| 10th World Youth Team Championship | Page 3 | Bulletin 1 - Monday 8 August 2005 |
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Best of the Europeans The European Youth Championships, deciding the qualifiers for next year’s World Youth Championships, were held just a couple of weeks ago in the superb Italian coastalresort town of Riccione. As we have not, of course, played any bridge yet in this championship in Sydney, we thought that perhaps you might like to take a look at a little of the best of the action in today’s bulletin. Operation Successful – Both Patients Died By Barry Rigal Eldad Ginossar of Israel was full of praise for Thomas Bessis’s attempts to make consecutive game contracts on two deals from the Round 10 Juniors match between Israel and France.
Ophir Reshef, having shown a limited two-suiter with his 2♥ opening bid, led the jack of clubs against 3NT, zero or two higher. Bessis won the ♣K and cashed the ace and king of diamonds, getting the bad news. Now he tried the effect of exiting with the ten of clubs to South’s queen! Had Reshef taken all his club winners, North would have been squeezed in spades and diamonds, but Reshef could see the danger and carefully cashed only three clubs, North pitching an encouraging heart. Reshef switched to a low heart, dropping declarer’s bare ace, and Bessis cashed two top spades, hoping to drop an honour from South so that North could be endplayed with the fourth diamond to lead into the ♠Q9. When that too failed, he had to go one down. But very well played and also well defended. Incidentally, had South actually held a doubleton spadehonour, he would have had to cash one less club before finding the heart play. Now North will still have a second heart with which to get off lead should declarer try for the endplay and South will win a heart and his remaining club tricks.
Two No Trump would have made, but Gaviard tried to play the known five-three spade fit and Bessis raised himself to game. Reshef, suspecting that his partner was probably 4-1-4-4 from the auction, cashed the ace of hearts then shifted to a club, ducked to the queen. Back came a trump and Bessis, who did not know that North had four spades, hoped that he might be 4-2-3-4, and ran the spade switch to dummy’s eight! Unlucky – Bessis had his entry to dummy but the five-one heart split was too much for him. Had hearts divided four-two, he could have ruffed a heart, drawn trumps, then used the ace of clubs as an entry to run the hearts.
Thomas Bessis was also the hero of this deal earlier in the match. After a strong and artificial 2♣ opening, Ginossar declared 4♥ on the lead of the two of diamonds. He won in hand and led a low. Bessis took the ♥Q and got out with a heart to declarer. Ginossar drew another round of trumps then played the king of spades so Bessis took the ace and returned a spade. Ginossar ran his winners to come down to:
When the last heart was cashed, Bessis carefully threw the ace of clubs to avoid the endplay, so the contract was one down. Belgian Brilliancy Almost everyone went three down in 3NT on this deal from Round 8 of the Juniors and Girls series, but Steven de Donder of Belgium brought his contract home in the match against Czech Republic in the Juniors.
At almost every table the auction was a simple 2NT – 3NT or something similar and East led a spade to the queen and king. Most declarers led out ace and another diamond, hoping that East would have to win the trick and would not be able to attack spades effectively. Of course, that did not work out so well for declarer and there was a string of –150s on the vugraph screen. De Donder looked more deeply into the hand. He saw that East could, and surely should, unblock the king of diamonds from a doubleton and that, even if he did not do so, there would still be the possibility of his switching to a heart with good effect should West have the ace of that suit. At trick two De Donder led the seven of hearts to dummy’s king and continued with a low diamond to his jack. That lost to the king but East was powerless. If he defended passively then the ♦Q would fall under the ace and declarer would have all the tricks he required to bring home his contract, so East played ace and another spade, more in hope than expectation. That gave De Donder two overtricks for a great +460 and 12 IMPs to Belgium. Note that the even club break means that it is no use for East to win the heart at trick two. If he does so then clears the spades declarer has two tricks in each major, one diamond and four clubs – nine in all. Nicely played. Dutch Stepping Stone Netherlands defeated Poland 22-8 in Round 6 of the Girls Championship, with this well-played hand from Meike Wortel contributing significantly to the margin of victory.
The Polish West led the king of diamonds and collected a discouraging five from her partner. West saw no attractive switch so continued with the queen of diamonds anyway, won by Wortel’s ace. She cashed the king of clubs then did very well to run the eight of spades to East’s bare ace. East erred by returning the ♦10 to declarer’s jack and Wortel led a spade to the nine then cashed dummy’s two club winners. The second of those clubs forced West to come down to two hearts if she wanted to keep her diamond winner but that was not good enough in this ending.
Now Wortel could cash the queen of spades and play the ♥K. West could duck to prevent an entry to declarer’s hand but a second heart now forced her to win and, after cashing the diamond winner, West was obliged to return a spade for declarer tin the last trick with her king; nine tricks. Note that, had East retained the ♦10, playing back the ♦3 when she won the spade, West could have put her in with it to cash a club at the end for down one. Still, a nice stepping stone squeeze for Meike Wortel and the Dutch Girls, on their way to winning the second European Girls Teams Championship. Strip and Endplay Turkey had two good wins in the Junior series on Friday, including one over Poland. This nice endplay by Huseyin Gurcan Bakan contributed to the Turkish success.
For Poland, Konrad Araskiewicz made the normal lead of a low spade into the 15-17 no trump on his right and Bakan ran this to his queen then repeated the spade finesse and cashed the ♠A. Next he passed the ♣10 to South’s jack and Araskiewicz was in difficulties. He solved his problem by exiting with the king of diamonds to declarer’s king but the reprieve was only temporary. Bakan won the ace of diamonds and ruffed a diamond then led the ♣9 to queen and ace. Next came the key play, a second diamond ruff. When Bakan now played the third club to Araskiewicz’s king, South had only hearts left and had to lead up to declarer’s king to give the contract. Very nicely played.
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