We are back in Australia, at Canberra Bridge Club for the final of the national Mixed Teams Playoffs. The winner will represent Australia in the Mixed Teams events at major championships in 2024. The match is being played over 120 boards divided into eight 15-board stanzas over two days.

The two teams contesting the final are HARRISON (Shane Harrison, Jessica Brake, Bruce Neill and Sue Lusk) and THOMSON (David Beauchamp, Jodi Tutty, Maurits van der Vlugt, Dagmar Neumann, Warren Lazer and Pauline Gumby). When we left things after the first two stanzas, HARRISON held a 15-IMP (74-59) advantage.

As usual, we start with some problems. Firstly, with only your side vulnerable, you are West holding:

What do you bid?

Next, with both sides vulnerable, you are sitting in the East seat with:

What do you bid?

Finally, with neither side vulnerable, you hold in the North chair:

What do you bid?

The only major swing of the third stanza essentially came down to a King-Jack guess. The bidding and the early play were identical in both rooms.

The two North players doubled West’s pre-emptive raise to 4♠, Warren Lazer (left) and Sue Lusk both removing to 5♥. At both tables, West led a spade to dummy’s ace, and West then switched to the ♣2 after winning with the ♥A at trick two.

For THOMSON, Lazer called for the ♣10 from dummy. East won with the ♣A and switched forlornly to a diamond. Declarer was able to draw the remaining trumps and set up the diamonds for eleven fairly painless tricks. N/S +650.

At the other table, Lusk went up with the ♣K at trick three. East won with the ♣A and played a club back to his partner’s queen. Jodi Tutty’s spade exit then forced declarer to ruff in dummy.  As the cards lie, declarer can make the rest by running her trumps, squeezing East in the minors. Instead, Lusk played a trump to her hand and ruffed her club loser with dummy’s last trump. However, when she then tried to return to have with a third-round diamond ruff, West’s ♥10 became the fourth defensive trick. N/S -200 and 13 IMPs to HARRISON.

HARRISON won the third stanza 34-8 and thus edged into a 9-IMP lead, 93-84. Midway through the final stanza of Day 1, both West players had to decide what action to take on the first of the problems posed at the top of this article.

Jessica Brake (right) made her first international appearance in the Australian Under-26 Women’s team at the 2014 World Youth Championships. Two years later, she collected a silver medal from the same event. She made her debut in the Australian Women’s team at the 2022 Venice Cup in Salsomaggiore.

On this deal, Brake opted for a raise to 4♥ on the West hand. Dagmar Neumann entered the fray with the almost-automatic 4♠ and Brake closed the brief auction with a red card. A diamond lead would have ensured beating the contract by three, but Shane Harrison had no reason to find that, and instead opened with a normal low heart. Neumann ruffed in dummy and tried her luck with the club finesse. Harrison won with the ♣K and now led a diamond. Brake won with the ♦A and switched to a trump to the queen and king. Now the defenders cashed their two heart winners. There was still the ♠J to come, so that was three down after all. E/W +500.

At the other table, it was a case of the operation was a success but the patient died for East/West.

Warren Lazer started with a Bergen-style 3♦ raise on the West hand. That allowed Bruce Neill to bid his spades at the three-level. Two passes then left Lazer with the familiar Pass/Double/Bid choice. When he chose to try his luck with 4♥, North doubled. I suspect that most players, holding the South hand, would have removed to 5♣ (down one), either by bidding it directly or via 4NT. How would Maurits van der Vlugt’s decision to defend work out?

South led a spade to the ace, and declarer successfully finessed the jack on the spade continuation. With North marked with most of the missing high cards, both minor-suit finesses seem to be working, so declarer can make ten tricks as long as she can avoid losing a trump. The slow approach to reaching 4♥ was looking like the winning tactic.

On the auction, which defender is most likely to be short if trumps do split 3-0? It does seem quite reasonable to think that any shortage is most likely to be in the North hand, so Pauline Gumby fatally started trumps but laying down the king from her hand it cost 19 IMPs. South discarded, and declarer was one down. E/W -200 and 12 IMPs to HARRISON, who edge back into a single-digit lead in what has started out as a ding-dong match.

As the first day drew to a close, both East players had to deal with the second of this week’s problems.

East appears to have three choices after his partner’s game-forcing 3♣: 3NT, 4♣ and 3♥. The problem is that if partner has some help in hearts then 3NT is likely to be best. If he does not, then it is far from clear to be so. However, if his help is a doubleton ♥Q-x, then you need to play the hand from the East seat, with the overcaller on lead, so asking with 3♥ will wrong-side the contract and thus negate the value of partner’s ♥Q.

Shane Harrison (left) just bid 3NT, ending the auction. The appearance of three hearts in dummy was good news, although it was still possible that the suit would break 5-3, in which case declarer would have to bring home the clubs. If North held only a doubleton heart, declarer could afford to lose a club trick to him as long as he also held the ♠A.

Harrison won the second round of hearts and started clubs from the top. The bad news was that the queen did not come down, but at least it was South who had shown out. Harrison played a third club to North’s queen and, with only pointed suits left, Neumann could not avoid handing declarer his ninth trick. With the diamonds as they lie, a spade return would have conceded ten tricks, so Neumann’s diamond switch did the least possible damage. E/W +600.

Faced with the same problem, Pauline Gumby decided that her doubleton ♥A was insufficient for 3NT and instead chose to raise clubs. Lazer installed himself to game and Bruce Neill led the ♥7.

Lazer won with the ♥A, crossed to the ♣A, and then exited with a heart, South winning and forcing dummy with a third heart. Now declarer led the ♠K and pitched a diamond when South did not cover. North won with the ♠A and had to score the ♣Q later for one down. E/W -100 and another 12 IMPs to HARRISON.

HARRISON won the fourth stanza 32-11, so we were just about back to where we were after two sets, with HARRISON leading by 13 IMPs (116-103) overnight. Midway through the first segment of Day 2 came…

When Bruce Neill (right) opened the bidding, Sue Lusk would have immediately been thinking about slam. Neill raised spades but then showed that he would not have accepted a game try by retreating to 3♠. When Lusk continued with a club cue-bid and Neill again showed no interest, she gave up.

In fact, lack of distribution means that this South hand is not as good as it might first appear: To make slam good, you would need a very suitable minimum opposite, something like KQxx/Axx/xx/KQxx or KQxx/Ax/xx.KQxxx. North certainly cannot have either of those hands on this auction.

Jodi Tutti did not lead the ♥Q, instead choosing the ♦8, but it made no difference. Declarer could only throw one heart from dummy, so the defenders had to make two tricks in that suit eventually. Declarer had no reason to drop the singleton ♣K, so that was just ten tricks. N/S +420.

That all looks fairly routine. Remarkably, even the gentlest of opposition bidding seemed to make this a much more difficult hand.

It would seem that the heart bids by East/West should have little effect, but a Gremlin managed to creep into the North/South auction somewhere along the line. What did you make of your partner’s bidding on the last of this week’s problems? Is it clear that South’s sequence agrees spades, or is it possible that he has one of those rare good hands with only three spades and no heart stopper, where he has to start with negative double as he has no clear alternative? Dagmar Neumann clearly did not take 4♣ as a cue-bid with spades agreed. If he still wanted to make another slam try, perhaps South should instead have advanced with a 4♦ cue-bid. Yes, that would theoretically have denied a club control, but picture the South hand with the ♥A rather than the ♣A. With the actual hand, do you not need partner to hold controls in both rounded suits in order to be thinking about slam.

The result was that the defenders made the same three tricks defending 5♣ as they had against 4♠ at the other table. That meant N/S -50 and 10 IMPs to HARRISON.

HARRISON won a nip-and-tuck fifth stanza 28-26 and thus led by 18 IMPs (147-129) with three stanzas remaining in this playoff final.

We will be back soon with the best of the action as this final draws to a close.