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The 2000 Jersey Congress

Each year the English Bridge Union runs one ten-day congress on the island of Guernsey and one on Jersey.

This year's Jersey Congress was held at the beginning of May. Often, one can hope for very warm sunny spring weather for the congress, but this year the weather was rather mixed, only really coming good for the final weekend when there were three excellent days - spoiled only by a sudden downpour just as the bridge was coming to an end.

The first weekend consists of a four-session Swiss Pairs Championship and the second a four-session Swiss Teams. During the midweek period there are a number of shorter events to fit in with the wishes of those players who wish to combine a holiday with bridge. And, although the bridge is taken seriously, Jersey is very much a holiday congress.

There is a sprinkling of top players but the congress caters more to the slightly older player, out to see the first serious sunshine of the year, perhaps. The congress venue is the Portelet Hotel overlooking St. Brelade's Bay, one of the island's premier hotels. The accommodation is good and the restaurant excellent, with a good range of well-prepared dishes. According to your view of life, it is either a little behind the times or else it upholds sadly vanishing standards, in that gentlemen are requested to wear jacket and tie for dinner.

The Swiss pairs was won by Jim and Denny Wade, and the Swiss teams by Gerard Faulkner, Jimmie Arthur, Douglas Romain and Philip Williams. My own team did not particularly shine but we did have one interesting defensive problem. Right hand opponent opens 3NT, showing a solid seven-or eight-card minor and not more than a queen outside. Everybody passes and you are on lead holding:

	A
	A 10 9 8 3
	9 6 5 2
	7 4 3

Traditionally, one leads an ace against a gambling 3NT opening in the hope that the sight of dummy will give clues as to how to continue. If the hearts are running, they will still be doing so at trick two so there is no need to lead the A.
Indeed, dummy may hold KJ and you may need to put declarer to a guess in the suit. Accordingly, you cash the ace of spades, which can only be wrong if dummy has the sxK and that is declarer's ninth trick when he also has a heart stopper.
This is what you see in dummy:

	Q 9 6 4
	K 7 6 4
	A J 7 3
	5

What do you lead to trick two? There is some case for a club, forcing declarer to cash all his winners immediately. However, after seven rounds of clubs, dummy can come down to:

	Q 9
	K 7
	A
	-

While declarer may guess the ending wrongly, he will have seen an awful lot of discards from both you and your partner and is likely to have a fair idea as to what is going on. A low heart lead may put declarer to a guess if he holds the jack, but if he puts up the king he has nine tricks.

The best technical defence is to switch to a diamond, playing partner to hold KQ10. If he has that holding defeat of the contract is assured as he can win the ten and return a second diamond to establish the fifth defensive winner, while if he holds only the KQ he will win and switch to a club. That may seem to be a losing defence, and if declarer reads the ending it is indeed losing, but this time dummy has to come down to only four cards on the run of the clubs and declarer is under greater pressure as he has to unguard one suit completely. Well, our defender duly switched to the 6 and partner had what was required to defeat the contract.

At the other table the switch was to the 10. Declarer knew that he should put up the king as his only real chance of a ninth trick but he played low. A switch to the K now beat the contract for a flat board.

The full deal:

			Q 9 6 4
			K 7 6 4
			A J 7 3
			5
	A	N   W E   S			K J 10 7 3 2
	A 10 9 8 3				Q J
	9 6 5 2				K Q 10
	7 4 3				9 6
			8 5
			5 2
			8 4
			A K Q J 10 8 2