European Championships Herning

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Match 29 Board 4. Dealer West, All Vul.

France-Poland, closed room

W	N	E	S
Leo Rombaut	Wojciech Strzemecki	Jérôme Rombaut	Przemyslaw Janiszewski
Pass	1♥	2♠	Pass
4♠	Dble

In the closed room, Jérôme Rombaut pre-empted at 2♠, justified after the initial Pass by his son and partner. This allowed Leo to leap to 4♠. The contract was doubled and ended up one down. – 200.

Open room

W	N	E	S
Wojciech Gawel	Thomas Bessis	Rafal Jagniewski	Cedric Lorenzini
Pass	1♥	1♠	2♥
3♥	4♦	Pass	4♥

In the open room, the overcall at 1♠ allowed Cédric Lorenzini to slip in a little 2♥. With his King of Diamonds well placed behind opener’s length, Rafal Jagniewski did not wish to defend. But that was not a good idea. Bessis played a Heart from dummy for South’s King, then fell East’s now-dry Queen by tapping the Ace. Ten tricks and 9 IMPs that are characteristic of this match, masterfully led by the French on their way to the next world championship.

Match 26 Board 24. Dealer West, None Vul.

Do you open East’s hand with 1NT? With the Spades and three Aces, this 5-4-2-2 seems more deserving of a 1♠ opening.

Norwegian Tor Eivin Grude, whose team was leading the event at the time, disagreed and chose 1NT. Opposite, Geir Helgemo, with his ultra-flat hand, hid his Spades and pushed to 3NT despite the ugliness of his 9 points. He is not one to miss a making game, even nonvulnerable! On the Ace of Hearts lead, declarer soon went two down. A very bad score to come? No, because the final contract was identical in the other room…

Netherlands – Norway, open room

W	N	E	S
Geir Helgemo	Simon de Wijs	Tor Eivind Grude	Bauke Muller
Pass	Pass	1NT	Pass
3SA

Closed room

What about the other matches? A vast majority of players who play five-card majors opted for the 1♠ opening and ended up playing 4 Spades. After Ace-King of Hearts and a Heart ruff, several lines of play can be considered. You can draw the trumps first and then try to fell the 10 of Clubs when finessing against the king. Another possible option: on the Ace of Spades, which collects the 10 from North, you can ruff a Diamond and then finesse in Spades. If this fails, you ruff the Diamond return in hand, discarding a Club from dummy, cross back to dummy with a trump and then need a successful Club finesse.

In total, six declarers played in 3 No-trumps, and two of them made their contract. Two others played in 2 Spades. And the 22 others played in 4 Spades (one of them doubled). No declarer went down in 4 Spades, and three of them even paid themselves the luxury of an overtrick!

Match 23, deal 9. Dealer North, E/W Vul.

France-Sweden, closed room

W	N	E	S
Lars Andersson	Jérôme Rombaut	Jan Selberg	Leo Rombaut
	1♣	Pass	2♠
3♥	4♠	Dble

Lars Andersson started with Ace-King of Hearts and Jan Selberg was already on the hot seat. To prevent declarer from drawing dummy’s Clubs with impunity, he must discard a first Club. West, for his part, must continue at Heart, in the hope of setting up a trump trick opposite. This was not the case here, but East was careful not to overruff, a new obstacle to overcome, and discarded a second Club. Once on lead with a trump, Jan could play back the King of Diamonds and then ruff the third round of Clubs, leaving declarer with a losing Diamond. Well played!

Your hand as North: ♠ Q106543 ♥ 105 ♦ Q95 ♣ K6.

E/W Vul. Dealer West

West passes. What do you do?

In France, traditionally this hand is not opened with a weak two as it violates a fundamental criterion due to the scattering of honors in the side suits. That is why Pierre Franceschetti passed.

This was not the choice of Irishman Nicolas Fitzgibbon, who decided to open 2♠.

Here is the full layout:

France-Ireland, open room

W	N	E	S
Mark Moran	Pierre Franceschetti	John Carroll	Baptiste Combescure
Pass	Pass	1NT	Pass
2♣	Pass	2♦	Pass
3NT

Closed room

W	N	E	S
Leo Rombaut	Nicholas Fitzgibbon	Jérôme Rombaut	Adam Mesbur
Pass	2♠	2NT	Pass
3♣	Pass	3♦	Pass
3NT

Match 19, Board 11. Dealer South, None Vul.

France – Faroe Islands, open room:

W	N	E	S
Arni Dam	Pierre Franceschetti	Danjal Pauli Mohr	Baptiste Combescure
			1♠
3♥	Pass	Pass	Dble

Closed room

W	N	E	S
Cedric Lorenzini	Simun Lassaberg	Thomas Bessis	Arne Mikkelsen
			1♣
3♥	Pass	Pass	3♠
Pass	7♣

7 Clubs just made on a finesse in one room for 3 Hearts doubled one down in the other. Ouch! This extravagant coup was duplicated nowhere else, in the fourteen other matches nobody bid even the small slam, the most frequent contracts being 3 Hearts and 3 Hearts doubled! Where do they get all this stuff to knock us out?

Match 16, Board 18. Dealer East, N/S Vul:

In both rooms, the opponents intervened in Spades and the grand slam was not found. It was however bid on 21 tables out of 30.

The shortest auction was made by the Swiss pair Klukowski/Kalita, as clinical as ever:

Switzerland – Croatia, closed room:

W	N	E	S
Michal Klukowski	Goran Borevkovic	Jacek Kalita	Karlo Brguljan
		1♣	Pass
1♥	Pass	2♥	Pass
5♣	Pass	5♥	Pass
6♦	Pass	7♥

This will rather be the hand of the day. Question: What are your odds of being dealt the nine highest Spades, AKQJ109876? They are of the order of epsilon, very close to absolute zero in the cosmic vacuum. Yet it was such an extravagant hand that the North players picked up in match 12 (board 24):

♠ AKQJ109876
♥ K9
♦ ‒
♣ 108

Dealer West, None Vul. 

West, to your right, opens 1♦. What is your choice of action?

Almost all the champions chose 4♠. The reason is that, as Bob Hamann has said many times, your partner will never have the hand you’re hoping for. In other words, the average hand opposite will never allow you to win 6 Spades. And 4♠ has the big advantage of pre-empting your opponents and their potentially threatening Diamonds.

Have a look at South’s hand:

It is far from a minimum. An Ace opposite your King, 10 points; it is almost a dream hand. And yet you’re not likely to make 6 Spades because you’re not going to choose the right one in Clubs… This feat was only achieved by the Greek Dionysopoulos, literally “the son of Dionysus”, who won the slam on the opening lead of the Ace of Clubs (!), after West passed in first position before making a jump overcall at 3♦.

Match 9, Board 3. Dealer South, E/W Vul.

France – Bulgaria, closed room

W	N	E	S
Baptiste Combescure	Zahari Zahariev	Pierre Franceschetti	Nicolay Kermedchiev
			Pass
1NT	Pass	2♣	Pass
2♦	Pass	3♦	Pass
4♦	Pass	4♥	Pass
4♠	Pass	6♦

Over 2♦, we lost a number of participants who didn’t want to introduce their Diamonds. Over 3♦, a good number of openers settled for 3NT. The 4♦ bid, asking for controls, paved the royal way to the slam. After an exchange of controls, Pierre Franceschetti signed off in 6♦ at the end of a well-controlled “French-style” sequence. On the 7 of Clubs lead, the friendly distribution of all suits left declarer with an easy task.

The auctions in the match Wales vs. Switzerland, however, took a more bizarre turn.

Open room

W	N	E	S
Michal Klukowski	Gary Jones	Jacek Kalita	Paul Lamford
			Pass
1NT	Pass	2♣	Pass
2♦	Pass	3♣	Dble
Rdbl

In the open room, Lamford didn’t double 2♣ but his blood ran cold when he saw 3♣ and he took out the red card. Klukowski redoubled, and his partner Kalita decided that with his mountain of points, the contract should be made with a certain number of overtricks. Result: 3 Clubs redoubled plus 1. +1240. Woohoo!

Closed room

W	N	E	S
Julian Pottage	Bas Drijver	Tony Ratcliff	Sjoert Brink
			1NT
Dble	Pass	Pass	Rdbl
Pass	2♣	Dble

The weirdest is yet to come. In the closed room, Brink tried to rob the bank by opening the South hand with 1NT. Green versus red, that’s the way in modern bridge. It was not long before he was caught by the patrol. His SOS Double allowed Drijver to take his side out to 2 Clubs, greedily doubled by West. Five down. + 1100. And 4 IMPs for the Swiss!

Match 6, Board 29. Dealer North, All Vul

Open room

W	N	E	S
Cedric Lorenzini	Knut Blakset	Thomas Bessis	Lars Blakset
	Pass	1♠	Pass
2♣	Pass	3♦	Pass
3♥	Pass	3NT	Pass
4♣	Pass	4♦	Pass
4NT	Pass	5♠	Pass
5NT	Pass	6♣

Closed room

W	N	E	S
Martin Schaltz	Pierre Franceschetti	Dennis Bilde	Baptiste Combescure
	Pass	1♠	Pass
2♣	Pass	3♥	Pass
4♣	Pass	4♦	Pass
4♠	Pass	5♥	Pass
5♠	Pass	5NT	Pass
6♣	Pass	7♣

We will end up believing that for the team playing at home, finesses succeed more often!

Here, the 6 Clubs contract played by the French is a good one. It makes almost 100% of the time. On the other hand, the grand slam bid by the Danes depends on the favorable position of the King of Spades. But that’s not all. The undetectable presence of the 10 of Spades is another small miracle, without which the contract would only have about one chance in four… whereas its absence would be painless at 6 Clubs. Had it not been for this terrible twist of fate, France would have drawn with the host country. 6 VP that fly away through the sole fault of King David, it’s cruel… 

Match 4, Board 19. Dealer South, E/W Vul.

You are sitting North. After two passes, what do you do?

The bid chosen at most tables was 3♣. A classic compromise. Most often, 3 Clubs was the final contract, going down 2 or 3 with the same frequency. Most of the other Norths preferred to open 1♣ or even chose to pass. But Jérôme Rombaut opened 4♣! That is quite brutal! Three down, non-vulnerable, -150. Nothing serious. Although… In the other room, the sequence took an original turn as Clubs were played by other side:

Lead 10 of ♦. Trumps are particularly “unfriendly”. Three down. – 1000 !

Match 1, Board 16. Dealer West, E/W Vul.

Norway – Denmark, closed room:

W	N	E	S
Geir Helgemo	Dennis Bilde	Tor Eivind Grude	Martin Schaltz
Pass	1♠	Pass	2♦
Pass	2NT	Pass	3♠
Pass	3NT	Pass	4♠

The defence got off to a good start. Tor Eivind Grude as East led the 5 of Hearts for the Ace of Geir Helgemo, who returned the 5 of Diamonds for the 6, Ace and 3. Tor knew that this 5 was a singleton, so there was no ambiguity. He thus returned the Queen of Diamonds to crush declarer’s Jack. But this was a “banana peel” return and his partner slipped on it. Dennis Bilde called for the 7 of Diamonds and not the King – he too knew what was going on – and Helgemo, after some thought, discarded a Heart. The damage was done! On the Heart return, declarer ran all his trumps and then, on the Queen of Heart, East was squeezed in the minors! Catastrophe. To break the squeeze, West must ruff and play back a Clubs. It would have been easier had East played a small Diamond…