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Day 3 in Buenos Aires

It has not been a great day for the 4 Kiwi teams though the Open team had three small wins which leaves them just outside the qualifying places in 9^th place.

This came from the NZ Open Team’s match against bottom placed Pakistan. Our Mixed team rose to second after beating Pakistan but a draw and three losses, including to “the old foe” has seen them drop to 13^th at the end of the day. Meanwhile, our Women maintained their 13^th place with a 2-win, 2-loss ratio while the Seniors could only record 1 win and dropped to 20^th .

Open			NZ vp	position		Mixed		NZ vp	position
Opening position				10th					3rd
Israel		45-40	11.48			Poland	30.-10	15.97
Netherlands		27-26	10.31			USA	0.-43	0.45
Chile		40-22	14.60			Spain	20-20	10.00
						Australia	10.-35	3.03
						Hungary	25-37	6.00
Closing Position				9th					13th
Women				13th		Seniors			17th
Chile		33-41	7.39			Netherlands	26-23	11.05
Canada		15.-9	12.01			India	o6-48	0.98
Netherlands		40-15	16.55			Brazil	o6-40	2.00
Turkey		12.-31	4.63			China Hong Kong	11.-24	6.03
Closing Position				13th					20th

 

Here is Open action, firstly against Pakistan. Over to our Open npc, Jonathan Westoby.

 

 

“Note the North hand was getting better and better with A to four, and South's points looked to be all working. This turned out to be the case when GeO Tislevoll and Leon Meier reached a low-point count 4 game.  GeO (North) received K lead which he took with his ace to lead a diamond taken by East with A. They switched to 9 which went to Q, K, A.

Geo now played a low heart to the king and decided to cross-ruff a few tricks, which means he had to cash the clubs first. It looked like they were breaking. GeO ended in dummy. Now K and another. West tried the 8, but overruff, spade ruff, diamond ruff, and spade ruff leaving East to take two hearts but the contract had made. The diamond finesse looked right though Geo’s line works nicely.

 
GeO and Leon

In the other room the Pakistani pair had a mix-up and played 3 -1 and 11 imps in on the first board of the match which saw a near maximum win. “

On then to the Open Team’s match against Netherlands and there was some lively action here:

 

3 showed a strong minor 2-suiter. West led K and the heart suit proved a useful place to discard Leon’s only loser…making 13 tricks for a score of 1310. Meanwhile:

Matt’s 2NT was a conventional hand with both minors. When South bid to 5, Matt’s double was based on power. However, his partner was wary because of his own lack of heart cards. Michael realised the opposition had a double fit in the majors.

Thus, he pulled to 6 and the Dutch who had been doubled at the 5-level, decided to “take the money” which was only +500, down 2, and thus a healthy 13 imps to New Zealand.

A Tactical Lead

This lead problem came in the NZ Seniors’ match against the Netherlands. What is your choice?

 

You may not like your weak jump much but the vulnerability seems right for action. 3 was unnatural showing a good raise to 4 or better, nothing to do with diamonds. After a 4 cue-bid, South used key-card and got a response to show 2 key-cards and the Q…and so slam was reached. Well?

At the table, West chose 3…with reason. They wanted to score their K and thus do nothing to encourage declarer to play their A too early. If say East held a singleton spade and South knew it, they could not afford losing to K. That was pretty close to the truth though West did not know that there was a missing ace, too:

 

Declarer would hate to go down on the actual lay-out if West led a spade. After the club lead, South took their A and took an immediate heart finesse. They soon conceded. Declarer might have taken a club finesse for no good reason other than see which honours West did not hold. Then a diamond to the king. With East holding missing minor honours, there might be more reason to place K with West. 

In the Women’s and Seniors’ sections, 6 was made three times and failed six times with generally a diamond being led.

It looks all four Kiwi teams have hard work to do on Day 4 to improve their positions.

Richard Solomon

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