July 2018 - 32

Bridge Bash
Fourth annual Bay Area High
School Bridge Championship
By Sarah Youngquist

On April 29 at the Burlingame Bridge
Center in Northern California, students from 17 local schools gathered
to play in the fourth Bay Area High
School Bridge Championship.
Nine teams from six schools started
in a round-robin; four teams advanced
to a 12-board semifinal after lunch, followed by a 12-board final.
The team championship was won by
Palo Alto High School (Cornelius Duffie, Stella Wan, Jonathon Youngquist
and Sarah Youngquist) 43-17 over
Lynbrook HS (Michael Hu, Alex Zheng,
David Zheng and Michael Zheng).
Palo Alto topped the morning
round-robin. Gunn High School (Kevin
Huang, Lucas Huang, Johnny Shi and
Michael Xu) finished second. Monta
Vista High School placed third, and
Lynbrook claimed the last spot in the
semifinals.
In the Palo Alto-Monta Vista semifinal, Cornelius, from Palo Alto HS,
ended up in this 5♣ contract.
Dlr: East
Vul: N-S

♠ Q 10 9 4
♥ Q 10 7 3
♦-
♣AQ986
♠J83
♠K75
♥K952
♥A4
♦KQ8763
♦ J 10 9 5 4
♣-
♣743
♠A62
♥J86
♦A2
♣ K J 10 5 2
West

North

2♦
Pass
Pass

Dbl
Dbl
5♣

East
Pass
3♦
Pass
All Pass

South
1♣
Pass
3NT

West led the ♦K. Declarer won in
hand, pitching a spade from dummy,

32 Bridge Bulletin July 2018

Sarah Youngquist, Jonathon Youngquist, Cornelius Duffie and Stella Wan from Palo Alto
High School win the school's third consecutive Bay Area High School Bridge Championship.

and ruffed a diamond. He pulled three
rounds of trump, ending in dummy.
The best hope to make the hand is
to play East for honor-doubleton in
hearts, hoping to pitch a spade on a
high heart, while endplaying East into
breaking the spade suit.
Cornelius led the ♥3 to the 4, jack
and king. West returned the ♠3: 10,
king, ace. The contract was now cold.
Declarer played a heart to the 10, won
by East's ace. East played back a spade,
and declarer claimed.
The contract goes set if East flies
with the ♥A on the first round of the
suit so that the defense never has to
break spades, but once East ducks,
there is nothing that the defense can
do. West does a little better by exiting a heart when in with the ♥K, as
declarer would then have to guess
hearts. East does no better by refusing to put in the ♠K, as they will be
endplayed into leading spades anyway
when thrown back in with the heart on
the next round. 5♣ making was worth
12 IMPs for Palo Alto, and Palo Alto
High School went on to win the match
49-25.
Meanwhile, Lynbrook and Gunn
faced off in the other semifinal match.

Lynbrook arrived in 4♥ by South in an
uncontested auction on the following
hand. Play along with declarer Michael
Hu on the ♦Q lead.
Dlr: South ♠ A 7 5
Vul: N-S ♥ Q 8 5
♦A954
♣Q84
♠ Q 10 8 4 3
♠J96
♥J7
♥K43
♦ Q J 10 7
♦K32
♣ 10 5
♣K976
♠K2
♥ A 10 9 6 2
♦86
♣AJ32
Declarer won the ♦A and accurately
decided to try to ruff a club in dummy.
He led a club to the jack, played the
♣A, and led a low club. West incorrectly ruffed with the ♥7. The defense
continued two rounds of diamonds, declarer ruffing. Declarer ruffed his last
club, West pitching a spade. Next he
pulled trump, leading the ♥Q. As icing
on the cake, his ♥Q smothered West's
jack, and he picked up the trump suit
to make five. That overtrick proved extremely important in the comparison.
After comparing scores with their
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of July 2018
