| 45th GENERALI European Bridge Championships, Arona, Tenerife, Canary Islands | Friday, 22 June 2001 |
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Legal Problems
"Mrs. Valérie Carcassonne, North, unfortunately chose the only suit for her lead that might make declarer´s life easy, when she put the ¨2 on the table. This card was covered a little all round, until it reached the queen played by my client. After the time needed to make up his mind, my client then crossed to a heart in dummy and led the §J, as he did not have the advantage of seeing the opponents´cards. Had he led the §2, he would have shortened the play of this hand considerably, but also have robbed us of a story. The above-mentioned card was immediately covered by all, though it would have been better had North left declarer on play with the §K. North continued a heart and Versace took all his winners in that suit, causing serious discarding problems to the opponent in the North seat. She found herself squeezed in three suits and, with the writing already on the wall, decided to let go the ª6 and the ¨7. On the subsequent spade North played the ª10, Versace put up the king in dummy and Labaere won the trick with the ace. His return of a low diamond was not covered by the declarer and North, left on play with the ¨8, only delayed the end of the play a little by exiting with a low club which ran round to Versace´s §5. The subsequent ¨A then received the ¨K in his arms with pleasure and the ¨J was the 9th trick." So much in defence of my client. Yours truly, M. Rosentrance The New Guard The retirement from international bridge of Pat Davies broke the 20 year partnership of her and Nicola Smith and the devolution of the former GB teams forced apart Heather Dhondy of England and Liz McGowan a Scot. It seemed sensible for Nicola and Heather to pair up, and they are both in line for a genuine hat trick of three consecutive wins, along with English Ladies team Captain, Jimmie Arthur, a Scot. (As is Liz McGowan( Two boards from their opening matches showed Nicola and Heather to be in fine form. England v Finland
First, Heather an obvious aficionado of Dad's Army, took Corporal
Jones catchphrase 'Don't Panic' to heart. That's where the resemblance
ended, for whereas Jones always did, Heather, on finding an unfortunate
continuation, kept her cool. England v France
A low club lead from Nicola Smith was won by Catherine Fishpool with the nine, and she continued with §K, then a third to Nicola's ace. Smith found the killing switch to ªQ to ªK, and on winning with ªA, Heather Dhondy switched to a diamond. On taking ¨Q with ¨K, Nicola cashed ª10, and a third spade to Dhondy's ªJ spelt defeat. Same Contract - Not Quite We heard of an unfortunate board for the Swedish Open team. It comes from their Round 5 match against Austria.
Both North players judged their hand to be worth a 3© opening - there the similarities ended. The Austrian East player passed, which looks reasonable enough. Tommy Gullberg responded 3ª (4ª would not have been natural) and Lars Andersson rebid 3NT. It was entirely possible that there would be nine winners but four losers so Gullberg passed, hoping that 3NT would make while 4ª would not. His hopes were duly realised. East made the normal lead of the king of clubs and Andersson won and cashed eight spade winners; +400. Plus 400 looked to be very good for the Swedes, but things went rather differently in the other room. Again the opening bid was 3© but the Swedish East ventured to overcall 3NT. Sitting South, Christian Terraneo of Austria suspected that he had the beating of that contract and doubled. Everyone passed with varying degrees of contentment and Terraneo proceeded to cash all his spades then, in response to his partner's discards, switched to a club; five down for -1100 and 12 IMPs to Austria. If you want to have a good board, Tommy, you need a REALLY good score at your table - +400 is nothing. Miss (almost) no Mistake By Ib Lundby Dorthe Schaltz was the Danish player in 2000-2001 who won the most national master points. Most of them she earned together with her housebound Peter, but I guess that the gold points she won in Open Pairs are the ones she appreciated most, because in that event she was runner up together with her 17 years old son, Martin. In Denmark's match against France in Round 9 (20-10) I kibitzed
Dorthe in the Open Room. In my opinion she didn't even touch a
wrong bid or a wrong card, but hand 14 was the exception:
The defence was perfect: ¨A, ¨K, ©A (©Q) and a low heart to ©J. A diamond from West forced North to ruff. What now? This was Dorthe's mistake: She cashed the ªA and played a spade towards dummy. Abecassis ducked and ªQ won the trick but left Dorthe with no chance at all though Abecassis on his side of the screen twice showed an attitude as the hand was made (he didn't expect his partner to have one more trump). One down. The winning line: Instead of the ªA Dorthe should have played the ªJ and (when East ducked) continue with a low spade towards the ªQ. This simple (sorry, Dorthe) play will succeed with the spades 3-3 and the ªK with East. In the closed room the defence was less accurate against the same contract. East-West cashed only three red suit winners before shifting to a club, and declarer had an easy task. Hand of the Day By Svend Novrup It required perfect timing and drawing the correct conclusions from the bidding to land 6© on board 15 of round 9. Yoram Aviram from Israel stood up to this challenge with one of the most brilliant pieces of declarer play we have yet seen in these championships.
Barel - Aviram N-S for Israel against Nanev - Mihov of Bulgaria.
3© was preemptive while 3NT was a spade cue bid. South's pass of 5¨ was forcing, and when North did not double South boldly bid one for the road and then had to justify hiss decision in the play. |
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