The Greek team is not (probably) competing for a qualifying spot on the next World Junior Championships but they seriously compete for the luckiest board of the tournament. Watch board 6 from Round 9:

Board 6. Dealer East. EW Game ª Q 10 © J 8 5 ¨ A 8 4 § Q J 10 5 2 ª J ª A K 9 6 5 4 2 © K 9 6 4 3 © 10 7 ¨ J 10 5 ¨ 7 3 2 § 8 7 4 3 § 6 ª 8 7 3 © A Q 2 ¨ K Q 9 6 § A K 9

The bidding started as in many tables with a slightly dangerous 3ª preempt by East. Manousakakis, with the South cards doubled, West passed and North bid a conservative 4§.

Now, our candidate for the luckiest board of the tournament found an inspired bid: 4¨ and North raised to 5¨. This has the advantage of being the only available game for NS. If West leads a spade, East wins the ªK, and, if he cashes the next spade, declarer simply refuses the heart finesse and ruffs a spade in dummy, bringing his total to 11 tricks: 4 diamonds, 5 clubs, ©A and the spade ruff.

And if East plays back a heart, declarer takes the ©A and discards 2 spades in dummy's clubs. If the lead is a club, South wins, cashes 3 rounds of trumps and discards again 2 losing spades on dummy's clubs.

In the same board, another inspired bid was reported from the Schools series, in the match of Gt. Britain v Israel.

In the N-S seats the Tal sisters were playing for Israel.

After the inevitable 3ª from East, Noga Tal doubled and Dana Tal (the youngest player of the tournament, 13 years old) sitting North found a nice way for a big plus score: she passed and collected 500 and 11 IMPs.