Marc Smith visits the qualifying stages of the OCBL June Cup

Over the last two weeks, we have been following the action from the early rounds of the Online Contract Bridge League June Cup. The field was divided into two nine-team groups, playing a nine-round qualifying event of 16-board matches. The top four teams in each group would advance to the knockout stage at the end of the week-long event.

After six of the nine matches, these were the leading teams in each group:

GROUP A		GROUP B
APRES-BRIDGE CHAMPS	72.92 VPs	HUNGARY	92.16 VPs
ORCA	70.19	TILLY	77.44
CALCIO & FOOTBALL	67.89	COMPTON	72.58
SCORWAY	62.25	ZHAO	69.18
LESLIE	57.04	SUGI	61.20
LION	50.40	BLACK	60.08

As usual. We begin with a couple of bidding problems. How your choices would work, we shall find out later. Firstly, with neither side vulnerable, you are South with:

What action, if any, do you take?

Next, with just your side vulnerable, you hold as East:

What do you bid?

While you consider those, we begin with the meeting of the two group leaders, APRES-BRIDGE CHAMPS and HUNGARY, in Round 7.

Wotjek Gawel’s took the pragmatic approach facing Rafal Jagniewski’s 1♦ opening. If ever you were going to bid Blackwood over partner’s opening bid, surely this is the hand on which to do it. After all, what else do you need to know other than how many aces he has? E/W +920 was a flat board in most matches, or occasionally -2 IMPs when the opponents played in 6♥. There were a couple of exceptions, though, and the Poles were one of those lucky enough to earn a slam swing for their efforts.

Csaba Szabo started with a 1♥ response, which allowed Hermann Lall to get his spade suit into the auction. By the time Szabo got a second chance to bid, the auction was already at 4♠. He could, I suppose, have bid Blackwood now, as the West players did at some tables, but is it obvious which is the ‘agreed suit’? If partner thinks it is the last bid suit (clubs here), he will show three key-cards but, of course, the ♣K is useless to you. Szabo decided to bid 5♠, self-alerting it with the explanation ‘no agreement’. When Gyorgy Kemeny responded with a return cue-bid of 6♠, though, would you have been up to finding the 6NT bid required to go plus on that West hand?

Szabo was not, and instead tried 7♦. Reese Milner duly led the ♣A: E/W -50 and 14 IMPs to APRES-BRIDGE CHAMPS, who won the match 61-15 to solidify their position atop Group A. Not that the Hungarians were the only ones to go minus. Chen Zhao had the first of this week’s bidding problems to deal with:

Here, West began with a strong jump shift. Louk Verhees got his spades into the auction, and Phil Becker cue-bid spades, agreeing hearts. At equal vulnerability, perhaps most would go quietly on this South hand, but not Zhao. He rolled the dice and really put Ken Kranyak to the test by jumping to 6♠.

A bronze medallist in the Zonal Teams at the 2002 World Championships in Montreal, Kranyak is no mug. His 7♥ bid here, though, was perhaps the most expensive single action we have seen for some time. Doubling 6♠ would have collected 1400 on best defence (there are six obvious tricks, but a diamond lead and then three rounds of hearts enables the defenders to score their trumps separately to beat 6♠-X by six). With Simon de Wijs and Bauke Muller making +920 in 6♦ at the other table, E/W +1400 would have been 11 IMPs to GREENSPAN. Of course, Zhao’s gamble paid off big time when Kranyak bid on to 7♥.

Zhao made a Lightner double for the lead, and Verhees did indeed open with a club, but that was not essential as declarer has nowhere to dispose of his loser. That was E/W -100 and 14 IMPs to ZHAO. Remind me not to play poker against Chen!

HUNGARY hang on to first place in Group B despite the heavy loss, but their lead over TILLY is now less than 1 VP. ZHAO win big too, 71-7, to move up into third place, just a couple of VPs behind TILLY.

In Round 8, HUNGARY take on ORCA, who are lying second in Group A. On Board 6, one of the Hungarians had the chance to find a play worthy of a Best Defence award. Cover the West and South hands if you want to test yourself:

Szabo led the ♦K and continued with a second diamond to his partner’s ace. How should Miklos Dumbovich continue?

Analyzing the bidding might lead you to the winning play. South showed majors and then, when his partner declined the chance to select a trump suit, he rebid 3♠, suggesting 6-5. He has also shown up with two diamonds, leaving him no room for any clubs. At the table, Dumbovich returned a low club to the king and ace. Nafiz Zorlu was now in control: he played a trump to the jack and king. As it happens, West switched to the ♥J, so declarer could have picked up that suit. Instead, though, he simply ruffed out the ♣Q to establish discards for his heart losers. N/S +420.

To defeat the contract, East must exit with the ♣Q at trick three. Declarer is then left with an unavoidable loser in each of the majors. In the replay, the Hungarians also reached 4♠ after a similar auction. Here, though, Richard Plackett led a low diamond at trick one. Espen Erichsen won with the ♦A and returned a diamond to the king. Things are much easier from this side of the table and West exited safely with a club (a low trump is equally effective). The defence came to their heart trick in the fullness of time and declarer then lost his way to go an extra one down: N/S -100 and 11 IMPs to ORCA.

Miklos Dumbovich then had to deal with the second of this week’s problems on the final deal of the match:

You can understand Dumbovich’s reluctance to risk a takeout double of 3♥ on this very shapely hand: the danger of partner passing when doing so is wrong is far too high. Perhaps he might have bid a natural 4♣, which would then have allowed him to raise 4♦ to game in that suit. Instead, he improvised with a 4♥ cue-bid. Judging by his 4♠ bid on the singleton, it looks like Szabo expected his partner to hold a hand too strong for a jump to 4♠, which seems a reasonable interpretation of what 4 ♥ should mean. Not an easy situation, but it did give Dumbovich another opportunity to bid for a brilliancy prize in the play.

Nafiz Zorlu led the ♥A. Dumbovich ruffed and played spades from the top, ace, king and a third round, North winning with the ♠10 as South discarded. When Peter Crouch returned the ♥K, declarer ruffed and was now at the crossroads. He correctly crossed to dummy with a diamond, but then led the ♣J. Crouch covered with the ♣K and declarer now had no winning option. He tried to cash some diamond winners, but Crouch ruffed the third round with the ♠Q and exited with his last heart. Declarer ruffed, cashed the ♣Q, but North had two club winners left at the end. E/W -100.

After crossing to dummy with the first round of diamonds, the winning play is to ruff a heart with your last trump, and then to play winning diamonds. North can ruff with the ♠Q whenever he likes, but he will then have to lead away from the ♣K, giving you access to the diamond winners in dummy, upon which all of the club losers disappear. Declarer ends with an overtrick, losing just two trumps.

Richard Plackett, an experienced Welsh international and a silver-medallist in the Open Pairs at the 2019 European Transnational Championships, made things much easier for his partner in the replay:

Five Diamonds was a much more comfortable spot. Indeed, declarer can make all 13 tricks with the club finesse working. North led a trump around to declarer’s nine. Plackett played a spade to the ace and ruffed a spade. He could now have ruffed a heart (his twelfth trick) but instead he crossed to the ♦J and took a second spade ruff. After drawing trumps, declarer simply played a club to the ace and claimed eleven tricks. E/W +600 and 12 IMPs to ORCA, who won the match 54-41.

With one match remaining in the qualifying stage, these are the leading teams in each group:

GROUP A		GROUP B
APRES-BRIDGE CHAMPS	109.41 VPs	TILLY	107.23 VPs
ORCA	97.89	HUNGARY	99.87
CALCIO & FOOTBALL	89.71	ZHAO	97.15
SCORWAY	84.66	BLACK	87.49
LION	70.40	COMPTON	86.34
LESLIE	66.04	SUGI	84.05

In Group A, there is a sizeable gap between SCORWAY (Scotland, Norway) in fourth place and LION if fifth, so the top four look highly likely to make it through to the knockout stage. The one scrap of hope for the chasing teams is that SCORWAY play their final match against Group B leaders, TILLY.

Only the top three look safe in Group B, and there is a three-way battle for the fourth qualifying spot. Although BLACK just about holds pole position, their opponents in Round 9 are Group A leaders, APRES-BRIDGE CHAMPS. COMPTON also do not have an easy match, against ORCA, whilst SUGI has what looks like the best draw, against LION.

In the end, BLACK dominated their match. With one deal remaining, they led 36-5 in a contest that had not thus-far produced a single double-digit swing. Having consistently picked up small swings: they thoroughly deserved their lead and, perhaps too, the luck that came their way on Board 16:

Reese Milner’s jump to 4♣ showed a big hand with primary spade support and a shortage in clubs. Responding to RKCB, he then showed two key cards and confirmed that his shortage was a void. Quite why he considered it necessary to show a club void, though, is unclear, since his partner is already known to hold the ace. It seems much more important to be able to clarify the trump position, ie possession or not of the ♠Q, which making a five-level response to Blackwood would have done. Over 5NT, Hermann Lall made one more try, but gave up when Milner only rebid the agreed trump suit. It seems that they stopped in the right place, if not for the right reason.

Lall won the heart lead, played a trump to the king, and finessed on the way back. When the finesse worked and the suit broke 3-2, he was able to claim 13 tricks. E/W +1460.

North did not double the 4♣ splinter here and thus East was not known to hold the ♣A, so Tom Paske was obliged to show his void in response to Blackwood. When Andrew McIntosh then made two grand slam tries at the six-level, Paske not unreasonably decided that his red-suit holdings were exactly what his partner needed. Unfortunately, it was the hole in the trump suit that meant the odds did not favour bidding the grand. When you are playing well, though, luck tends to run with you, and that seems to be the case here. McIntosh quickly picked up the trump suit, so he was also able to claim 13 tricks: E/W +2210 and 14 IMPs to BLACK, who won the match 49-5.

This result not only ensured a place in the knockout stages for BLACK, but also allowed ORCA to sneak into first place in Group A by a margin of just 0.07 VPs, or about 1 IMP over 144 boards. These were the final standings:

GROUP A		GROUP B
ORCA	110.93 VPs	TILLY	125.89 VPs
APRES-BRIDGE CHAMPS	110.86	ZHAO	111.75
CALCIO & FOOTBALL	93.62	HUNGARY	107.58
SCORWAY	86.00	BLACK	106.04
LESLIE	80.22	SUGI	97.80
LION	76.65	COMPTON	93.30

In the end, there was clear, blue water between the qualifiers in both groups and those who did not make it, SCORWAY surviving relatively comfortably despite an 0-45 whitewash against TILLY in their final match. The shifts in the final placings did, though, affect both the draw for the quarter-finals and the allocation of those potentially all-important carryforward advantages.

The quarter-final line-up would be (with the carryforward shown in brackets):  ORCA (+6.1 IMPs) vs SCORWAY, TILLY (+6.1) vs BLACK, APRES-BRIDGE CHAMPS (+3.1) vs CALCIO & FOOTBALL and ZHAO (+3.1) vs HUNGARY.

We will be back next week to see the best of the action from the knockout stage.