Thursday 15 December 2011
The two teams that finished first and second in the 2011 English Premier League met in the final of the 2011 Gold Cup, Britain’s oldest and most prestigious team competition.
This time the team captained by Frances Hinden ran out the victors by a score of 127 IMPs to 100. With eight deals remaining the Hinden team led by 42 IMPs and the Allfrey team needed some large swings.
On the first two boards of the final stanza the Allfrey players bid and made two vulnerable games while their counterparts picked up only small plus scores in defence, and the momentum was now very much with Allfrey.
But this was the third board – love all, dealer South.
South passed as dealer at both tables, and West opened one club. Allfrey overcalled one spade with the North cards, while John Howard for Hinden passed. On the one hand the overcall would take up bidding space, or might lead to a profitable sacrifice; on the other hand …
Both East-West pairs bid to the reasonable contract of six hearts. Each declarer received a spade lead, and the Allfrey player won with the ace and played ace and another club, working on his side suit before drawing trumps. South won the second round of clubs and continued spades, so declarer won and cashed dummy’s ace and queen of hearts. If South showed out, East would run clubs until North ruffed, thereby picking up a possible holding of four hearts to the jack in the North hand. Of course, if North showed out the contract would fail – but how could North, who had a singleton club, also have a singleton heart and not have overcalled West’s opening bid of one club? East soon found out how, and the contract went one down.
At the other table Peter Lee for the Hinden team heard North’s overcall, so he won the opening spade lead and played the ace and king of hearts since North was more likely to be short in the suit than South. When North showed out, declarer finished drawing trumps and led the jack of clubs. This was covered by the queen, ace and king in that order, so declarer won all 13 tricks, his small slam, and the Gold Cup.