| 45th GENERALI European Bridge Championships, Arona, Tenerife, Canary Islands | Sunday, 24 June 2001 |
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RUSSIA vs ITALY Round 15, Open Series It would have been a good idea to sell tickets for the last match on Rama on Friday evening. The room was completely filled by all those who wanted to see the match between the two leaders at that stage. The defending champions, Italy, in full gear after a slow start against Russia, a team already having drawn the attention and esteem from the cognoscenti, but also surprising all of us by its constant flow of positive results. It was the right moment to create a gap. But which team would take the upper hand on its opponent? The first three boards saw only two IMP´s exchange hands, in favour of Russia, but the third board certainly deserves attention:
From 3ª onwards, the Italians were already beyond their safety level, but the shortest and most natural road on this board would be the one to game in hearts. On the two top diamond honours led by Duboin, Bocchi threw two clubs, thus making declarer´s task much easier, but that´s not yet the end of the story. Duboin continued his singleton spade to partner´s ace, and Bocchi returned the suit. Petrunin took the §4 in his hands for a moment, thus causing the Russian supporters to hold their breath, but then he regained his composure and started to take the auction into account. The §4 quickly went back into his hand and was replaced by a safer-looking ©J. Russia +420.
The horizontals in this room stayed more quiet, as they are playing safe during the auction a little more, and the final contract was the same as N/S had less options to choose from. In defence, however, something strange happened. Kholomeev led the ¨K, probably intending to stay on lead, but Zlotov did not allow this, taking the trick by ruffing it and continuing the ªA and ª8. Do you remember? They had not mentioned spades in this room and usually it´s not so easy to hide away an eight-card suit. So, for Versace it was pretty natural to discard hid second diamond and pretty natural to be astonished when Kholomeev ruffed this trick. So the problem of locating the §Q had come back. West continued the ¨A, ruffed by Versace who next played two rounds of hearts ending in his hand. After cashing the §A and noting the fall of the nine, Versace crossed to dummy with a trump, played the ªK throwing a club and, with a perfect idea of the distribution of the hand in his mind, called for the §J which he overtook with the §K in his hand to halve the board. Please note that Zlotov, contrary to what had happened on Rama, had held on to all the small clubs in his hand not to give away any vital indication to declarer. The real first blood in the encounter went in the direction of the Azzurri:
1© was a transfer to spades, of course, as we all know by now. After 2NT, a strong raise in spades, by Duboin, the Italian pair easily reached the proper game contract and made 11 tricks. Italy +650. Things went wrong in the other room:
The Russian mechanism came to a premature halt in the first major suit available. Eight tricks, but only +110 to Russia and 11 IMP´s to Italy. Board 6, though being another flat board, was another worthwhile
example of counting a hand:
Let´s start with the Closed Room:
Kholomeev led the ª3 and Versace, on lead with the ace, immediately decided the fate of the hand: he led a low diamond from hand and played low from dummy when West contributed the nine. Zlotov won the ¨10 and, being thrown in already, continued the ¨K. Versace won the ace and played two rounds of trumps. West could win his ©Q but as he had no winning move available, continued a club after which declarer showed his cards, claiming the balance except the ©K. Italy +420.
Same contract, same lead, different story. After the ªA, Petrunin too led a diamond from his hand, but put up the queen on West´s nine. Bocchi too won the ¨K and returned the suit. Declarer won and threw in Duboin with a third round of diamonds. On the club return Petrunin took Bocchi´s king with the ace and led a low heart. Duboin played low without a flicker and Bocchi took dummy´s jack with his king. He returned another club to South´s queen. East, who had passed in first position, had already shown up with three kings. This Italian pair would certainly not refrain from opening very light, so Petrunin played off the ©A, felling the queen from West, and winning his contract as well as the applause from the Rama audience. Halfway through the match the hand that would decisively change
the direction of the encounter came up:
Chapeau for the Russian pair to arrive at the highest level in great style. 1§ was strong and 1NT showed 8-10 hcp. 2§ was a suit and started a series of relays. 2© showed a balanced hand without any four-card major and 3ª then showed a five-card suit in diamonds. 4ª was RKC for clubs, 4 NT showing 1 keycard. 5¨ simply asked for the queen of trumps and 5ª confirmed it. The only uncertain factor in the auction thus was the ¨J which proved to be a wonderful card. Even if the grand slam would have been impossible to make, it was a great auction, worth a shot at the maximum playing level. Gromov showed his hand at trick three after winning the heart lead and drawing two rounds of trumps.
Rather lazy bidding by Lauria. There are hands on which 3NT might be the right contract, but not this one. Lauria paid the price for it when Versace brought a prefect fit and the Russians began to run away with this 16-IMP swing in their favour.
In spite of the Italian acceleration the Russians easily landed in the right contract. Duboin led the ¨J, covered all round. Petrunin continued with the ªK and the ¨2 giving Duboin the chance to ruff and continue hearts. On lead with the ©A, declarer drew a second round of trumps and played on clubs. Bocchi ruffed the second round of the suit and could cash one heart trick, but that was the last trick for the defence. Contract just made, Russia +620.
Kholomeev, first to speak non vulnerable, decided to make life hard for his opponents by launching a bomb in clubs. This attack turned out to be a success as it guided the Italian pair into the wrong contract. Zlotov led the ©K and, when this lead, continued the suit to the ace in dummy. Lauria cashed three rounds of clubs trying to put some pressure on east, but Zlotov was having no problems as he could safely discard a diamond and the ©J. After the cashing the ªAK, Lauria, with his hopes already down to nearly zero, turned his attention to diamonds, but to no avail. Down two, Russia +200 and another 13 IMP´s. 3NT- 2, 200 per la Russia. Even a correct view in diamonds would have brought declarer only eight tricks. Two more big swings sealed the Russian victory:
A normal enough contract, but destined to fail on a diamond lead or also, to make things a little more difficult, on a spade lead to the ace and a diamond switch. Gromov made life easy by leading the ¨K. After this lead, the hand could soon be put into the archives. Duboin lost a trick to the ªQ, but as he had concede a trick to the ©A and cashed the remaining hearts in dummy before, Gromov was forced to lead away from his §K when in with the ªQ. Down only one, Russia +100.
Versace´s weak overcall made Lauria put the brakes off. He certainly held a worthy hand opposite a stronger intervention. It might well be that the hand belonged to the Italians, in which case they could not run the risk of losing their own possible game and conceding one to the opponents at the same time. As it was, they lost 500 points with no game on for the opponents, and the Russian lead had become even more serious.
Simple bidding on Rama, but it brought E/W into a contract they unfortunately could not make. The 4-0 trump break will cause declarer´s undoing. The price to be paid would probably be small, however, and the board would be flat. Or would it? No, not quite:
In the Closed Room, Zlotov really thought he would make 4ª, and even if he did not think so, his poker move came off perfectly well as Lauria could not be sure of defeating the contract. When Lauria took shelter, he was severely punished by Zlotov who thus completed the success on this hand by taking a 500-points penalty. The match ended with a 21-9 victory to Russia, a serious setback for Italy and a convincing step forward for Russia. |
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