In international championships staged in Italy, it has become a standing tradition that the Daily Bulletin contains a few pages written in Italian. In general, they will appear without a translation into English being given as well. The reason behind this probably is that some of the stories written here are considered to be of minor interest to non-Italians. Well, this may or may not be true, but in today's Casa Nostra (which appropriately translates into Our Home Page in this era of IT) there are two hands on which Mosca and Capodanno did very well, much better than many pairs in the Final.

Board 22. Dealer East. EW Game ª Q 9 © Q 6 4 ¨ Q 7 6 4 3 2 § Q 8 ª K 8 6 2 ª A J 5 3 © J 5 © 10 9 8 3 ¨ 8 ¨ A 10 5 § 10 6 5 4 3 2 § A K ª 10 7 4 © A K 7 2 ¨ K J 9 § J 9 7

Mosca was right in using Stayman on this hand. There was the risk of ending up off-target but the reward could be high. Please note North's overcall: all those Ladies looked like having gone to his head! It did not hurt, because to put a contestant like Luciana Capodanno out of the bidding you would need a whole regiment of adventurous bidders: "If my partner uses Stayman and then does not support hearts, guess which major suit he's got…"

On the lead of the ©AK and a diamond switch, Luciana had little trouble in making 11 tricks for an excellent score in either event. Few players had taken the risk of using Stayman.

The previous board featured a fit problem. Below, we have a rebid problem.

Board 29. Dealer North. Game All ª Q 9 7 6 3 © 8 5 2 ¨ 9 4 2 § K 6 ª A K 5 4 2 ª J 10 © J 7 6 © Q 10 4 ¨ K 10 6 ¨ A Q 8 7 5 § 8 2 § Q 10 7 ª 8 © A K 9 3 ¨ J 3 § A J 9 5 4 3

The first point to note: when Luciana opens the bidding, she has her opening bid. This solid style has the effect of not launching the pair to intolerable heights.

What would you have rebid on Mosca's cards after partner's 1NT bid? Carlo opted for a waiting bid which left the way open for a possible retreat to spades. Fortunately, there was no such retreat as Luciana preferred to raise partner's second suit with her five-card support. In the massacre of spade partscores penalized by the bad trump split, a candle lit the lonely diamond partscore of our pair.

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