For starters, a little problem from last night’s duplicate. You are in 4♠ on a high heart lead. IMP pairs, south dealer, EW vulnerable. Think about it for a bit while reading the rest of the blog.
In a little less than a month, the European championships are going to start in Dublin. From June 12 to 23, teams from about 34 countries will decide who is the next European champion in the Open, Women and Senior series. With the championship about to start, the country is slowly turning orange again. If you walk through the mall, you’ll see all kinds of orange things and gadget. The Bavaria brewery even introduced team dress (picture below), though with all due respect, I don’t think it is the best outfit for a tournament. If you want one though, go to your local supermarket.
It reminded me of an evening some 15 years ago. A group of players was sitting in the bar having a coffee or a quick meal shortly before game-time when the NPC of the Dutch Ladies Team walked in. He started by ordering a double whiskey, drowned it and ordered a second one. That wasn’t anything like him, so we asked what happened.
Well, he said, today I went shopping with the team for a new team outfit. That meant finding an dress that fitted 6 women, aged about 25 to about 60, sizes ranging from extra-small to extra-large, with orange as one of the main colors. Besides that, all 6 must like it. You can imagine how I feel now. We did and all tossed in a couple of bucks so he could drink for free the rest of the night.
Seriously, most blogs have published their list of who is hot and who is not for the next championships. Here are my lists for the 3 categories. I’m selecting a top 6 in each case, as 6 teams will qualify for the Bermuda Bowl next year.
Open
- Italy.
- Poland.
- Israel.
- The Netherlands.
- Monaco.
- Iceland.
Italy is an obvious bet, given that they won 8 of the last 9 events. Poland may not have had that much success recently but their strongest pair, Balicki and Zmudzinski, is back on the team together with 4 experienced teammates. Israel is represented by a young team, that won both the world juniors and the transnational teams in 2011. One obviously does not want to exclude the current Bermuda Bowl holders, though in the past, the Dutch didn’t have that much success at the Europeans. They always do well against the top teams but seem to be dropping too many points against the weaker teams. In the present format, that is bad. (That brings me to another point, the format of the event, but that is for another blog). Monaco is a new force, having imported two of the strongest pairs in the world, Fantoni-Nunes and Helness-Helgemo. The only downside of this, they have a sponsor and the sponsor has to play in the third pair. While the sponsor is a decent player, he’d probably not be selected to any of the other teams. In the final stages, Monaco most likely will have to play with 2 pairs, that is a disadvantage over the other teams who play with 3. Finally, Iceland, a strong bridge nation for years.
Not in the top 6: Sweden. During Veldhoven, one of the top pairs split up and Sweden is playing here with a new lineup and missing one of their strong players. That is likely going to cost points.
Women
- England.
- France.
- Netherlands.
- Sweden.
- Poland.
- Denmark.
England and France probably have the best teams in the field, with the Netherlands a close third. The only problem for the Dutch: rumor has it that after the event, the pair Michielsen and Dekkers is going to split up and will be playing on different teams next year. That is not a good thing.
Not in the top 6: Germany. Simple, their team used to be carried by Sabine Auken and Daniella von Arnim since the late 1980’s. Auken and von Arnim aren’t available this year and their replacements are definitely not in the same league.
Seniors
- Poland.
- France.
- England.
- Denmark.
- Italy.
- Sweden.
The Seniors series is probably the hardest to call, as there are a fair number of new players and teams involved. Poland and France are fielding teams that would have a decent chance in the open event. The other teams contain players that used to be good in the past, though we have to see if they still play that well.
Not in the top 6: the Netherlands. We have lots of senior pairs that would be capable of winning in Dublin, unfortunately they are not there. Why? There is very little support from the Dutch federation for the senior team and this has the effect that only the pairs who the money to take 2 weeks off can play in the team. Also, he team trials were very short (2 days round robin, 2 days (semi-)finals), even though you’d think that seniors have enough time on their hand to play long trials. The result, a team with 2 non regular partnerships won by a few unconvincing imp’s. They added a 3rd, established pair, but that won’t be sufficient.
For next year, my suggestion would be to drop the senior trials. Take the butler rankings from the national teams events and simply send the first 3 eligible pairs. Use the money saved that way to support the team in their travels.
What about Belgium? The wife and kids are Flemish and always ask me if Belgium participates and, if so, what their chances are. I think that they are small, the teams are composed of players who have played at this level before but with very little success. My prediction for the Belgium teams is that the women and senior teams will score below average, the open team is not going to survive the first phase.
So much for my predictions. In 6 weeks time, I’ll see how I did.
Finally, the 4♠ contract. You have 3 losers (2 clubs and a trump) but you are forced to ruff the first heart, shortening your trump holding and thus losing control. This is what happened to my opponent, she ruffed the ♥A, crossed to the ♦J and took a spade finesse losing to the ♠Q. This might be the correct way to handle the spade suit in isolation, but now west could play a second round of hearts. She was forced to ruff that as well and had lost control.
The solution is to simply cash the ♠AK, then play diamonds, discarding clubs from the dummy. The person with the 3rd trump will eventually ruff a diamond, but after that, you can ruff 3 hearts in hand and a club in the dummy, with the 2 top spades, 3 diamonds and ♣A, that makes 10 tricks.