| 1st European Open Bridge Championships | Page 3 | Bulletin 2 - Monday, 16 June 2003 |
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Chagas vs Svindahl For the third round of the afternoon, the editors decided to have a look at two of the most famous non-Europeans playing here: Zia Mahmood and Gabriel Chagas. As they are teaming up here, they both could be seen at work in one match, in which they met the Sindahl team from Norway. In the previous round, Zia’s team had lost heavily to Rand, thus destroying the advantage they got from their maximum start, whereas Sindahl had scored two 19’s. So Chagas had to win to stay in the hunt. On the first board, it looked almost too easy.
On this auction, North, Anders Fodstad, elected to take a look at dummy first by leading the §A. After collecting a count signal, he cashed the §K as well before leading a spade, which went to the six, queen and king. When Zia next guessed the diamonds, he had nine tricks. In the other room, Chagas did not have any clues for his lead:
So Chagas led the ª4, his fifth best, and Pain, after taking her time to look deeply into the position, covered dummy’s six with the eight, forcing the king. At this point, declarer’s task had suddenly become almost impossible. You would have to guess both red suits to succeed. When Sindahl misguessed the diamonds by taking the second-round finesse into North who had his spades established, he was down four. He could have saved an IMP by ducking the ªQ return by South after losing to her •A. As it was, CHAGAS chalked up 12 IMP’s, a heavy first blow. Things got worse for the Norwegians when they had a systemic misunderstanding in the Open Room, thus losing a vulnerable game swing and another 13 IMP’s. The score stood at 25-0 now. On the next board, the Scandinavians recouped 5 IMP’s when they were allowed to make a partscore in hearts on an even more favourable lead than they had managed at the other table. Then, after a push on 24, an interesting board came up, which might have caused a big swing to Norway which, in the end, did not quite come off:
Holding an unpleasant surprise for declarer in her discouraging 1 NT-reply, Maja Anjer was quick to double. Down two, 500 to Sindahl. This looked a very good result, so a big swing was odds-on…let’s move quickly to watch proceedings in the Open Room:
Here, a well-known gadget ¨reversing the meanings of the 1ª and 1NT replies over 1©) made it difficult for West to enter the auction immediately. When South failed to raise to 3§ West could easily balance in spades after all, but now Chagas launched an aggressive 4§ call. Blågestad did not fall into the trap, however, and Pain raised to 5§ which was definitely too high. East led a club to West’s ace, Chagas unblocking an honour, and next, West put the •K on the table, on which Chagas followed smoothly with the Jack. Now West had a real problem, as East had not supported spades and could do no more than show and odd count now. He continued a low spade and Chagas seized his chance. He ruffed high, crossed in trumps and presented the ©J. West did not cover, so Chagas , being Zia’s teammate, had no option but to follow Zia’s rule: “When they don’t cover, they don’t have it.” He thus went on to cash the AK and run the ©10. Just made, 400 to his team but an unexpected ¨at least by him) loss of 3 IMP’s On the next board, Chagas handed back the points he won ¨?) on the previous one:
He won the club lead and played the ©Q. This looks a logical card, trying to stay in control of the trumps to prevent the run of the diamonds, but it did not work out well this time. Down two he went, losing a trump and four diamonds. West had to ruff one of dummy’s winning spades, so his trump stopper disappeared, but declarer could no longer dispose of any diamonds on the spades.
A peaceful partscore here and no problems for this declarer who managed 10 tricks when she won the club lead and first cashed the Ace of Hearts! When the King appears, you can unblock the nine and make all the tricks, but this was not found at every table. It did not matter too much, as Sindahl still won 9 IMP’s back. Playing 4ª would be a different story, however. If North is the declarer, after a Multi, East would lead a club and thus remove the entry to the hearts. If you try to ruff clubs in dummy now, you would go down, except if you adopt the line our Norwegian declarer just showed: cashing the ©A first ¨and unblock the nine, please, for a maximum result). If South is declarer, West might lead a diamond to East’s eight, and now a club continuation is both obvious and killing. If East, for any reason, makes a different return, try to win the lead as soon as possible, draw trumps and play a heart to the ACE! This only loses to K10xx on your left and thus is the superior percentage play to establish this combination for one loser while the §A is still there as the side entry. On the next board, a misdefence cost the Zia team another 10 IMP’s so Sindahl took over the lead as the scored stood at 27-25 to them now. They were to lose it on the very next board, however:
In the Open Room, South accepted the consequences of her bidding and quite rightly took out 3NT. When West hit upon the winning lead, a diamond, even this contract proved too high. Down one, 100 to Sindahl.
The aggressive 3©-rebid put the Norwegians overboard in the Closed Room. Anjer did her best, but there was no way left to play the hand in clubs below game level. There was no double, as trumps were behaving quite well, but Fodstad still had to go down three, -300 and 5 IMP’s back to Chagas who eventually won the match 31-27. An important win for Chagas, as it proved at the end of the Round Robin. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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