Import 9F48 Main
Shutting Out Dummy’s Suit
by Alan TruscottImport 9F48 Main |
| by Alan Truscott |
The Vanderbilt Knockout Team Championship ended here Saturday night in a victory for one of America’s most famous veteran players. Bill Root of Boca Raton FL, who at 71 looks back on a lifetime of teaching bridge to thousands of players, won his 13th major team title. Many of those have been with Richard Pavlicek of Fort Lauderdale FL, who was his partner here and is also a bridge teacher. Their teammates were Marc Jacobus of Las Vegas and Michael Polowan of Manhattan, who formed a partnership just before the start of the event six days ago and won their first major title. The team lists their captain (nonplaying) as Edgar Kaplan, who was sidelined for surgery.
The Root team built up a lead of 42 IMPs before the final 16 deals and held on to win a well-played final by 28 IMPs. The losers were George Steiner of Seattle, Joe Silver of Montreal, Ron Gerard of White Plains NY and Michael Kamil of Teaneck NJ.
Root and Pavlicek defended well on the diagrammed deal from the final. Their opponents bid optimistically to four spades, which was going to succeed if declarer could make use of dummy’s diamond suit.
| South deals |  K 10 4 | West | North | East | South | |
| Both vul |  J 10 4 | Pass | ||||
 K J 10 6 5 3 | 1  | 1 | 1 | 1
| ||
| A | 2 | 4 | Pass | Pass | ||
| J 9 |  | 8 5 2 | Pass | |||
| K Q 5 2 | A 9 8 3
| |||||
| A 8 2 | Q 9 4
| |||||
| Q 8 5 2 | K 10 7
| |||||
| A Q 7 6 3
| ||||||
| 7 6
| ||||||
| Lead: K | 7
| |||||
| 4 South | J 9 6 4 3 | |||||
The defense began with the heart king and a heart to the ace. The routine lead of a third heart now would have permitted South to ruff and work on diamonds effectively. He would have been able to ruff one diamond in hand and draw trumps ending in dummy to score diamond winners.
But Pavlicek as East made the crucial play of returning a club to dummy’s ace. Declarer ruffed a heart to enter his hand, and when a diamond was led, the moment of truth arrived for Root as West. The opening bid marked him with the diamond ace, so there was no hope that declarer would misguess. Ducking would have permitted declarer to win the king and crossruff for 10 tricks and the contract.
Instead Root won the diamond ace and led a club, forcing dummy to ruff. Now there was no way to make use of dummy’s diamonds, and the crossruff did not quite work: South could not score the spade seven because West was in a position to overruff the fourth round of diamonds.
In the replay Jacobus played in the sound contract of two spades and made 10 tricks. The Root team gained 7 IMPs but would have lost 10 IMPs if four spades had succeeded.
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© 1995 Alan Truscott