A world-wide top (almost)

Brent and I played in the bridge Worldwide Pairs last Friday. There were 4672 tables in play which means 18,688 players (if my math serves me). I don't know how many different countries were represented, but these countries were among the top 10 pairs: U.S.A., Canada, Italy, Costa Rica, Venezuela and Cyprus.

It's hard to get a world-wide top, but we came close on this deal (rotated):

                ♠ A J 9 8 6 3
                ♥ J 6
                ♦ 10
                ♣ 10 6 5 3
==
                ♠ Q 4
                ♥ 10
                ♦ K Q 7 6 5 3
                ♣ K Q 9 2

       West   North   East   South
                             1♦
       1♥     1♠     2♠    3♣
       4♥     5♣     Dbl    All Pass   

West led the ♥Q showing the king (Rusinow leads) and East encouraged with the 2. Another heart was led and South ruffed East's ace. Declarer advanced the ♦K, taken on his left by the ace. West shifted to the ♠10, low and king by East.

East now returned a heart, giving declarer a useless ruff-sluff. He discarded a diamond and ruffed in dummy to lead a club to his king, winning. He lead the♦Q and West discarded a spade. He led a low diamond and West discarded a heart. Declarer ruffed in dummy and led another club. This wasn't his best choice.

Here are all four hands:

                ♠ A J 9 8 6 3
                ♥ J 6
                ♦ 10
                ♣ 10 6 5 3
♠ 10 2                        ♠ K 7 5
♥ K Q 9 8 7 5                 ♥ A 4 3 2
♦ A                           ♦ J 9 8 4 2
♣ A J 8 7                     ♣ 4
                ♠ Q 4
                ♥ 10
                ♦ K Q 7 6 5 3
                ♣ K Q 9 2

East showed out and Brent, West, won two rounds of clubs, led another heart and and declarer was down four --- that was plus 1100 for our side.

This was a score of 4577 matchpoints for us and only 95 for North-South. Even though this was an unbelievable result, it wasn't a top. When there are that many players in the field, anything can, and does, happen.

If you want to see the frequencies of all the scores on the board (#24), click here.