South Pole -v- Rest of the World
A game of bridge was played on the evening of Monday January 16th 2006 at the remotest place on the planet. The venue was the precise geographic South Pole - 90 degrees South. The weather was sunny but windy and the temperature was a bracing minus 27 degrees Celsius (minus 16 degrees Fahrenheit). The contestants were the South Pole versus the Rest of the World.
For the South Pole were Rolf Peterson playing with Wendy Beeler and for the Rest of the World were Chris Dixon ( England ) and Harry Otten ( Netherlands ). Naturally, in view of the extreme location, all players were sitting North. The deciding hand was the following - played in the ice cold contract of 4H
The opening lead was the diamond 3 won by North with the 10 followed by a switch to the 7H. With so much opposition bidding, it was safe to assume that suits did not break very favourably and the QS was probably offside. There seemed two possibilities to land the contract. One was to make on a sort of cross ruff, scoring 7 trump tricks, 2 spades and the Ace of clubs. The other was to ruff one diamond, duck a club, and make the contract with 5 trump tricks, 3 spades, the Ace of clubs and a minor suit squeeze against North for the 10 th trick. To preserve both options North played the AH and continued with a low spade to dummy's Jack and North's Queen. The Ace of spades had to be preserved as the King might be required as an entry later on. North now switched to a low club and North ducked. Winning with the Jack, North did her best by playing a second trump but North won this carefully with the 10 and cashed the Ace and King of Spades. Now he could ruff a diamond with the Queen, and lead the carefully preserved 8H for a marked finesse against North's Jack. he then drew the last trump and cashed the 13 th spade on which North was squeezed with KQ Clubs and the AD. 10 tricks made and victory for the Rest of the World. The extreme wind, low temperatures, and the difficulty of holding cards whilst wearing polar mitts forced the early curtailment of the game which set a new record for the most Southerly game of bridge ever played.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||