45th GENERALI European Bridge Championships, Arona, Tenerife, Canary Islands Friday, 22 June 2001

Legal Problems

Every newspaper, be it a magazine, a bulletin or just a piece of paper, worthy of its name will incur some number of problems with the Law. A good journalist can never maintain he does his job well if there are no arguments from time to time. We could not escape this rule either. We received and feel obliged to publish the letter below, sent to us by Mr Alfredo Versace´s legal representative.

On behalf of and under responsibility of Alfredo Versace, represented by the undersigned, I am inviting you to publish the following. Following the publication of an article dealing with a play by a certain Mr Lorenzo Lauria with regard to a difficult contract of 3NT, I hereby inform you that, due to an agreement by the parties involved, to any difficult contract of 3NT made by Lauria and published afterwards, there shall be a publication of an identical contract, made by Versace. At this occasion, I have the following material at your disposition:

 

Alfredo Versace, Italy
Round 10, Italy v. Belgium, Closed Room.

Board 8. Dealer West. None Vul.

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

West North East South
Versace Carcassonne Lauria Labaere
2¨* Pass 2©** Pass
2ª Pass 3§ Pass
3NT All pass    
* 18/20 balanced
** ª (who would have thought that?)

"Mrs. Valérie Carcassonne, North, unfortunately chose the only suit for her lead that might make declarer´s life easy, when she put the ¨2 on the table. This card was covered a little all round, until it reached the queen played by my client. After the time needed to make up his mind, my client then crossed to a heart in dummy and led the §J, as he did not have the advantage of seeing the opponents´cards. Had he led the §2, he would have shortened the play of this hand considerably, but also have robbed us of a story. The above-mentioned card was immediately covered by all, though it would have been better had North left declarer on play with the §K. North continued a heart and Versace took all his winners in that suit, causing serious discarding problems to the opponent in the North seat. She found herself squeezed in three suits and, with the writing already on the wall, decided to let go the ª6 and the ¨7. On the subsequent spade North played the ª10, Versace put up the king in dummy and Labaere won the trick with the ace. His return of a low diamond was not covered by the declarer and North, left on play with the ¨8, only delayed the end of the play a little by exiting with a low club which ran round to Versace´s §5. The subsequent ¨A then received the ¨K in his arms with pleasure and the ¨J was the 9th trick."

So much in defence of my client.

Yours truly,

M. Rosentrance
Bridge&Bridge Solicitors


The New Guard

The retirement from international bridge of Pat Davies broke the 20 year partnership of her and Nicola Smith and the devolution of the former GB teams forced apart Heather Dhondy of England and Liz McGowan a Scot. It seemed sensible for Nicola and Heather to pair up, and they are both in line for a genuine hat trick of three consecutive wins, along with English Ladies team Captain, Jimmie Arthur, a Scot. (As is Liz McGowan(

Two boards from their opening matches showed Nicola and Heather to be in fine form.

England v Finland

Board 3. Dealer South. E/W Vul.

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

West North East South
Dhondy Savolainen Smith Kulmala
      Pass
1© Dble Pass INT
All Pass      

First, Heather an obvious aficionado of Dad's Army, took Corporal Jones catchphrase 'Don't Panic' to heart. That's where the resemblance ended, for whereas Jones always did, Heather, on finding an unfortunate continuation, kept her cool.
©K was followed by ª4, to the 2, 8 and king. Declarer ducked a diamond to East's ten, and ©9 went to ©10 and ©J. Now Heather continued with ª7, and as it would have been consistent with the bidding for East to hold ªQ, declarer ducked in dummy. Three spades, three hearts and a diamond were good enough to defeat the contract.

England v France

Board 8. Dealer West. None Vul.
  ª Q 10 6
© 5 4
¨ K 8 7 2
§ A 8 7 3
ª 7 2
© A K J 7
¨ A Q J 4
§ K 9 5
Bridge deal ª K 9 8 5 3
© Q 10 9
¨ 3
§ J 10 6 2
  ª A J 4
© 8 6 3 2
¨ 10 9 6 5
§ Q 4

West North East South
Fishpool Smith Hugon Dhondy
1¨ Pass 1ª Pass
2NT Pass 3§ Pass
3© Pass 3ª Pass
3NT All Pass    

A low club lead from Nicola Smith was won by Catherine Fishpool with the nine, and she continued with §K, then a third to Nicola's ace. Smith found the killing switch to ªQ to ªK, and on winning with ªA, Heather Dhondy switched to a diamond. On taking ¨Q with ¨K, Nicola cashed ª10, and a third spade to Dhondy's ªJ spelt defeat.


Same Contract - Not Quite

We heard of an unfortunate board for the Swedish Open team. It comes from their Round 5 match against Austria.

Board 17. Dealer North. None Vul.
  ª 2
© Q 10 6 5 4 3 2
¨ 5 2
§ A 9 7
ª 8 5 4
© A 9 7
¨ K Q 9 8 3
§ 6 3
Bridge deal ª 9
© K J 8
¨ A 7 6 4
§ K Q J 10 4
  ª A K Q J 10 763
© -
¨ J 10
§ 8 5 2

Both North players judged their hand to be worth a 3© opening - there the similarities ended. The Austrian East player passed, which looks reasonable enough. Tommy Gullberg responded 3ª (4ª would not have been natural) and Lars Andersson rebid 3NT. It was entirely possible that there would be nine winners but four losers so Gullberg passed, hoping that 3NT would make while 4ª would not. His hopes were duly realised. East made the normal lead of the king of clubs and Andersson won and cashed eight spade winners; +400.

Plus 400 looked to be very good for the Swedes, but things went rather differently in the other room. Again the opening bid was 3© but the Swedish East ventured to overcall 3NT. Sitting South, Christian Terraneo of Austria suspected that he had the beating of that contract and doubled. Everyone passed with varying degrees of contentment and Terraneo proceeded to cash all his spades then, in response to his partner's discards, switched to a club; five down for -1100 and 12 IMPs to Austria.

If you want to have a good board, Tommy, you need a REALLY good score at your table - +400 is nothing.


Miss (almost) no Mistake

By Ib Lundby

Dorthe Schaltz was the Danish player in 2000-2001 who won the most national master points. Most of them she earned together with her housebound Peter, but I guess that the gold points she won in Open Pairs are the ones she appreciated most, because in that event she was runner up together with her 17 years old son, Martin.

In Denmark's match against France in Round 9 (20-10) I kibitzed Dorthe in the Open Room. In my opinion she didn't even touch a wrong bid or a wrong card, but hand 14 was the exception:

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

West North East South
Soulet Dorthe Abecassis Peter
    1¨ Pass
Pass 1ª Dble 2ª
All Pass      

The defence was perfect: ¨A, ¨K, ©A (©Q) and a low heart to ©J. A diamond from West forced North to ruff. What now?

This was Dorthe's mistake: She cashed the ªA and played a spade towards dummy. Abecassis ducked and ªQ won the trick but left Dorthe with no chance at all though Abecassis on his side of the screen twice showed an attitude as the hand was made (he didn't expect his partner to have one more trump). One down.

The winning line: Instead of the ªA Dorthe should have played the ªJ and (when East ducked) continue with a low spade towards the ªQ. This simple (sorry, Dorthe) play will succeed with the spades 3-3 and the ªK with East.

In the closed room the defence was less accurate against the same contract. East-West cashed only three red suit winners before shifting to a club, and declarer had an easy task.


Hand of the Day

By Svend Novrup

It required perfect timing and drawing the correct conclusions from the bidding to land 6© on board 15 of round 9. Yoram Aviram from Israel stood up to this challenge with one of the most brilliant pieces of declarer play we have yet seen in these championships.

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

Barel - Aviram N-S for Israel against Nanev - Mihov of Bulgaria.

West North East South
Nanev Barel Mihov Aviram
    1©
2¨ 3© Pass 3NT
4§ Pass 5¨ Pass
Pass 5© Pass 6©
All Pass      

3© was preemptive while 3NT was a spade cue bid. South's pass of 5¨ was forcing, and when North did not double South boldly bid one for the road and then had to justify hiss decision in the play.


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