The Open Team’s run has now
finished – they did well against Scotland on the last day but then lost heavily
to Norway and took only 16-14 off Slovakia – which left them in a 3-way
split tie for the last qualifying place, but the split tie went in favour of
Latvia. Well done anyway to Paul
Denning & Patrick Shields, Peter Goodman & Adrian Thomas, Dafydd &
Gary Jones – and the NPC, Mike Pownall. Lots of chances to do better and many
instances where 1 more imp would have netted a whole extra VP.
In the Seniors , the Welsh team continued with the
occasional win, the biggest of the 5 being by 28 imps over the Czech Republic
in round 18. They ended in 22nd place (not bottom place like last
time) and with an average score of 10.3 VPs per match. England (current Seniors World
Champions) scored barely above average and ahead of them were Scotland and
ahead of them Ireland.
In the Ladies, Wales also managed 5 wins, the largest
against 20-10 this time against Belarus. The ended in 27th place
(having touched bottom) with an average score of 10.5 VPs per match, down from
an average of 11 VPs in the last event.
The Scottish and Irish Ladies were also below average, but the English
– despite an early high score – only just above average.
Introduction - History - The Teams - Day 1 - Day 2
– Day3 – Day4 – Day 5 – Day6 – Day7
Wales is entering an Open Team
in its sixth European Championship. It is the 50th such championship and starts
on the morning of Wednesday 23rd June. The 38 teams in the Open event are
split into two pools and play a round robin within their pool between that day
and Tuesday 29th. Assuming the Welsh team reach the top 9, they will
continue with another 9-round round-robin starting the day after. Matches
throughout are 20 boards.
In the Seniors competition
the format is a straight round robin, across the 16 teams, and play Sweden,
France and the Netherlands first.
In the Ladies competition the
format is a straight round robin of 27 matches.
It was only after the
Home Country Bridge Unions split from the British Bridge League that
this became possible. The ventures of the Open Team to date have been
.
. The ventures of the
Ladies Team to date have been ....
. The ventures of the
Seniors Team to date have been ....
The Open team is Paul Denning
& Patrick Shields, Peter Goodman & Adrian Thomas, Dafydd & Gary
Jones. NPC is Mike Pownall.
The Seniors team is Diane Harris
& Paul Gagne, Jean & Peter Hand, John Salisbury & Mike Tedd. NPC is Alan Screen.
The Ladies team is Judith Belcher
& Daphne Patrick, Gilly Clench & Laura
Woodruff, Sheila Shea & Beth Wennell. NPC is Mike Close.
Day One for the Open Team
With a delay in the arrival of Peter
& Adrian, the other four went in to bat. The match started with a bang (on BBO)
when the Frenchman sorted his 4504 shape hand as 4324 and opened 1N with a
void! He tried to catch up on the
next round by raising his partner spade transfer to 6S, but this proved too high when he couldn’t handle
the spades all being offside. In the other room their team-mates played in 5D-X
and when the hand with a void trump was on lead and couldn’t lead one,
and a cross ruff allowed 10 tricks – so France only lost 4 imps of that
hand, The French as the better of a
number of games, but lost out on a few part-scores – and thenalong came this as thefinalboard
of the match
|
AQT73 AKQ65 8 A9 |
J JT982 K76 J643 |
Paul Denning opened
this hand with 1C (any 16+ hcp hand) and got a negative 1D from partner, he
rebid 1S and now Patrick Shields bid 2H showing a 5cd suit and 5-7 points.
This excited the strong hand – who could see no way to get partner to
cooperate and just bid 6H. This
put the ball in the court of the defence and when the man led out the DA,
setting up the king, it was all over.
Despite a trump switch with 3 outside winners and 9 tricks on a cross
ruff, the slam was home. |
The second match was against
a weaker Cyprus team and throughout the match Wales only yielded 8 imps, and
most of them came when – in both rooms – the Welsh defender found a
losing lead. Both awkward leads
– in one case the answer was low from KQJ42 in an un-bid suit against
2N, and in the other it meant
leading from one of his AQxx suits against a 2H
contract. Wales gained consistently
through the rest of the match, including this hand on which 5C was reached only
4 times at the 36 tables, and only two of them succeeded.
|
|
Q842 653 974 |
|
With spade tricks,
North very naturally led a club and Shields leapt up with the CA to lead a
spade. The SJ lost to the SQ and back came a second trump – as
expected, picking up the CQ. Now a spade ruff, a diamond over and another
spade ruff bought down the ace.
Back to the DK and draw trumps and that was 11 tricks, for a 2 imp
gain. |
|
KJ872 T9 AK KJ82 |
4 AJ76 J842 AT53 |
||
|
|
K53 QT97 Q6 |
|
The third match let Goodman & Thomas rest and the line
up reverted to that of the first match. It was against Switzerland. Again the team gained consistently,
losing only on two slam hands. One
was just on a finesse for the trump king (a winning finesse, slam bid by the
oppo) and the other was this hand
|
|
J62 QT965 AQT7 |
The
hand was bid to slam at just under half the tables. The Bulgarians who bid 7C must have
been happy to find it a flat-ish board against 6C going
off in the other room. The Swiss bid 2N-3C-3S-3N and that made easily. The
Welsh pair were on their way to 6C when an accident took place and they ended
in 5D – a unique contract across the field. The
lead was the HT and the HQ won the first tricks. Now came DA dropping the DJ
and the D8 which was ducked all round. A club to the CQ was ruffed and by
persisting in the majors East was able to set up an extra trump tricks to go
with the DK and put the contract one off. The
successful line is very difficult to spot – it is to overtake the D8
with the D9 – it costs a second diamond trick but lets you make the
contract – which is more important! If you would have found this,
please tell the Welsh selectors! |
|
|
JT6 8753 J J9832 |
Q432 KT94 K7432 -- |
||
|
|
AQ A8 K654 |
|
The first match was against a tricky
Latvia team and the line up was Denning-Shields and
Goodman-Thomas. The Latvians
could be said to have had the better of the luck – an overcall inhearts kept them out of their 4-4 fit, and they had an
accident and bid a hopeless slam, only to find that game could not make
either, This hand proved a death
trap in a way
|
J864 A64 AK6 AJ4 |
The auction usually
started with 3H – with being red against green, opening 4H just seemed
too much of a stretch. North usually overcalled 3N,but the Latvian man
doubled and South rescued to 3S. With such good trumps and so little outside,
Wales defended and took it four off.
In the other room North bid a more normal 3N and played there. The
lead was two top spades and then a heart switch taken by the ace. The diamond position showed up quickly
and declarer could cash those and read west for a 1714 shape. So he played a
club to the CJ next, losing to the CQ and after cashing DJ, West was end
played to give declarer a trick in either clubs or spades. That was for two down, but a gain of 3
imps. |
||
|
2 KQT8753 2 K875 |
AKQT5 9 J9874 Q2 |
||
|
|
J2 QT53 T963 |
|
Match
ended with a 13 imp win for Latvia. The next match was Hungary, and
Denning-Shields came out to let in the Jones. There were some big slam decisions in
this match, on which Hungary scored well despite good actions by Wales. The
first was
|
|
7642 Q94 JT73 |
The most common
started was (from East) P-1D-1S-X at which point East leaps to 4S and South
continues. Dafydd Jones used 4N to suggest long diamonds and a second 4card
suit, and he got 5C from his dad, which he raised to 6C. This is the only making
slam played from the right hand.
But the opposition continued to 6S and Wales had to settle for
+300. In the other room it
started 1C-P-1H and now east introduced the spades. The effect of this was
that North-South subsided in 5D, and Wales defended that for -600. The real fireworks
was in the Welsh ladies match, where one of ours (I’d never have
guessed which) decided to open 1H with East, after which the opponents
climbed (by a series of diamond raised which sounded non-forcing) to 6D and
that went one off. The opposing
ladies also deemed that hand worth opening, and chose 2H. It’s a very
awkward bid now for South and Laura chose a sensible 3D, but there the
auction ended. Still +150 was worth 6 imps! |
|
|
QT765 Q T875 K92 |
K8423 KJT853 --
84 |
||
|
|
A9 AKJ632 AQ65 |
The other hand was a bidding
exercise too ...
|
KQ43 AT97 KJ84 4 |
AJ987 QJ6 AQ9 A7 |
Most tables (202/36 in
the Open) bid this to 6S but not in this match. Peter Goodman opened the West
hand 1D and raised Adrian’s 1S response to 3S. After some cue bidding
and checking on aces the grand slam look quite good. It would need only a 5cd
diamond suit for the opening bid and east could count five diamonds, five
spades, two aces and a club ruff.
So he bid 7S. Dummy was disappointing in a way but with a heart lead
at trick one he had no option but to finesse and when that worked he clocked
up +2210. The Hungarians did the
same at the other table to make it a flat board. The Welsh ladies bid a sensible 6S but
lost 13 imps to the Portuguese on this hand. |
The third match for the Open team
was Bulgaria – a tough nation to beat. Wales did well here – apart from
four defensive errors which cost 33 imps!
The bid hand was this one
|
|
QJ3 7 K97632 |
West dealt and it went
P-P-1S and now South has a choice.
Of the 36 tables, 7 chose to try for 3N, by bidding 3S (which shows a
solid suit and asks for a stop) and got 3N from North and that contract was
unbeatable. But most Souths chose 5D and played
there. The lead was a spade,
and after winning the SK, the Bulgarian switched to the D8. Paul Denning ran
all his diamonds but in the end position East two hearts and a spade, while
west kept one of each suit and now there was no winning play. When East
returned a major suit after the SK, then the contract made. It was a flat board for both the Welsh
Open team and the Welsh ladies (or nearly flat, one table was 5D-X) |
|
|
743 T952 T2 AQT5 |
AKT982 K876 8 84 |
||
|
|
A4 AKQJ96543 J |
The first match today was against
Germany – one of the favourites within the group. There were some big
hands in this set and some good and some bad decisions made by the
opposition. The biggest swing came
when the Germans bid a grand slam missing a cashable ace, but the suit
wasn’t led and they successfully finesses in a suit with AKJ86 opposite 5432 to make the slam. That cost Wales 15 imps where beating
the slam was worth 15 imps the other way, and that would have changed the 11-19
defeat into an 18-2 win. Wales fell
to 8th place in the group with this loss.
One of the benefits of a multi-2D
showed upon this hand
|
AT93 KJ62 54 |
East opened the
bidding with a multi-2D and it was natural for South to overcall 3C. With three cards in each major
it seems easy for East to support, with 3H (pass or correct). This turns the
spotlight on North and the big question is what does double mean? If it shows hearts you are well off,
since partner will respond to the double with 4H. If it is for takeout (after
all 3H could be passed out) then you can’t double and you have to
gamble 3N. If fact, 4H is not lay
down and went off more often than it made, but it made much more often than
3N made and that was the alternative. But now look at if
West passes – North has no choice but to bid 3N and that drifts 3 off
without any options. In the Welsh match is was 3N in both rooms for a flat
board. |
||
|
A98 862 A943 J96 |
QT7654 54 QT8 A7 |
||
|
KQJ7 75 KQT832 |
But there were plenty of swings in the
match. What would you expect on this hand?
|
QJT984 942 J |
It was EW vulnerable
and dealer East. For Wales Paul
Denning opened 2C (Precision style, promising at least 6 cards) and the German sitting South gave up all
chance of a constructive auction for his side, bidding 5D. West pondered but felt a slam was too
much and doubled. The club lead was ruffed but the defence go their three
spades and the heart ace for +300. Poor recompense for +1370, but of course
North South will sacrifice over that. In the other room it
started 1C-3C, this last bid from Peter
Goodman, hoping to get to 3N but this was not to be and when the smoke
cleared the final contract was 6D-X by South, over the attempt by EW to play
in 5S The lead was HA (which can
lead to +800) but then a spade switch. East tried to put his partner in with
a club for a heart ruff but declarer ruffed and grabbed his 11 tricks, for a
5 imp gain to Wales. |
||
|
985 A652 87 AKT7 |
AKQ8 --
3 Q9875432 |
||
|
|
K73 AKQJT65 -- |
The next match was Lithuania who
were lying 18th out of 19th , and Wales played well
(without Denning-Shields) to take the maximum of 25 VPs. Two boards were
interesting
|
A742 4 QT965 |
The auction always led
to 4S, sometimes by one hand and sometimes by the other. The lead from either
defender was most often a diamond and declarer inevitably ran it round to
hand. In this match it was D4 led
and declarer played a spade to the SK and SA, after which a lazy South would
give partner a diamond ruff and find that declarer’s losing club
disappears on the fourth diamond and the contract makes. What South must do it
recognise – from the S9 although North can make it easier by inserting
the SJ – that partner’s ruff would be with a trump trick and so
the defence needs a club trick and a heart trick to defeat four spades. A
club switch ensures that. Sad to
say flat in 4S making in this match, and defeated less than one third of the time across
the field. |
||
|
Q753 K6 AKT5 A72 |
K862 QJ98 Q83 J8 |
||
|
T53 J9762 K43 |
And then
|
A Q7432 K4 AKQ32 |
K84 K65 AT2 J954 |
For Wales Peter &
Adrian bid up to 6C,clearly the better slam. They found a singleton club in one
hand and now played the other hand for the doubleton HA and were duly
rewarded with +920. In the other
room the opposition bid up to 6H and the Jones led the singleton club and
could not be denied a ruff to beat 6H, even if declarer guessed the heart position
correctly. This 14 imp swing was the largest of the set. |
In round nine, Wales were due to
play Albania but they had withdrawn late, and teams were now given a BYE as a
replacement. Wales clocked up 18
VPs for that (just like everyone else).
This day was the 50th
celebration ceremony for European Team Championships, so it was kept to a
single match. At least for most
teams. On the day before England
and Sweden had played their match sitting the same way round in both rooms
– all boards cancelled – and they replayed the match today. And the Seniors event started –
with their first two matches. Wales
played tough teams in that – Sweden and France and lost to both, but by
less than 20 imps in each, so they were – after two rounds –
sitting on the same score as the current Senior World Champions (England). The Welsh Ladies continued to struggle.
The Welsh Open Team match was
against Finland. This was a very tight match the score line ending 15-24 in
favour of Finland, of which the largest swing was 7 imps, There were no
spectacular hands – this one gained Wales 5 imps ...
|
QT2 KT632 T964 |
The contract was 2S
by West in both rooms, and both declarers were treated to a diamond lead,
round to the queen, and they cashed the SA. The Finn played another spade and
Peter Goodman won and cashed another, before returning a diamond. Declarer
won DA and tried a heart to towards hand but didn’t play the king and
North won. Now diamond ruffed and CA and another club, but Peter played a third
club but when declarer ruffed that he had to lead away from his heart king
and lost three heart tricks. Patrick Shields made
it rather more easily by playing DA and a diamond ruff before the second
spade. Now South had to open up a rounded suit and chose a small heart after
which it was plain sailing to8 tricks whatever the heart layout. |
||
|
A7432 K975 Q9 A8 |
QT65 J83 A74 J53 |
||
|
A64 J85 KQ72 |
Day Five for the Open Team (Rounds 11-13)
The three matches today are
contenders for the second stage and first match was Croatia. There were some
spectacular hands in this ...
|
62 QT3 K97642 |
South opened the
bidding, usually one spade – and West introduced an unusual no
trump. When Netherlands against
the Welsh seniors tried 2N, it went pass and partner passed, and there they played
three off. In the other room East chose 3H over 2N and the doubling started
and ended in 5D with a penalty of -500. In the Open Team
match, the Croatians bid 4N over 1S- which was either the minors or a very
big hand with diamonds and hearts. When East chose 5D, it got passed out and
the defence collected 6 tricks for +200. For Wales, it went 2N-P-P-X and West
removed to 3C and played there going two off. |
||
|
--
--
AJ7542 AQJT853 |
K98762 KJT874 6 --- |
||
|
AQ853 K98 -- |
And the final hand was
|
--
8 QJ98732 |
West opened a strong
club against Wales and Shields overcalled 1S. East passed – which
showed a game forcing hand – and South raised to 4S. West doubled and
East now came out with 6H. When that came round to North, he sacrificed in
6S. The lead was DK and then HQ, ruffed. Next came CQ, a heart ruff, a club
ruff and a spade off dummy. When West played low (the SJ is worth a trick)
the ST won and now there were 10 tricks. In the other room the
bidding stopped (!) in 4S-X and after a similar start, declarer led the SQ as
his first trump and now the defence was a trick better off and that was
4Sx-1, for 7 imps away. Across the 18 tables, the contract was 7H making
twice,6H making 15 times, 9 only in game, and the rest in club and spade
sacrifices. |
||
|
KJ8 AJ AQT32 A54 |
--
QT9876543 K9 KT |
||
|
K2 J7654 6 |
Wales lost the match by 2 imps in the
end, and then the Open Team went on to play Iceland, who were current
leaders. There were game swings
each way but the margin ended as 10 imps to Iceland. We bid this hand well
|
JT8 AK97 J52 AK9 |
AKQ7643 T82 T Q4 |
The Jones started
1H-1S-1N showing 15-17 hcp, and then the 2C enquiry got a 2S response showing
3 card support. Dafydd was now able to bid a splinter 4D, at which point the
other hand could see all his points were working and they soon reached the
slam. In the Seniors match, Wales had to contend with an opening bid in front
of the strong N hand and missed the slam, to lose 13 imps. In the Ladies Gilly
Clench & Laura Woodruff started the same way as the Jones but over 1N bid
a self agreeing 4D splinter and quickly reached the slam to gain 13
imps. Over the three matches,
Wales broke even on this hand! |
And the last match of this day for
the Open Team was Turkey, and on this match they gained fewer imps than any
other match – just 4 imps over 20 boards! We were unlucky in bidding a slam with
AKT753 of trumps opposite 43 doubleton, but they broke 4-1 and that cost Wales
Open 11 imps. In the Ladies match it was a flat board in game, but in the
Seniors both teams bid a slam. John Salisbury & Mike Tedd bid the expected
slam and suffered the bad break, but their opposition bid a much worse 6S slam
in a suit which broke 3-3 with the queen onside, and got away with it. So two of the three Welsh teams lost out
by bidding the good slam. One interesting hand was this
|
KT32 KQ2 T8 |
The contract was
nearly always 3N by West, which gives North a lead problem. The Turks chose a
heart giving declarer a heart trick and Peter Goodman tried a spade towards
the queen for his 9thtrick and that failed. The most common lead –
found by Patrick Shields in the other room – was a middle spade round
to the queen, About half the field made the game, but declarer still needs
one extra trick to make the contract. The winning choice
when North wins a diamond is a top spade, pinning declarer’s S9 but
Shields couldn’t tell which major was declarer’s doubleton and
switched to hearts, giving declarer a trick there, and his contract. |
||
|
Q9 A98 A876 AK32 |
A763 J74 T3 QJ95 |
||
|
Q65 J954 764 |
Day Six for the Open Team (rounds 14-16)
First match of day six was
Serbia. There were few swings
but one of the largest out was this instructive hand ...
|
9 943 AQJ53 |
The bidding started
from West 1H-X-XX-1N, and this was passed around to East who doubled
again. North took fright
(sensibly) and bid 2C over which West competed with 2S and there matters
rested. With no attractive lead North settled for D4 to the DK. South
switched to trumps, after which the contract always makes The important thing
now for South to realise is that the diamonds are now running and declarer
has two entries to them. He knows from the bidding the shape of all the
hands, He must therefore set to
work to remove those entries, by returning either a club or a diamond and if
he does so the contract goes off.
Since they chose to play 1N-X in the other room, and that makes, we
went minus in both rooms. |
||
|
KQJ3 KJ432 QT T6 |
875 Q7 AJ865 K87 |
||
|
AT865 K72 942 |
After that match we went up against
lowly placed Lebanon. But however lowly
placed, they were only averaging 2-3 VPs per match less than us – which
means a narrow win would be matching current form – matches are rarely
easy! This curious hand was
flat in the Wales-Lebanon match in 4S (and in the Welsh ladies against Austria)
but at the same time Wales Seniors were playing Scotland and it wasn’t there ..
|
9864 A54 Q5 AQ86 |
AKT72 T62 AKTJ2 -- |
The Hands bid this
hand 1N-2H-2S-3D-4S and then East continued with 5C as a slam try and Willie Coyle,
unfortunately for Scotland, doubled this for a club lead (with the king) and
when the slam was then bid, the club lead let the two losing hearts from
dummy be discarded. This went with 6S on a heart lead in the other room,
going one off, for a 14 imp gain to Wales (but Scotland did win the match in
the end). |
And there was this fascinating hand
|
94 Q3 QJ652 |
The contract was
often 4H on this hand and the likely lead was the DJ. Most declarers played three rounds of diamonds
and North ruffed the third round to lead a spade through. This gave the
defence three tricks and left declarer with the issue of picking up trumps
and he could do this my ruffing a club, running HJ and then cashing HK, and
ruffing a second club to get back to draw trumps. It looks like playing
trumps instead of spades works better – as declarer can get left with
three spade losers, but declarer can counter by drawing just two trumps and
then playing off his last two diamonds. If South ruffs in he is end played,
and if he doesn’t then dummy’s spades go away and declarer gets a
spade ruff! |
||
|
62 K62 K96 KT983 |
K83 AJT73 A7542 --- |
||
|
Q85 JT8 A74 |
The match was a narrow win for Wales
(16-14) and then came Italy – many times world champions, The main theme of the match was the
games which were making on minimal values – and the Italians picked up ontwo of these of which we had no sniff. We also made the
odd mistake and there was this hand ...
|
AJ9832 AKQ832 A |
The contracts ranges
from 1H by North (yes, Monaco against Sweden for a 12 imp gain) through to
7H-X going two off. In our match Peter Goodman’s gadget came into play.
As West he opened 2D showing a club pre-empt and after the next hand doubled,
Adrian Thomas bid 6C. This contract is making but the Italian North continued
over that with 6D and when that was doubled ran to 6H. In the other room
Patrick Shields opened a strong forcing 1C as North, Sementa
doubled and Paul Denning passed showing 0-4 hcp. After 1D from East, North
continued with a forcing 2H and the Welsh pair were able to agree hearts and
ask about key cards, before stopping in 6H. Unfortunately 6H can’t be made,
although a few did. Cyprus opened 2D and were doubled-P-P and decided that
wasn’t enough, so the man bid 3D and was doubled there and now that was
game, so he was happy with +1070 and 15 imps. |
||
|
QT2 ---
J764 J97653 |
AKJ9 QT65 --- KQT82 |
||
|
K74 T95 4 |
The last qualifying day for the Open
Team started with Scotland. There
were plenty of double figure swings here, four in favour and two against, which
left Wales ahead 22-8 in VPs. The most interesting hand was flat in this match
...
|
K 9642 42 |
The contract was 4H just
about everywhere after North had bid spades. South led a top club and often played
a second before thinking through the continuation. When they found North had a doubleton
club they didn’t know whether to play a spade through the king for two
tricks there, or a third club.
Wales & Scotland got it wrong. The right answer is
not to cash a second club but t playa spade first. When partner wins the SA
and returns a club, you know the only chance is the club over-ruff, and that
duly takes the contract one off.
About one third of the field in the Open defeated 4H, and not all of
them were played by East. In the
Seniors, the Poles found the recommended defence against Peter Hand to defeat
his 4H. |
||
|
K92 QJ7 AQJ73 93 |
Q6 A65432 ---
QJT75 |
||
|
|
75 987 KT85 AK86 |
|
And the penultimate board was this
|
KJT82 QJT T876 |
South was dealer at
love all. What is your opening
bid? In the Ladies match it was
2S and 3H( a transfer pre-empt). In the Open match, it was 3S and 4S. In the Seniors – I cannot report
4S and 5S, as this was board 18 and the Seniors only played 1-16 of each
set!. In the Ladies match
both East-Wests reached 6D, Laura Woodruff by
competing (with 4S!!) after 3H-P-3S-P-P, and the opposition by bidding
directly over 2S. In the Open
Team match the 4S pre-empt won the day and it went P-P-P (a double in fourth
would have been takeout). In the
other room West competed over 3S with 4D, showing diamonds and hearts; East
cue bid 4S and South made a useful double – suggesting to partner not
to lead a spade. North happily doubled 6D, but I am told he is a little deaf
and he didn’t hear the message about spades, so he led one and that was
-1540 and 16 imps away. |
||
|
6 AQ764 K9432 9 |
AKQ74 5 A875 KQ3 |
||
|
|
JT9853 93 --- AJ542 |
|
Next the Open Team faced Norway, on
BBO, having recently beaten some of the same team in the semi-final match in
the Spring Fours. The Norwegians
made a couple of tight games on favourable opening leads – which might
have been avoided but are hardly criminal.
They also got to an excellent slam by opening 1C on QT4 – 52 – K7 –
AJ9752 and finding partner with a
suitable 18-count. Without the C9
it is a terrible slam to be in, but with it, it is excellent! We were never in danger of winning
the match, but could have done a little better. On this hand both declarers showed good
technique
|
7643 AT96 2 |
The contract was 4S
by West against silent opposition, and North led the C2. This was run to the CK and Paul Denning
returned a high club for a ruff.
Next came DA and another (ignoring that signal from partner, which
more than anything denies the DK). Declarer now had to find the trump queen.
He cashed the SK and led out the SJ.
With two trumps missing and South known to have 5 clubs more than
North, he recognised the odds and finessed – successfully. Dafydd Jones did the same for Wales in
the other room, as did Paul Gagne in the seniors match (but his opponent
didn’t!) In the Open event, 14
of the 18 declarers who got the C2 lead against 4S, made the contract.. |
||
|
KJT83 9 K852 Q73 |
|
A92 AKT5 QJ7 A65 |
|
|
|
5 QJ82 43 KJT984 |
|
The Welsh Seniors were also playing
Norway on this same set of hands. While the Open Team lost, the Seniors team won
(by 24 imps)!
The final match before the cut-off
in the Open event was against Slovakia – a team further down the table,
but who had averaged only 1-2 VPs per match less than Wales. There is not much to report about the
Open Team result except it was a 16-14 win and we needed 17-3 (an extra 6 imps)
to avoid the split tie for last qualifying place. Unfortunately we had lost to
Latvia and they had also beaten Hungary, so they went through.
Overall it can’t be labelled a
bad performance by the Welsh Open Team,
being the first time their score was above average at the end of one of
these events. Clearly there were chances to do better in absolutely every
match, although some matches would have been impossible to win.
This last round for the Open team
did see some successes for Wales elsewhere. In the Ladies, for instance
|
953 A863 AKJ7 A7 |
AQJT642 54 Q4 64 |
Sheila Shea opened 1D
with the strong balanced hand and when Beth Wennell
leapt to 4S (you can hardly bid less), she continued with Roman Key Card Blackwood
and they bid 6S. With a diamond
or trump lead you are cold, and if not it needs a finesse. They led the HT
but Beth cashed three diamonds throwing a heart before taking the trump
finesse (not the best line, but the winning line) |
At this time the welsh Seniors
played the current Seniors World Champions – England, and it the main
swings were one slam each way, but a few part scores went to England and Wales
lost 12-18. This was the Welsh success
|
J5432 T A843 AK8 |
AQT9 AKQ QJ97 Q3 |
There was a weak 2H
opened in front of the J5432 of spades and Mike Tedd determined sensibly that
the suit was not suitable for an overcall – he doubled and when the
bidding tray came back to him he saw
P-6N-P. John
Salisbury’s contract depended on one of two finesses and one worked and
one didn’t. In the other
room Jean Hand had opened a multi-2D and the J5432 of spades snow had to
pass, and the English couldn’t catch up after than and stopped in 3N. |
Probably the end of the reporting of
hands.