Best Defended Hand John Matheson and Willie Coyle

Brian Callaghan and I had to wait until round 7 for the best-defended hand. The figure 100 again played a part, as the defenders are stated in different sources to have at least 100 international caps between them. I am sure the defence was duck soup to them, but it had to be found. And it was only fair that this time Keith Bennett was the victim as he had won the best-bid hand prize.

A simple auction brought the Young Chelsea pair, who were in contention for second place, but not realistically the trophy, to the normal game. North avoided giving the tenth trick immediately with a pointed suit lead (even Zia’s likely choice of the eight of hearts might have worked) and led a small club. West won and advance the king of hearts, as only a singleton queen was of any use to him. Both opponents ducked, and North won the next trump to play a second club. East won with the king and ran the queen of spades and both opponents ducked smoothly. Now, technically, declarer should switch to diamonds, but he repeated the spade finesse, and North now won. There was no further entry to dummy, and declarer was one down.

Extract from Paul Lamford's Match Report