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Glenis Palmer and her partner, Linda Cartner who knows when to finesse. 

Day 1 at the World Champs.

Day 1.

Tuesday in Buenos Aires saw the action start. A bit of a mixed start for the 4 Kiwi teams though generally a satisfactory day in the end for all:

Open			NZ vp	position		Mixed		NZ vp	position
Romania		11.-58	1.13			Canada	14-14	10.00
Ireland		45-47	9.39			Turkey	33-3	17.84
Germany		38-22	14.18	12th		Switzerland	32-10	16.39
						Sweden	11.-26	5.20
						Chile	17.-11	12.18	6th
Women						Seniors
Hong Kong China		17.-12	11.70			Poland	28-24	10.88
China		23-17	12.01			Israel	13.-10	11.05
South Africa		30-42	6.29			England	35-27	12.61
		7.-22	5.54	13th		Japan	37-12	16.55	5th

Our Open team got off to a dreadful start against Romania though a narrow loss to Ireland and a win over Germany have pulled them up to 12^th place in the 17 team event. Our Women would have been very happy with their start especially the narrow win over China but 2 losses leave them 13^th in their 24 team event.

Meanwhile, our other two teams should be happy with their starts. Three wins and a draw in their opening 5 matches leave the Mixed Team in 6^th place in their 29 team competition while our Seniors have won their opening 4 matches to be 5^th out of 24 teams. They are the only unbeaten team in that competition.

 

 

This board proved significant in the New Zealand Seniors win over England. It’s your decision with the above hand. South has opened with a Precision style 1 and your double showed 5+clubs and 4+ spades. After a game-forcing natural 1 response, your partner leaps to 5. South “ups the ante” with a 6 cue-bid and North settles on 6. Would you?

At the end of the deal, South lamented that their opponents had trusted their bidding as West chose to bid 7. Let’s see all 4 hands:

 

North passed 7 to show first-round control with East wisely not trying for grand. 7x could only be defeated by 4 tricks for -800 but clubs were never bid at the other table as New Zealand were allowed to bid and make 6 for a very handy gain of 12 imps.

In the Seniors field, only 4 pairs found the dive over 6 (2 in 6 which is equally as good) while the slam was bid and made 10 times. 1 North-South pair failed in 7.

In the Women’s field, the slam was also bid and made 10 times with 5 pairs sacrificing successfully including the NZ Women.

 

 

This board was in the first Women’s match of the day and shows the disadvantage of Michaels Cue Bids when one ends as a defender. Linda Cartner opened 1 as East and raised her partner’s 3 to game. Without intervention, most of the field failed in 4 as they lost 2 diamonds, a heart and a trump. The poor Michaels bid enabled Linda to make her contract by taking a first round trump finesse.

Not the day for that convention... but a good one for the Kiwis. 

Richard Solomon

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