Janicki versus Priebe Round 3

Ray and I occasionally joined by others watched the match between Gartaganis and Priebe  And the bridge was very good occasionally crossing over into the truly sublime.

3/4 Quarter SemiFinal Match CNTC

The actors were:

Paul Janicki, James Priebe, Robert Kuz, Barry Senensky, Stephen Cooper, Jordan Cohen

and

Judy Gartaganis, Nicholas Gartaganis, Gordon Campbell, Piotr Klimowicz

Ray and I were watching Gord and Piotr.   Coming into the start of the third segment the score was close with Janicki leading by 4 imps.

Board 1 was interesting even though it didn’t affect the imp score very much.  Deal rotated.

	Klimowicz AJ9  953 10842  1097
Janicki Q873 KJ1042 J65  Q		Priebe K1052 6 K7  AJ6542
	Campbell 64  AQ87 AQ93  K83

Priebe opened 1 and Campbell bid 1NT ending the auction. He got the lead of the J which he won with the Q.  How do you proceed?  It seemed right to attack diamonds and it was too soon to use up the spade entry.  You could lay down the ace and then decide whether to play the Q next or the A.  Gord however had a different plan.  He played a low one.   Priebe won the K on his right and switched to a spade, Janicki’s Q forcing the A.  The A was almost certain to be onside now.  Gord played the A, cashed diamonds and was led a club to his king.  Another club endplayed Priebe who had to concede a spade trick to dummy’s jack, making 2. I would have liked to have made some sort of bid on Janicki’s hand over 1NT.   But if you have no way to get both major suits in, the bid is a bit awkward.

In the Closed Room things took a very different turn when Judy opened a Precision 2 with the club-spade hand and Judy and Nick found the spade fit and got an aggressive game.  This went three down on good defensive play by Cooper and Cohen and an imp to Priebe.

6 especially played from the North hand is a pretty good spot on this Board 2?

It was easy

Dealer East N-S Vulnerable	N. Gartaganis AJ109  KQ K54 7543
Cooper 5 J65 AQ8   AKQJ1098		Cohen 842 104 J10732  862
	J. Gartaganis KQ763 A98732 96  void

Playing precision it is safer to open hands with a lot of playing strength but fewer defensive tricks and Judy took full advantage of this when she opened 1 in second chair.  And with Colin I might have opened 1 intending to reverse into spades.  Anyway this worked fine.  Nick was never stopping short of the spade game.  5 would have been a good save but had Cooper and Cohen continued it’s possible that their opponents would have found their way to slam.  Something very odd happened at the other table when Priebe and Janicki stopped in a partscore!  It started when Jim decided to pass the South hand.  Campbell opened 1 and  Piotr bid 1.  Now Jim doubled which was probably not the best choice.  Cooper bid 3 and Janicki with the north hand chose to pass.  I know you can talk yourself out of bidding opposite a passed partner but look man, partner has majors and you have an opening bid full of major suit cards push a bid out there.  Jim continued with 3 in the pass out chair and still they couldn’t find the game ending in the spade partscore.  This is the kind of board you want to forget forever and I will say that it was an anomaly for them.

And Gartaganis had taken the lead by 5 imps.  Janicki regained the lead on Board 5 when Campbell-Klimowicz treid for a game that had no play.