| 18th European Youth Team Championships | Page 4 | Bulletin 8 - Monday, 15 July 2002 |
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Disaster Corner 2! Do you find that opening leads are difficult? Then perhaps you will have some sympathy with the Netherlands Niek Brink, the villain of today's story from the Disaster Zone. The board is from the Dutch Junior team's match against Russia in Round 12.
In the other room, a low heart was led against 3NT and the king scored. When North pitched a spade on the run of the diamonds that was twelve tricks for +690 to the Netherlands. Here, Brink doubled the 2© fourth-suit bid to suggest a lead but found that he was the one on lead to 3NT. No worries, partner, Marvin Kuivenhoven had made a lead-directing double of the final contract so… Well, what suit do you think that the double asks for? With diamonds having been rebid in a sequence that strongly suggests dummy will have six of them, surely there is no need to lead the suit as declarer is very unlikely to have nine winners without playing on diamonds. Far more likely is that partner has a club entry - except that you are looking at an interesting club holding of your own. I am sure that in theory this double should ask for a club lead but, understandably, Brink convinced himself that partner could not have the right club holding for this double so must be asking for a diamond lead. He duly led a diamond and now Kuivenhoven had to discard carefully to hold the contract to nine tricks; -1000 and 7 IMPs to Russia. On a club lead, a switch to the jack of hearts nets the defence the first seven tricks for three down and 1600 the other way, which would have been a 20 IMP swing to the Netherlands. Does that mean that North's double of 3NT was a good call? Well, had South worked it out correctly, it would have led to a huge gain, but why on earth should any lead be defeating 3NT? South has only doubled a fourth-suit bid, not even overcalled, so 3NT could easily be just a matter of overtricks. Had Brink led a club we would all be saying that the double was brilliant, but barking mad is an equally reasonable description in my view, but then, of course, like the Dutch coach, I am an old man of over 40. Battling Belgium The Belgian Juniors had suffered a series of poor results but recovered with a battling 24-6 win over Croatia in Round 13. Board 15 saw Belgium pick up 11 IMPs when both East/West pairs got dangerously high and only Kevin Peeters, for Belgium, managed to bring home his contract.
After Brguljan had shown a hand too good for a raise to 4ª by going through fourth-suit forcing, the Croatian pair exchanged cuebids but Brguljan signed off in 5ª after finding that both a key card and the ªQ were missing. Wim van Parijs led the ¨10, which was allowed to hold the trick. He continued with a second diamond for the king, ace and ruff. Declarer took a while to consider his play before cashing the king of hearts, on which Wim smoothly dropped the queen. Fearing that he had established a heart ruff for the defence, Zoric cashed the ªK and, on seeing the nine drop from South, guessed to lead to the ace next. From here he was bound to go down. The defenders actually came to the ªQ, ¨J and §K for down two; 100 to Belgium. At the other table Kevin Peeters also had to play 5ª and the lead was again the ten of diamonds. Peeters covered with the king and South won the ace and returned a diamond. Peeters ruffed that and led a low heart to the jack. Now he ruffed another diamond with the ª10 and drew three rounds of trumps, finessing the jack on the second round. Peeters could simply play winning diamonds then hearts and lose only to the ªQ to come to eleven tricks. Nicely played. Everybody's Happy! When Ireland met top-of-the-table Poland in Round 5 of the Schools event, everybody ended up happy. Why? Well, Poland continued their march towards the title by winning the match 25-5 VPs, but Ireland picked up their biggest swing of the tournament so far, and also the largest swing conceded by the Poles. It came on Board 4.
I am not sure that I would have matched adam Flynn's raise of Andrew Carrigan's 1§ opening to 2§, as at the first table, but it certainly worked out well enough when Carrigan could simply jump to the club game. When that came around to Piotr Zielinski, he made a speculative double, fancying that the contract would often be going down and, if nothing else, would certainly not be making any overtricks. Well, North has no nasty surprises for declarer and the double is just a gamble. Sometimes such gambles pay off, and sometimes they don't. This was one of the don'ts. There was no problem in making twelve tricks and Ireland had scored +950. Very satisfying but there was better to come. At the second table, Jan Sikora opened 2¨, weak with at least five-five in diamonds and a major, and Emmett Davis made a slightly obscure take-out double. Jacek Kalita's 2NT was a forcing enquiry and, when Cian O'Muircheartaigh (if you want to know how to say that I suggest you ask an Irishman) competed with 3ª, Kalita thought that he had more than enough for a penalty double. I am sure that the sight of dummy did not disturb Kalita unduly, but he didn't even get close to defeating 3ª doubled. The opening lead was a low diamond and declarer played low in dummy, ruffed by Kalita. He switched to ace and another club but the bad news came when declarer ruffed the second round. A heart to the ace was followed by the jack of spades for the king and ace, then the ª10 to East's queen. When East failed to cash his heart winner, preferring to return a trump, declarer had the rest as West had pitched a diamond on the second trump. Ireland had made a second doubled contract with an overtrick; +930 and 18 IMPs. Poland may finish the tournament a long way ahead of the relatively inexperienced Irish squad, but the Irish can smile when they remember this deal. The Moysian Game The Dutch Junior team has been, what was that description their coach used to me? No, I'd better just say disappointing so as not to get Kees in trouble. However, Bas Drijver and Maarten Schollardt did well in both bidding and play to gain a swing on this deal from their Round 12 encounter with Russia.
We are not told what Drijver's double of 1ª showed - if it promised four spades that would certainly explain Schollardt's bidding. Anyway, 3NT would be a common contract and one that looks destined to fail almost all the time, so reaching the four-three spade game gave the Dutch pair a chance to gain. Of course, there was still plenty of work to do in the play. Andreev led his singleton heart and Schollardt ducked to Romanovitch's queen. It would serve no purpose for North to be given a heart ruff with his trump trick now, but if we look at the ending we see that a return of the ©K, knocking out dummy's ace, might have defeated the contract. At the table, South switched to the queen of clubs and Schollardt won the ace and returned the §9. Andreev took the §K and exited with a diamond to dummy's bare ace. Schollardt ruffed a club, ruffed a diamond, bringing down the king, then cashed ªA followed by ªK. That left:
Schollardt led a winning club and pitched a diamond from hand. Andreev could ruff but then had to put declarer in hand to draw the last trump, cross to the ace of hearts and cash the last club for ten tricks. Had North held a second heart he could have led it after ruffing the club and would have had to come to either another spade or a diamond at the end but, of course, his distribution was known by now from the earlier play. |
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