Unlucky, but...

by Brian Senior

At the half-way point in the Transnational quarter-final between Zimmerman and Orhan, Zimmerman, the multi-national pre-tournament favourites, led their Turkish opponents by 62-34. Could the Turks come back in the second set? As it turned out, the match never became close, Zimmerman cruising through to the semi-finals by 100-44 IMPs.

There were only two double-figure swings in the second half, one where the Turks bid a desperate two-ace slam. This is the other one.

Board 2. Dealer East. N/S Vul.
	♠ K Q 5 4 ♥ 6 ♦ 6 5 4 3 ♣ A J 8 4
♠ 2 ♥ Q J 10 3 ♦ K Q J 7 ♣ Q 5 3 2		♠ 9 8 7 6 ♥ K 9 5 4 ♦ 10 8 ♣ K 7 6
	♠ A J 10 3 ♥ A 8 7 2 ♦ A 9 2 ♣ 10 9

Both North/Souths quickly found the spade fit and North made a game try, Turkey’s Emit Basaran a natural 3♦, Zimmerman’s Tor Helness an artificial 2NT. Both Souths jumped to game, ending the auction.

Against Helness, Ergun Korkut led the ten of diamonds. Helness ducked but won the diamond continuation and ran the ten of clubs to Korkut’s king. Korkut switched to a heart. Helness won the ace and led the nine of clubs to his jack then threw dummy’s diamond loser on the ace of clubs. A crossruff now gave Helness the rest of the tricks; +650.

Cesary Balicki found the more challenging lead of a trump. Basaran won in dummy and took a club finesse. That lost and Balicki continued with a second trump. Again, Basaran won in dummy and led the remaining club to his jack. He cashed the ace of clubs for a diamond pitch then, needing to keep Balicki off lead to avoid a third round of trumps, led a diamond to the nine and jack. Adam Zmudzinski returned the queen of clubs, forcing dummy to ruff as Balicki pitched his remaining diamond. Basaran tried to cash the diamond ace now but Balicki could ruff and return his last trump and the contract was two down for 200 and 13 IMPs to Zimmerman.

Basaran was a little unlucky but he could have taken slightly greater care and been successful. His error was to cash the ace of clubs. Suppose instead that he had ducked the diamond at this point. Whatever the return, he could next cash the ace of diamonds before taking the diamond discard on the ace of clubs. Now there would be no ruff and no third round of trumps.