Geocaches found; world championships lost

Ray and I just got back from a successful morning of geocaching.

Can you see that the rock looks like a submarine rising. There is a nearby cache that had us stumped for a few minutes,

Here is Ray trying to figure out the best way across the pool of water.

Now back to the World Championships. Ray promised to help but he seems to be out like a light on the bed (having a kip as they say here).

Try bidding these hands. All vulnerable, dealer South (The deal has been rotated).

	S KJ
	H 1097
	D K7
	C AK8632
	S AQ10852
	H K6
	D AQ104
	C J

Here is one suggested auction playing standard (or perhaps 2/1)

1S 2C

2D 2H

2S 3S

3S 4C

4D 4NT

5H 6S

Not everyone got there though. Here was the Dhondy-Senior auction in the women’s final

Senior Dhondy

1S 2C

2D* 3C (2D is artificial and game forcing)

3S 4S

I think the artificial 2D made it a bit harder but Dhondy should have some way to support spades and suggest slam interest. After all her partner just made a game force showing extra and she has 14 great points including two trump honors and her own six card suit. In the Open both pairs managed to get there but in the Seniors Japan missed the slam as well. b After 10 boards the USA was leading the Seniors by 14 imps and in the Women’s England was leading by 18 imps. Italy was well ahead of England in the Open.

Board 11 is interesting only in that the Chinese Women were in 3D which was cold. Declarer knew everything about the deal about halfway through and lost her way. That cost China what amounted to 6 very valuable imps as we shall see later. On the same deal in the seniors match the USA got way overboard and lost 6 imps.

Board 12 brought 7 imps back to the Chinese women when Brock faced this defensive problem against 3NT.

S K642

H AK104

D J2

C 765

Wang opened 1NT 13-15 and Sun bid 3NT

Smith led the S3 and Brock saw this dummy.

S A5

H 863

D Q9764

C QJ8

She won the SK and returned a spade the ace winning. From her perspective the damage was done and the hand was going to be made. Should she have laid down a heart honour at trick 2? What do you think?

Here was Smith’s hand. Maybe she could have worked it out.

S J973

H Q75

D 1085

C A103

After her spade lead and her partner’s spade continuation it seems like it couldn’t hurt to duck a club. Maybe this would give her a clue about how to proceed. In any case it seems likely that declarer has diamond honours since she didn’t attack that suit. If that is the case Smith has to play a heart. This is certainly a tough one though.

At the end of 12 boards the USA is ahead of Japan by 10 in the seniors and England leads China by 16 in the women’s.

Since it seems there is something happening on almost every board the conclusion to these exciting match in part3….