How I spent my weekend? Well, last Saturday the 25th edition of the annual tournament in Maastricht was played. This is a pub-drive, for those of you not familiar with the concept, this is a tournament played in bars and restaurants all over town, where the players move from one pub to another between rounds. The concept was invented some 35 years ago by a couple of students in Groningen and soon copied by a lot of other towns. Maastricht is a great place for such an event, it probably has the most bars per square meter in the country so distances are short, the weather early September is usually great, and there are lots of good restaurants for a nice dinner after the event. We arrived on Friday night and stayed until Sunday morning, so that meant two good dinners, at Keizer and Bokes, both of them highly recommendable.
Of course, this is not a serious event. Only 33 boards are played by the 300 pair field, and then the field ranges from beginners to Bermuda Bowl winners. That means that there is a lot of luck involved.
Consider this hand, which must be a good candidate for the worst bid and played hand of the year. 2♦ was multi, opening this as a weak 2 is a matter of style. Now, you’d think that with the east hand, you expect to make at least game (5♣ tricks and 5 tricks in partner’s major) and make some forcing move. No, Mrs.East decided that her hand wasn’t worth the 15 count the 2NT bid required in her opinion and bid non-forcing 2NT. Then, 3♠ seems highly illogical, if the hand is worth a 3♠, you should have opened it. Actually, I don’t it is a 3♠ bid. Despite all this, the normal contract was reached. Now for the play...
North not unexpectedly lead a diamond. Play now looks easy: ruff, play a couple of high clubs discarding hearts, then ruff hearts in the hand and diamonds in the dummy. The opponents will eventually score the ♠A but that is about it. At our table though, declarer decided to discard a heart at trick 1 though and south won the trick. South returned a diamond and declarer immediately went up with the ♥K. Down 1, about 3 tricks less than the average.
Another luck factor involves lunch. Lunch is served in the bar where you happen to be after the 4th round. The bars have a budget for the lunch, but vary greatly in cooking skills and equipment. We didn’t have much luck there, soup from a can and some deep fried thing that should pass for a spring roll. Ah well, we weren’t very hungry yet and we did have a good score on the boards we played there. This one was close to a top:
Why west doubled for take-out, then didn’t bid her suit at the 2 level but did introduce it at the 3 level, is beyond me. It confused east as well, as I don’t understand her pass over 3♥ either.
The more interesting point is in the play though. East led a heart, won by the ace, declarer discarding a diamond. Now a diamond from dummy ensures the contract, west can win but is then sort of endplayed. If she plays ♠A and a spade, her natural trump trick disappears. If she plays any another card, declarer can always manage to ruff a diamond and score 9 tricks. Ducking the diamond doesn’t help either, as east will be in the same position.
Needless to say, east wasn’t too pleased with this. It is always interesting to see how weak players blame their partner after a disaster, even when they could have solved the problem themselves. In this case, a raise to 4♥ would lead to a making game or a club lead against 3♠x to defeat it. No, instead she argued that east should have won trick 1, which is kind of impossible on a heart lead.
The tournament is always quite popular amongst players of our club and there is a side-competition who scores best amongst the 7 pairs that participated. The really good news, the wife won that competition with a score of 58.3%. Here is the list of Interbridge pairs and their score.
- Geert (& Henk) 58.0%
- Elianne & Ruurd 56.1%
- Rob & Steinar 53.7%
- Monique & Hans 51.7%
- Veri & Klaas 51.3%
- Berty & Carlijn 50.5%
- Dick & Jaap 45.2%
Next year, the tournament is scheduled for the second Saturday in September, mark your calendars!