Mission Possible?

Now, gentlemen, let us do something today which the world may talk of hereafter

Admiral Collingwood before the Battle of Trafalgar.

Two great teams in the semifinal played Thursday and Friday and one had to lose.  Nickell started the last 15 boards down 236 to 185, 51 imps.  That is a lot to overcome against a good team in form.

The boards provided a few opportunities but not enough and winning would have required a significant mistake or two by Fleisher and they were just not going to fall on their swords!

Nickell did make the most of almost all their chances and had all the big swings.  Nickell picked up their first swing on Board 109, the third board of the set.

Board 106 Both Vulnerable (hand rotated)

	Weinstein AJ1097 1052 A92 Q7
Meckstroth Q54 Q98 QJ1064 J5		Rodwell (Martel) 832 A3 83 A98432
	Levin K6 KJ764 K75 K106

 

Levin ended in the heart game after Weinstein showed an invitational hand with three trump.  The opening lead was the Q,  How do you play the hand?  You really would like to get rid of your potential diamond loser in case you have two trump losers.  One possibility is to play on clubs.  If you can set up a club discard then you can afford to two in the trump suit.  And that is what Levin did.  Unfortunately the club jack was doubleton offside and there were two trump losers but other bad things happened and it went down 3.  This might have been duplicated but at the other table Martel who had A98432 doubled an artificial club bid for Hamman to ask for a club lead, definitely not the lead the defense wanted as it turns out.  14 imps towards the comeback.  The game was not reached at either table in the other semifinal.

On the next board though in a competitive auction Hamman and Zia pushed too hard for a non-vulnerable 5 game in a competitive auction while Levin and Weinstein judged better to stop in 4 making.  5 imps to Fleisher.

A bit later on Hamman and Zia got to a decent heart slam and got a favorable lead to make it easy while Weinstein and Levin ground to a halt in 4NT. 

 

	Levin AK5 KQJ53 9 Q872	Board rotated
	Weinstein Q102 A104 AK32 K105

 

Weinstein	Levin
1NT	2
2	2
2NT	3
3	3
3NT	4
4NT	all pass

After Levin had shown clubs and hearts with slam aspirations and cuebid spades twice Weinstein took a conservative path and chose to play in 4NT.  12 more imps.  In the other match Diamond reached the slam and also had clubs led.

There were too more significant swings to come for Nickell. two slams and a partscore but the deficit was just too great.  The most interesting of the swings was this deal.

	Hamman A105 1085 AQ52 AJ8	Board rotated
Stansby 63 9 KJ1087 75432		Martel Q9874 76432 63 K
	Zia KJ2 AKQJ 94 Q1096

 

Zia	Hamman
1NT	2*
3*	4NT
5	5
5NT	6NT
all pass

Hamman’s 2 bid could have shown a weak hand with clubs so Zia’s response showed a maximum.  After that Hamman chose to bid the slam.  The opening lead was a 3 and Zia chose to rise with the A believing that Stansby was unlikely to lead away from the K into the strong hand.  One he had made that incredible play the diamond finesse insured the contract but Zia also guessed to play spade correctly taking all the tricks.  In the other room the auction was a quick 1NT-3NT making 6.  In fact no other pair reached the slam.