You Won’t Like Me When I’m Angry .. USA 1 versus the Netherlands Round 9

Enough already … At the end of Round 11 USA 1 was in eleventh spot, out of the qualifying. They had a challenging opponent in Round 12, the Netherlands who were fifth, roughly 20 victory points ahead of them. We expected better from this young and strong team. 

One can find many excuses for a slow start – they really had played a lot of the top teams and Bali is very far from North America bringing jetlag …but enough already.

In the Open Room Weinstein and Levin were East-West against Drijver and Brink. In the Closed Room Kranyak-Wolpert were North-South with De Wijs and Muller as East-West.

USA started the imp fest on Board One and when it was over they had racked up a 35 imp victory 40-5 against one of the stronger teams in the field.

Board 1 is a good illustration of the type of aggressive style employed by Kranyak-Wolpert. It is effective even if it isn’t what we teach our students.

Let’s look at it from De Wijs point of view.  

You are in fourth chair and by the time the auction gets to you the opponents have reached 3♠ .

Kranyak opens 3♦. Your partner passes and Wolpert bids 3♠. Your call?

Double I am pretty sure would be for takeout which isn’t so bad since you have hearts and clubs and it could be very nice if partner has the right hand to leave it in.

You could try 3NT. Wolpert should have a diamond tolerance for this bid and you are short a stopper there. You could just bid 4♥  and hope that is the right place. You have an excellent heart suit and your spades look well place.

Do you like having to guess at what amounts to the four-level? De Wijs bid 4♥  which was passed out. 3NT is the right offensive place but how do you ever get there? 

If you could double for penalty (and maybe against this pair you should discuss things like that) USA does go for about 500 in 4♦ .

 

To get this swing Kranyak had to make an off-center (to me) 3♦ preempt and then Wolpert and to find the imaginative 3♠  call which at the very least is lead directing.  4♥  quickly went down on the spade ruffs.

You just sat down. You haven’t even had time to get your seat warm and this happens!  I love watching Wolpert and Kranyak.

In the end USA 1 won this hard fought match 40-5. The 17.45 VP puts them in the eight and final qualifying spot. But there is no doubt in my mind that this team will not only qualify but move up the rankings before the end of the Round Robin.

And if you love bridge watch this exciting team on Vugraph if you can.