All News

“A Sad Tail”

Spell “tail” either way and the adjective “sad” could be applied to the performance of the Bridge Blacks on Day 4. A day of what might have been. Their first match on BBO against South Africa saw New Zealand shoot out to a huge lead, only for it almost all to be lost before Michael Cornell secured a 48-35 win (13.52) on the last board.

Next came Israel, a lead of 26 imps with two boards left but a 58-64 imp loss at the end (8.14). Finally, bottom placed United Arab Emirates, surely a hope for a big result but 10 imps out on the last board resulted in a 37-40 imp (9.09 vp) loss.

That left New Zealand still in 13^th place and 13.4 vps behind 8^th placed Australia who had had a big day with big wins over Singapore and Canada and a win over China Hong Kong, 51.8 out of 60 vps for the day. 8^th is not impossible but got a lot harder.

Try this lead:

 

 

2 was Flannery, both majors, 11-15 hcp, normally 4 spades and 5 hearts. 3 showed a minimum hand with a club shortage. Your lead is?

Over to GeO.

"We were up against South Africa, Israel and United Arab Emirates.

In the first match it was kind-of two matches for Nick and me. First half of it was like a beautiful dream, only good boards. And fair enough, the scores were worth imps in with good teammates, and we were up by 38-0 after only five boards!

However, the last half of this match was close to a nightmare. Several bad decisions cost points and it looked like an even match before Mike Cornell sorted it out on the last board.

To bid like they have stolen their cards is usually for youth players. Mike is not exactly a youth player, but here he backed his hand evaluation and went for it.

 

 

3 was preemptive.  Cornell simply bid the game – 4!

This was a really tough game contract, and it is not at all straightforward even with a friendly layout.

Cornell received K lead to the ace. A club lead would have made it slightly harder, but  still it was not a straightforward 10 tricks. It had to be a friendly layout in trumps, and Michael had to guess the spades (where is the jack?) as well.

Cornell ruffed his second diamond in dummy and guessed the spades (playing the pre-emptor for shorter spades)  for a huge +620 copied by only one pair in the Bermuda Bowl. Against us, the South Africans made an overtrick in 3 the board giving us a handy 10 IMPs in to win the match by 48-35 IMPs, 13.52 VPs.

Next was the match against Israel, also on Vu-Graph, same as the first match of the day.

The match against the strong Israeli squad did not start very well.

Whibley-Brown bid a game which failed on a finesse – one down. After a little weird 1NT opening by Israel, they stopped in a part-score, 6 imps out followed by a thin game bid by our opponents, 11 imps more. Israel up by 17 imps after only two boards.

However, on the very next board Ashely Bach struck gold.

Ashely had:

 

 

2 was Flannery, both majors, normally 4 spades and 5 hearts, 11-15 hcp. 3 showed a minimum hand with a club shortage. Your lead is?

 

What would you lead? Ashley chose 3 (3rds and 5ths). And the layout was superb for this lead, the declarer getting a horrible choice for trick two.

 

 

Mike Cornell (East) won the first trick with K in the first trick and played back the 8. It is so easy when we see the whole hand, but you must have sympathy for Padon (South) who played the Q to the second trick. A third diamond to Michaels J followed and declarer took the obvious spade finesse to lose to the singleton king. One down, nearly out of nowhere.

Whibley-Brown also played 4 and Brown received a low spade lead. He didn’t risk the finesse and got rewarded handsomely when he called for the ace, and the king dropped!

NZ + 650, 11 imps back.

Now Padon-Birman seemed almost a little shocked and did not reach a heart contract on a 5-4 fit where Whibley-Brown reached game in hearts! Trumps were 2-2, and opposite a part-score in 2 just making at the other table, the vulnerable game gave New Zealand another 11 imps, NZ up by 22-17. To be fair, if hearts were 3-1, it would have been a fiver the other way.

39 impss exchanged on four boards!

When Israel soon after tried a slam on a finesse (and a little more), and the finesse lost, it was 13 imps more for NZ.

Some part-score swings came too, and after only seven boards, 67 IMPs were exchanged and still there were more to come:

 

 

When Matt Brown (South) opened 1, E/W for Israel were not able to reach the quite good slam.

Where Israel sat N/S, South passed, and Cornell-Bach found 6 after the above 2-over-2 auction.

It was not at all cold, but Ashley was favoured with a spade lead which picked up the J. He drew two rounds of trumps and took a successful ruffing diamond finesse before ruffing a club in dummy. He could return to hand with a high diamond ruff, draw trump and discard another club on the 4^th round of spades. His only loser was a small club. Whew! New Zealand +980 and yet another 10 imps in!

Fun to watch for us who could do that, at a time when most NZ fans probably were asleep.

Have you won a slam with 16 HCPs combined (and 3 of them are QJ doubleton opposite a void)? Alas Board 31 brought very bad news for New Zealand.

 

 

Michael Whibley thought he had his opponents where he wanted them but there was only one trick for the defence. Ashley Bach might have thought likewise:

West              North            East                South

Bach                                       Cornell

1                   2                   3                 3

4                   5                   5                 6

X                      All Pass

 

Cornell led his top diamond, ruffed. Declarer crossed to dummy and played a low heart….to the king! Ouch…21 imps out. 11 more in the same direction on the last board and the match was lost 58-64 (8.14 vps). A massive 122 imps on 16 boards.

Unfortunately, after this sad finish of the middle match, it went from bad to worse when in the third and last match of the day we faced the apparently weak team from United Arab Emirates.

They have gotten a few decent results so far, but mostly big losses. For a while, the match looked like a small win to New Zealand but eventually ended with a 3 imp loss. On the last board UAE won a game when they right sided 3NT and we didn’t.

 
  A "masked" Nick Jacob on his way to the venue

A disappointing day as we got around average when some plus was what we needed to close the gap up to the 8^th place.”

So, a disappointing day and a tough start for Friday with USA 1, table-topping Netherlands and then mid-table India. A day to cement top 8 ambitions, we hope.

The Canadian Women have moved up to 7^th place after small losses to Germany and Hungary and a small win over Denmark.

Richard Solomon

 

Go Back View All News Items