| 47th European Bridge Team Championships | Page 6 | Bulletin 13 - Saturday, 3 July 2004 |
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Belgium v Netherlands – Open Round 30 by Jos Jacobs On Friday morning, the derby of the Low Countries was the first course on the day’s menu. The Netherlands were in fourth position, half a VP behind Russia, half a VP up on Poland, and only marginally ahead of sixth-placed England, so their journey to Estoril was by no means a certainty yet. Belgium had been doing quite well earlier in the Championships, but they had lost a bit of ground over the past weekend from which they were trying hard to recover. When the day started, they found themselves back in eighth, still in with a remote chance of qualifying should any of the better-placed teams drop out. With still four matches to go, the fight for the three remaining berths for the Bermuda Bowl was a long way from being over, Italy and Sweden appearing to be secure. There was one more point to take into consideration, however. By tradition, Belgium do well in their matches against the Netherlands, certainly in European Championships. For this reason, a good match was in sight anyway. As the relations between numerous Belgian and Dutch staff members at ECs have been excellent over the years, the Dutch too knew that before the match, the Belgian camp said that the team’s performance looked very much the old story again – a good solid start, slowing down around half-way and getting worse later on. So the Dutch would have little to fear, some Belgians were willing to admit. Maybe, their disinformation service was at work … On vugraph, they were displaying the England-Israel match. England started the day only 2 VP behind the Netherlands, so anything would still be possible for them too. Below, we will present you a report on the Belgium v Netherlands match, together with a good look at England v Israel. In our derby, we saw the first major swing of the match right on the first board:
Well, 1§ by Bakkeren need not promise a serious suit, but sometimes openers do have clubs. Just a trifle unlucky, maybe, but Belgium were off to a bad start when they lost 500 here.
A more normal auction here when Muller was the first to open 1§, which kept the Dutch more or less on track. Due to the bad distribution this contract could not be made either, but as it cost only 100 for down two, the Dutch got off to a 9-0 lead straight away. This board created a similar type of swing to England in the vugraph match as this is what the audience got to see:
East led the ªK and continued the suit. West did not return a spade for East to ruff, but first played a low heart. Declarer put up the king, which looks best after West’s double, but East won and returned the suit. Only now, he got his spade ruff. So with two trump tricks still to lose declarer had gone down one; England +50.
A Hackett-style very light opening led to a wonderful result for them when East overcalled; down three, England +500 more and 11 IMPs.
4¨ showed both majors at game level. South, Ton Bakkeren, found the good lead of a trump, won by North’s ace. Then came the §Q to dummy’s ace followed by a successful heart finesse. Another round of trumps was won in dummy and the heart finesse repeated. North did not ruff the ©Q, but it no longer mattered as one way or another declarer could not come to ten tricks any more; Netherlands +100.
On the next board, both Israel and Belgium earned a partscore swing of 5 IMPs, but then an interesting defensive problem came up:
At both tables, after three passes, South opened 1NT and North raised to three. Both Wests led a low spade, taken by dummy’s king. Both declarers then played a club to the ten, West winning his queen. When West next cashed the ªA, both Easts contributed the jack and both Wests continued the ©J. Apparently, they both were unable to read the actual spade position. From there, the paths diverged. Neve, for Belgium, won the ©J
and went on to cash the §AK, followed by a heart to the ten, queen
and king. As East still had one spade left, he thus went quickly
one down; Netherlands +50. After three quiet boards, the Dutch registered some more IMPs on Board 12 when Belgium missed a game:
After a diamond lead to South’s ace, Bakkeren had no trouble in cashing the §AK and giving his partner a club ruff. That was down three for +500 to the Netherlands, but still a profitable save against the cold 4ª.
The forcing NT did its job on this one, as the rhythm of the bidding got unsettled. At the lower level, it was more difficult to tell if the N/S bids were really forward-going or merely competitive. This left the Belgians stranded in 3ª, which was played safely by Neve for exactly nine tricks. With spades 3-2, 4ª would not have been a problem had he played there but, as it was, Belgium scored +140 here to lose 8 more IMPs and trail by 7-43. Two boards later, it was to become even worse for them:
West led the §8 which ran to declarer’s king. Bakkeren now played a heart to the ten which held the trick and drew the ©9 from East. This first hurdle taken, he continued with a diamond to the king and ran the ©8 successfully. From then on it was plain sailing: ©A, ªA, ©K and a diamond. East could win his ace and cash a spade trick, but ten tricks were there, declarer losing a club at the end. Well done, Netherlands a fine +420.
At the other table, Neve followed a different line of play. He
too won the §8 in hand with the king but first played a diamond
to dummy’s queen and East’s ace. East returned a diamond
to declarer’s king. Next came a low club, ruffed by West who
returned yet another diamond. Fearing a 6-2 break in that suit,
considering the earlier diamond return by East, declarer ruffed
this with dummy’s ace and ran the ©10. When West could win
this, Neve still had to lose a spade trick as well and thus was
one down; Netherlands +50 and again 10 IMPs to them.
Declarer won the club lead with the king and drove out the ¨A. East returned a diamond, and now Liran went on to cash the ©AK, hoping for the queen to drop. When this did not materialize he even went down two when he next tried to cash the §A only to see it ruffed by West; England +100.
The twins wasted to time in getting to the right contract, so why waste comments on it? Well done, England +430 and a fully deserved 11 IMPs. They led by 50-23 now. Israel recouped 10 IMPs when the English E/W had a misunderstanding on the next board, but on Board 17 below, there was no swing in the vugraph match, as both sides scored +550 in diamonds. This is what happened in our other featured match:
When Valérie Labaere did not open the bidding in second seat, the Dutch got a semi-free ride to their best contract. Once North disclosed the N/S diamond fit over 1NT, they were bound to compete to at least the five-level. As there was nothing to guess in the trump suit, the contract was made easily once declarer got the lead, as two spades were the only tricks Bertens lost; Netherlands +550 At the table East led the ©J. On a spade lead, however, declarer would have had his anxious moments had West played off three rounds of the suit. Going for his only chance would have seen him home anyway: ruff the third spade with the ¨Q and cash the ¨A. Curtains.
The Dutch lived dangerously in this auction once Muller elected to open the party with a very light two-suited opening bid. They might have sold out to 3¨, and 3ª doubled might well have been made in light of dummy’s club void. After 4¨, South might well have raised to game, and West thought for a long time before he finally passed 4¨. So, from a Dutch point of view, the old saying: “All is well that ends well” very much applied on this board. Belgium scored +150 here, but the swing of 9 IMPs went their neighbours’ way again. It was 62-7 now. On the next board, Belgium finally struck back:
On a simple 1NT and transfer sequence, both Easts were in 4©. On the actual trump split, declarer loses two trump tricks, so much depended on the opening lead. Only a diamond lead works for the defence. Bakkeren led the ª10, letting through the contract with an overtrick, but Neve for Belgium found the winning lead of the ¨4. Well done, Belgium 11 much wanted IMPs back to trail 18-62. The same problem arose in the vugraph match. Here, the auctions had been different, so at both tables, North was on lead. Justin Hackett led the §J, but for Israel, Levinger found the ¨A lead to pick up 11 IMPs; England by 50-44 now. On Board 19, better defence saw the Dutch beat 3ª by two tricks in one room, while they made the same contract on the same lead at the other table for another 6 IMPs, and then came the apotheosis:
When Alain Labaere showed a genuine spade raise by bidding 2ª voluntarily, Valérie was quickly in game. This time, it was Ton Bakkeren as South who found the winning lead, the §2. Three rounds of clubs gave the defenders an extra trump trick when declarer could not possibly foresee the actual lay-out of the trump suit. That meant one down; Netherlands +100.
West having shown a balanced hand by his 1NT rebid, Muller had little trouble in selecting 4ª as the final contract. After the 3§ rebid, South saw no future in leading his singleton, so he put the ©Q on the table. Now Muller could win this with the ace, unblock the ¨A, cross to the ªQ and discard a club on the ¨K. The contract was made as he went on to lose a trump, a club and a heart. Netherlands thus gained a final big swing of 12 IMPs to win the match by 80-18 or 25-3 in VPs. In the England v Israel match it also was a matter of the right lead. For the second time within a few boards, Israel got it right where England failed. Jason Hackett led the ©Q so Ginossar, like Muller in the other match, quickly had ten tricks. Liran led the §2, so Gold, like Valérie Labaere in the other match, was quickly one down. The Dutch had thus consolidated their fourth place, Russia also scoring the maximum, but Belgium’s chances to go to Estoril had gone down to about zero. For once, the Belgian feelings of pessimism, expressed before the match, had come very, very true. The late rally by Israel saw them take the lead over England on this very last board to win by 57-50 or 16-14 VPs. Well done! Here, Christer Andersson, our Swedish friend, joins this report with a marvellous story about some beautiful declarer play on this same last board in the match between Hungary and Turkey. The bidding had been like this:
South found his distributional hand with meagre values not worth mentioning on the first round of bidding but entered with a natural bid after East’s checkback of 2?. When East increased the penalties with a double, North introduced an SOS redouble, and the Hungarians reached a playable diamond partscore. Yalcin Atabey gave up on taking a big penalty and bid his own game. When North had the impoliteness to double, he had the courage to trust in his abilities and redoubled. South led his singleton club to North’s jack, and ruffed the continuation of a low club. South chose to continue with the jack of diamonds which went to declarer’s ace. A spade to the queen on the table revealed the expected trump position as South discarded a diamond. Declarer reduced North’s club stoppers by ruffing a club and then cashing the two top honours in spades. The small diamond was discarded from the table. Declarer had now reached a position to throw North in:
Declarer cashed the ©K (but the play would have functioned also if North had been void in hearts, although the defence would have been poor in that case) and threw North in with his last spade. A club went from the table. North tried a diamond to the king on the table, but Atabey now ruffed out the clubs and had the heart ace to enter the table to cash them. A real beauty created by the Turkish hands of Atabey. |
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