Day 2 Match 2 … WBF Championships

I am up and ready to watch the second match which starts in a few moments at 7:45 AM local time.  I can look out the huge window on my right to see the sun about to rise.  You may wish to take the time to read today’s Bulletin which has some interesting stories including one by John Carruthers on the betting line on the bridge championships … yes people are betting real money on the results.

Looking at the results in the Bermuda Bowl after Round 4 Italy has taken a big lead.  They have blitzed or near blitz all their matches so far.  They haven’t met many of the top teams yet but still a remarkable start.  In the Venice Cup  things are quite different with the top nine teams ranging from 68 to 78 VP.  In the Seniors  France has a good lead over second place USA 2.

I decided watch the Bermuda Bowl match Israel vs USA 2.  It will give me a chance to comment on you, Justin Lall among others.  Both teams have young players.  This turned out to be a well played and entertaining match.  The first swing was board 7.

Board 7. Dealer South. All Vulnerable.
	♠ J54 ♥ K5 ♦ J432 ♣ KQ105
♠ Q93 ♥ AJ1097 ♦ AK5 ♣ 82		♠ K1062 ♥ 832 ♦ Q6 ♣ A764
	♠ A87 ♥ Q64 ♦ 10987 ♣ J93

In the Open Room Grue  West opened in second chair after South passed.  He was playing 14-16 notrump chose to open the West hand 1NT which seems perfectly reasonable.  Now Lall tried Stayman.  Considering that his hand was pretty flat and partner had a maximum of 16 HCP this was fairly aggressive but then again who wants to miss a vulnerable game.   Grue bid 2H and Lall bid 2NT.  Now it was Grue’s turn to take a push.  Despite the fact that he held only 154 HCP he had decent spots and a five card suit so he bid the notrump game.  I thought he might try 3H on his way to game and that might have worked better as it turned out.  Still 3NT has it changes.  Had the cards been a little different he might not have got a club lead and then if all went well 3NT could have made.  But this was not a game you really want to be in.  So how about 4H?

At the other table where 1NT was 15-17 Barel opened 1H as West.  Now Zack, East has a very heavy 2H raise and Barel couldn’t see more.  So 2H it was.  Does Zack have enough for a limit raise?  I have done it on this type of hand but most would not agree with me.  Against 3NT Pachtman led the CQ and SOuth encourgaed since he held the CJ.   Grue won the third round of clubs.  Now his only chance was that SOuth held the KQ of hearts and the SA but that lucky combinaton wasn’t there, one down.   Barel got a club lead too against his four heart contract but he could ruff the third round.  Two heart finesses and a spade guess and he made four. 7 imps for Israel.  Israel gained 5 more when they played the right partscore on board 10.  Coming into board 11 it was 13 to nothing.  But then Israel had an accident (and many other pairs in the field had a similar plight).

Board 11. Dealer South. None Vulnerable.
	♠ KQJ743 ♥ AKQ7 ♦ – ♣ A96
♠ 10 ♥ J943 ♦ Q7632 ♣ J74		♠ A8652 ♥ 86 ♦ AJ84 ♣ 108
	♠ 9 ♥ 1052 ♦ K1095 ♣ KQ532

In third chair North Pachtman chose to open a strong 2C bid.   Do you agree?  Do you prefer 1♠ .  North does have a lot of playing strength but only 19 HCP.  Not just that but you have more chance to find the right place to play if you open at the one level. 

 

Grue	Pachtman	Lall	GInossar
			Pass
Pass	2♣	Pass	2♦
Pass	2♠	Pass	3♣
Pass	3♥	Pass	4NT
Pass	5♣	Pass	?

2♦ apparently showed four plus diamonds and the next three bids were natural.  It seemed to all of us that 4NT had to be natural and invitational and that 5♣  showed a suit.  Perhaps Ginossar wasn’t sure what 5♣  meant.  If he believed it was club support I think he would have wanted to play in clubs.  If it is clubs North is quite likely to have a diamond void.  Anyway he jumped to 6NT and Lall found a sporting double.  Lall just cashed his two aces for plus 100.  5♣  will probably make although I suspect that against this East-West 6♣ was not making (although some pairs in the field did bring it home).  In the open room Hurd-Wooldridge stopped in 4♠ .  The first three bids were the sane but over 2♠  Wooldridge chose to rebid 2NT and Hurd then transferred to 4S the slow way to make a mild slam invitation.  But Wooldridge had no problem passing the spade game.  Israel now clung to a 2 imp lead 13-11.  On Board 13 Lall-Grue did a great job to bid and make a spade slam while Zack-Barel played in game.

 

Board 13. Dealer North. All Vulnerable.
	♠ K ♥ J7 ♦ 984 ♣ K987653
♠ J6 ♥ AK532 ♦ K7 ♣ AQJ2		♠ AQ10874 ♥ 94 ♦ AJ105 ♣ 4
	♠ 9532 ♥ Q1086 ♦ Q63 ♣ 10

 

The auctions started off in a similar fashion at both tables.  Neither North chose to preempt clubs vulnerable so both East’s opened 1♠ .  In both cases West made a game forcing 2♥  response.  Both Easts rebid 2♠ .  But in the Closed Room West, Barel bid 3♣  and in the Open Room West Grue rebid 2NT.  Over 2NT Lall bid 3♦  which showed at least a diamond fragment.  When Grue rebid 3♠  which is forward going Lall cuebid 4♣ and they were soon in slam.  Over 3♣  the East hand looks less promising.  Here Zack was still not sure where to play the hand and offered 3♥  with his doubleton heart.  When Barel finally showed spade support it was less clear that Zack should make a slam try and he went quietly in 4♠ .  Lall played the slam well.  He won the opening club lead and carefully played a small spade from dummy at trick 2.  Having picked up the spade suit for no losers he could simply draw trump and give up a diamond to make his slam.

Coming into the 16th and last board Israel was down by 10 28 to 18.  I have a history of messing up on the last board of a session.  Let’s see how these two teams fared.

Board 16. Dealer West. E-W Vulnerable.
	♠ A962 ♥ KJ6 ♦ 10654 ♣ 32
♠ K1074 ♥ 432 ♦ AQ73 ♣ A8		♠ 3 ♥ AQ10985 ♦ KJ9 ♣ 1065
	♠ QJ85 ♥ 7 ♦ 82 ♣ KQJ974

Of the 22 pairs that played board 16 20 were in 4♥  which went down 7 times and maybe occasionally with an uptrick the rest of the time.  One North-South pair played in 4♠  doubled.  One of the other two pairs was Wooldridge and Hurd.  They got to 5♣  doubled very quickly.  West opened 1♦ , Eas bid 1♥ and Wooldridge bid 5♣.  The contract could have been set four for 800 which isn’t terrible into 4♥  making 620,  But in fact Wooldridge escaped for down 3.  After the opening heart lead Zack shifting to a spade and Barel just couldn’t visualize Wooldridge with four spades.  So the spade ruff vanished.

Now would USA 2 be one of the pairs to make 4♥  or one of those who went down.  In the Open Room there was no opposition bidding and it was up to Grue to make the heart game.  Pachtman led a club and Grue allowed the ♣ Q to win the trick.  Now what?  Dummy has a potential spade, a club losers (you plan to ruff the third one) and you have to deal with hearts. So what to do.  You could finesse the heart.    You  have to decide which heart to put in since neither is a sure thing.  Another option is to play the ♥ A and see what falls and Grue tried that.  As it turns out both follow low.  Back to the heart challenge.  You can play another heart and if they are two-two you are home, otherwise the future is not bright.  You could try four rounds of diamonds and if the long heart hand has four diamonds then that might work out.  Even if trumps are 2-2 that might work if diamonds are 3-3 you could still change your mind.  I am not going to go through all the permutations nor try to calculate the odds.  Grue played out a second heart and went down.  If anybody wants to calculate the odds let us all know.  In any case the result was a loss of 12 imps and a final score of 30-28 imps which counts as a tie in WBF victory point scoring.

By the way, Justin Lall made a comment about my pick of USA1 to beat USA2 in one of the playoff rounds.  He said that should be reversed.  I am starting to think he was right.  THe young men are really playing in form and without fear.  Can I change my entry?