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Bridge Report from Salt Lake City - a Canadian
Point of View
The Playoffs
Begin Day 3 Monday
By Linda Lee
Recording the best result in WBF Open competition
since Beijing 1995, the Canadian Men's team finished the round
robin section of the IOC Grand Prix in fourth place, and now face
the Italian juggernaut in the 48-bvoard semifinal. The whole team
has acquitted itself well, in what for several of the players
has been a baptism of fire in world competition. The only letdown
was a final round loss to Egypt when a playoff spot was already
secure.
As promised, the Canadian women had a better day
on Monday, beating the 200 Venice Cup winners, the Netherands.
They coupled that with a solid win over South Africa and an unlucky
loss to tailenders Japan. We are a bit disappointed with our eighth
place finish, even in this strong a field, but we played in the
Olympic spirit, we competed hard, we played fairly and with sportsmanship,
and displayed good team spirit throughout the event.
The first match of the afternoon moved the men into
excellent position for a playoff qualification with a 29-19 IMP
victory over decent team from Brazil - another 18 VPs. A small
5-IMP loss to a tough Polish team pretty well locked up a spot
in the top four. We all got out our calculators and realized that
5 VPs, or no worse than a 40-IMP loss to Egypt, would get us home.
When the Canadians scored it up, they had actually lost by 32
IMPs. Phew! No need to watch the rest of the scoreboard.
There were some quite fascinating hands in these
matches. Here's one I watched at the table in the Women's match
in against the Netherlands in Round 8. I was sitting behind Beverly
Kraft (South) with West dealer and neither side vulnerable. Her
hand was:
S J8732 H J543 D 97 C 106
West North East South
Cimon Kraft
pass
pass pass 3NT (1) pass
pass dbl pass ??
(1) Gambling, nothing outside the suit.
Beverly quite reasonably felt very nervous about her chances
of beating 3NT doubled. Was this lead-directing? With excellent
judgment, she decided that her partner must mean this as takeout,
and must therefore have a 5-4-4-0 shape. Beverly bid 4S, West
rescued to 5D. Francine, encouraged by her partner's bidding,
pressed on to 5S, which (doubled) became the final contract. The
whole deal:
North
S Q 10 5 4
H K Q 9 2
D ----
C Q J 7 5 3
West East
S A 9 6 S K
H A 8 7 H 10 6
D 10 6 4 D A K Q J 8 5 3 2
C K 9 8 2 C A 4
South
S J 8 7 3 2
H J 5 4 3
D 9 7
C 10 6
Five spades doubled went for 500, losing the obvious aces and
kings. There was a slight difference in hand evaluation at the
other table, where Gloria Silverman opened the East hand 2C, and
she and Judy Gartaganis had no trouble getting to the laydown
grand slam in diamonds for a big pickup. Well bid by Gloria and
Judy.
The Canadian men also reached seven diamonds against Poland,
while the top Polish pair of Balicki and Zmudzinski somehow managed
to stop in 3NT even after West opened the bidding.
The men were back on Vugraph against Italy as the semifinals
began. The turning point in the session occurred about halfway
through on the following deal:
North
S K J x x x
H A x x x
D x x x
C x 3
West East
S A x x S x
H J 10 x H x
D K 10 x D A J 9 8 x
C 10 x x x C A K Q J x x
South
S Q x x x
H K Q x x x
D Q x
C x x
In the Closed Room, Gitelman and Silver had taken a good save
in 6H doubled on the N-S cards, which cost only 800. A vulnerable
slam was certainly available East-West, and the noisy Canadian
audience cheered when Jones and Gartaganis arrived in 6C; this
was the auction:
West North East South
Jones Gartaganis
1C 1H
pass 2C (1) 4D pass
6C all pass
1) Limit raise with 4+ hearts.
The play was the thing. South led a low spade, and declarer won
this and immediately led another spade from dummy, ruffing North's
king. He continued with two rounds of clubs ending in dummy, noting
that South followed twice. He ruffed the last spade, South deliberately
revealing the spade queen in an attempt to conceal the critical
DQ. By now Nick had a pretty good count on the hand, and it was
very likely that South had started with 4-5-2-2. As a result he
took the percentage play, and finessed against North for the D
Q. Unfortunately, today the DQ was with the short hand, and the
result was a difference of 25-IMPs on the board. While Canada
ended the set down in this match by 37 IMPs including carryover,
the team played well, and have hopes of a close and exciting conclusion
today.
I should add that Canada seems to have had quite a good run lately,
with a high finish in the NEC in Japan and this result in Salt
Lake City. Don't think the world hasn't taken notice of the depth
and quality of Canadian teams. At the beginning of the event,
the commentators asked ÎWho are these guys?' The Gartaganis team
found the best way to answer that question.
Finally, here is the solution to yesterdays' play problem. The
position we left you in was as follows:
North
S A K 8 7 6
H J 6 4
D 3
C -----
West East
S Q S J 10 9 5 4 2
H 9 5 H ----
D K J 9 D 10 7 4
C Q J 4 C ---
South
S 3
H K 73
D Q 8
C A 8 7
Sabine Auken (North) cashed the SA, and when the queen dropped,
she read it as a true card. She now played two rounds of hearts
ending in dummy, and exited with the C7, discarding her D 3 and
endplaying West to provide her tenth trick in either diamonds
or clubs. It is also possible to play the hand on a strip squeeze
by ruffing the CJ instead of discarding a diamond (see the description
in the Daily Bulletin).
Congratulations to our women on a good effort - and onward our
men's team!
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