Bulletin Guys I am impressed!

Here it is 11:20 EST and Wednesday‘s Bulletin is already online for me to read.  The official count is 145 teams in the open 31 in the women’s (I guess they didn’t need to do anything to come down to 32 teams!).

On the cover of the Bulletin I see that the ACBL hosted a party for Jose Damiani, president of the WBF who is retiring.  Looking back over the years he has done a great job and will be a hard act to follow.

Four teams in each of the 16 brackets of the Rosenblum advance to the round of 64 on Friday.  Meanwhile I have had a lot of fun watching and doing commentary on Round Robin matches.

With only 31 teams in the McConell the women are divided into two groups with a bit more than half the field advancing to the KO phase, round of 16.

Brent Manley wrote up Board 18 from the second Round Robin session in the Rosenblum.  Here is the deal

Dealer: East Vul: NS	Pottenger ♠ 7 ♥ K107542 ♦ AKQ752 ♣ –
Zmud… ♠ K8 ♥ J93 ♦ 4 ♣ KQJ10875		Balicki ♠ AQJ953 ♥ A86 ♦ 93 ♣ A5
	Rimer ♠ 10642 ♥ Q ♦ J1086 ♣ 9632

In the match I was watching Zmudzinski and Balicki were sitting West and East respectively playing for the Cayne team while Pottenger was North and Rimer was South.  This team was from San Francisco and their team name was based on their zip code or something like that: SAN3PDX1.  The match was very well played and this board was no exception.  Here was the bidding at my table:

Zmudzinski	Pottenger	Rimer	Balicki
		1♠	pass
2♣	2♥	2♠	pass
3♣	4♦	4♥	5♦
5♠	pass	6♣	pass
pass	6♦	pass	pass
6♠	DBL	pass	pass
7♣	all pass

1♠ was limited to about 16 points so Balicki had a maximum.  2♣ was basically a game force.  North could have bid 2NT to show two suits but chose to show his extreme shape by bidding the suits one after another after Zmudzinski rebid his high quality clubs.  East could play in either black suit and the 4♥ cue bid was a slam try.  Rimer didn’t have much but what he had was going to be very useful to a parnter who had bid so aggressively vulnerable and so ventured 6♦.

When Zmudzinski supported spades it was enough for Balicki to bid the slam.  At the time we were speculating on whether East-West could get to the club slam which is the only one that makes since Pottenger can double for a club lead against 6♠.  And 6♣ was exactly what East-West bid.  But Pottenger spoiled their party by continuing to 6♦ despite being vulnerable.  Partner was quite likely to be short in hearts with decent diamonds for the raise to 5♦.  This will normally go one down (although temporaily at least the score showed from the other room showed up as 6♦ doubled and making, later changed to 6♦ down 1.)

When North doubled 6♠ it was pretty clear he had a club void so Zmudzunski thought he might as well try 7♣.  Had East been on play South might have a tough decision about which red suit to lead.  A heart lead being fatal since the diamond loser can be discarded on spades.  But with North on lead the only real choice was the right one the ♦A.  Still it isn’t often that you get to a power grand slam (not a save) and go one down and win imps on the board even if it is a measly 4 imps.  Brent has a list of score with frequencies on them but somehow the results I watched was missed since nobody else played 7♣.  Some pairs did tough it out in 6♠ X and it appears that both of them actually made it when South did not find the club lead.  One pair redoubled and went down.  Maybe the redoubled provides a hint.  For the rest of the results have a look at the daily Bulletin.  (Thank you Brent, for … the rest of the story.)

In the Rosenblum I couldn’t help but notice that the Pinor Noir team was leading group one.  I had to know who they were.  It turns out that they do include some great wine countries, France, Brazil and Argentina

Michel BESSIS (France)	player
Thomas BESSIS (France)	player
Gabriel CHAGAS (Brazil)	player
Julien GAVIARD (France)	player
Alain LEVY (France)	player
Juan Carlos VENTIN (Argentina)	player
Juan Carlos VENTIN (Argentina)	playing captain

My postal code team, San3PDX1. from the second match who played so well

Craig HUSTON (U.S.A.)	player
Maritha POTTENGER (U.S.A.)	player
Judy RIMER (U.S.A.)	player
Christopher (Kit) YOUNG (U.S.A.)	player
Craig HUSTON (U.S.A.)	playing captain

is tied first with Auken

Jens AUKEN (Denmark)	player
Ole BERSET (Norway)	player
Jan van CLEEFF (Netherlands)	player
Barnet J SHENKIN (U.S.A.)	player
Jon SVEINDAL (Norway)	player
Geir-Olav TISLEVOLL (New Zealand)	player
Geir-Olav TISLEVOLL (New Zealand)	playing captain

I was also intrigued by the name Joseph and the Cards who led one of the divisions.  Here Sabine Auken and Daniela von Armin chose to play Open and not Women’s this year.

Daniela von ARNIM (Germany)	player
Sabine AUKEN (Germany)	player
Christal HENNER-WELLAND (U.S.A.)	player
Josef PIEKAREK (Germany)	player
Alexander SMIRNOV (Germany)	player
Roy WELLAND (U.S.A.)	player

The McCONNELL CUP is divided into two groups of about 16 and has played 5 rounds so far.