A stunning turnaround at the Worlds

Royal Gazette Staff

Created: Oct 23, 2010 11:00 AM

Not a lot to report locally butthere was high drama at the Bridge World Series in Philadelphia which finished last week.

In the Major events, Bobby Levin and Steve Weinstein won the World Open Pairs, Lyn Deas and Beth Palmer won the World Womens Pairs and the Diamond team (John Diamond, Eric Greco, Fred Gitelman, Geoff Hampson, Brian Platnick, Brad Moss) won the Rosenblum Teams after a stunning last session. They added this to their Spingold triumph of earlier this year.

Most of the drama came late in the last session on one hand where one of the world's best players, Eric Rodwell, who has played a couple of times at our Regional and been on my Panel Show, made what looked like – gasp! – an error in defence! The resulting swing was huge and pretty much sealed the match for Diamond .

Here is the hand:

Board 32. E/W Vul. Dealer West.

♠A

♥:K873

♦AKQ1064

♣:A3

♠108643 ♠K972

♥:Q104 ♥:95

♦7 ♦9853

♣:Q984 ♣:765

♠QJ5

♥:AJ62

♦J2

♣:KJ102

The bidding had an effect on the play :

WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH

RodwellHampsonMeckstrothGreco

Pass 1♣: Pass 2♥:

Pass 3♦ Pass 3NT Pass 4♥: Pass 4NT Pass 5♥: Pass 6♣:

Pass 7♦

The 2♥: bid was alerted as a strong balanced hand ( not necessarily showing 4 hearts ) and after a lot of cue bidding Hampson bid the Grand Slam . Meckstroth made the usual lead against a Grand , a trump , and Hampson won, drew four rounds of trumps and then played the Ace and King of hearts , Meckstroth presumably signalling an even number of hearts .

Hampson now played another diamond and Rodwell threw … the Queen of hearts! Hampson claimed, and the inquest began! It seems Rodwell called the Director to protest some misinformation on the explanation of the 2♥: bid but got nowhere with that.

It seems clear that Rodwell had misread declarers hand and had played Meckstroth for four hearts instead of two and thus thought declarer had had the doubleton heart and that his hand was :

♠A ♥:Kx ♦AKQ10xx ♣:Axxx

If this was declarers hand Rodwell believed he had to keep all four clubs to develop a club trick. Amazing a player as he is I think he had a real walkabout on this hand, as the evidence suggested that declarer did actually have the hand he had. If he had the doubleton heart, would he not have tried to ruff out the queen for a discard? Also, if he had the doubleton heart why would Meckstroth be pitching spades/clubs on the diamonds if he held two useless hearts? Also, Rodwell is looking at the jack of hearts in dummy!

All a bit strange if one looks for a logical answer , but not so strange if one accepts that even the very best once in a while have a blindspot … you be the judge!

Anyway, this huge swing effectively sealed the match though it must be said that the Diamond team looked just that bit better throughout and that the win was well deserved …

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A stunning turnaround at the Worlds