MSO World: Bridge Articles

For nine days at the end of July and beginning of August the Swedish Bridge Federation hold a major congress in Skovde, 100 miles north-east of Gothenburg. While there is talk of making a major Pairs event open to all-comers next year, currently there are only relatively minor Pairs events open to foreign players. The congress features the finals of a series of national Pairs championships for which home players have had to pre-qualify.

Glen Holman, Chris Jagger, John Young and I went to play in the Chairman's Cup, an excellent teams competition over six days. The first two days consist of a 20 x 6-board Swiss teams matches, at the end of which the top 28 teams out of the field of 68 have qualified for the knock-out stages. Finishing positions in the Swiss are of crucial importance because for each round of the knock-out the winners of the Swiss get choice of opponents from the bottom half of the rest of the field, in Round 1 that means from the teams placed 15-28. The second team gets to pick from what is left, then the third and so on, until the 14 qualifier gets the team that nobody wants to play against. It is actually better to qualify 15th than 14th, because having to meet the team that nobody wants round after round means that the 14th qualifiers have a really tough time of it.

This year, the eventual winners, featuring one pair who are representing Sweden in the World Teams Olympiad in Maastricht plus two other strong international pairs, somehow managed to qualify in only 27th place. Sure enough, the strong Danish squad who were 14th were left to play them and duly went out. That meant that the winners took over the 14th seeding position.

The first two rounds of knock-out are over 32 boards and while the first round is being played there is a one-session repechage Swiss to qualify two teams to join the knock-out for the round of 16. From the quarter-finals onwards, the matches are over 64 boards, and the losing semi-finalists play a 32-board match to decide third place. My team qualified in fifth place and won the two 32-board matches well enough. At the quarter-final stage, the winners of the Swiss, Daniel Auby's team, chose to play us. After being behind after the first set, we gradually inched our way into the lead and held on to win by 16 IMPs. In the semi-final we met a powerful squad of Swedish internationals who beat us fairly comfortably then went on to lose the final by a single IMP. In the third-place play-off, I felt that we had a little the worse of the luck in losing by 6 IMPs. The eventual winners were P.O. Sundelin, Johann Sylvain, Tommy Gullberg, Lars Andersson, Fredrik Nystrom and Peter Stromberg.

This is not an event for the casual congress-goer, unless he is happy to play in side events for a few days after getting knocked out, but for serious partnerships it offers an excellent week of bridge and, if the major Pairs event open to outsiders does happen next year, it will be even better. The congress venue offers cheap accommodation and reasonably priced food, so it need not be an expensive week.

The two deals I have to offer you are both from our quarter-final match against the Auby team and feature some imaginative bidding, as you will see.

Board 34. Dealer East. N/S Vul.

A Q J 10 9 8 6 5 2

K 9 7 6

	N
W		E
	S

7 3

A K 8 6 3 2

Q 10 9 7 4

A 9 8 3

K 10 7 4

J 4

Q 3

J 5

Q J 6 5 2

A 10 8 5 2

West	North	East	South
	Holman		Senior
		1	Pass
2NT	3	Pass	5
5	6	Pass	7
Pass	Pass	7	Dble
All Pass

Curious bidding, wouldn't you say? The 1 opening was allegedly 8-15, so was only one point short of what it promised, and 2NT showed a game raise with a shortage somewhere. Now Glen decided that what he needed to know about was my club holding. There was no way that 3 was going to get passed out so….
East's pass over 3 denied a singleton or void club and naturally enough I made a raise to game. When Glen bid 6, I thought for a long time. I confess that his actual shape never occurred to me - since it seemed that he ought to have bid 6 to make, I assumed a massive 7-6 hand. Well, the K had to be gold dust, and I had not actually promised the A either, so eventually I bid 7. When East bid 7, I doubled because I did not want to hear Glen bid 7. Why, when I was willing to play 7? Because I assumed that west's shortage was in clubs and that it was a void. Seven Spades would go down after a double and a club lead.

Despite the double, Glen thought for some time before passing 7 doubled. He asked again about the meaning of the auction and it now transpired that West's shortage had to be a singleton, not a void. I'm afraid that I showed an ignorance of the rules now because had I called the director before partner had called I could have changed my own call, given that it had been affected by misinformation. For sure, had I not doubled 7, Glen would have bid 7. that might look to be a lucky make but the opposition bidding has been very revealing. East cannot have a club trick or would not have saved in 7, and if he has x and West a bare honour declarer will get it right, assuming that clubs are West's short suit. So this grand is much much better than it appears.

Anyway, not being aware of my rights, I did my best not to tip partner off that my bidding had been affected and only called the director at the end of the hand. Neither he nor the appeals committee were willing to change the result, because I should have called the director as soon as I became aware of the problem and would then have been able to change my call without penalty. So, the moral of the story is to learn the rules.

Seven Hearts doubled went for 800, but that cost us 12 IMPs. At the other table, it was West who opened 1, North overcalled 4 and East bid 5. Now South bid 5 and North went on to 6; +1430.

After about ten boards of the final set, which we had gone into with a lead of 19 IMPs, it seemed to everyone at our table that we were winning the match. Realising that he needed a swing, the opposition captain, Daniel Auby tried a psyche on this next deal.

Board 51. Dealer South. E/W Vul.

Q 9 8 7 3 2

Q J 10 8 5 4

	N
W		E
	S

A 6

J 9 6 5

A K Q 7 4 2

A K 10 3 2

8 5 4

9 6 2

A 3

K J 10 5

10 8 3

J 9 7 6

K 7

West	North	East	South
Holman		Senior
			Pass
Pass	1	Pass	2
Pass	2	3NT	Pass
Pass	4	Pass	4
Dble	4	Pass	Pass
5	Pass	5	All Pass

One Heart was natural, promising five, and the 2 response showed a constructive three- or four-card heart raise. Auby smoothly rebid his void and I had an ugly problem to say the least. Double would still have been for take-out and, while it would have worked well enough if partner had passed and North been forced to expose his psyche, that didn't seem very likely. I plumped for 3NT because it was a trick less than 4 and hoped that Glen would get the message. Now Auby bid one of his real suits and I made what I intended to be a forcing pass. South showed a lack of imagination in correcting to 4 - what did he think I was doing? Once Glen doubled 4, we were in control of the situation. Auby showed his second suit and again I left the decision round to partner. After a spade lead, twelve tricks were easy for +680. As North/South have a 500 save in 7, +680 was a good result for our side, particularly after what we had had to overcome to get there.

In the other room, our North opened 1 and East made a take-out double. South bid 1 and West bid 2 to show two places to play. When North jumped to 4, East doubled again, ending the auction. There was no defence and +590 went very nicely with our result to give us 15 IMPs - almost the whole margin of our eventual victory.