| 48th European Bridge Team Championships | Page 3 | Bulletin 8 - Sunday 20 August 2006 |
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Open Teams - Sweden v Hungary (Round 15) by Jos Jacobs On Friday afternoon, fresh from having beaten Denmark, second-placed Hungary had to be ready for the second course on their menu for the day: Sweden. In their morning match the Swedes had blitzed Belarus, so they had gone up into 4th position, just 0.5 VP behind Netherlands. After Sweden scored three IMPs on overtricks the first sizeable swing of the match presented itself on board 6 and it could have gone either way:
Open Room
North leads the ♥A and switches to the ♦8, covered by jack and queen. What is the best line? As the cards lie you can simply win the ace and play a trump to the queen but this certainly is an inferior line. As South did not open, diamonds are more likely to be no worse than 6-2, so it is pretty safe to duck the ♦Q. If South continues the suit you win the ace, cross in clubs and lead a low spade off dummy. This line would have netted you +420. A more elegant line of play would be to win the ace, cross to the ♣A and play the ♥Q, throwing your losing diamond to cut communications between the defenders. There is an equally elegant counter to this: North can win his ♥K and lead a second round of clubs (having read his partner’s ♣5 correctly which is not so difficult when God has dealt you the 2, 3 and 4). North’s next move will be to win the ♠A at first attempt and give partner a club ruff. This line, actually chosen at the table by Gyorgy Szalay for Hungary, gave Bertheau the chance to shine by finding the defence mentioned above. When he duly did so the threatening loss for his team changed into a 7-IMP gain as this is what happened at the other table: Closed Room
With diamonds likely to be 7-1 here, Fredin won the diamond shift and, playing only 3♠, could afford to lead a low spade from hand immediately. One overtrick, Sweden +170 to take a 10-0 lead. The scissors coup works if you win the first diamond, lead to the ♠Q and then play the ♥Q to pitch your diamond. The problem with playing this lineis that it fails if South has the ♠A. All things considered it is much better to duck the first diamond. Nothing very much happened in many of the other boards, though the Swedish lead had gone up to 26-5 when board 14 appeared:
Open Room
One cannot possibly criticise South’s decision to pass 1NT but this time it simply was not the right thing to do. Down three, Hungary +150. Would their other pair capitalise on this? Closed Room
Yes they would. Once Dumbovich decided to use Stayman the heart fit was located. The Swedes reached their best spot, 3♦, but so did the Hungarians when they competed once more. This way they scored another useful +140 and 7 IMPs to trail 12-26 now. Consolation did no last very long for Hungary as this was the next board:
Open Room
Once again, Bertheau found a very effective defence: he led his trump. Declarer went up with ♥K and played a club but this enabled Nystrom to lead a second round of trumps at trick three and declarer was doomed. Sweden +100. Closed Room
On this auction, the North hand was suddenly a nasty problem as partner’s double of 4♥ conveyed a different message than at the other table. When Winkler took his insurance the Hungarians had to concede defeat by one trick at both tables: Sweden +200 here and the 7 IMPs just lost had thus come back straight away. With the score at 37-17 to Sweden, somewhere in the 19-11 margin, this was the penultimate board:
At both tables, and probably at most tables, South opened 4♥ and was left to play there. Only the Luxemburg pair Hein and Helling managed to reach this very good slam, needing little more than a 3-2 heart break. In our featured match, however, the score stayed at 37-17 on the last board as well, giving Sweden a well-earned 19-11 VP win. |
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