Part 3: The Invincible Zia tournament analysis – March
Named ACBL player of the year many times,world champion and member of the Hall of Fame, Zia Mahmood gives you a hard time every month during Funbridge Points Tournament!
Discover 3 deals analysed by Zia Mahmood from his March tournament.
Board 1 : You can fool a robot
 A 7 6 K Q 10 Q J 6 A 9 7 2 |
| 5 A 8 6 5 2 A 8 2 K 10 6 4 |
 |
K Q 10 9 3 2 J 7 3 7 5 5 3 |
| J 8 4 9 4 K 10 9 4 3 Q J 8 |
| West | North | East | South (Zia) |
| PASS | |||
| PASS |  |
PASS | PASS |
 |
PASS | PASS | DOUBLE |
| PASS | PASS | PASS |
Contract: 2♥ doubled by West. Lead: ♦ Q
West, who might have opened the bidding, reopened it after my partner’s strong no trump came round. I re-re-opened, so to speak, with a takeout double – who knew who could make what, but our side had the balance of points so at the vulnerability I couldn’t just pass and take 50 a trick against 2♥.
Indeed, if 1NT had been passed out we’d have taken about nine tricks after East’s obvious but unfortunate spade lead. Against 2♥ doubled we had six obvious tricks – a spade, two hearts, a diamond, and two clubs. We badly needed a seventh.
Partner kicked off with the Queen of diamonds and I overtook with the King. From my point of view things looked desperate – I needed to play both clubs and trumps through declarer, and diamonds were my only entries. West won the first trick and, instead of putting the pressure on by playing a spade, continued with a second diamond. I could win that and shift to the Queen of clubs, covered by the King and Ace.
Partner played a club to my Jack and I played a trump. West put the Ace on that, ruffed a diamond, and played a heart. If declarer’s last club was the nine, we were going to score indifferently for plus 100, but when partner had that card our combined efforts yielded 300 and a top. I mentally gave North a high five. It may have reciprocated with a high 101.
