| 48th European Bridge Team Championships | Page 2 | Bulletin 12 - Thursday 24 August 2006 |
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Open Teams - Netherlands v Hungary (Round 23) by Jos Jacobs After the well-deserved day off, play resumed on Tuesday morning in all three Championships. On Vugraph, another interesting match was scheduled as The Netherlands badly needed a big win to keep their chances to make the top six alive at all, whereas Hungary, after being blitzed by Norway on their national holiday, could not afford another big loss if they wanted to keep their promising position intact. The match started in a minor key for Hungary when they let through a perfectly reasonable Dutch slam on board 2, which cost them 11 IMPs. The board will be discussed by Barry Rigal elsewhere in this issue. Two boards later, the Dutch registered another big swing when Berry Westra read the cards better than his Hungarian counterpart:
Open Room
North led the ♦2 (3rd-5th) on which dummy’s ten was inserted. South played the jack which held and shifted to the ♠9, ducked all round. The next spade went to the ace, a club was taken by the ace and a heart went to the ten and queen – the finesse into the “safe” hand. South exited with a heart and now declarer cashed his heart and club tricks and led a diamond to the king. When South won the ace and returned the suit, North had the rest: down two. Netherlands +200. Closed Room
Honti for Hungary chose to lead the ♦8 so declarer had to insert the ten which was taken by South’s jack. The ♠7 came back, covered by the jack, queen and ace. At this table too, declarer crossed in clubs and played a heart to the ten and queen on which South exited in hearts. Declarer went on to cash all his winners and then simply exited with his last club. South had to win this and return a diamond and thus made two spades, three hearts, three clubs and the ♦K to fulfill his contract. Nicely down and a pretty +600 and 13 IMPs to the Netherlands. Two boards later a light overcall made it easy for the Dutch to get to another thin vulnerable game:
Open Room
Even on a club lead this contract stood little chance. After South was given his spade trick he correctly played ♦A and another to collect five tricks in the suit. In the end, declarer even went two off as he had apparently mixed up his entry positions, Netherlands +200. Closed Room
Once West’s five-card spade suit was shown, East was out of trouble as to his choice or rebid. North led the ♥Q won in dummy and declarer returned the ♥J (a very nice play by Westra - giving the defence a chance to err). When South mistakenly ducked, North had to ruff. Next came a club to declarer’s queen and a diamond to South’s ace. South now played the ♥10, ruffed by declarer with the ten which held the trick. When the ♠A and another cleared the trumps declarer’s problems were over: Netherlands +620 and 13 more IMPs to lead by 40-0. Two boards later you had to draw the right conclusions from an opposing opening bid:
Open Room
Well done by Bauke Muller as eight tricks was about the limit of the hand. One wonders, however what the fate of 3NT would have been had he bid it… Closed Room
Well, we might have seen the fate of 3NT here but maybe, Honti did not believe in his partner’s spade stopper. So we will never know what might have happened but we DO know what DID happen: Ramondt used the axe and collected +300 for another swing of 9 IMPS to the Netherlands. On the next board, the Hungarians finally got off the Schneider:
Open Room
On the lead of the ♠Q and a spade continuation, both ducked by declarer, this poor contract was beaten easily enough. Hungary +100. Closed Room
Westra won the ♣Q lead in dummy and led a heart. Honti overtook his partner’s jack to lead a trump which South ducked. Another heart went to South’s queen and trumps were cleared now. This way, declarer could not avoid losing four hearts, a diamond and the ♠A for one down, (which should have been two down) +200 and 7 most welcome IMPs to Hungary.
Open Room
Once Muller decided to take action again over 2♥ the Dutch were overboard. His jump to game gave Dumbovich an easy chance to double this and collect +500 on a trump lead by East and a spade shift by West. Well done Hungary. Closed Room
You might consider 2♥ a slight underbid but it worked to perfection this time. Hungary another +100 and 12 IMPs. More to come for them on the next board:
Open Room
Winkler played this hand very well. He played low from dummy on the ♦6 lead, North playing the ten to Winkler’s bare ace. Next came a heart to the jack and ace and a heart back. Winkler won this with the king, unblocking dummy’s nine (!) and led a club to the queen which held. The ♣9 now followed, bringing down the ace when Winkler ducked. The ♦3 now went to the seven and jack and North returned a spade, Winkler winning this in hand with the ace. His net move was to cash the ♠KQ and exit from dummy with the ♦Q! When this scooped the nine he was home: North could either lead into the club tenace or give dummy one more diamond trick after which a spade from dummy would force South to lead into declarer’s heart tenace. Beautifully played for a well-deserved +600 to Hungary. Closed Room
No such brilliancies here. Same ♦6 lead to the ace, but North played low when dummy played low! The ♥K went to the ace and a club came back to the ten and queen. The ♥J and ♥Q came next, followed by the ♠AK and a spade to the queen. When the jack did not drop the defence had the rest. Down two, Hungary another +200 and 13 IMPS more. The score now: 54-32 to the Netherlands. But just as the match seemed to have closed up, two boards later, the Dutch struck, twice in succession:
Open Room
2♠ was showing a good heart fit. In the play, however, this time Winkler did not quite live up to the expectations one had after seeing his play on board 13. Say you ruff the opening club lead and duck a trump. What can the defenders do? If they continue clubs you ruff and get overruffed, but now the ♥A will collect the outstanding trumps and the ruffing finesse in diamonds does the rest. You finish up with four spades, three trumps, one ruff and two diamonds. When Winkler first unblocked the ♦A (a logical enough play) and then ducked a trump, he ran into a defensive cross-ruff and misguessed the position one down. Netherlands +50. Closed Room
Honti was certainly unlucky that the clubs did not break as this was the reason he was doubled and set two tricks, vulnerable. Netherlands another +500 and 11 IMPs. And the next one:
Open Room
After this bidding, the opponents having shown values in at lEast three suits, De Wijs found the fine lead of the ♣2. Incidently, should not East have removed 3NT ...to 4♥? Now declarer was faced with a nasty problem, as he would undoubtedly attribute the club length to North. So after ducking twice he won the ace and immediately took the spade finesse, which lost to South’s queen. All of sudden, South cashed three more club tricks and the ♦A was the 7th defensive trick, so Netherlands scored a very satisfactory +300. Closed Room
On a less revealing auction, North led a heart, which gave declarer ample time to drive out the ♦A and make ten tricks. Netherlands +630 and another 14 IMPs to increase the lead to over 40 again. When a transfer misunderstanding on the last boards cost the Hungarians another 15 IMPs the final score of the match became 98-36 or 25-3 VP to the Netherlands. As a result of this, they had managed to beat the Hungarians to 6th place by just 1 VP and thus increase the tension… |
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