| 47th European Bridge Team Championships | Page 7 | Bulletin 5 - Thursday, 24 June 2004 |
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Sweden – Turkey (with England – Germany highlights)
Double duty for your Editor, who, thanks to the wonder of modern
technology was able to follow two matches at the same time – rather
like watching Sweden-Denmark & Bulgaria-Italy on Tuesday
evening. One featured the two high flying teams, the other a battle
between traditional rivals, where, continuing the footballing
analogy, ‘Bridge is a simple game; 8 men play with cards for 170
minutes and at the end Germany wins.’
A typically aggressive bid from Justin Hackett backfired. The traditional advice against this type of bidding is to lead an ace, but declarer was not going to be let off lightly. East led the two of spades and West won and switched to the ten of diamonds. East took the king with the ace and advanced the jack of spades. When declarer covered that with dummy’s queen he was held to five tricks, -400.
Rightly or wrongly East decided to take out insurance. After three rounds of clubs declarer came to nine tricks, but that was 10 IMPs for Germany.
West’s decision to show his doubleton heart rather than bid 3NT turned out badly, as the 5-1 trump break proved to be fatal. Declarer won the club lead in dummy and played a diamond. North won with the king and played a club. Declarer won in hand, ruffed a diamond and went after the trumps. He was two down, -200.
2¨ 5+©, 6-12 A simple auction to the top spot, +600 and 13 IMPs for Sweden. On Vugraph, the auctions on this board proved interesting contributions to the never-ending argument about the choice of opening bid holding 5-5 in the black suits. In the Closed Room, the Danes stuck to the classical theory of opening 1§ n a weak hand, and they struck gold:
Morten Bilde took a certain risk when he doubled 3ª holding avoid himself, but with less than a strong four-card holding in spades Jørgen Hansen would certainly not pass. ªAQ832 were more than enough, however, for down three and +800 to Denmark.
When Puczynski had to open 1ª the Danish were out of trouble here. 3NT was duly reached and made, but 5 IMPs went to Denmark.
I doubt you would be thinking in terms of a slam on the West hand facing a passed partner, but one was available this time. One suspects East should have done more, but on the other hand the heart finesse might have been wrong! Declarer quickly claimed 12 tricks, +420.
4§ RKCB The same twelve tricks, but this time with the bonus 500, Germany +920 and 11 IMPs. In Sweden-Turkey both teams bid the slam.
I wonder if East would have achieved a coup by bidding 3NT over Three Diamonds? Whatever, this was a good auction that saw East/West stop in time, +130.
Obviously something went wrong – perhaps West hoped East would read Four Spades as a cue bid? This hopeless contract was six down, -600, giving England 12 IMPs. How suitable a suit does one need to preempt or overcall? Is the blank king of a suit a solid stopper when you are playing in no-trumps? The auctions on the board below centered all about these two issues.
2¨ certainly was not everybody’s choice of opening a Multi. 2© showed a take-out double with spades, 2NT and 3NT were natural. What would you lead, holding the South hand? Adam Zmudzinski did well to find the lead of a low diamond. No doubt, he was helped by the auction that had suggested hearts in East and spades in West. When declarer discarded one heart too many, the contract even went down five, for a remarkable +500 to Poland.
In the Open Room, the proceedings were much more quiet when Lars Lund Madsen did not consider his hand worth a Multi. On the natural auction developing after West’s natural 1§ opening, Puczynski was in a position to gamble about the blank ¨K being a stopper in the suit. This is a fully justifiable idea, as either it will be, or partner will produce something in addition. On a low diamond lead, he ran home in record time after winning his ¨K. Poland another +600 for a huge swing of 15 IMPs.
If you overcall with this type of hand you will sometimes pay the price. This was one such moment, as South led the king of hearts, after which declarer was not in trouble. He unblocked dummy’s ten, won in hand and played a diamond to dummy. South allowed the queen of spades to hold, and when North showed out on the jack of spades declarer took the ace, crossed to a diamond and finessed the nine of hearts, claiming when it held, +420.
South led the two of clubs and North put in the ten and continued the suit. Declarer ruffed, crossed to a diamond and played a heart to the queen. South won and continued with the force in clubs. In due course he made a couple of trump tricks, +50 and 10 IMPs.
Alas, declarer did the one thing he could not do when he played a diamond to the ten. South could ruff and exit with a trump, leaving declarer a trick short, -50.
Once again the overcall saw South lead the disastrous red king – ‘He who sows the wind reaps the whirlwind.’ However, declarer did not give the contract enough attention. First he did not unblock the ten of hearts – not in itself fatal, but after winning in hand, crossing to dummy with a diamond and seeing the queen of spades hold, he played the jack of spades, which should have led to defeat. South was allowed to win with the queen and had only to switch to a low club to put his side in control (North had discarded the ten of clubs on the second spade). When he played a heart, declarer was back on track and claimed ten tricks. +420. 10 IMPs to Germany.
According to the convention card, 2NT promised 5+©, so I can’t be sure as to exactly what was going on. Seven Spades needed trumps to be kind, not this time, -100.
1© 8+,4+ª or 12+ balanced Seven Notrumps needed spades to be less kind than before, +2220
and a whopping 20 IMPs. This board caused havoc all over the place. In the Open and Women’s events, there are 27 tables in play, and they managed to exchange well over 300 IMPs on this board, mainly consisting of swings of 20 and 17 IMPs.
Bilde was one of a significant minority of declarers to go down, as he thought North’s singleton diamond made him the more likely person to hold three spades. He played accordingly: spade to the king first, only to see North show out. In the Open Room, we saw a jolly good auction but for East’s final Pass :
When North made a super-light preempt the Poles were already deprived of nearly half their bidding space. They tackled the problem quite well; West might even have bid 7§ instead of 7ª. In the end, it was difficult to understand why Chmurski did not correct to 7NT. Partner is sure to hold six spades and the ¨A, which to my calculations amounts to13 top tricks. So why not take any extra chance there might be? Then came another board where overcalling turned out badly, even though this time there was little wrong with the quality of the suit:
South attacked with three rounds of diamonds, but declarer could ruff high, draw trumps and claim, +420.
1© 8+,4+ª or 12+ balanced I expect many players would have done as Kolata did, but he had picked the worst possible moment. There was nothing to the play, declarer, making five tricks, -800, and a loss of 9 IMPs.
South led his singleton heart, but declarer simply won and drew trumps, claiming ten tricks, +420.
I expect many players would have done as Jason did, but he had picked the worst possible moment. There was nothing to the play, declarer, making six tricks, -800, and a loss of 9 IMPs.
South led a heart and North won and switched to a club. Declarer won and passed a spade to North, who played another club. When declarer advanced the ten of spades and South played low, he became another victim of a dubious piece of advice ‘ If they don’t cover they don’t have it,’ by trying to drop the queen of spades. As a result he had to go one down, -50.
This time declarer made no mistake, +420 and 10 more IMPs to the rampant Swedes. They gave nothing away in the run in and won 74-11, 25-3VP.
I have no idea why Klaus Reps did not simply raise to Two Hearts.
Of course, he would probably not have escaped, as East would almost
certainly double and West would pass.
Declarer would have had chances in 3NT, but Five Clubs was hopeless, -50 and 15IMPs, putting England back in the game. But of course, Germany went on to win 53-34, 19-11. The Danish team missed an opportunity:
This was a perfectly solid contract that was made with an overtrick on the lead of the ¨8.
North led a heart, won by South’s king. Now the problem of the hand is the heart spots. North probably holds the ©A, but what are declarer’s spot cards? After a long huddle, South returned the §J. Now, had declarer won the ace and finessed the §Q on the way back, he would have been home before having to make up his mind about the best line of play. As it was, Puczynski believed in the §J being a true card, so he won the king in hand and led his spade, outing up the queen. South won and finally returned to hearts, declarer playing the queen. At this point, North should have deduced from his partner’s previous switch, that his hearts were not too good. Once he would have reached this conclusion, ducking the ©A would have been automatic, as would have been the setting of the contract. North won the ©A, however, and returned a club. Now it was too late for the defence. The §Q made the trick, but the next heart could no longer do declarer any harm, provided he would put up the jack and take the diamond finesse later. Another 7 IMPs to Poland who finally won the match 59-12 or 24-6 V.P. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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