Congratulations to Peter Donnellan and Paul Thomson who maintained their first session lead and went on to win the Non Life Masters pairs reasonably comfortably from Judy King and Katrina Van Pelt in second, and Michael Tait — Jane Clipper in third.

Finishing fourth and fifth were Irene Chew — Andy Carne, and Geoff and Kathleen Bell.

Andy and Irene won Strata B in the process, and winning Strata C were Kathleen Keane and David Petty.

Peter and Paul had a middling second session with a 56.46 percent game, and even though Katrina — Judy and Michael-Jane had 58.16 percent and 57.48 percent respectively, they had left themselves a bit too much to do at the halfway stage.

Well done to the winners and all the placing pairs. As I said last week Peter and Paul would have been favourites going into the event, but there were enough good pairs behind them to make it really competitive.

Coming up soon is the ACBL International Fund game on the morning of May 14th, and then the Open Teams on May 14th and 16th.

Have you ever ‘revoked’ (not followed suit when you could have) in a game? I am sure most players have but today’s hand features Ralph Mizrock, who in his day was known as the ‘revoke king of South Africa’ based on the number of times he revoked nearly every time he played.

All his revokes, however, paled in front of this one in the Amsterdam World Pairs Olympiad in 1968. Mizrock was South.

Dealer North. East West vulnerable

? 1052

? A843

? AQ1084

? 4

West East ?

? K ? J8743

? 97 ? KJ10

? J7 ? K962

? AKQJ9652 ? 7

South ?

? AQ96

? Q652

? 53

? 1083

WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH

Pass Pass Pass

1?? 1? 1? Pass

3???????????????Pass 3NT

Mizrock duly led partner’s suit, a diamond, and it was covered by the 7 and 10 forcing East to win with the King. East now had nine tricks. Or so it seemed.

East lead a club to the Ace, and on the second club North discarded a small spade, and so did Mizrock sitting South.

No one commented.

On the queen of clubs North discarded a spade and South discarded a small heart.

When declarer played the club jack, South woke up to the fact that he had revoked, but at this stage still held 10, 8 in clubs make the suit totally worthless in dummy.

Mizrock called the Director and explained what happened. Out came the Rule Book and all declarer was entitled to was two tricks, giving him a total of seven, down two.

In Bridge the onus was on all four players to call attention to a revoke, and clearly none had done so, the result stood as down two.

Needless to say the South Africans refused to take that score, and conceded the contract to East-West.

So a happy ending to a fairly stressful ten minutes in a World Championship.

I think the rules, anyway, allow the Director to restore equity, but the concession by the South Africans avoided that issue.

Notice that if North wins the diamond Ace and smoothly plays back a low heart, the contract would probably fail. East would probably play the 10 and the defence would get two spades, two hearts and a diamond — down one.

Fun hand, and you can see how Mizrock earned his title.