| 45th GENERALI European Bridge Championships, Arona, Tenerife, Canary Islands | Friday, 29 June 2001 |
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Golden Oldie By Patrick Jourdain - Wales In 1977, when resident in Glasgow, I played two matches for Scotland in the Camrose, with Victor Goldberg as my partner. Now aged 78 (Goldberg, that is, rather than me), in the Seniors, he is showing he still has his skills.
The bidding was the same at both tables
A heart was led at both tables. Declarer ruffed and came to hand
with the ace of trumps, finding the suit was 5-0. A doubled slam swing By Steen Møller - Denmark This board in the Open Series match between Spain and Denmark produced one of the bigger swings of these championships (20 IMPs) and at both tables the ¨10 played an important role.
2ª showed at least 5-5 in the red suits and the rest was natural.
2© was Michaels and 2ª showed heart support. 5¨ was lead directing, but after East's forcing pass West went on to 6©. It looked as though the Danes went a bit too high in both rooms, but with a little help from their friends… In the open room East unfortunately led the §A and that was all Mathias Bruun needed. He ruffed in dummy (South), crossed to the ªA and discarded the three heart losers on the clubs. Then he ruffed a heart in dummy and carefully led the ¨J to prevent East from coming in and lead a trump. Thereafter a complete crossruff let him make the rest of the tricks. +1210 to Denmark. In the closed room Peter Schaltz ruffed North's lead of the ªA. As he knew a lot about the distribution of his opponent's hands and needed the hearts to be 3/2 he crossed to the ©A and ran (!) the ¨10. Of course South could (and should) have beaten the slam by covering, but it is not easy to play against an imaginative declarer and in fact West was also playing for the real chance of pinning the ¨9 in North's hand. After winning the ¨10 West finessed +the ©J, ruffed a diamond, came back to his hand with a spade ruff, drew the last trump and claimed twelve tricks. Another +1210 to the Danes. Christian "Criss-Cross" goes public By Jon Sveindall Some 30 years ago, Christian Vennerød was a very talented
bridge player in Bergen in Norway. He was particularly interested
in the subtleties of the game, and I remember him as one who first
examined the possibility for a criss-cross squeeze, went down
the line technique-wise, and only took a finesse as a last resort.
However, his strong character enabled him to concentrate on his
economic studies - so he more or less put bridge away for a quarter
of a century.
A small club was led, ducked in dummy and won by North's ace. Three rounds of diamonds followed, and Christian realised that his only hope for an entry to dummy to take the spade finesse, was the 10-9 doubleton in hearts with South. So he ruffed with the jack! With a big grin on his face he found the bridge goddess answering his prayers, so ace-king of hearts and a heart to the eight was followed by the queen of spades. Contract landed! Another
Norwegian Braveheart Bull's Eye
By Jon Sveindal - Norway The Norwegian Bravehearts surprised the world of bridge by their fine performance in Maastrich during last year's Olympic championship. In Tenerife the team have not been able to put up their best effort other than occasionally, which is of course reflected in the ladies' ranking. But the players are still bravehearted. Ida Wennevold is no exception, even though she is a newcomer to the team.
Not unnaturally East wanted to protect her diamond holding, and it looked as if notrump was the right game. Had Ida led a pedestrian diamond, 11 tricks would have rolled in - the same number of tricks also being available in a heart game. Courageously, and with the flair of Zia, Ida tabled the queen of spades! Eventually Tulla Steen Lybæk happily cashed her fifth spade as the setting trick. The Largest Seniors Swing By Nissan Rand - Israel
The Israel Senior team here in Tenerife is composed of relatively
inexperienced players who are competing in the European arena
for the first time. There is one exception in the persona of Shaya
Levit who represented Israel many times in the Open Championship
during the seventies and eighties and is recognised here as one
of the very top senior players.
Sagiv had no problems in making his redoubled contract by ruffing diamonds in dummy, losing just one club and one trump trick. The swing was 18 IMPs and contributed signicantly to Israel's victory in the match. |
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