Marc Smith visits Heat 6 of the New Alt Competition

Last week, we saw the action from the first three matches in this heat. These were the standings in Group A when we left:

BLACK	37.62 VPs
DE BOTTON	35.16
FREDIN	33.97
DONNER	31.77
MOSS	22.91
VINITA	18.57

Elsewhere, CANTOR (Germany, England, Denmark, Sweden, Bulgaria) lead Group B, 10 VPs ahead of JEDI KNIGHTS (England, Wales). PARSLEY (France) head Group C ahead of BUQQY (China, Pakistan, Bulgaria). Group D is headed by QUARANTEAM (Netherlands, Denmark, Israel) and LION (Spain, Singapore).

As usual, we begin with some problems: not two funerals and a wedding but close, perhaps. We shall see how your choices would have worked later. We begin this week with a lead problem: with just the opponents vulnerable, you are North with:

What do you lead?

Next, with both sides vulnerable, you hold as South:

What action do you take?

Finally, another lead problem. With both sides vulnerable, you are in the West seat holding:

What do you lead?

While you consider those, we start with the action from Round 4, where the key match was between second-placed DE BOTTON and FREDIN, who were lying third. And what a shoot-out it proved to be, with exactly 100 IMPs exchanged over the 16 boards. Board 9 produced a major swing in all three Group A matches.

The Norwegians carried the bidding to the four-level, but not until Alon Apteker had shown both clubs and primary heart support. When Peter Fredin advanced with 4NT, Apteker jumped to the small slam in clubs, presumably suggesting a good suit. In reality, though, it did not matter which of the suits he chose as Tor Helness had a fairly routine diamond lead. With the defenders’ diamond trick established before declarer’s hearts were set up, Apteker had no chance: E/W -100.

At the other table, Johan Sylvan had to deal with the first opening lead problem posed above:

Jan Lagerman’s jump overcall enabled the Swedes to bounce the auction to the four-level even faster. Tom Townsend advanced with a 4NT takeout bid and David Bakhshi committed his side to slam with a 5♠ cue-bid, but Townsend passed the decision of which strain back across the table with 5NT. When Bakhshi’s 6♣ bid was passed around to Lagerman, it appeared that we were set for a flat board, but a strange thing happened on the way to the forum.

Lagerman doubled, and now Bakhshi reconsidered his position. Perhaps taking into account the potential Lightner implications of South’s double, he chose to swap the trump suit to hearts. As we saw at the other table, this makes no difference in theory, except that here East had not yet bid hearts. So, not only had Bakhshi switched trump suits, but he had also shifted the declarership and, crucially, the opening lead.

Whilst South had an obvious diamond lead, things were far less clearcut from the North seat. Did you find the diamond lead from those North cards? Nor did Johan Sylvan: he opened the ♠Q and that was all the assistance declarer needed. Bakhshi won with the ♠A and played two rounds of trumps. When the defenders’ hearts split 2-2, Bakhshi was home. South switched to the ♦K, but it was all too late, and declarer’s diamond losers quickly disappeared on dummy’s winning clubs. A spectacular E/W +1660 and 18 IMPs to DE BOTTON.

What a cruel game it can be: passing out a no–play slam earns you a flat board, but doubling a contract that is booked to go down costs you a massive swing. In the other Group A matches, Gary Donner/Sandra Rimstedt stopped in 5♥ whereas Bathurst/Hurd for MOSS bid to 6♥ by East. Joe Grue found the diamond lead, so that was 13 IMPs to DONNER. For VINITA, Emil Jespsen/Andreas Plejdrup also stopped in 5♥: E/W +650.

Like the Swedes above, the Americans got to the four-level in spades on the first round of the auction. Similarly, the English pair here also reached 6♣. Just as Lagerman’s double on the South hand turned out disastrously for his side, so too did Hermant Lall’s decision to take the save as North. Declarer made seven tricks, E/W +1100, which would have been a good result for the Americans had the slam been making. With East the declarer, though, evidence from other tables suggests that the sacrifice turned a small plus into a large minus. The scorecard records the result as 10 IMPs to BLACK but, of course, the actual cost was more than double that.

Board 13 saw another major swing in the key match at the top of the group:

Tor Helness’s transfer to spades showed either a weak or a strong hand, and Thor Eric Hoftaniska’s 2♠ bid simply said that he would have passed a weak jump to 2♠, rather than specifically showing a fit. Alon Apteker doubled for takeout, suggesting extra values and, presumably, showing four clubs to go with his hearts. Having said nothing so far, Peter Fredin found himself with a remarkably good hand. So, with adequate stoppers in both suits bid by the Norwegians, he jumped to 3NT.

Fredin won the ♦K lead and led the ♥9, overtaking with dummy’s ten. He then continued with the ♥A and a third round of hearts, North winning with the queen. Fredin won the spade switch and could have saved a trick by cashing the ♠K before playing a club to the queen. (South can cash his spade winners but is then endplayed to lead away from the ♣J to give declarer a seventh trick.) When Fredin instead played a club to the queen, Helness won with the ♣K and got out with a spade to declarer’s king. Declarer led a second round of clubs but, when North discarded, he could then make no more than the ♣A. E/W -300.

In some matches, this would have been a flat board or close to it. In the Group A match between BLACK and VINITA, Jepsen/Plejdrup were three down in 4♥ (E/W -300) whilst McIntosh/Paske failed by a trick in 5♣-X (E/W -200), so 3 IMPs to BLACK.

At the other table in the Scandinavian match, though, Jan Lagerman had to deal with this week’s only bidding problem:

With the 1♠ bid showing at least five spades, Johan Sylvan’s raise to 2♠ showed nothing more than a minimum opening bid with three-card support. East’s club bid perhaps improved the South hand marginally, but is it worth another bid? Lagerman liked his hand enough not only to compete but to jump to 4♠. The swift double from David Bakhshi was a harbinger of what was to come. The defence was not difficult: Bakhshi led his singleton heart to Tom Townsend’s ace, and duly received his ruff. The defenders then cashed the two minor suit aces and waited for their top trumps. E/W +800 from a freely-bid game, and another 15 IMPs to DE BOTTON.

This result was duplicated at a handful of other tables, including both tables in the third Group A match, between MOSS and DONNER. No doubt, both E/W pairs were disappointed not to gain on the deal, although they would have lost IMPs to the one E/W pair fortunate enough to defend an alternative game, 5♦-X.

BLACK defeated VINITA 44-30, but that was not enough to hang on to first place, as DE BOTTON’s 64-36 drubbing of the Swedes carried them to the top of the table. DONNER actually slipped above FREDIN into third place, despite going down 44-32 against MOSS.

In Round 5, the key match was another meeting of second against third, with BLACK taking on DONNER in what proved to be the most one-sided encounter of the week. It was not the only rout of the round, though. In the match between leaders DE BOTTON and last-placed VINITA, after similar auctions both West players had to solve the second of the lead problems posed earlier:

Morton Bilde rebid a 12-14 1NT and Vinita Gupta forced to game with an artificial 2♦. Bilde showed four spades and denied four hearts, and Gupta rebid her diamond suit. The Dane’s 3NT then ended the auction, leaving David Bakhshi to find an opening lead.

Bilde won the ♥10 lead with the ace, ran the ♦J, repeated the diamond finesse, and conceded a trick to West’s ♦K. With the black-suit aces this way around, those were the only two tricks the defence could now take. N/S +630.

The Norwgians reached the same contract after a similar auction. However, you don’t win 10 Bermuda Bowls, an Olympiad and a handful of other World Championship events by allowing your opponents to make games that you can beat. The legend that is Bob Hamman unerringly opened the ♣2 against Tor Helness.

Hermant Lall won with the ♣A and continued with the ♣Q and then the ♣J. Helness took the ♣K and successfully ran the ♦J. When East showed out, though, declarer’s only hope was to find East with the ♠A and no more clubs, so he crossed to dummy with a heart and played a spade to the king. No luck there either, as Hamman won with the ♠A, cashed the ♣10, and exited with a heart. Declarer had only eight tricks and eventually had to concede the setting trick to West’s ♦K at trick 13. N/S -100 and 12 IMPs to VINITA, who proved emphatically that there was no such thing as an easy match in this event by hammering the leaders 64-7 to pull themselves out of the automatic relegation place.

In the English auction, Andrew Black opened a potentially nebulous club and then showed a weak notrump hand type with four spades as South, whilst David Gold showed a game-forcing hand with long diamonds. The upshot, though, was that Gold became declarer from the North seat, leaving Gary Donner with the lead problem on the East cards.

Had Donner opened a club, the defenders would have established their five tricks before declarer could run his diamonds. When he instead chose a heart, Gold was able to knock out the ♦K and claim ten tricks: N/S +630.

I guess this can be classed as an all-Swedish table, although Gunnar Hallberg is an ex-pat Swede who has lived in London for what seems like forever. Marion Michielsen, on the other hand, won World and European championships as a junior and a European Women’s title representing her native Netherlands before becoming a transplanted Swede.

Whether Simon Hult would have found the killing club lead to earn his side a swing we shall never know. In a similar position to the North players at the other tables, Michielsen did not fancy the notrump game on her very red hand. Unfortunately, the diamond game had virtually no chance once there turned out to be a trump loser to go with the two black aces. N/S -100 and 12 IMPs to BLACK, who stormed to an 86-18 victory that carried them almost 20 VPs clear at the top of the table thanks to the heavy defeat suffered by DE BOTTON. Meanwhile, three-time champions MOSS, defeated FREDIN 33-18 to claw themselves back above average for the first time since narrowly winning their opening match.

With one complete round robin in the books, these are the standings in Group A:

BLACK	70.90 VPs
DE BOTTON	51.91
MOSS	50.16
VINITA	45.06
FREDIN	43.58
DONNER	38.49

Elsewhere, LEBOWITZ (USA, Italy, Sweden, Denmark) has taken the lead in Group B, with ORCA (England, Norway) trailing by just a handful of VPs. In Group C, PARSLEY (France) still leads BUQQY (China, Pakistan, Bulgaria), with those two well clear of the rest. Group D is headed by LION (Spain, Singapore) with CANADIAN & FRIENDS (China, Canada) close behind.

We will be back next week with the best of the action as the second round robin gets underway.