| 38th World Team Championships | Page 4 | Bulletin 3 - Tuesday 2 October 2007 |
| |
||
goulash If you have been looking at the Polish Open team and wondering what has happened to Cesary Balicki and Adam Zmudzinski, they did not take part in the Polish trials this year. Over the weekend of September 28-30, they were playing in the seventh running of the NN Cup in Moscow. The NN Cup is a rather unusual bridge event in that it is played using Goulash deals, generated by computer, making for extreme distributions and horrible suit-breaks. If you wish to take such an event seriously, it is necessary to develop significantly different bidding methods to those which are effective for use on normally dealt boards. It is a teams event, so played under normal duplicate conditions. After two qualifying round robin stages, which included a repechage element, eight teams moved into the knockout stages, culminating with a ten-board final. Here is a taste of the action from the final.
At the prevailing vulnerability, Radohleb chose not to come in over Churlin’s strong club opening and, after a pre-emptive jump overcall from Chubarova (South), Churlin rebid 3NT. As suits frequently break horribly in Goulash, Gladysh did not go back to his broken eight-card heart suit. There was no problem in 3NT, with Churlin able to come to all 13 tricks in no time at all for +520. At the other table, Bezuglaya opened a natural 1♠, always promising a long suit at this form of the game, and Balicki bid as high as he dared. When Efremov now bid 4♥, Bezuglaya expected him to have a very long suit coupled with short spades so raised to the small slam on the strength of his excellent controls. Six hearts looks OK at first sight, though North gets a ruff whatever card South chooses to lead. And indeed 6♥ is cold on a spade lead, despite the ruff, but see what happened on the actual diamond lead. Dummy’s ♦A was ruffed by North’s eight of hearts. Balicki now returned the ♣Q and, as North was almost certain to have all ten clubs for his vulnerable pre-empt, declarer judged to ruff with the ace, and now had to concede a second trick to Balicki’s ♥Q; down one for –50 and 11 IMPs to the Balicki team (team Real).
Did I mention that you need to play different methods for Goulash? Of course, we do not have access to the players’ methods, so your guess will probably be at least as good as ours regarding the meaning of some of the bids. Here, we might guess that Gladysh’s 3NT opening promised a solid suit and 5♦ showed the two aces. Whatever was going on, 7NT was the perfect spot, with precisely 13 top tricks, no more and no fewer, so Gladysh chalked up +2220. Balicki opened the North hand at the other table then, because of the vulnerability, came again with a double of 6♣ at his next turn, despite having a bare minimum opening. Zmudzinski tried each suit in turn before deciding to trust his partner to hold good long spades, while Bezuglaya doubled everything. Six Spades doubled proved to be a wonderful spot. Balicki ruffed the club lead and set about his side-suit, leading a low heart at trick two. Efremov hopped up with the ace and returned his remaining heart. Balicki won the ♥K and now switched his attention to diamonds, leading low to the king and ace. Bezuglaya did not wish to concede a ruff and discard, nor to weaken his trump position, so returned the ♦10. Balicki won the ♦Q and led a diamond back to his nine. Next came a spade to dummy’s nine and Bezuglaya won but was powerless. If he returned a spade, declarer could win and draw trumps, while dummy could take care of a club lead and could then lead winning diamonds. Declarer had the rest for just two down; –300 and 18 IMPs to team Real. West could have done one trick better by ducking the first spade. If declarer plays a second spade, West can win and play a club, shortening declarer and so establishing an extra trump trick for himself. If after the ♠9 scores declarer plays winning diamonds, West can ruff the fifth round and will again come to a low spade in the endgame.
A take-out double at the six level? This is Goulash, and Balicki surely intended his action as being for take-out. Equally clearly, Zmudzinski did not see things the same way. He passed and found that there was no defence to seven, let alone six. That was +1310 to Efremov/Bezuglaya. Gladysh opened the East hand a level lower and was again raised to the six level. Radohleb chose to overcall 6♠ and, having no idea who could make what, Churlin went on to 7♥ with the West hand. It was not too taxing for Chubarova to bid 7♠ as South and now the best Churlin could do was to double. Gladysh led his diamond. Churlin won and switched to a club, which Gladysh ruffed. He returned a trump and, in the fullness of time, Churlin had to come to another diamond trick for down three; –800 but 11 IMPs to Radohleb/Chubarova (team 8-5-0-0). E. Gladysh, I. Churlin, C. Balicki and A. Zmudzinski won by 24 IMPs. They have now won the NN Cup for four consecutive years (the first year with A. Shudnev added). Churlin was also the winner of the previous event so has now won five years in a row. While the bulk of the field came from Russia, it is open to all – there was a team from London this year as well as players from nearby countries – so if this unusual event appeals to you, consider it for next year, so long as it doesn’t clash with the World Championships in Beijing, of course. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |
| Page 4 |
