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Our Open Team started the day against top placed Sweden. A really bloody board helped one of these countries to score an excellent win. See if you would have avoided going for -1100.

			Open						Women						Seniors
				NZ Score						NZ Score						NZ Score
Sweden		50-36		13.75		Brazil		22-33		6.96		Sweden		29-68		2.03
Egypt		24-32		7.71		Indonesia		18-63		1.34		Guadeloupe		40-29		13.04
Australia		30-52		4.62		USA 2		11-46		2.55		USA 2		13-56		1.56

 

Our Open Team started the day in 11^th place, had one great win and then two losses to end 13^th.  No joy for our other two teams apart from the Seniors’ win over bottom placed Guadeloupe. Our Women have now dropped to 18^th while our Seniors remain 20^th. Ironically, when both teams played USA 2, the Seniors were playing the competition leaders while our Women were playing a team in the bottom half. The results were uncannily similar.

Round 13

Sweden had made it to the top of the leader-board before they played our Open Team. Thus, our victory was an excellent performance. The biggest amount of imps came our way on Board 12.

 

Ashley’s 3 was more pre-emptive than constructive with South still thinking it was their hand. They changed their mind when Michael Cornell “saw red” literally as the Swedes stayed and played in his 6 card suit. The K cut out those spade ruffs and the end result was 5 down, + 1100 to New Zealand.

Note both Ashley’s pre-emptive raise and then his pass of 4x on barely an opening hand. If the above was the champagne, then the swing was won equally at the other table in less dramatic fashion:

West               North              East                 South

                        Tislevoll                                  Ware

1                    Pass                 2                    x

3                    Pass                 3                    All Pass

3 was a natural game try, declined by East. Michael Ware then made one of his wisest passes of the week, saving his partner from an ugly fate. They defeated 3 by one trick to earn New Zealand 15 imps.

Board 11 was interesting and produced Kiwi imps too:

 

Ashley was looking for a heart hold for no trumps when he bid 3…but that was all for another day. Michael Cornell realised his partner was likely to have a long minor but his own spade suit looked quite impressive too…hence 4. 5 by South is cold and Michael did very well to bid 6 (presumably pass or correct to diamonds). He played peacefully there for down two.

Meanwhile, with presumably no opening bid to show his hand type, Michael Ware made up for this in the following auction:

West               North              East                 South

                        Tislevoll                                  Ware

                                                                        Pass

1                    2                    x                      4

5                    Pass                 Pass                 5

6                    Pass                 Pass                 x

All Pass

2 showed the majors which attracted East (“please play this in spades”…hence the double) and was attractive to Michael in the South seat as well. He had a “slight” preference for hearts over the other major and bid twice to the North-South maximum. His double of 6 had a touch of “please lead something unusual, partner” about it….and GeO did just that, a spade lead. Thus, Michael scored two ruffs along with two red suit tricks for the defence…+500 and 9 imps in.

It all got very high at Vivien Cornell and Shirley Newton’s table:

West               North              East                 South

                        Cornell                                   Newton

                                                                        2

3                    4                    Pass             4

5                    5                    6               Pass

Pass                 6                    6                Pass

7                    Pass                 Pass                 x

All Pass.

That netted the Kiwis +500 but was alas 4 imps out when 5x made in the other room, -650.

Round 14

The Open Team’s opponents, Egypt,  were less than 3 vps behind the Kiwis at the start of this match and moved three places and 2 vps ahead (into 8^th) at the end. It was pretty tight around 8^th – 12^th place (under 3 vps). Board 18 kept our loss in the match to just 8 imps:

 

Ware-Tislevoll (N/S) doubled their opponents in 4 which proved too hard to make, failing by one trick. Defending 4 was excellent as at most tables, North continued on to 5, doubled by East and usually two down for +500. That was the score Brown- Whibley brought to the score-up, earning their country 12 imps.

Round 15

The Open Team’s match against Australia started so well when Ashley Bach found a much better lead than his Australian South. From a sequence like:

West                           East

                                    2NT

3D(transfer)               3

3NT                              Pass

What would be your choice with:

 A985              7                    9763              9432

Ashley chose a spade and David Beauchamp a diamond. These were the four hands:

 

The Kiwis took 5 tricks in defence and the Australians just 2. That was 11 imps in and 11 more followed immediately when Whibley – Brown bid a small slam which the Australians did not. Then 2 slam swings changed the match in Australia’s favour. Firstly, Bach- Cornell bid 6 where there were two unavoidable side-suit losers but the Australians bid a very low point count slam on the next board where there were no losers.