This weekend, the finals of the Dutch national team championships aka the “Meesterklasse” were played, featuring the first team from the White House (Amsterdam) and the 3rd team from ’t Onstein (Vorden). The Onstein team included Geon Steenbakkers and Tim Verbeek, both members of the Thursday training group at the Denktank.
Some years ago, I wrote that it must be a record for a club to be represented by 3 teams in the Meesterklasse. Within half a day, a reader then pointed out that this had happened twice before. Trivia question of the day: name those clubs. On Saturday, this record was improved when the 4th team of ’t Onstein won a promotion/demotion match for a spot in the 2017/2018 Meesterklasse. I did some checking this morning and as far as I can tell, 4 teams from one club is a record.
The White House lined up with Sjoert Brink-Bas Drijver, arguably the world’s best pair in 2016, and Berry Westra-Vincent Ramondt. Before the match, they were seen as the favorites by the bookmakers, though the opponents were thought to have a fair chance as well. So, when I first logged in to BBO on board 33, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the match was a virtual tie at 46-47. This board didn’t do the cause of ’t Onstein any good:
Their auction is shown on the left. NS play a 14-16 NT and 2/1 GF. After 1♠-2♥-2NT shows 17-19 balanced. 3♥ shows more hearts. With all that in mind, I think that the jump to 6♥ by Geon is too early, as Garozzo said in the 1970’s, there is a lot of bidding space left between 3♠ and 6♥.
NOTE added 31/1/17: After this article was posted on 30/1, NS pointed out that BBO got the auction wrong. Click here for the correct one.
In the replay (auction on the right), 2NT showed 5♠ and 3♥ plus a maximum, in an attempt to uncover all 5-3 fits. 3♦ was a retransfer. 5NT promised all key-cards and invited 7♥. With all his extra’s, north had no trouble bidding 7♥.
At a first glance, slam appears to be on a finesse but that is not correct. You have sufficient entries to ruff 3 spades in an attempt to set up a 2nd spade trick before taking the club finesse. That already works in some 70% of the cases, making the slam an 85% favorite. 13 tricks were made at both tables, 11 imp's to the White House. That was most of the difference for the set, after 48 boards on Saturday the score stood at 74-64 in favor of the White House. With 40 boards to play, nothing had been decided.
The following morning, I drove to Utrecht to see the remainder of the final live on Vuegraph. With the room still empty, this board came up.
The latest fashion grill amongst the Dutch top players, besides the Onstein team uniforms, is to play all kinds of weak NT’s: 9-11, 11-14, 12-14, often depending on position and vulnerability. The argument being that weak NT’s are notoriously hard to defend against and thus generate a profit. I’m not quite sure if this is true, but it does generate some exciting boards.
Both tables opened an 11-14 NT and east overcalled a natural 2♠. Now south bid 3♦ to show hearts and invitational or better values. I don’t agree with that call, I’m assuming that this the “better” variation, so why not bid your suits naturally? It is very unlikely that west can bid a high number of spades, so your heart suit won’t get lost.
At table 1, NS did recover a bit when south bid clubs at his next attempt, getting the relative suit lengths wrong but at least introducing the suit. Of course, NS never had a shot at the cold 7♣ with a trump position that even Peter Verouden cannot get wrong. At table 2, things turned into a disaster when south didn’t introduce her second suit at all and North doubled 5♦ too early. 5♦x made after a correct spade guess.
The match remainded close with neither team taking more than a few imp’s lead and it all boiled down to the last board. The score was meanwhile 123-118 in favor of ’t Onstein. If het Witte Huis could pick up 5 imp’s, they’d tie the score at 123 all. And as they’d won the qualifying round robin, that would mean that they win the event.
Closed north overcalled 2NT to show a red two-suiter, which apparently can be this light. I must be getting old, years ago, I was thought that you should bid light 2 suiters as you give the distribution away when you lose the bidding. South raised to 3NT and east led a spade. Double dummy, every reasonable line of play works for 10 tricks and playing the ♠Q even works for 11. Single dummy it is a bit harder and takes a bit longer, but eventually declarer emerged with 10 tricks.
That put the spotlight on the other room. 2♦ showed spades, pass then double from south was for penalties. Remember we have +630 in the open room, NS are trailing by 5 imp’s thus need to score at least +800, or down 3, in order to win, anything less means a loss. GIB says -4 is possible.
So, here we go: ♠5 lead, small, ♠Q and small. ♥8, ♥Q, ♥A. That didn’t look right but the defense can still recover by playing a small club or diamond. No, ♥J to the ♥K, now we are at down 3 maximum. ♣Q, small, small to the ♣A. South now cashed the ♦A. Following this with the ♠A will still set the contract 3, but Sjoert Brink now exitied with a diamond and with it, exiting with the last chance to win the match. At this point, west can always score the ♠10 for down 2 and a 4 imp gain. When another trick got lost, the final score was 133-118 and the underdogs had won.
Congratulations to Magie, Richard, Tim, Danny, Geon and Peter. Picture from bridge.nl on the left, all wearing the same club outfits which were generously described as Kim Jong Un’s interpretation of a 1950’s Mao uniform by some members of the audience. I’m not sure if mr. Kim’s fashion sense is that bad.
Back to the trivia question: two clubs who were represented by 3 teams in the Meesterklasse were CPP (in the 1988/1989 season) and Buitenhof (1969/1970). Both 3rd teams won the event in those years as well, so the 3rd team from ’t Onstein winning is not a record either. For more trivia, click here.