We return to Coventry Bridge Club, the venue for the final of the 2023 Crockfords Cup. On our last visit, we saw the best of the action from the opening matches. Unfortunately, the VuGraph files for the third and fourth match, on Saturday afternoon, are missing from the BBO Archive. We will therefore skip ahead to Sunday’s matches.

These were the overnight standings, with four of the seven matches played:

Only one problem this week. With both sides vulnerable, you are South holding:

What action do you take?

The VuGraph match for Round 5 was BARTON v DE BOTTON. The action began on the opening board of the day.

For BARTON, the Irish pair bid efficiently to 6♣ after South had overcalled in hearts.

Tom Townsend opened the ♥K. Adam Mesbur won with the ♥A, crossed to the ♦A, and ruffed a diamond. Townsend overruffed and cashed the ♥Q for a quick one down. E/W -50.

Frederic Volcker came in with a 2♥ overcall on the South cards, but that only served to speed up the Norwegian auction.

Volcker led the ♦8 against 6♣. Thor Erik Hoftaniska (left), not wishing to waste the power of the ♦Q, ducked. North won with the ♦K and switched to a trump. Declarer won in hand, played a second club to dummy’s jack, and ruffed a diamond high. He then drew South’s last trump.

With diamonds breaking 5-1, declarer now effectively needed the spade finesse to work. However, there was an extra chance if North had begun with 5-1-2-5 shape, in which case he would get squeezed in the end game, allowing declarer to avoid the risk of finessing the spade into South’s doubleton queen. Hoftaniska cashed the ♥A and then ran his trumps. On the final trump Hanlon capitulated, having to discard from ♦10-x-x and ♠Q-10-x. E/W +920 and 14 IMPs to DE BOTTON to start the day.

If ever there was a case of “Live by the sword, die by the sword”, it was this board in our match. Our teammates duly made their +920 by bidding and making 6♣. Unfortunately, at the other table, my natural, weak 2♦ opening on the North hand was followed by a double and three passes. The defenders took eleven tricks defending 2♦-Doubled, so that was an even -1400 and 10 IMPs to ROOT. A lovely way to kick off the day!

If you play a jump to 3♣ as Puppet Stayman, this South hand is a classic example, as you will be able to uncover either a 5-3 spade fit or a 4-4 heart fit. However, you are already at the three-level, and thus you have less room to manoeuvre when West doubles 3♣, as Frederic Volcker (right) did here.

The English pair discovered that they had no eight-card major-suit fit, but there was no space to find out about a club stopper.

Tom Townsend guessed to put down dummy and hope his partner held Qx or Jxx in clubs. It was not to be and Tom Hanlon’s ♣J opening lead quickly put the contract two down. N/S -200.

Adam Mesbur (left) started with regular Stayman. West’s double was followed by two passes, to leave the Irishman with the problem posed at the top of this article.

Mesbur had the advantage that John Carroll’s pass of the double denied a club stopper. (Responding as normal to the Stayman inquiry would have shown a club stop.) With 3NT out of the picture, Mesbur redoubled in an attempt to find a fit. Carroll’s 2♠ bid was a disappointment, but Mesbur was worth at least a game try, so he continued with an invitational raise, which Carroll duly accepted.

“Sorry if this is wrong,” said Mesbur, as he put down dummy.

Hoftaniska led the ♣J and declarer did not cover. That allowed the Norwegian to switch to a diamond at trick two. Declarer finessed and Thomas Charlsen ruffed. He cashed his ♣A and played a third club. Declarer ruffed in dummy, drew trumps, returned to dummy via the marked diamond finesse, and took the heart finesse for his contract. When East could not find the ♥K amongst his cards, Carroll had ten tricks. N/S +620 and 13 IMPs to BARTON. Quite the opposite of wrong, Adam!

DE BOTTON won a close match 37-35. Meanwhile, the leading two teams extended their advantage over the field. LESLIE won 18-2 against HINDEN, but JONES defeated ROOT 19-1 to narrow the gap slightly. By a happy accident of scheduling, the two leading teams would meet head-on in the final match. The VuGraph match in Round 6 was JONES v DE BOTTON.

I led the ♥Q, partner playing the ♥6 (reverse attitude) and declarer the ♥3. I then switched to the ♦7 at trick two. Charlsen won with the ♦A and called for a low club from dummy. David Jones won with the ♣9 and played a heart through declarer. The ♥J lost to the king and the heart continuation went to declarer’s ace.

Charlsen can make the contract from here by taking a diamond finesse, hoping to find North with Q-x-x. Instead, he played for North to have begun with KJ10xx/KQ109x/xx/x, and simply played three rounds of clubs. Jones won and cashed the ♥10 to beat the contract by a trick. E/W -50.

After an identical auction, Bakhshi led the ♥K and, when that won, he also switched to a diamond.

Tim Rees (right) saw that he did not have to commit to relying on a 3-2 club break. He started by cashing the two high clubs from dummy. (If both defenders followed, he could simply play a third round of clubs and claim nine tricks.) When North discarded a spade on the second round of clubs, Rees continued with the ♦K and the ♦J. Bakhshi won with the ♦Q and was immediately endplayed to concede the ninth trick.

He got off lead with the ♥Q. When declarer won with the ♥A and then cashed his diamond winners, North had to discard from ♠K-J-10 and ♥9-7. If Bakhshi had thrown a heart, Rees would have cashed the ♥J and exited with a low spade to force North to lead into the ♠A-Q at the end. When Bakhshi instead threw a spade, Rees cashed the ♠A and continued with a low spade to North’s now-bare king. The ♥J and the ♠Q were declarer’s ninth and tenth tricks. Nicely played! E/W +430 and 10 IMPs to JONES.

Both sides also reached 3NT on the penultimate deal of the match.

Bakhshi led the ♣7 against my 3NT. Counting two club tricks, I have eight tricks. The obvious place to find a ninth is the diamond suit, so perhaps the best line is to put up the ♣K at trick one and then, if it wins, play a diamond to the nine (which is the best percentage play for four tricks from this combination). However, is it clear from the lead of the seven that it is West who holds the club length and the ace? I decided not, and so played low from dummy and won the first trick in hand. The ♦Q and a second diamond to the king revealed the bad news in that suit. Now what?

The best chance seems to be finding hearts 3-3, so I played a heart to the eight. Bakhshi won with the ♥J and switched to a spade, East’s queen losing to my ace. One option is to simply play a low heart from hand now. The problem with this is that a second spade to dummy’s king will leave me forced to cash the ♦A while in dummy for the last time. That poses two potential problems. Firstly, if East later shows up with the ♣A, he will have two diamond winners to cash. Secondly, I would have to pitch a spade on the third round of diamonds, so the defenders may be able to make two spade tricks when they get in with the ♣A. So, I instead played a club towards dummy. Bakhshi rose with the ♣A and Townsend discarded a spade. This is the position with North on lead:

When Bakhshi exited with a third round of clubs, Townsend thought for a considerable time before eventually throwing another spade. I fairly well knew the whole hand now, so I played a heart from dummy. If Townsend had followed with his low heart, I would win with the ♥A, cross to the ♠K, removing South’s last card in that suit, and exit with a heart. South could lead the ♦J, which would be allowed to win, but he would then have to lead into the ♦A-8 at trick 12 to give me my ninth trick.

When Townsend instead rose with the ♥K on the second round of the suit, I simply ducked. The ♥10 now provided my ninth trick. E/W +400.

Here, too, North led the ♣7 around to declarer’s jack. Charlsen also played the ♦Q, a diamond to the king, and then a heart to the eight. On winning with the ♥J, Tim Rees immediately played the ♣A and a third club, and Rob Cliffe (left) found the spectacular defence that left declarer with no chance – he discarded the ♥K!

There was now no way for declarer to establish his long heart trick without allowing North in to cash club winners. E/W -50 and 10 IMPs to JONES.

JONES won the match 46-15, 17-3 in VPs. Meanwhile, LESLIE lost 8-12 to ROOT. With one match left to play, it was JONES 88 VPs, LESLIE 84 VPs, with those two teams to play each other in Round 7. LESLIE needed to win by 3 IMPs or more to win the trophy.

Alas, the boards were not overly exciting. JONES won the first half 12-8, which meant that LESLIE needed to gain 7 IMPs over the final eight boards to win.

Alas for our team, we managed to go down in two games that could have been made. I’ll show you the hand on which I can be brutally honest in describing declarer’s play as moronic without hurting anyone’s feelings.

Mike Bell led the ♥2 against my 3NT. I asked about the opponents’ lead style and was told that they play attitude leads. In principle, that means you lead a low card from a good suit and a higher card from a weak suit. In later discussion, it was agreed that the ♥2 was the normal lead for them from that suit, rather than the ♥7. If that is your style, then I think that describing your lead methods as ‘attitude’ is misleading, but that’s hardly an excuse for allowing the description to distract me from the winning line of play.

Irrespective of the layout of the heart suit. playing the queen from dummy is completely idiotic. Playing low from dummy and winning in hand with either the eight or the king (unless East rises with the ace), and then leading a spade to the ten virtually guarantees nine tricks. If East wins with the ♥A and returns the suit, you can afford to lead a low spade to the jack.

Having played the ♥Q from dummy, East won with the ace and returned the suit. Perhaps I could have recovered by rising with the king on the heart return, particularly if the hearts were breaking 5-2, as seems likely from the lead once East shows up with the ace. When I put in the ♥9 and West won with the ten and switched to a club, the contract was doomed. An inglorious two down: N/S -200.

Against the same contract in the replay, Rob Cliffe led the ♥J at trick one. That made life even easier for Stefano Tommasini. He could afford to cover with the ♥Q and win the heart return with the king, and play a spade to the ten. He quickly wrapped up nine tricks: N/S +600 and 13 IMPs to LESLIE.

In the end it was a good thing that two of us went down in a game that made at the other table. That way, both unsuccessful declarers can tell themselves that, even if they had made their contract, we would have lost by 3 IMPs instead of 15.

The final table looked like this:

For Team LESLIE, this was their second consecutive victory in this competition. Mike Bell and Ben Norton were also members of the LESLIE team that won in 2022.