In the Buzz of Club Activity, A Cluster of Singleton Queens

Players in duplicate tournaments win only master points, no prizes. And they strive to attain the rank of life master. You must gain 300 points, at least 50 being silver points, which can be won only in sectional tournaments. Earlier this month the Greater New York Bridge Association ran a ''STaC'' -- for Sectional Tournaments at Clubs -- week. These pair events were played simultaneously in the clubs across the city.

The diagramed deal was played Jan. 18, and it helped Justine Cushing and Barry Rigal of New York to second place behind Joan Hight and Phyllis Young, also of New York.

When you uncover a good fit with your partner, the strength of your hand increases. There are two commonly used methods of evaluation. First, you can add points for short suits. Here each doubleton is worth one point, giving North a total of nine. This would suggest raising to two spades, with the intention of accepting a game-try by partner, or of competing to three spades if the opponents enter the auction.

Second, you can use the Losing Trick Count. You look at no more than the first three cards in every suit, counting one loser for each top honor missing. The North hand has eight losers: three spades, two hearts, one diamond and two clubs. This makes the hand worth a game-invitational raise to three spades, which was the bid chosen by Cushing. (Perhaps the best approach with a borderline hand is to underbid slightly in a pair event, where you do not push for thin games, but to overbid in a team event or Chicago, where you bid game with any excuse.)

A club, heart or high-spade start would have defeated four spades, but West had a natural diamond lead. (She was using Rusinow leads, so selected the jack, the second-highest of touching honors.)

Declarer immediately discarded two heart losers on dummy's top diamonds, then called for a club. East went up with his ace, cashed the heart ace and continued with the heart king. South ruffed, took his top trumps and club king, ruffed a club on the board (West discarded a diamond) and trumped a diamond in his hand to give this unusual finish:

When did you last see four singleton queens in a three-card end position?

South led his club jack, leaving West with no winning play. If she had ruffed, declarer would have crossruffed the last two tricks. If West had thrown the heart queen, declarer would have ruffed the club jack on the board and trumped a diamond in his hand. And when West pitched her diamond queen, South ruffed on the board and discarded his last club on the high diamond nine.

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Playing Past 100, Still Eager To Hunt Down the Overtrick

Who and what age is the oldest active tournament director in the world?

T.D.'s, as they are generally known, like to be seen but rarely heard. They announce the movement at the beginning of a session and prefer to spend the rest of the time watching everything run smoothly. If they are never heard again, it means that no one broke one of the laws, because if a player does, a T.D. must be called to give a ruling.

The oldest active T.D. is Sidney Matthews at the Marbella Club in Spain, who celebrated his 100th birthday Nov. 13. He was the declarer on the diagramed deal, which occurred during a duplicate at the International Bridge Club in Marbella and was reported by the English expert Tony Priday.

The two-spade rebid was not natural, but fourth-suit game-forcing. North, who had already shown five diamonds and four clubs and could not bid no-trump without a spade stopper, had to continue with three hearts. Ideally this would have included three-card support, but sometimes opener must raise with only a doubleton, especially when it is strong.

West led the club queen. Assuming trumps were 3-2, Matthews could see that his contract was safe, but in a match-pointed pair game, overtricks are valuable, so South wanted to win 11 tricks. He could hope that the spade finesse was winning (50 percent) or play for diamonds to split 4-3 (62 percent).

Matthews knew which was more likely. But to establish a long diamond, declarer would have to ruff three diamonds in his hand, which would require four dummy entries: three for the ruffs and one to reach the established winner.

South, seeing that he had the diamond ace, heart king, heart ace and club king, won with his club ace, played a diamond to dummy's ace and ruffed the diamond five in his hand. Using dummy's two trumps as entries, South also ruffed the diamond seven and diamond eight.

Now declarer led the spade queen from his hand. West took his king and returned a club, but South won with dummy's king and discarded his spade five on the established diamond deuce. East later scored the heart queen, but Matthews had his overtrick for a tied top on the board.

West, after complimenting South's play, said that next time he would lead a trump, which would prematurely burn up one of those dummy entries and stop the overtrick.

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An Am Who Plays Like a Pro

Pro-am events are usually looked upon by pros as a labor of love. They are giving something back to the game that has given them so much. But the winners are always happy. The am is delighted to receive the accolades of peers, and the pro will have several stories with which to entertain friends.

The Greater New York Bridge Association's annual Victor Mitchell Pro-Am was played Friday at the New York Helmsley Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The turnout was terrific, with 52 tables in play. The winners were Peter Bonfanti and Erna Frischer of New York, who narrowly beat Yuri Yurachkivsky and Nathaniel Norman of New York. Third were Michael Polowan of New York and Scott Woolley of Venice, Calif.

The winners did well on the diagramed deal.

After South opened one club and North responded one diamond, East normally made a takeout double to show both majors. But Frischer overcalled one heart, mentioning her stronger major. South rebid one spade, and Bonfanti (West) crowded the auction with a pre-emptive leap to four hearts. North understandably competed with five clubs, and Frischer showed that she was no shrinking am: she doubled.

West led his heart ace, East using the deuce as a suit-preference signal for diamonds, the lower-ranking of the other two side suits. West shifted to the diamond nine, East taking two tricks in the suit before giving her partner a diamond ruff. Down two, plus 300, was a top on the board.

It has been a notable couple of weeks for Frischer. Her grandson, Ilan Hall, won the ''Top Chef'' competition on the Bravo network the week before this event, and the day before she celebrated her birthday. Bonfanti wrote, ''I was too polite to ask, but I suspect that the first digit is an 8.'' Not only that, but the second digit is an 8 also.

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A Good Guess Yields a Title as the Spring Nationals Begin

The first national championship decided at the American Contract Bridge League’s Spring Nationals here was the Baldwin Flight A North American Pairs. Dave Abelow of Owings Mills, Md., and Dick Wegman of Bethesda, Md., won it on Thursday night.

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	NORTH 10 A J 10 8 4 A K J 8 4 10 3
WEST 9 7 3 2 K 6 Q 5 A 9 8 7 2		EAST A 8 6 5 9 7 3 9 6 3 2 J 5
	SOUTH(D) K Q J 4 Q 5 2 10 7 K Q 6 4

Neither side was vulnerable. The bidding:

South	West	North	East
1 N.T.	Pass	2	Pass
2	Pass	3 N.T.	Pass
4	Pass	Pass	Pass

They started badly, lying 61st of 70 pairs after the first of the four sessions. But they moved up to 24th during the second session, when the field was cut to 28 pairs for the second day. After a big game in the third session, they moved into the lead, which they maintained despite scoring only just over average in the final session.

In a very close finish, the winners scored 407.03 match points; second were Glenn Milgrim and Chris Willenken of New York, with 404.76; and third were Dan Gerstman and Joel Wooldridge of Buffalo, at 400.35.

Abelow guessed well in the diagramed deal, which he played in the third session against the pair that finished second.

Abelow (South) opened one no-trump, promising only 12 to 14 points. Wegman (North) used a transfer bid to show his five-card heart suit, then made the unusual decision to rebid three no-trump, not three diamonds. South, with three-card heart support, corrected to four hearts.

Milgrim (West) led the spade three, playing low from an odd number of cards and third-highest from an even number. Willenken (East) won with his ace and shifted imaginatively to the club five, West taking declarer’s king with his ace and returning a deceptive club eight to the ten, jack and queen.

South cashed his king and queen of spades, discarding diamonds from the dummy. If he had believed West’s carding, he would have continued with the spade jack, pitching the diamond jack, but he played a heart to dummy’s ten and took the two top diamonds, dropping West’s queen.

Declarer’s plan had been to ruff the diamond jack with his heart queen, then to repeat the heart finesse. And if West had found a brilliant falsecard holding three hearts to the king and three diamonds to the queen, that would have been the winning line. But after some thought, Abelow called for dummy’s heart ace, dropping West’s king and scoring an overtrick.

Plus 450 was worth only 6 match points out of 13 because one declarer in three no-trump took 11 tricks, and three pairs in four hearts won 12 tricks. But if South had bagged only 10 tricks, he would have received 2 match points, resulting in the win and place positions’ being reversed.

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