| 48th European Bridge Team Championships | Page 5 | Bulletin 11 - Wednesday 23 August 2006 |
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Tough Game by Marek Wojcicki When watching the VuGraph show we can observe that most frequently what we can see is the Computer era of bridge has ushered in super-light openings, and high level preempts, which tend to create as much chaos at the table as possible. This style dominates now. Maybe the reason are the computer generated hands, where, in my opinion, more force then subtle technique is preferred. But sitting in aVuGraph we can also find technical pearls as was the case many years ago, in the stone-age of bridge. Here are two boards from the Israel – Italy match, showing how tough the battle between the declarer and the defenders can be:
Open Room
Birman decided on passivity, and hit on the lead of the ♣7. Small from dummy, the jack from South and Versace ducked. South continued with the ♦3. Small from the hand, nine from North and again asmall club. King from the table and declarer plays adiamond (of course the eight – to unblock for apossible eventual further finesse) – jack, queen and king. Birman now found agood exit card – the ♥Q, keeping the ♣10 for hard times. But Versace took the trick in dummy with the ace, and crossed to hand with the heart king. This is the ending:
Versace, playing double dummy, cashed the club ace and played a small spade. Birman ducked, and the king won the trick. Now declarer cashed two heart tricks. North tried his last chance to beat the contract – the ♠J in partner’s hand – so discarded the spade ace and queen. But Versace had the key card, and so took the ninth trick. The next hand features brilliant declarer play by Birman:
1 puppet Stayman East led ♠2. Declarer had achance to take the cheapest trick in the world, but not unnaturally put up the ace. Now the heart was played – Versace ducked, declarer misguessed, putting in the jack and Lauria took the queen of hearts to play another round of trumps. The queen from the dummy won, and now declarer crossed to the hand with the club, ruffed aheart and repeated the operation. Than he came to hand with the ♦Q. In the ending:
Two spades were cashed (from the dummy – aclub and adiamond were discarded). Now the diamonds ran, but declarer claimed he was unlucky. If the jack of diamonds had been with West he would have been squeezed… |
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