| 19th European Youth Team Championships | Page 4 | Bulletin 1- Monday, 2 August 2004 |
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New York Youth Championships and Camp By Barry Rigal
Vise Is Nice! No, this is not the motto of the bridge camp, this is a tribute to the vise squeeze. You do not know what a vise is? Well, read on and find out. The deal comes from the Swiss Teams tournament.
Let’s look at the contract of Three No Trump declared by South. On a low diamond lead (a good choice by West) South ducks in dummy, and East puts in the ten and returns a spade for want of anything better to the nine and jack. Declarer wins cheaply in dummy, clears the clubs, and East is endplayed on the third round. His best bet is to play back a low spade, but declarer plays a heart to the queen and king and East has to concede the ninth trick one way or another.Well Bjorn Serling was East and decided from the sight of dummy that this line of defense would be hopeless. So he varied the script by winning the first diamond with the ten, and returning a diamond. Declarer won and led a club to the ace and a club to the queen, a thoughtful play. Serling won the trick (to make sure declarer had an easy re-entry to hand) and cleared the diamonds, leaving himself with the high diamond. Now declarer ran the clubs, producing this ending:
On the last club both East and West pitched spades, while dummy
threw a small heart. Declarer now led the ªK, and Serling ducked,
luring declarer into his trap. When South led another spade Serling
took the ace and cashed the last diamond; in the two-card ending
he had the ©K and the ª8 West the ©J10 declarer the ©Ax. But what
was dummy to discard from the ªQ and the ©Qx? If he pitched a spade
Serling would cash the eight, if he pitched a heart East would lead
the ©K, pinning the queen and letting West win trick 13 with the
jack.
New York Flashback Here’s one more hand from the World Individual in New York, as one of our campers here in Nyack found a neat defense:
George Mansour opened 3ª at unfavorable vulnerability and North finished up declaring 4©. East led a club and dummy rose with the ace. When declarer ordered the ©K George followed suit with the ©Q (!). As a consequence declarer let the ©8 run to Mansour’s ten, who now gave his partner a spade ruff. West then cashed the ¨A to put the contract one down, although as you can see North actually could have brought home an overtrick, if he gets everything right.
The Monday Afternoon Game
Aldo Gerli showed me a very nice deal where he had missed the winning play.
Both players had overstretched to a miserable contract, but when North led the club ten to his partner’s ace, South sensibly shifted to a spade – but selected the ª10 not the ªA. North won the ªK and shifted to a diamond, allowing declarer a choice of options. Best is to play for the club finesse, and the heart queen falling. You win the ©AK to drop the queen, then lead up to the spade queen-jack. When South wins and returns a club you need to finesse because of the awkward entry position. That line works; an equally elegant line though is to cash three rounds of hearts and finesse in clubs without playing a second spade. This is the ending:
West pitches a diamond from dummy and forces South to let go of the spade nine – a strip-squeeze. Then he can throw South in with a spade to lead a diamond at the end. The most elegant board of the event (rotated 180 degrees for ease of reading) featured some fine defense by my partner to produce an elegant ending.
My partner Alessandro Cofini found the best defense when he led a spade. Declarer ruffed and drew two rounds of trumps before trying to sneak a diamond trick through. Again my partner defended very nicely by winning the diamond ace to play a second spade. Declarer ruffed (thus leaving himself with one less trump than me) and unblocked diamonds, crossed to the club queen and cashed the diamond queen to pitch dummy’s spade. My best defense might be to discard a club, producing this ending:
South cashes his remaining club winner, then leads a top diamond. East ruffs and must return a spade, letting declarer ruff in dummy pitching his club from hand, and lead out winning clubs. When East ruffs in, South overruffs and cashes his diamond winner. Finally, Gabby Feiler put forward this deal as his candidate for the luckiest game ever… we think he has ways to go, particularly since he played the hand so nicely. (Rotated 180 degrees).
Gabby won the spade lead with the ten and realized he had no entry to hand, so that his best chance was a singleton club king. So he put the club ace on the table, and when that card appeared he finessed against the club ten and cashed off all the clubs. West pitched three small diamonds so Gabby led a a diamond, knocking out West’s entry, and then for good measure found the jack of hearts, to end up with a highly improbable overtrick! Team tactics(?) – The Sunday afternoon IMP Pairs There were some very exciting hands among the set the computer selected for the IMP Pairs on Sunday afternoon. Steve de Donder from Belgium reports on a ‘solid’ slam that rolled home:
South led the ¨10 to dummy’s queen, which held. Declarer continued with another diamond to the ace, cashed the ©A and played a heart to the queen. Next he ruffed a diamond with the ©K and laid down the ©J. When trumps were 3-3, de Donder had all thirteen tricks and a couple of IMPs in the bag. All that this slam needed was 3-3 hearts, the diamond finesse and 3-2 diamonds, and no black-suit lead (even a club lead sets the slam because of the fact that this removes the late entry to the diamonds.) Lotan Fisher is not a shy bidder - we all know that. He struck again in the next hand:
Lotan accepted his partner’s invitation despite the minimum high-cards because of the ruffing value and good trumps. West led the §Q to declarer’s ace, who ran the ©J, and played a second heart when it held. In with the ace Greg Vance found an excellent switch when he laid down the ¨9. But Lotan went up with the king, and continued with a spade to the nine and king. (The defense will not prevail even if East finds the inspired play of the spade queen at this trick). West now played a small diamond to his partner’s queen, who switched to a club. But Lotan was not to be stopped. He won the §K, overtook the ©Q with the king, played a spade to the jack and cashed two more tricks in spades to claim for just made and a double-digit number of IMPs. Our next hero is Gerald Pfeifer from England who ended up in a difficult 3NT contract, with chances for both sides:
3NT is down on a club lead, because declarer does not have the communications to develop nine tricks without any help from the defenders. Even if he takes the club lead with the queen and plays a low spade, North can take the queen and play another club. Declarer will cash three more clubs and play ª10 to the ace, but North just takes the ace and exits in spades again. After West has cashed the ªK as well he has reached the following four-card ending:
From here West is bound for defeat. If he exits in hearts South will take two tricks and play a diamond through, if he plays ¨A and a diamond, North takes the rest of the tricks. At the table Gerald received a spade lead to the eight and cashed five rounds of clubs. (the simplest line to make is to rely on 3-3 clubs and play back a spade at once to set up the second spade trick to go with five clubs and two red winners). The critical thing about Gerald’s actual line is the discards he has to make from his hand. Had he discarded a spade, a heart and a diamond 3NT would have been a make as he now plays a heart to South’s ace, who can do no better but switch to a diamond. Declarer wins with the ace, cashes the ©K and either endplays North in spades (if North has kept two spades and two diamonds) to get a diamond in the end; alternatively, he endplays him in diamonds to score the ¨Q and a spade, if North has reduced himself to ªAQ6 ¨K. Unfortunately our declarer discarded two diamonds and a heart and kept all his spades. Now the defenders have a chance to beat the contract as Pfeifer reached the following position after he ran the ª10 to North’s queen:
Now North can cash the ªA and exit with another spade to endplay declarer. So far West has only six tricks and won’t score more than the ªK and the ¨A. But why shouldn’t an opponent err as well? When North tried to get off lead with a small spade, West took his ‘last train home’, won the trick and now endplayed North in spades, who, after cashing another spade, had to lead a diamond back into West’s tenace. Let’s finish with another board Steve de Donder brought to the editor’s attention, when his partner brought home a redoubled game, much to his delight:
Francesco Ferrari led the §K to dummy’s ace. Simone Pisano then let the ©9 run and continued with another heart. South hopped up with the ace to play back a club. North’s §Q took the trick and he played a third club. Now declarer played the ¨A and a diamond to the jack, queen and king. Thomas Schonfeldt switched to a spade, but West won, ruffed a spade and played high diamonds through South to justify his redouble. Still, there had been a chance to beat this contract. After South had won the ¨K he should have led a heart. West will have to win this trick in his hand, can’t get to dummy to enjoy his diamonds and therefore will have to lose two spades in the end. This second event of the camp was won by Vassilis Vroustis, Greece and Ron Schwartz, Israel (North/South line) who scored +63 IMPs, and Michal Kopecky, Czech Republic and Kare Gjaldbaek, Denmark (East/West line) with a score of +65 IMPs. We hope that this look back at last month's Junior action was of interest. Now, it is up to all playing here in Prague to play even more brilliantly than the players featured above. If you do, or it is your partner or an opponent who does so, please tell someone from the Daily Bulletin. We are also interested in disasters, but they have to be REAL disasters to be newsworthy. |
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