Yesterday, I visited the White House Juniors International, or WHJI, in Amsterdam. For coffee, to kibitz some future world champions and to say “hi" to a number of friends in the bridge world that I had not seen for a long time. The tournament has always been organized by Kees Tammens, former top player, coach of the Dutch Juniors for ages, and journalist. As this is the 25th event, he has gone through old articles and bulletins of the previous 24 editions and collected them in a nice book. I got a copy and it is a fun read. If you want a copy, contact Kees at keestammens@gmail.com or through his website at https://bridgenieuws.wordpress.com.
To kibitz, I picked amongst others the match between the Netherlands and Belgium. Ever since the two countries split up in 1830, sports matches between their teams have gotten a special meaning, as if both countries feel that they have to prove that they are the stronger of the two. Bridge is no exception here. For the match, the Dutch took EW, Belgium NS. The Dutch EW were the brothers Stougie, who won the U20 European Championship last year, but grew older and are now promoted to the U25 team.
The first board produced the first swing. Open EW quickly bid to a light 4♥, the ♥-finesse was on and the declarer quickly wrapped up 10 tricks. Things got out of control in the other room. South opened a weak NT, XX started a rescue attempt and then it was not clear to EW which doubles were take-out and which ones penalty, resulting in NS finding one of their 8 card fits and being doubled at the 2 level. With the high cards spread roughly equal between the two sides, that is never a good idea.
Conventional wisdom has it that it is usually right to lead trumps against doubled partscores. This one is an exception, the defence has 2♥, 2♦ and a ♣-trick, the 6th defensive trick has to come out of a spade ruff. Leading the _A and a diamond meant that by the time spades were played for the third time, east’s trumps were gone. Declarer thus managed to score 3 diamonds, 4 spades and a club, for +180. +180 and +620 added up to 13 imp’s to the Dutch.
Things got worse for Belgium on the next board. Both Dutch pairs bid game, both games can be defeated in theory. In practice, things were a little different.
Closed, 4♠ can be defeated on a minor suit lead. Norths trumps are needed as entries to the long hearts, souths trumps are needed to ruff a heart. By leading a minor, north is force to ruff early on and will run out of trumps too soon. In practice, east led the ♥Q. That doesn’t feel right to me. It is a honnor in a suit that NS are surely going to attack, and thus a potential trick. Then, going for ruffs with only 2 small trumps requires essentially partner to hold the ♠A and win the first round. North won the ♥Q lead, played the ♠A and a spade and ended up with 10 tricks.
Closed, against, 5♣ north led the ♥A, saw a discouraging ♥3, then cashed the ♠A and continued with a spade. That was the end of the defence, as this set up the 11th trick for declarer. Declarer could even afford to misplay the diamond suit after drawing trumps by starting with the ♦K. With diamonds 3-2, it didn’t matter here. Next time, north will be 4-8-1-0 with ♦J singleton though. To defeat the contract, north had return a diamond at trick 2. That is not completely impossible to find, west figures to have most high cards including the ♠K, so your best shot is to hope that the diamond suit doesn’t provide enough discards. That is the case here. NS can help themselves by argreeing to play suit preference here.
+620 and +600 meant 15 more Dutch imp’s.
After an overtrick on board 3, the trigger happy Belgium closed room pair doubled the Dutch again in an 8-card fit at the two-level. The defence got off to the right start: ♣2 to the ♣A, ♠2 to the ♠Q, ♠A, but then underled the ♦A. Declarer happily took his ♦K and 8 tricks.
The issue seems to be here which doubles were take-out and which ones were penalty after south overcalled 2♣ to show majors.
In the other room, EW played a quiet 2NT for down 1. 670 and -50 meant another 12 Dutch imp’s. That was 40-0 after 4 boards. Things calmed down after that, but the overall result was cleart 56-2, or 20-0. Fortunately for Belgium, they scored enough in the other matches to still make it to the top 6 and the semi-finals.
More action later today, at BBO, jeugdbridge.nl or live in Amsterdam.