| 37th World Team Championships | Page 4 | Bulletin 13 - Friday 4 November 2005 |
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IBPA Annual Awards 2005 Personality of the Year Our Personality of the Year is a fine player who is not only very well-liked, but who has also made a major contribution to bridge away from the table in the computer field, one that you will be seeing in front of you when play begins shortly. As a player for Canada he won a silver medal in the World Junior Championship of 1991, losing to the USA1n the final, and, in 1995, another silver in the Bermuda Bowl, again coming in second to the USA. They say if you cannot beat them, join them, and a few years ago Fred moved from Toronto to Las Vegas and became eligible to represent the USA. Last year he won the Cavendish partnering Brad Moss, and this year the Spingold and US Trials, again partnering Moss, to become part of the USA2 team here in Estoril. Fred is also the author of the book, Master Class that made our shortlist for Book of the Year, but the contribution away from the table he is best known for is Bridge Base Online. BBO offers a free and valuable service to bridge players worldwide, including watching bridge live with excellent commentary. Tens of thousands of bridge players have benefited and are benefiting now from that service. In the last year, BBO has become the source of the vugraph screen picture you will be seeing in a moment. The few problems we have seen with the feed dropping are no fault of the service provider. By now you should all have guessed who the man is, but I now ask him to come to the podium. Please give a warm welcome to FRED GITELMAN. (From the presentation made by Patrick Jourdain.) The C & R Motors Best Played Hand of the Year From IBPA Bulletin No. 484, p. 6 On the first deal of his team's match against the Roy Welland team, Bill Pettis managed to bring home a very difficult contract, playing it practically double dummy. His squad emerged with a 6 IMP win over the No. 3 seed, thanks in large measure to this deal. Pettis was playing with Frederick Allenspach against Roy Welland and Björn Fallenius.
Welland started with two high spades. Pettis ruffed the second round. At trick three, he played the club ace, followed by the club queen. Welland did not cover, so Pettis discarded dummy's last spade. Welland again refused to cover when Pettis played the club jack, so he discarded a diamond from dummy. Fallenius ruffed the club and offered an unhelpful ruff-sluff by playing the jack of spades. Pettis pitched a club from hand as he ruffed the spade in dummy. A heart went to the nine in declarer's hand, then Pettis finessed the queen of diamonds, cashed the diamond ace and ruffed a diamond to hand, leaving this end position:
Pettis ruffed the ten of clubs with the heart king as Fallenius underruffed, leaving the lead in dummy for the contract-fulfilling trump coup. Had Pettis gone down in his contract (Four Hearts was successful at the other table), his team would have lost the match. The other finallists were:
The Romex Best Bid Hand of the Year (From the Sunday Express, April 17, 2005. Further editing has taken place.) From IBPA Bulletin No. 486, p. 7 We recently played in the invitational White House tournament, held in Utrecht, Holland. It was a superb tournament, with top teams and attractive cash prizes. All the invited teams were taken out to an excellent dinner on the Saturday night. This was one of the most interesting deals from the tournament.
1. Exclusion Key Card 2. 2 key cards outside clubs, no heart queen 3. Anything extra? 4. You bet! Could we play diamonds, perhaps? 5. Of course we could! Often, a failure to bid can provide as many clues in the play as a bid itself. This is the case in this deal, where East's decision to enter the bidding on the second round proved very expensive. East's overcall of One Spade was questionable, given that he didn't particularly want a spade lead from partner, and that it helped South out in the bidding and the play. West led his partner's suit and, of course, finding the heart queen was the key to the hand. South won the spade in hand and played a low diamond to the queen in case East had all the outstanding diamonds, then ruffed a club. He drew trumps and crossed to the spade ace, played the ace of clubs, then ruffed a club. Now, knowing East had five or six spades, one diamond, and three or more clubs, South consulted the East/West system card. He ascertained that East would have opened Two Spades to show five spades and a four-card minor and 4-9 points. Since he had not opened Two Spades, six spades, three clubs and one diamond left East with three hearts. South duly led a low heart from hand, thrilled to see the ten appear. He won the heart king and now finessed East's heart queen for a well-deserved thirteen tricks and a 19 IMP swing. The other finallists were:
The ITES Best Defended Hand of the Year From IBPA Bulletin No. 486, p. 14 On this deal, a candidate for the best defence of the year, declarer committed a slight inaccuracy, but it is my view that the defense deserved to beat the game for their efforts. What do you think?
Bart Bramley led the diamond jack, promising the queen. Let us look at the deal and speculate about how many tricks you expect declarer to come to. Well, there are clearly nine tricks available by dislodging the spade ace before playing on hearts, but let us see what happened at the table. Roy Welland ducked the opening lead, won the next diamond, pitching a spade from dummy, and led to his heart ace - he could see the danger in taking the heart finesse. Now he planned to duck a club to West, win the return, and drive out the spade ace. But, when he led a low club from dummy, Mark Feldman played the queen! It was not safe to duck this, so Welland won and crossed to the heart king (hoping that the fall of the ten or queen would make his life easy). No luck there; so he played a spade to his king - and Bramley ducked! Now declarer played two more rounds of clubs and committed the very slight error of leaving his own hand with the re-entry when he saw that West was about to win the third club (it seemed irrelevant to him, since he knew East had the spade ace). This was the position:
The defence had two tricks in, and Bramley now led a heart to his partner's queen for the diamond switch. When declarer won and played a second spade, Bramley had the rest. The other finallists were:
The Brazilian Best Junior Deal of the Year
Presented by Revista Brasiliera de Bridge Brian Senior, Nottingham (From the Daily Bulletins) From IBPA Bulletin No. 488, p. 14 Sports leagues are fond of naming a 'Most Valuable Player'; FIFA has its 'Footballer of the Year’. A case can be made for naming Joe Grue of USA1 as 'Bridger of the Year' or, at the least, MVP of the 2005 World Junior Bridge Team Championship. See if you agree. Following is a deal Grue declared during the Championship against Canada in the Round Robin.
There is an inescapable loser in each suit and so Demuy's double gained 2 IMPs for his side, right? Wrong! Grainger was given no chance to make his Four Spade contract when Hurd led the club jack to Wooldridge's ace and back came the nine of spades. Grainger won with the king, ruffed his club loser and played a second spade to the ace. Seeing that he had a spade to lose, he tried the diamond finesse and was one down for Minus 50. At the other table, Wolpert led a heart against Four Spades doubled and Demuy ducked it to Grue's nine. To trick two Grue led the jack of spades(!) from hand, trusting that the spade had to be offside to justify Demuy's double. Had Wolpert gone in with his queen he could then have collected a heart ruff for down two, but he played low, not believing that anyone could play this way from Grue's actual holding. When the spade jack scored and West followed suit, Grue happily cashed the top spades and simply conceded one trick in each side-suit; a wonderful Plus 590 and 12 IMPs to USA1. The other finallists were:
The Master Point Press Book of the Year Readers of The Bridge World will already be familiar with the acerbic Chthonic, the self-confessed world's greatest bridge player. Fifteen of the 21 stories in this delightful book previously appeared in its pages; the other six are new. In his Foreword to the book, Jeff Rubens professes that for him, "… the holy grail consists of humorous pieces that meet the exacting general standards that readers demand of the magazine's articles: technically sound bidding and play, deals of interest to accomplished or improving players, and a high ratio of bridge to total content." Despite stiff competition, The Principle of Restricted Talent was a clear winner in our jury's collective opinion. The bridge deals are intriguing and the witty dialogue brings to mind another great book from 1976, Bridge with a Perfect Partner by PF Saunders. Let's let the characters tell a story:
"We were trailing by 4 IMPs with this board to play. Birdsworth and Barton no doubt had a sub-par session in the Closed Room. Our opponents bid uncontested to Four Spades, which of course has no play on a club lead. Yet, through inexcusable carelessness, Chthonic nearly allowed the contract to make!" The opening lead was the club deuce. Declarer followed twice as I took the ten and the ace, then he ruffed the third round. To my horror, Chthonic carelessly followed to this trick with the king!" "Fortunately, declarer had no loser to discard on dummy's established queen, so the error could not cost. Not so his second mistake. When declarer led a spade to dummy at trick four, the robot unthinkingly followed small!" Orttman paused for a few seconds to let the magnitude of Chthonic's gaffe sink in. Marty stared at the diagram in amazement. "Holy cow," she finally said. "That's incredible. I…I can't believe he did that!" "My sentiments exactly," said Dr. O., happy to have salvaged a little satisfaction from his trip to the basement. "Even a beginner would know to split his honors in this elementary situation. I need not mention that if declarer had thought to insert dummy's nine, we would have been knocked out of the tournament. Thankfully, however, he made the routine play of the king and so went down one trick." "Chthonic, true to form, refused to acknowledge his errors in the post-mortem." Chthonic: “Well, Frederick, despite your best efforts I see we have won the match by 6 IMPs.” DrFooPhD: “Bah! I hope you realize how close we came to defeat.” Chthonic: “Indeed. Had you chosen to sit West instead of East we would have lost one IMP on the final board, instead of gaining ten. I am confident you would have devised a line of defense to allow an overtrick. Let us hope you perform as admirably when selecting your seat next Tuesday.)” "That is totally irrelevant." "No, really sir. It's very important. Which club spot did he play?" "Hmph. The nine." "I thought so," she said with a nod. "Sir, Chthonic defended this hand perfectly. If he had played a different card to any of the first four tricks, declarer would have made the contract!" "Balderdash! Declarer has four certain losers on a club lead." "No, sir. Watch" She began crossing off cards from the diagram. (If West follows low on the second and third clubs and splits his honours in spades to deny South the safety play in trumps, declarer strips West of minor-suit cards to reach:)
"Declarer needs three more tricks. At trick ten he cashes the ace of hearts, and West has to follow suit. Now South leads his last heart. If West ruffs low he gets overruffed, and if he ruffs high he's end-played." "The bottom line is that if Chthonic splits his honours at trick four, he's toast. He has to play low smoothly, and he also needs to have falsecarded in clubs so that declarer won't risk the safety play. Pretty cool defense," she concluded. Well. Orttman opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again, all the while waving his hands jerkily in the air. He looked like a mime doing the soliloquy from Hamlet. The Alan Truscott Memorial Award
for Special Achievement IBPA has announced a new award this year, to be awarded periodically to a person who has made a significant contribution to bridge and bridge journalists. The first such award, named after our ex-President and ex-Chairman Alan Truscott, who died in September, goes to Bill Bailey for Deep Finesse, an invaluable tool for bridge writers and analysts everywhere. The 2005 IBPA Honour Member of the Year IBPA has announced that George Rosenkranz of Mexico has been named the Honour Member for 2005. George has been a long-time supporter of the IBPA and its awards programme. |
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