WorldWide Bridge Contest 7th Epson, June 20, 1992
The Epson WorldWide Bridge Contest: More than 100.000 bridge players from 95 countries participated and the contest was listed in the Gunness Book of Records as the largest tournament in the world.
A MOST EXCITING KIBITZER
Zia Mahmood is one of the most successful individual players since the great days of Italy’s Blue Team. He also has a flair for imparting his expertise to others. I was therefore delighted when he accepted my invitation to comment on the 36 hands in this souvenir booklet. Zia looks over my shoulder as I bid and play all 36 hands with my favourite partner, Paul Chemla.
Like the voice of conscience, he candidly evaluates our performance, and when he disagrees, has no hesitation in saying so.
He also tells us what should or could happen when the hands are played worldwide in what is expected to be the biggest official contest ever held, not limited to bridge. Zia is the ideal person for this role, as he is known wherever bridge is played. And he in turn knows bridge wherever it is played: he is the bridge world’s leading globetrotter. I sincerely hope that you reading this souvenir booklet.
Board 1
Paul, faced with a choice of rebids, plays it safe: many players — Losing Trick Count fans, especially — will rebid 3
 with the 5—loser North hand. For us, however, a jump rebid would denote more honour strength. Here, it doesn’t matter: either way, South bids diamonds on the second round and the same final contract is reached. Inevitably, East leads a spade, which means that Paul can afford to lose the lead only once. The rubber-bridge player would see no problem: ten tricks are certain by banging down the A and forcing out the king, so why give yourself a headache? At duplicate, of course, life is not so simple, and indeed the hand presents a fascinating problem. There are various choices, but it seems to me that Paul takes the best line when, at trick 2, he crosses to the A, spurning the finesse, and leads a club, finessing the queen. East wins and now, whether he returns a heart or a spade, Paul makes his 10 tricks for a satisfactory 59% score. Had the club finesse succeeded, Paul would have continued by laying down the ace. To cross to dummy with a diamond and repeat the club finesse would be to risky, lest East had held off with the K.
Zia’s comments: A fascinating hand, I agree. Paul’s line offers the best chance of making 11 tricks without risk when West has precisely the K-x of clubs. Another possibility is to play clubs from hand, declining the finesse, in order to preserve squeeze possibilities or the option of taking the heart finesse in the end game if the signs are that this might succeed. I also consider that there is scope for a more dynamic auction. As East, I myself would have overcalled with 1
 , and as West, I would have raised myself to 4. When bidding defensively, there’s little point in being half-hearted. As Paul speculated, 4 doubled is good, costing only 300. Few N-S pairs will have the machinery to reach 4NT, and if they press on to 5 they will go set. This is unlucky, but, on the other hand, if either of the finesses worked, 4 doubled would be worth more.
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