A bridge question to start off. You are in 7♥ after partner opened 1NT, east overcalled 5♣ and you couldn’t think of anything better than 7♥. West kicks off with the ♣2, ♣3, ♣10 and ♣A. A straightforward diamond finesse or do you see another line of play? Trumps split 3-1. Hint, which 4 cards should east keep after the ♣A, 5 rounds of trumps and a couple of spades? And yes, 7♠ is cold, but that is not the question.
Over the last weeks, the world junior championships were played in Italy. Nowadays, this event consists of 4 series: juniors (under 26), youngsters (under 21), kids (under 16) and girls, where the latter name is a bit unlucky as I wouldn’t call a women in her mid-twenties a girl.
The Dutch did well, with a gold medel in the Girls series, silver for the under 21’s and a 4th place for the junior team. The kids team finished a respectable 7th in the 14 team field, considering that there are maybe a handful under 16’s in the country. The teams were on BBO most of the time, but quite absent in the daily bulletins. That is suprising, considering that Kees Tammens was there as a journalist and wrote daily reports about the event. Surely it cannot be too much trouble to write an English version of those Dutch diaries. For those interested, the Dutch version is available here.
There is a lot more material about the event, go to the WBF site for results, daily bulletins and more. In the daily bulletins, the puzzle corner “practice makes less imperfect” is well worth the read, even if you do not care about the event.
Of course, one of the problems with juniors is that they grow older and become ineligible for the championships. That means the federation will have to start looking for new players for the 2017 (European) and 2018 (World) events.
For those who can already play, there is an open junior event in Utrecht on September 4th. All junior players interested in becoming a European champion in 2017 can participate, for more info go here or send a mail to jeugdbridge@bridge.nl. For parents and others who do not play, there will be a side event where the rules of the game can explained and one can try a few hands oneselves.
If you don’t know how to play, but are interested in card games, the event organized in the bridge club “De Denktank" here in Arnhem might be of interest. It is a pro-newbee event, where the newbee doesn’t have to know anything about the game. The game will be explained and there will be a short tournament to try out the new knowledge. The pro is there to help the newbee through the event. This event is open to everybody who feels young enough, not just juniors. In fact, I already found 2 newbee’s who want to play, aged 18 and 72. There are no costs involved, but one does have to register in advance at www.bridgearnhem.nl.
A curious board from the youth world finals. One can even predict the auction which is quite remarkable for a competitive deal: 1♠ from north, a normal 2♦ overcall, a penalty pass by south. North now has a textbook reopening double and south happily passes. West can see that 2♦x won’t be a success and tries a SOS-redouble. East bids his second suit though he surely won’t be too happy with his bid. North expects to defeat 2_ with his 4 top tricks and a partner who wanted to defend and doubles. Problem is, 2_ cannot be defeated and one by one 8 NS pairs had to score up -670.
A few pairs improved on this: one south player thought that 2♥ could not be defeated, and bid 2♠. That went down 3 but still a few imp’s. 2 pairs defended 2♦x, for down 1 and 2 respectively. The Dutch girls won 11 imp’s on the board in a strange way. At table 1, west passed out 2♦x, down 2. In the replay, the Australian west did redouble but east failed to bid 2♦. 2♦xx went the same down 2.
The 7♥. If you assume that east has something for his 5♣ bid, his hand will be something like ♠xx, ♥x, ♦Kx, ♣KJTxxxxx. West’s hand will then be 3♠-3♥-6♦-1♣, west led the ♣2, so a doubleton club and a 9-0 or 7-2 club split is out.
Now east has to follow to a club, 5 rounds of hearts and 3 spades. He obviously has to keep the ♦Kx and ♣KJ. South then plays his last spade in this position and east is caught in a criss-cross squeeze: if he discards a diamond, declarer cashes the ♦A and his hand is good. If he discards a club, declarer ruffs a club and scores the last 2 tricks in north.
When I was still a junior, the rule was that if one could play for a finesse or squeeze, one should always go for the squeeze. Today’s juniors obviously weren’t taught that, as the 3 tables in 7♥ simply took a finesse. That was a good thing, as the east hand was actually ♠43, ♥7, ♦76, ♣KJ1097654.
You have probably noticed that 7♠ is cold regardless of who has the ♦K (or the ♣K, for that matter). Bidding it was a bit harder, as finding the right strain and level after 1NT and a club overcall (the average overcall was 4♣) was quite hard. 1 pair of Dutch youngsters had a chance.
At this vulnerability, they play a weak NT and thus have to start with 1♣. East had no natural club overcall available, so the auction could start at a low level. Why north rebid 1NT instead of 1♠ is not clear to me. I don’t quite understand the double of 3♣ either, this looks like a more balanced hand to me, a natural 3♠ would have given NS a chance. Finally, it looks like the wrong hand (east) asked for aces here. West knows the specific cards he needs, so he should have bid blackwood over 4♦.
2 pairs managed both in the girls series.
First, the Australian west bid 4♣ in an attempt to find the best trump suit. Her partner helped by bidding 4♠. 5♠ showed 2 aces and the ♠Q, 6♥ the ♥K. Then it was easy to count 13 tricks. That contract is also safe against a 4-1 spade split. In the replay, the Dutch girls saw 4♣ overcall and doubled this for penalties. +800 lost 12 against the 1510 at the other table. Nice, though it was too little too late for Australia, who lost the match by about 100 imp’s. A similar auction occured in the match for 3rd place, and Indonesia picked up 11.