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                A GREAT DAY FOR THE KIWIS

Day 3 at the World Championships was a really good one for the New Zealand teams trying to qualify for the knock-out stages. The Open Team recorded three wins, 13.52 against Sweden, 15.51 off Denmark and then perhaps the most important, 20 off San Marino. So often in recent years, New Zealand teams have threatened to do well in international competitions and then have imploded against the weakest teams in the field. This time, there was no implosion, just a bucket-load of imps in the “in” column.

Some look like they came partly due a kind of trademark Michael Ware strong no-trump opening:

 Q95

 K

 JT74

 AKQ93

It silenced both opponents and to rub the salt in, he made 7 tricks when he should not. That singleton K was very useful to both New Zealand pairs:

 

It is probable that Michael scored it at trick 1 and then after conceding the diamond finesse, West took his heart tricks but failed to lead away from his K. A nice score of +90 if his teammates had played a heart partial in the other room. Yet, Michael Whibley and Matthew Brown did better than that,  both bidding to game and making 10 tricks for a very handy 12 imp pick-up. Our Open team shot up to 5^th with Sweden just 0.02vp ahead of them and a gap of nearly 5 vps between them and 6^th placed Canada.

12 for the bye kept our Women’s team’s score moving. They followed that with 11.76 vps off Germany and an even better 16.26 off Ireland. They are currently 4^th, like our Open team in one of the top 5 qualifying places, though they have a bit of work to catch the top 4, with 4^th 15 vps ahead. Nevertheless, the team is playing very steadily.

So, too, is our Mixed Team even if it had two smallish losses at the start of Day 3. They took 7.19 off China and 6.82 off Italy but would have been happier with 14.22 from Chinese Taipei and 17.08 off India. They are currently 7^th and creeping back up the ladder.

Even our Seniors had something to smile about. That horrible run of losses continued with only 1.86 vps off Spain. However, the margins got smaller,  losing just by 3 imps to both Mexico and Norway (both 8.95 vps). Finally, in match 12, their match vp score got into double figures with a win, also by 3 imps, against India (11.05). They have just inched their way out of the bottom position.

That loss to Mexico would have been their first win had our North-South pair remembered that two flat hands need extra points to make a slam even if one of them is a 23 pointer and the trump fit is excellent. Board 16 in the Mixed and Seniors third match of the day demonstrated this.

 

Either North or South needed to hold the 10 for the slam to be reasonable. On this occasion, both East and West had easy diamond leads with 6 having no chance. Even if the finesse had worked, bringing down the doubleton king would be against the odds. About half the Seniors’ and Mixed fields were in 6 including the New Zealand North-South. Unfortunately, their Mexican opponents rested in game, as did both pairs in our Mixed team’s match against Italy.

Here’s hoping for more good news on Day 4.

Richard Solomon

 

 

 

 

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