Unheard Melody

Bridge is full of might have been’s. This classic example comes from the match between Italy and Poland.

Board 17. Dealer North. None Vul.
	ª 9 3 © K J 2 ¨ K 9 8 6 5 3 § 9 8
ª K 6 2 © Q 8 7 6 4 3 ¨ A § J 4 3		ª A J 10 7 © - ¨ Q J 10 7 4 2 § Q 6 5
	ª Q 8 5 4 © A 10 9 5 ¨ - § A K 10 7 2

West	North	East	South
	Pass	1¨	Dble
Rdble	1©*	1ª	2§
Pass	Pass	2¨	2©
Pass	Pass	3¨	All Pass

Bocchi bid One Heart because a Pass would have suggested defending One Diamond redoubled. Why he didn’t double Thee Diamonds must remain a mystery.

Three Diamonds went two down, enough for a flat board as in the other room the contract was Two Diamonds doubled down one.

At the time the commentators suggested that the reason Zmudzinski passed Two Hearts was that he knew his partner would remove the double – a classic case of VCD – VuGraph Commentators Disease, ‘being wise before the event’.

However, that may not be the reason, as you cannot defeat the contract.

Say West leads the ace of diamonds. Declarer ruffs and plays three rounds of clubs. As long as the ruff is with the jack of hearts the defenders will be helpless. Now you lead a spade and in due course you will score a ruff in dummy and, thanks to the preponderance of trumps in the West hand all three trumps in hand.

The importance of ruffing with the jack of hearts is that if West subsequently wins an early spade trick then a trump exit will run to the South hand, whereas a ruff with the two will result in a fatal blockage.

The Fourth Faroe Sportsman With 100 Caps

By Svend Novrup

Sportsmen from the Faroe Islands in the stormy Atlantic Sea have few opportunities to play on national teams. They live far away, and it is very costly to travel to sports competitions. Until this day only two chess players and a female volleyball player have had 100 caps, and only just. On Tuesday, Jóannes Mouritzen of the Open team played his 100th match for the team from Bridgesamband Föroya, the Faroe Bridge Federation, and he probably will establish an all time record for all sports before he leaves Malmö.

The small islands up North have only 150-200 tournament bridge players among their population of 40,000 people, and it is impressive that they even have several strong pairs to pick their teams from. In Malmö they were the talk of the first day when the Open team defeated Iceland 20-10, Germany 19-10 and lost narrowly 14-16 against England, while the Women won 19-11 against mighty Italy and only lost 14-16 against Norway. A start that made headlines at home but, of course, this was almost too good. It put a tremendous pressure on the players for the second day and, after losing just 11-19 to Hungary in the Open series they gave in to nerves. Let me say that, after the end of day two, the pressure had been taken off the shoulders of both teams, and we can go hunting scalps in the normal way again.

Gunnar Mouritzen/Gögni Vesturklett are debutants who only just left their teenage years, yet they are very talented and have demonstrated their skills already. Högni (the islanders use first names) was one of very few who landed this 4© in Round 3 against Germany:

Board 14. Dealer East. None Vul.
	ª A 4 3 2 © K Q 8 ¨ K J 7 § A J 7
ª Q 10 9 7 © J 10 6 5 ¨ Q 4 § K 9 4		ª - © A 9 7 3 2 ¨ A 9 6 2 § 8 6 5 2
	ª K J 8 6 5 © 4 ¨ 10 8 5 3 § Q 10 3

West	North	East	South
	Gunnar		Hogni
		Pass	Pass
Pass	1§	Pass	1ª
Pass	4ª	All Pass

West opened ©J to the queen and ace, and East returned the suit to the ten and king, Högni shedding a diamond. Cashing the ªA, he got the sad news and started his search for some sort of endplay. He ruffed his last heart, §Q to the king and ace, followed by two more club tricks. A diamond to the jack and ace and, when East did not want to solve the diamond suit for declarer and played a heart instead, Högni threw a diamond from hand and ruffed in dummy. The ¨K stood up, and he simply played a diamond for West to ruff on the third last trick. The lead from ªQ10 to the penultimate trick secured the contract. 10 IMPs to the Faroes when the same contract failed in the other room.

Of course we need an example of Jóannes’ abilities. This is Board 15 from the match against Hungary in Round 4 (11-19):

Board 15. Dealer South. N/S Vul.
	ª K 10 9 8 5 © 10 9 8 7 6 2 ¨ - § 9 6
ª J 7 4 3 2 © Q 4 ¨ Q 8 6 2 § 4 2		ª A © J 3 ¨ A J 7 5 4 3 § A Q J 7
	ª Q 6 © A K 5 ¨ K 10 9 § K 10 8 5 3

West	North	East	South
	Hedin		Joannes
			1 NT
Pass	2¨	3¨	3©
5¨	5©	Dble	All Pass

2¨ was a transfer to hearts, and 3© promised three or four hearts. When West leaped to 5¨ and the tray left his side of the screen, Jóannes knew what he hoped for: ‘I wished that it would come back with two passes so that I could double, and I did not like it at all when instead the bidding was 5© – Dble, but there was nothing to do except try to make it. West led a spade to the ace and East switched to the queen of clubs. Without much hope I put up the King but it won and when both opponents followed to two top trumps I started to hope. I cashed the ªQ and was disappointed that East did not follow, but everything was not lost. In this position:

	ª K 10 9 © 10 9 8 7 ¨ - § 9
ª J 7 4 © - ¨ Q 8 6 2 § 4		ª - © - ¨ A J 7 5 4 § A J 7
	ª - © 5 ¨ K 10 9 § 10 8 5 3

‘I played §3 to the nine and jack, and East was endplayed! 11 tricks, +850 and a gain of 12 IMPs as North/South played in 3© making 10 tricks at the other table.

That was a nice performance by the record man.

Talking about cards

Arriving at Malmö, I knew that I was going to have some kind of official function, but not which. When I leafed through the championship booklet I discovered that I was a journalist. There is a first time for everything I thought. Wondering what a bridge festival journalist might do, I decided to do some research on what journalists do at bridge festivals. First and foremost they write articles. I had heard that journalists give the articles that they have written to someone called “the editor”, who either accepts or refuses to publish them. Concluding that I should probably report for duty to “the editor” I asked who “the editor” was. The reply was satisfactory in the respect that I do know who Martin Nygren is, and unsatisfactory from the point of view that I am Martin Nygren.

At my disposal I have two battle worn veterans in Tommy Gullberg and Sven-Olov “Tjolpe” Flodqvist. They do, as usual, an excellent job in covering the Chairman’s Cup, the Swedish Championship finals and all side events. With the bridge being well covered it remains for me to report on interesting non-bridge events and general gossip. That is not an easy task for a man that is generally uninterested in gossip. Or to be more accurate, most things that people gossip about are very interesting to do but not to talk about. I am afraid that the gossip column will not be up to the standards that the bridge festival participants are used to.

Talking about non-bridge events, this must be some kind of record in underbidding:

	ª Q © K Q J 7 3 ¨ Q 9 7 5 § K Q 6
ª 6 4 2 © 10 6 5 4 2 ¨ 8 3 2 § 10 5		ª J 10 9 8 5 3 © 9 ¨ 10 4 § 9 8 7 3
	ª A K 7 © A 8 ¨ A K J 6 § A J 4 2

Eight pairs reached 6 NT! Surely enough the unlucky five-one break in hearts keeps declarer to only fifteen tricks, but that should do nicely. If your partner and you - with your favourite methods - end up in game or a part-score on the above hand, please tell us the sequence. We can offer a Swan Bridge voucher in exchange for the information.

Sweden’s NPC Jan Kamras showed off a cunning piece of coaching yesterday evening. All players on the team wanted to see the Sweden-Denmark game but the schedule was a bit tight to make it back in time for the kick-off. To increase the odds of finishing of the bridge in time, Kamras decided to side-step P-O Sundelin.