Championship Stories

Made with Finesse - by Patrick Jourdain

Ben Green of the England Junior team found a necessary but unusual first round finesse in trumps on this last-deal partscore battle of their Round 16 match against Sweden:

Board 20 Dealer West; Game All
	♠ A K 7 4 3 ♥ K 9 7 4 ♦ 7 6 ♣ K 2
♠ Q 8 ♥ J 10 8 6 5 ♦ Q 10 5 ♣ 9 7 4		♠ 6 5 ♥ A Q ♦ A K 8 4 3 2 ♣ A 5 3
	♠ J 10 9 2 ♥ 3 2 ♦ J 9 ♣ Q J 10 8 6

West	North	East	South
Happer	Asplund	Green	Thalen
Pass	1♠	Dble	2♠
Pass	Pass	3♦	3♠
4♦	All Pass

South might have given the England pair a more difficult problem with an immediate Three Spades. Against Four Diamonds South led the queen of clubs, overtaken by North’s king. Green ducked and then won the ace when North played a second club.

Realising he needed three entries to dummy to set up an extra heart trick Green led a diamond to the TEN on the first round. Next came a heart to the queen, the ace of hearts and a trump to the queen. Now he was able to take the ruffing finesse in hearts and get back to dummy with a small trump to dummy’s five. That allowed him two discards on the hearts and eleven tricks in all.

The same contract at the other table lost two clubs and two spades for 6 IMPs to England and a win by 17-13 victory points.

A well timed defence - by Tobias Tornqvist

Ida Gronkvist is one of the players in the Swedish squad of four. She is not only a good bridge player but also a very young one, as she has recently turned twelve years old. Ida’s partner in the Schools is Sandra Rimstedt, who has a lot of experience and furthermore has celebrated eight more birth days than Ida. Their team mates are Idas older brother Mikael (14) and Erik Fryklund (20). Ida has not a lot of experience, since she has only played for one year, but she is very talented and has a good feeling for the game as the board below will show.

Dealer West. N/S Vul.
	♠ J 10 9 5 ♥ A Q J 7 2 ♦ K 6 ♣ K 2
♠ K 6 4 3 2 ♥ 5 4 ♦ 7 5 2 ♣ A 10 5		♠ 8 ♥ K 10 9 8 ♦ A Q J 9 8 ♣ Q J 7
	♠ A Q 7 ♥ 6 3 ♦ 10 4 3 ♣ 9 8 6 4 3

Sandra had an awkward lead and chosed to lead he king of clubs, declarer unblocked the queen and winning the ace. A small trump went to the five, eight and queen. Ida continued in clubs and declarer won in hand and then played another trump to the nine, dummy discarded a diamond and Ida followed suit. Sandra now played the ace and then queen of hearts, so declarer took the trick with dummy’s king. At this point declarer played a heart from dummy. Ida chosed not to ruff, which was a good id(e)a as doing so would produce eight tricks for declarer, but discarding a club. Declarer ruffed and now had a problem, as he both needed to play another round of trumps as well as taking the diamond finesse. He eventually took the diamond finesse and then played dummy’s last heart. Now Ida took action by ruffing with the spade ace, declarer pitched a diamond. Ida gave Sandra a club ruff and back came the king of diamonds, locking declarer in dummy. Since dummy had only diamonds left to play, Sandra got a trump trick en passent and that was one down. Well done!

Milan Revisited

Thursday’s bulletin featured a 4♠ contract made, doubled, by Milan Macura of the Czech Junior team. We now hear that the declarer for the Czech Scools team, Marketa Dudkova, also made 4♠, though on a rather different line.

Board 18. Dealer East. N/S Vul.
	♠ 10 9 8 3 ♥ 10 7 6 ♦ 4 3 2 ♣ A 8 6
♠ J 7 5 4 2 ♥ – ♦ A 10 8 7 ♣ K 7 4 3		♠ A K 6 ♥ A 8 4 2 ♦ J 9 6 ♣ Q 9 2
	♠ Q ♥ K Q J 9 5 3 ♦ K Q 5 ♣ J 10 5

South had overcalled 1♥ over a loose 1♣ opening and Dudkova found herself in 4♠ on the lead of a low heart from North. She ruffed in hand and cashed the top spades, confirming the 4-1 split, then played the nine of diamonds to the queen and ace, cashed the jack of spades and played a diamond back to the jack and king. South played a heart and this time Dudkova won with dummy’s ace, throwing a club from hand. She continued by playing a diamond to hand then the fourth diamond. North discarded the last heart on this trick so declarer played a club to the queen then ruffed a heart. North could over-ruff but was then endplayed to give a trick to the king of clubs; ten tricks.

Seven Spades

The most talked about deal of the Thursday afternoon vugraph match between the Junior teams of Norway and Italy was Board 16, where the two Andreas, Boldrini and Manno, overbid a little to put Boldrini in the spade grand slam.

Board 16. Dealer West. E/W Vul.
	♠ K Q 10 7 5 4 ♥ A ♦ A K Q 6 ♣ J 4
♠ J 6 3 2 ♥ K J 9 4 ♦ 8 4 ♣ 9 8 3		♠ 9 ♥ 10 7 6 3 ♦ 10 7 5 3 2 ♣ K 6 2
	♠ A 8 ♥ Q 8 5 2 ♦ J 9 ♣ A Q 10 7 5

The lead against 7♠ was the six of hearts, third and fifth, and West’s jack was won by declarer’s ace. Boldrini showed good technique by playing a spade to the ace then ruffing a heart before playing the ♠K and discovering the bad news. Erik Berg, East, was careful to throw a heart away, rather than a potentially more revealing diamond.

Boldrini crossed to the jack of diamonds and ruffed another heart. With his trumps down to the same length as West, he now had to decide how many diamonds to cash before taking the club finesse, which had to be winning, and playing for the trump coup. If clubs were three-three, it would not be necessary to cash even one more diamond. Simply take the club finesse and repeat it then run winning clubs through West, who could ruff in at any time but would be over-ruffed and declarer would draw the last trump and cash winning diamonds. If West did not ruff, declarer would keep throwing diamonds from hand and still be in dummy at trick twelve for the trump coup.

However, that line required an even club split, and we all know that a four-two break is much more likely than three-three. If declarer could cash two more diamond winners, leaving just one uncashed, he could then take the club finesse as before. The third round of clubs would be a winner and, once again, West could ruff in, be over-ruffed, and that would be the end of the hand, or he could discard and declarer’s last diamond would go away. Once again the trump coup would finish West off.

Boldrini tried to cash the third round of diamonds, which was ruffed, and down he went. But, he played it correctly, with the odds. At the other table, the Norwegians stopped in the small slam and Alberto Sangiorgio led the two of clubs. There was real danger that Allan Livgard would go off in six, rising with the ace to protect against a singleton lead. No, he got it right, finessing to make his slam and see Norway gain 14 IMPs. But it was Italy who went on to win the match by 61-47 IMPs, 18-12 VPs.