25th May 2016

IMP Pairs East West Vulnerable


S Q72
H 1072
D 52
C AQ764
   


   
S K98
H AKJ98
D KQ106
C J

Cheadle Hulme Bridge Club held an IMP pairs event on May 12th.  With this form of scoring your score is calculated by working out your IMP score against every other table in the room.  At normal match points each board is of equal value (approximately four percent of your total available), if you suffer a disaster on a couple of boards, you still have a chance to win if you do well on the other boards.  At IMP pairs the scoring is a lot more volatile.  If you make a slam that nobody else has bid you may gain something like 20% of your total score for the evening, conversely if your opponents are the only ones to bid the slam, you may lose a large amount through no fault of your own.  If you mess up a part score it will not be anything like as costly.  Having said that it was an interesting and enjoyable evening.

The hand above was played by Alan Jones and Pauline Lang (who finished second) against the eventual winners Raymond Semp and Eve Lighthill.  Alan reached the normal contract of four hearts and received the jack of spades lead from Raymond.  He followed a fairly obvious line by running the lead to his spade king, crossing to dummy with the ace of clubs and leading a diamond to the king and ace.  A small spade followed which went to the ten and then Eve cashed the ace of spades, Raymond following and Alan had to lose a heart trick to West's queen for one off.  Raymond's devilish lead from Jxx earned them +38 IMPs and Alan and Pauline -38 IMPs (at the other five tables four hearts was made three times and the other two played a part score in hearts).  The winning margin for Raymond and Eve was 3 IMPs.

Thanks to Raymond Semp for reporting this deal