| 3rd European Open Bridge Championships | Page 5 | Bulletin 15 - Saturday 30 June 2007 |
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From the Commentators’ Table by Barry Rigal The finals always throw up deals of technical interest, as well as the more glamorous and dramatic deals. On the first problem, North had to work out which combination of cards to play partner for, and not able to do so.
Jassem had the opportunity to be a hero on this deal – which proved too tough for most defenders. Quantin/Bompis reached the inferior spot of Three No-trumps (inferior because of the blockage in clubs and shortage of entries to dummy)
Martens led the diamond ten, promising the jack. Jassem took the ace as the queen appeared, and then had to decide where his partner’s entry was, or whether it was right to try to kill dummy’s entries. Eventually he returned a diamond (hoping his partner has a club entry, or the spade ace) and declarer took his 11 tricks for a 56% board. On a heart shift dummy is dead and there are no more than eight winners. Reaching Six Clubs would be beyond most partnerships. Only a quarter of the field managed it, generally after a strong club from East, which seemed to preserve space.
Pszczola decided to test his compatriots here, and they were weighed in the balance and found to pass the test more than adequately. Pszczola declared Three No-trumps on an uninformative sequence (One Club – Three No-trumps) and on a low club lead he naturally ducked in dummy. When the jack forced the ace he returned a club – hardly the most subtle of plays! Chmurski eyed this suspiciously, and decided that declarer’s decision to set up clubs for the defenders while he still had an ace was an indication that he had a lot of tricks to cash at once. So he played the heart ace and another heart, holding declarer to nine tricks and earning his side an 86% deal. Three No-trumps plus two generated a 94% score for E/W.
Thomas and Michel Bessis defended Three No-trumps against Berry Westra (West of course, Berry knows how to keep the journalists happy by sitting in the seat appropriate for his name). Thomas cashed the heart king – no joy there -- and the defenders now played a spade to the king and a spade back. Declarer made the matchpoint play I would have done – namely a heart up, going for all the marbles. Thomas took it, and returned a third spade, fortuitously achieving the result of squeezing the West hand. Westra pitched a diamond, prepared to claim the rest, but the bad club break meant that he could now only make nine tricks. He actually endplayed North with the heart jack to lead diamonds at trick 12 and was irritated to find the diamond queen onside all the time. If Westra had followed the less piggy (but more accurate Matchpoint line) of cashing two top clubs, he would immediately have squeezed North. The best that player can do is to discard two spades on the top clubs. Now a heart to dummy lets declarer cash the spade ace and again catch North in the red suits, for ten tricks. Making game exactly got E/W a 38% result as opposed to an 82% score. @:Board 19. Dealer South. E/W Vul.
When Balicki/Zmudzinski find themselves on different wavelengths on defence, you can assume that the point at issue is a rather complex one. Defending Four Hearts (One Heart – One No-trump -- Three Hearts – Four Hearts) Balicki led a top diamond and received the expected disastrous news that players like me always encounter on leading from a king-queen, as dummy produced the jack-ten and declarer the ace. Declarer won as South followed low (suggesting two). Then declarer drew three rounds of trumps, Zmudzinski following up the line, and now advanced the diamond nine. Balicki took it (yes he might have ducked) and Zmudzinski followed. Most unluckily, he was now faced with the following conundrum. The heart spots were such that declarer MIGHT have had king-queen sixth and partner jack-nine fourth. If so, maybe a spade through the ace would let partner ruff the third diamond before declarer got his discard. (Say declarer has Q5/KQ7432/A97/A3.) That was what Balicki thought, and –680 hardly troubled the scorers whereas conceding 11 tricks would have represented an average. Yes, Zmudzinski should maybe follow 5-9-8 with that holding, but the fact that two interpretations of his plays could both hold water meant that there is obviously rather more to this than meets the eye. |
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