Stefan Skorchev, young Bulgarian international, has given us another top tier annual pairs tournament to put in our diaries — the Acol Invitational Pairs. Superbly organised and offering big prize money, this year it was won by Thor Erik Hoftaniska and Gunnar Hallberg, a Norwegian/Swedish partnership that was invented at the rubber bridge table the night before! Thirty-two pairs competed and around 100 boards were played over the weekend. Let me say right now — I didn’t play it and that’s not because I was NFI.
I was. Honest!
Let’s watch Gunnar in every bridge player’s favourite hunting ground — 3NT.
West elected to lead a small Heart. Declarer put in dummy’s nine to muddy the waters, and won in hand. Next he went to dummy in Diamonds and played a Club to his 10 and West’s Queen. This underused play very often makes something good happen, as it did this time when West tried a Spade.
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