| 8th World Youth Bridge Team Championship, Mangaratiba, Brazil | Tuesday, 14 August 2001 |
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Semifinals First Segment The first sixteen boards of the semifinals were a very lively set
that gave all teams plenty of chances to enter the scoreboard.
To test the waters North went for a solo effort, that ended in
two down - Denmark +100.
Again North collected nine tricks - Denmark +110 and 5 IMPs. The Danish lead increased, when in the next board both declarers
had to play contracts that did not fit well with the actual layout
of the hand.
Although East/West had the tools available to stop their invitational bidding sequence on the two-level, the split of the trump suit finally led to three down - Denmark +150. But the Danes got carried away as well:
A surprising outcome would describe best what happened on the next
deal of the VuGraph match between the Europeans.
In the Closed Room Denmark's North player did very well and took away vital bidding space:
The play proved to be no challenge for West who easily took all thirteen tricks to enter a "nervous" result on his score card - Israel +640. In the Open Room Denmark found the right level, but picked the
wrong suit:
The Precision auction worked very well, but in the end East missed a chance to try 6§ and give partner an option. Unluckily the spades did not break, so declarer lost two tricks - Israel +100 and 12 IMPs to take the lead 12-7. Meanwhile USA 1 collected another "two-digiter". Thailand
in the Open Room stopped in 4ª making five - Thailand +650.
Even the favourable vulnerabililty didn't help declarer much, who went down five - USA1 +1100. What could have been a pick-up, if East/West in the Open had bid the club slam, turned into a 10 IMPs-loss to give USA 1 a comfortable 21-1 lead. Two boards later Israel took the wrong view in both rooms:
As play was not recorded in the Closed Room, we do not know what
happened after the ©7-lead. It is to be assumed that North found
the only way to beat declarer's contract by returning the §K,
which South overtook with the ace, cashed the queen and gave his
partner a ruff. East finished one down - Denmark +50 and 6 IMPs
in. Then a sharp lesson was waiting for Israel's East/West pair
in the Closed Room:
Both doubles made by East/West seem to be ill-timed, and were duly punished by South with a redouble that of course found excellent values in partner's hand to bring home ten easy tricks - Denmark +880. With Denmark doubling less at the other table Israel took an even
more direct route to 4ª:
South had not difficulties to score up this game - Israel +420 but 10 IMPs for Denmark, who were now leading 24-12. It's hard to believe that one has a problem to bid up to game
when even a slam is on, but sometimes it just happens:
Who is going to blame East/West for any of their bids after North's effective mini no-trump. On a another day with a less suitable layout of all the cards, 4ª might have easily gone down, but not today. Declarer scored an embarrasing three overtricks - Denmark +230. Israel's East/West pair in the Closed Room overcame all difficulties
to reached at least 4ª:
When every suit behaved nicely, West again managed to come to twelve tricks - Israel +680 and 10 IMPs back. Thailand's supporters cheered up, as their team managed to
collect 15 IMPs here, although they missed the spade game as well:
We do not know whether West intended his jump as weak, intermediate or strong, but maybe his partner didn't know either. Anyway, declarer scored eleven tricks - Thailand +200. Now back to the 15-IMP mystery! Here's the full story from
the other room - Attention! This is not for children or people with
a weak heart!
When North wasn't able to stop opponents' spades with neither his impressive "stopper" nor pure strength of the mind, the defenders took the first seven tricks in spades, but lost one of their "red" tricks to come to "only" six down - Thailand +1400 and 15 badly needed IMPs to trail by 3, USA 1 in the lead 25-22. Some deals later once again the Israeli mini no-trump made their
day:
The VuGraph team was still discussing the chances of Denmark getting to 3NT after a 1ª-opening, when the Scandinavians settled for a partscore:
It is quite understandable that West decided to retreat to 2ª only, but once again the cards were favourably placed for the game. Declarer took ten tricks - Denmark +170. Sometimes an awkward bidding problem becomes non-existent when
one has the right tool available:
West opened a 10-12 no-trump and East had no problem what so ever to tranfer first and force to game afterwards - Israel +400, 6 IMPs and in the lead 31-24. USA 1 also scored 6 IMPs for 3NT +1 against Thailand's 3ª +2 to increase their lead to 38-23. "Boards numbered 13 are "troublemakers"" some
superstitious people think at least, but on this occasion excellent
skill was just good enough to overcome all problems and shine:
In the Closed Room, South, though equipped with eight trumps only, found a great 5©-bid. As this contract can not be defeated, the best East could do was to go to 5ª.
The defenders quickly took three tricks, one each in hearts, diamonds
and clubs, so East went one down - Denmark +200.
What looked like a huge swing for Denmark became a push, when South
on VuGraph conducted a flawless defence. In the other semifinal both East/West pairs ended up playing in 4ª doubled. Thailand went down, but USA 1 collected ten tricks to score +790 and 14 IMPs, now ahead 52-23:
North led ©Q and another heart. Declarer ruffed, played a spade to the queen, ruffed a heart, played a spade to the nine and ruffed a heart. Then he drew trumps, cashed §A and exited in clubs, won by South. With hearts and clubs eliminated, South could do no better than return a small diamond, but declarer guessed correctly and was home. Well played! Board 14 saw East/West scoring in the Israel-Denmark match and
North/South scoring in the USA1-Thailand match, with Denmark and
USA1 having the better end of it.
Due to the 2§-overcall that you will only find in Junior events
North/South got to 3NT that went two down when the diamonds proved
unfriendly - Israel +100.
East led the ©K to the declarer's ace who cashed ¨AK and much to his surprise lost the §K to Easts ¨10. ªA, a spade to the king and another club ruff didn't make a happy declarer, who now went down three - Denmark +500 and 9 IMPs to regain the lead 33-31. USA 1 moved further away from Thailand despite a decent result
for the team from Zone 6, that would have given them some IMPs in
the other match.
As mentioned above, North South went plus, when declarer had to
lose five tricks after defenders had played two rounds of trumps
- Thailand +100.
Probably West should have immediately signed-off in 3© after South's double on 3§. That might have turned down East's enthusiasm. Anyway, declarer collected the same eight tricks - USA1 +300, 5 IMPs and 57-23 in total. USA 1's lead increased to 60-23 on the last two boards of the set. Taking into account Thailand's 2.7 IMPs from the carry-over, the standing was 60-25.7 after 16 out of 64 boards. In the European match there was one more big swing still to come:
A quiet auction in the Open Room led to a reasonable contract,
which went two down instead of one down when declarer in a careless
moment revoked - Israel +200.
The records say that the defence started with the ¨K, a diamond
to partner's ace and a diamond ruff. As his diamonds were good
now, declarer could turn his attention to spades only, picking them
up for one loser, and managed to come to eight tricks - Israel +670
and 13 IMPs This result helped Israel to decide the first of four sets in their favour 44-33. 2 IMPs had to be subtracted from their lead for slow play, but 1 IMP came back from the carry-over, so the official result for the records was 43-33. |
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