I said this about this hand: “At the other table, it looks as if north miss-sorted his hand, the convention card lists 2♠ as 5♠-5♦/♣. West had a take-out double and east a penalty pass. Down 4, for 16 imp’s and about 4 VP’s down the drain”. One of the players (thanks, Simon)involved pointed out that the vuegraph data was incorrect here: in fact, the auction went as shown in the new diagram. North opened a strong 1NT, south bid 2♣ as “garbage Stayman” (bid Stayman, pass any response hoping that that is a better contract than 1NT), 2♠ from north, 2 passes and a balancing double, passed by east. Well done by west to balance here and a well deserved 16 imp to the Dutch.
Despite this good result, overall the Dutch didn’t play well. With 1 match to go in the qualifying rounds, they were in 4th position, 8 VP ahead of Spain and Belgium, tied for 5th at that time. Their last match was against Spain, so to stay ahead, they needed to score at least 12VP. At the same time, Belgium shouldn’t score more than 21 VP. In the end, it did work out nicely. The Dutch lost their match 12-18 VP, Belgium won, but only by 16 VP. Close, very close, but sufficient.
On Wednesday, the top 16 teams entered the KO phase. Holland was lined up against France. France used to be a strong bridge nation until somewhere in the late 1990’s. The old generation of players retired but the younger ones weren’t quite ready to take over. Also, standard French bidding had not seen much development since the 1980’s and became outdated, in particular in the area of competitive bidding, by then. This latter trend has reversed in the last years, and the French do use more modern methods, but the current team is decent, but not strong.
That said, things didn’t start off well for the Dutch, at the halfway point, the French were leading by 42 imp’s. That prompted my friend Tracy, a big fan of the Dutch team, to post on Facebook that it was time for her to get in her car, drive over, and tell the players in no uncertain terms that they must play better. This posting alone helped a lot. The following morning, the Dutch started off with a 16-board segment of 71-5 imp’s, followed by another one of 71-24. The last set was a formality, the Dutch won the match by 60 imp’s.
Now, rumor has it that the Dutch team will be looking for a new NPC soon. If that is really the case, then I suggest to appoint Tracy, if one can motivate a team with a Facebook posting from 500km away, imagine what she can do for the team when she is at the venue.
How do you score 142 imp on 32 boards? This one certainly helped. In the open room, the auction started 1♠-2♣-2♦-5♣ and then BBO data is inconclusive. Whatever happened, the interference by NS was more than the French could handle and they ended up in 6♦. Down 1, as there was no way to avoid 2 trump losers. In the other room, Muller and de Wijs had one of their relay auctions, with east asking the questions and east showing 5-4-1-3 shape, with 4 controls, the ♠Q, ♥A and ♦A and finally denying top cards in ♣. Muller bid 7♥, which looks like a bit of an overbid to me. You have to ruff the expected club lead in the hand with the stronger trumps, score 2 diamonds ruffs and still be able to collect trumps. That requires trumps to be 3-2 (68% of the cases) and no handling problems in diamonds or spades. I haven’t calculated it exactly, but even if your side has the ♥J, grand slam figures well below 50%.
In practice, there was a winning line and de Wijs did spot it: club lead ruffed, ♥K, small to the ♦A, ♠A, diamond ruff, ♠K and a diamond ruff with the ♥A and a trump to the ♥10. Note that it is essential to ruff the 3rd diamond with the ♥A and take the heart finesse. If you ruff small, north cannot overruff, but there is no way to return to the hand to draw the remaining trump. +2210, a 20 imp swing to the Dutch.
There were more spectacular results on this board. Look at what happened in the match between Monaco, one of the favorites, and Canada, a clear underdog. After 63 boards, Canada was leading by 15 imps when this hand came up. In one room, Helness-Helgemo bid to 6♥ and made that after a club lead: ruff, diamond to the ace, club ruff, 2 top hearts and when spades behaved, he had 12 tricks.
In the other room, something went horribly wrong as this was the auction.
The first 4 bids were natural and a game-forcing situation was established. 3♣ showed some club values and now east tried 5♣ as exclusion Blackwood: asking for aces outside the club suit. Whether this was not properly discussed, east forgot that this did not apply here, or west lost concentration, we don’t know for sure, but west took 5♣ as natural and passed. Down 6, for a 19 imp loss. Canada did recover in the next set, but lost the final one.
Quarter finals are today and tomorrow, the Dutch will be playing Monaco. That match is too close to call. If you like to try though, go to the bridgewinners.com site, they have a game where you can predict the results of the KO stage.