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Day 4 in Buenos Aires

At best, this was an indifferent day for the Kiwi teams. Our Open team would not have been happy with small losses to Argentina and Chinese Taipei and are in 11^th place, about 13vps behind the 8^th qualifying place with 5 matches left to play.

Our Women’s team had locked themselves into 13^th place until a bad loss to bottom-placed Ireland in the last match of the day. They are still 15 vps above the qualifying mark.

Similarly, our Mixed Team now 13^th have an 18 vp margin of safety at present though our Seniors have a mountain to climb, being 26 vps behind 16^th place with 7 matches left in 21^st place.

Open			NZ vp	position		Mixed		NZ vp	position
Opening position				9th					13th
Argentina		8.-33		4.08		Croatia	24-27	8.86
Chinese Taipei		51-66		6.03		Japan	30-38	7.17
Spain		27-21		11.76		Germany	16-17	9.61
						Denmark	15-21	7.82
						France	32-17	14.80
Closing Position				11th					13th
Women				13th		Seniors			20th
Argentina		19-17	10.71			Scotland	5.-29	3.63
France		12.-4	12.61			USA	6.-49	0.87
India		14-33	4.63			Argentina	35.-14	15.79
Ireland		7.-45	1.46			Germany	21-25	8.62
Closing Position				15th					21st

 

Back then to our Open Team with their npc, Jonathan Westoby:

 

“All boils down to one play, in one suit! At Leon and GeO’s table, the bidding was as above. There was similar bidding at the other table though the same final contract was doubled.

At both tables, K was led with the declarers winning with dummy’s A to lead Q.

As North, GeO  covered with his K at the speed of light, having already decided to do so. Thus, East won, played a heart and Leon came back won ace and played Q.

So after drawing a few trumps East had a decision about the position of 10.

Meanwhile, at the other table, with Matthew McManus declarer, Q was not covered.  So, he played on trumps, The defence did not cash their diamond. Matthew guessed to play A and with the king falling made 6, and being doubled scored 750! Therefore we were always going to win the board - but by how much?

Back to GeO’s table. Declarer thought for ages, eyed up GeO,  and believed GeO really held K10 doubleton and thus cashed J and went one down.

Should the Q be covered or not? You can discuss this forever - the answer maybe is sometimes yes - sometimes no.”

Clear as….mud?!

A Bottom need not be a Bottom!

 

Your partner opens 4 showing a good hand with long spades. What do you bid? Well, 4 of course and there matters rested…except partner had had one of those “minties moments” as these were the 4 hands:

 

 

Oops… trumps were drawn and you went down 6 for – 300…..no thing of beauty to take back to your teammates…except at the other table, the bidding was exactly the same and the contract went 7 down for a 2 imp swing to your team! What a way to earn 2 imps!

This occurred in a match between Spain and Switzerland.

For these teams and the rest of us, it is onwards and hopefully upwards!

Richard Solomon

 

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