades already claimed by the opponents, Alexander Allfrey also bid his heart fragment. The big difference at this table, though, was that Simon Hult was also not prepared to go quietly, and his red card ended the auction.

Here, too, South led the ♥9, North played low, and the early play followed the same line as at the first table. After taking a club ruff in his hand, though, Allfrey returned to dummy with a winning spade finesse and played a fourth round of clubs. What could North do?  

Hult ruffed with the ♥10, cashed his two remaining trump winners and played a diamond to the ace. Declarer ruffed the diamond continuation with his last trump and still had two spade winners to cash, brining his tally to eight: E/W +670, 13 IMPs and first blood to ALLFREY. 

A couple of deals later, both South players faced the first of this week’s bidding problems:

With good offense, a fourth spade when he might have held only three, and very moderate defensive values in the minors, Gunnar Hallberg simply competed by bidding a third spade. With three top losers and a very likely trump loser too, this looked like the par contract.Allfrey’s lead of the ♠10 went some way to solving declarer’s problems in that suit, but Hult misguessed the end position and wound up with just the nine tricks for which he had contracted: N/S +140.

Allfrey’s lead of the ♠10 went some way to solving declarer’s problems in that suit, but Hult misguessed the end position and wound up with just the nine tricks for which he had contracted: N/S +140.

After an identical start, Tony Forrester’s choice was a maximum-showing redouble. Perhaps Tom Paske could have bid 2NT to ask partner to choose a minor. He instead chose to pass, the usual meaning of which is that he would have passed the double. Whether he intended it to mean that is hard to tell, but that is clearly how Andrew McIntosh interpreted it. 

McIntosh led a diamond, Paske winning with the queen. With the spade position known, the trumps switch gave little away. Here, too, declarer could have made ten tricks, but dropping a second overtrick in a redoubled contract is rarely costly unless you are playing rubber bridge. Nine tricks meant N/S +840 and 12 more IMPs in the ALLFREY column.

Towards the end of the match came a bidding test for the North/South pairs.

Gunnar Hallberg used Checkback to find out that his partner did not hold three-card spade support before settling for the nine-trick game. Perhaps, though, alarm bells should have started ringing, since Simon Hult’s 2♦ response, as well as denying three spades, also denied four hearts. With a singleton, should Hallberg not perhaps have been concerned and investigated further? Allfrey opened the ♥6 and the defence duly cashed their five tricks in the suit: N/S -50.

After the same start, Tony Forrester forced to game with an artificial 2♦. Graham Osborne denied four hearts or three spades with 2NT and now Forrester introduced his second suit, When Osborne then bid 3♦, suggesting doubt about hearts, Forrester could be fairly sure that 3NT was not the right spot, so he rebid his clubs. Osborne’s raise ended an excellent auction to the best game. Indeed, declarer only did not make an overtrick because the diamond finesse failed: N/S +400 and yet another 10 IMPs to ALLFREY.

BLACK won two of the ten boards and there were three pushes, so the B-A-M VPs were split relatively closely, at 13-7. The IMPs score was a different matter, with ALLFREY winning 42-7 and thus scooping all 30 of the VPs available there to give a final match score of 43-7.

The Round 2 VuGraph match was DeBOTTON against ENGLAND OPEN (the team selected for the upcoming European Championships in Madeira). Both sides missed a tough chance on the first board:

Never knowingly undersold, Thor Erik Hoftaniska’s 4♦ overcall left Kieran Dyke with few options other than to bid 4♥. Although he had trump support, Michal Byrne’s opening bid had little else to recommend it, particularly with the lead coming though his ♦K at trick one, so it did not occur to him to bid again. N/S +480.

Ben Norton’s more conservative 3♦ overcall meant that it was North who would make the final decision at this table. Again, though, the diamond holding was probably the crucial factor. Finding only one ace opposite, does it not seem likely to North that an opening diamond lead will expose a loser in that suit before declarer can set up a discard? Artur Malinowski though so, and thus it was N/S +480 here too.

Both North players were then faced with the second of this week’s bidding problems.

This hand is purely a question of valuation. Kieran Dyke just competed to 3♣ over West’s takeout double. When Michael Byrne then raised to 4♣, though, Dyke decided that he did not have enough to accept the game try. Byrne ruffed the heart lead, played two top spades, and claimed twelve trick: N/S +170.

There was no double from West at this table, although I cannot see that it makes any discernable difference. Artur Malinowski’s jump to 4♣ seems much closer to the mark to me. It’s not only the six-card support, but also what will surely often be a gold-dust holding in partner’s first suit. Janet DeBotton had an easy raise to game, and the play was equally straightforward. She ruffed the opening heart lead and promptly laid down the ♣A, dropping East’s lone king. DeBotton could now have established the spades for a diamond discard and made all thirteen tricks, but she quickly settled for twelve. Not that it would have mattered as N/S +620 was worth 10 IMPs to DeBOTTON anyway.

With five flat boards, DeBOTTON just edged the B-A-M part of the scoring 11-9. They won the IMP comparison 22-10, which meant and overall VP victory by 31-19. With ALLFREY recording a second consecutive large victory, 46-4 over CHAIRMAN’s TEAM, they had quickly established themselves at the head of the pack. These were the standings after the first two matches

We will be back next week with the best of the action from the remaining Saturday matches.