Deal of the Day

A 90% table…

Herning, Monday 24 June 2024; Qualification round nr 3, senior pairs

Onze razende reporter Jos Jacobs schrijft samen met Mark Horton het halve Daily Bulletin vol tijdens het EK in Herning. Met toestemming van de Bulletinredactie mogen wij zijn stukjes ook op de IMP-website publiceren.

In Mark’s eigen woorden: “Despite developing a raging cold Jos Jacobs has managed to produce a report on every session of the Senior Pairs. They are so good that IMP magazine has asked permission to reproduce them!” Hierbij volgt een van Jos’ artikelen. Er zullen er meer volgen!

Het onderstaande stuk komt uit bulletin nummer 3 van afgelopen maandag. De uiteindelijke nummers 2, de Zweden Helmertz-Jordestedt, spelen tegen “ons” paar, Jan Kolen-Jan Verhees, dat vijfde is geworden.

For this final session on Monday, I will stick to reporting about one set of three boards. The seniors had to play only 12 boards, so my choice was pretty restricted. However, the deals I eventually chose were among the most interesting (or spectacular, for that matter) of the day, I feel. On the first three, the then leaders, Helmertz-Jordestedt from Sweden, were facing Jan Kolen and Jan Verhees from The Netherlands. The latter pair turned out to have become the overnight leaders so they must have registered a few good scores against the Swedes. Here are the deals they played against each other in full.

Board 1. Dealer North. None Vul.

When you look at the E/W hands only, 3 does not look a good proposition but at the table, the defensive communication in the black suits was non-existent. This would have enabled E/W to make nine tricks in diamonds easily enough. In fact, there were a few -110’s and even a -470 on the scorecard. Still, -200 to N/S, when 5 went down two, happened to be the next best score for E/W on the board, so the Dutch collected 18 MP.

On to the next deal:

Board 2. Dealer East. N/S Vul.

Had North contented himself with 3, he might have collected all the matchpoints had he been allowed to play there. If E/W bid on, they might get themselves a bad score if anyone would take the trouble to double them in 4. At the table, however, Kolen had an easy enough double and the Dutch collected another 19 MP when the contract went the obvious one off.

The next deal was a typical matchpoint partscore hand but also a matter of finding the best rebid:

Board 3. Dealer South. E/W Vul.

The old story: would you prefer rebidding 1NT over partner’s 1 or would you support partner with 2? If you choose 1NT, you would play there and probably make your required seven tricks for a decent score but if you don’t, you will end up in a shaky 4-3 fit in which you are likely to go down. That is exactly what happened to the Swedes here. This way, the Dutch collected another 18 MP and thus registered a table of well over 90%, enough to take the overall lead at the end of the day.

Alle bulletins kun je hier vinden: https://www.embridge2024.dk/en/home-2/