| 48th European Bridge Team Championships | Page 2 | Bulletin 8 - Sunday 20 August 2006 |
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Open Teams Netherlands v Italy & Hungary v Bulgaria (Round 16) by Jos Jacobs The Open Series was almost halfway completed on Friday evening; an appropriate moment for one of the biggest clashes of the Championship, the match between Italy and The Netherlands. In recent years the Netherlands have been doing not as badly against Italy as a number of other participants: they recorded a memorable win in Malmo two years ago and they also managed to win their section of the Round Robins in the Istanbul Olympiad later that year, ahead of Italy who later restored order and defeated them in the final. In this report I will also keep an eye on Hungary who faced Bulgaria in what was the last match of a very tough day for them. So far, they had had mixed fortunes: a win against Denmark and a loss against Sweden had brought them 29 VP, more than enough to consolidate their 2nd place in the standings. On the first two boards, nothing special happened in the Hungary-Bulgaria match but in the top match we saw two slam swings.
Open Room
Careful quantitative bidding led to a slam depending on exactly a finesse of the ♣K. It worked. Italy +1020. Closed Room
One cannot really say anything has gone wrong if you do not bid a slam depending on a finesse. Muller relayed and found three controls missing, so slam could be no better than a finesse. Netherlands +490, 11 IMPs and first blood to Italy. Next:
Open Room
This time, the slam was just a shade under 50% and it duly went one off. Netherlands +50. Closed Room
As I said before, stay out of a slam like this will not be losing bridge in the long run. Netherlands +400 and 10 IMPs back. A spectacular start. A few quiet boards passed by and then Lorenzo Lauria, the world’s #1 player, showed the others in our two featured matches how to play a routine game contract. The strange thing is that in the other matches game was usually made without any problem, as one may expect, but here 3 out of the 4 declarers involved went down.
Open Room
A heart was led to Westra’s ace and he switched to his singleton diamond. Lauria won the ace, drew trumps, played a diamond losing to the king and later finessed the ♥Q on the way back from dummy. What’s the problem? Italy +420. Closed Room
Here too a heart was led and North continued the ♦2. When declarer ran this to dummy’s queen he was soon one off. Italy +50 and 10 unexpected IMPs to regain the lead, albeit it by 1 IMP only. In the other match, Stefanov had less information available as Honti had not opened the bidding in the North seat. Open Room
A club lead went to dummy’s queen and North’s king and back came the ♦2, ducked. Another quick one off. Closed Room
Against a much livelier auction South led a trump. Dummy’s ♠7 held the trick and a heart was led, declarer putting up the king. The next heart went to North’s queen and back came the ♦2. When Macskasy, too, ducked this, the board became a push. Two boards later, a competitive bidding problem arose in both matches.
Open Room
2♦ was Multi but after Versace’s overcall the Italians quickly reached game. It was not easy to see for Westra that a save might be profitable, looking at this 4-3-3-3 hand. Italy +620. Closed Room
A quiet transfer heart raise ended all Dutch aspirations of reaching a game. They even sold out to 3♠ which happened to be a make. Italy +140 more and 13 IMPs to lead by 9 now. In the other match the quiet Hungarian approach was more effective than the aggressive Multi: Open Room
The Bulgarians came nowhere near bidding a game when Aronov was allowed to open the bidding at the one-level. Closed Room
Once Szalay could overcall, vulnerable, the Hungarians reached game as quickly as the Italians in our other match. So another game swing of 10 IMPs to Hungary who led by 27 at the halfway stage. To pre-empt or not to pre-empt was the question on board 13:
Open Room
With three small spades Ramondt saw no good reason to move so the grand was missed by a mile.Netherlands +640. Closed Room
Duboin’s redouble showed 5+ diamonds. The scientific approach did not lead to a fully satisfactory result but even the Italians don’t have the recipe to deal with all strong eight-card suits. Still, bidding a slam was worth 13 IMPs for them. The lead now: 22. Basically, the same thing happened in the other match: one scientific sequence and one pre-empt. Open Room
Closed Room
Both declarers made all 13 tricks, of course, so Hungary scored 13 more IMPs. In the Open Series, slam was missed 12 times out of the 32 times the board was played. At a few tables the score was more than 640 as some ventured a double. Grand slams were not seen but a truly remarkable result was posted by Gaddi and Pizza for San Marino who could write down 1,800 for two redoubled overtricks in 5♣. Even the Minimax would have given their opponents a better score, as the save in 7♠ only goes down six for – 1700! Duboin played for the swing, so to speak, on the following innocent-looking board:
Open Room
Nothing special and 11 easy tricks. Netherlands +650. Closed Room
Maybe Duboin did not like his ♣QJx but on the actual layout you can always make 11 tricks provided you guess right in diamonds. When Duboin elected to finesse the ♦Q through West, maybe as an avoidance against the holder of the long clubs, he suddenly was one down to bring the Netherlands back into the match: 57-39 to Italy. Four different results from our two matches in what should be a flat 5♦:
Open Room
Versace led the ♦A and, understandably continued the suit. Dummy’s king won and Ramondt threw a spade. He went on to ruff a diamond and then led the ♠K. Versace won, cashed the ♥K and got off play with a low trump to the eight and ten. Declarer now had to come to two more trump tricks and thus reached his goal: down only three, Italy +500. In fact if he had returned a trump after winning the 10 he escapes for two down. Closed Room
♣8 lead won by dummy’s jack, ♦A and a low diamond to the king set up the timing to repeat the club finesse, throw a spade on the ♣A, ruff a club and take the spade finesse. When everything worked Muller had 12 tricks for +620 and a 3-IMP gain. Well, this definitely was not a good slam but who cares when it makes? Bulgaria were trailing by 48 when this board arrived and they really needed some IMPs: Open Room
1♦ showed majors and East’s first double showed 5-7 hcp. This time, Aronov hit gold when he bid one for the road, as Stefanov made 12 tricks on a club lead playing the same way as Muller. Bulgaria a much needed +1370. Closed Room
Marashev’s double showed majors too, at least 4-4 (!). When EW made no further move the Bulgarians happily conceded 300 to register a 14-IMP swing in their favour. On board 18, the Dutch were a trifle lucky:
Open Room
This contract could not possibly be defeated and the Netherlands scored +120. Closed Room
Bocchi led the ♥6 to Duboin’s ten and declarer’s king. With the hearts 4-3 and the ♦A onside there were always nine tricks available now for the declarer. Netherlands +400 to trail by only 8 now. In our other match we saw another swing to Bulgaria, of a rather smaller one: Open Room
1NT was forcing and 2♣ cheaper minor. Just made. Bulgaria +110. Closed Room
The Hungarians played 3NT from the other side of the table so South had to find a lead. Once he chose a natural enough diamond declarer had to play for the ♥K being a possible game-going trick. He decided to win the ♦K at trick two and lead a heart immediately. When this went to the ten, king and ace his chances were gone. Bulgaria +50 and 4 IMPs. With one board to go, Hungary led by 33 and Italy by just 5 IMPs. It should have stayed there but we saw a surprise swing in both matches when the correct game contract went down at two out of our four tables. The problem was that West had shown a spade pre-empt and led the ♥6 at all four tables. If you are afraid of a heart ruff and draw all trumps first, before tackling the clubs, you will go down as the ♣J is behind the ten. If you draw just one round of trumps, or even no round of trumps at all but lead a club off dummy at trick two, you cannot go down any more as East, the holder of the second trump, can only get the lead to play that second trump by winning his ♣A prematurely. If he elects to do so the ♣K will come down in three rounds and that’s all you need to win the contract. Needless to say that fatigue may have played its part on this one, the last board of the day…
Open Room
Heart lead and two rounds of trumps first: one down. Italy +100. Closed Room
Heart lead won in dummy and a club. Italy +600 and 12 IMPs to win 69-52 or 19-11 VP. The other match: Open Room
Heart lead won in dummy and a club. Hungary +600 and 12 IMPs to win 72-27 or 24-6 VP. Closed Room
Heart lead and two rounds of trumps first: one down. Hungary +100. |
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