Let’s start with a tournament announcement. This time for the 42nd edition of the Dombo Swiss Teams tournament in Utrecht. As has been the case since 1985, this is played on Ascencion day, or Thursday May 25, 2017. Start 10am, 7 7-board rounds of swiss, and if you play well enough, you should be able to cash the €500 first prize around 6 pm. Pre-registration is required, visit their website or mail the organizers. If you need a flyer for the notice board of your club, simply click on the picture on the left.
I used to run this tournament for a number of years, roughly 1983 to 1987 or thereabout, in 1985, I moved the event from second Saturday in May to Ascencion day, little did I know that 32 years later, it’d still be on that day.
Today’s trivia question: why did I move the date? I’ll buy the first person who comes up with the correct answer a drink. A hint is in the title of this blog.
This week in Amsterdam: the White House Juniors International, or WHJI for short. This is the annual invitational tournament for Junior (25 and under) teams from all over the world, this years field includes teams from approximately 22 nations. Absent are the North American teams, otherwise the field is close to an U25 world championship. For more on the event, go to the tournament site. Note that it is the 25th edition, so in theory none of the players was born when the first event was organised in Den Bosch in the early 1990’s.
I’ll probably drive over to kibitz later this week, but today I only have time to watch a few boards on BBO. The nice thing about junior events is that even the dullest boards can suddenly turn into something spectacular. Watch this one, from the match between the Dutch under 20 team, playing EW as “Netherlands Orange”, against one of the 3 Dutch under 25 teams, playing as “Netherlands White”.
2♣ was a variation on Gazilli, 2♥ showed a positive hand with hearts, 3♣ natural, 3♦ 4th suit forcing, 4♦ alerted but not explained on vuegraph. East didn’t believe all this and doubled.
At a first glance, it looks as if declarer has only 3 losers, yet there are lots of handling problems. Do you put your money on the defence or the offense?
Does it help if I tell you that Deep Finesse says that the hand can be made on any lead? Watch what happened.
♥9 lead, ♥K. East should duck this one, to avoid setting up 2 high hearts. If not declarer can win the contract by ruffing, the ♠J will provide an entry for 2 minor suit discards, finally a club up will see him home. This is, of course, very hard to see, with a singleton heart in the hand this will look really silly. So, ♥9, ♥K, ♥A and ♠3.
Declarer can now cross to dummy with the ♠J. But, with east doubling, it is not clear that the spades will be offside. So, in trick 2, he played the ♦K, in an attempt to eventually ruff a diamond. West wins and returns a club to the ♣A. That didn’t hurt the defence.
In trick 4, the balance shifts to declarer again: ♣J, setting up the club suit for declarer. Again, declarer can play the ♠4 to the ♠J, and discard losers on the top hearts. However, he still doesn’t believe that the ♠Q is with east, so in trick 5 he continued with the ♦Q, followed by a ruff. This creates 2 spade tricks for the defence, so declarer is down again.
We’re not there yet. Declarer followed by 2 top hearts, discarding his club winners. At this point, declarer is down to ♠AK764. In trick 9 a club is led, ruffer perforce by declarer and overruffed by west with the ♠8. A heart or the ♠Q would set the contract, but west decided to lead the ♠2 to the ♠J. Declarer can play small, ruff a heart with the ♠6, then cash ♠AK as his last 2 tricks and making the contract. No, the balance of power changed again when declarer overtook the ♠J with the ♠A. This cannot win, even if somebody started with ♠Qx, the ♠10 will become a defensive trick. Declarer simply has to hope that he can ruff a heart.
So, down 1. If I counted this correctly, the balance of power changed 6 times in 13 tricks, with finally the defence prevailing.
In the replay, the contract was 4♠x as well, but this time doubled by west. After the ♥9 lead, covered with the ♥J, ♥A and ruffed, declarer made short work of the hand by playing the ♠3 to the ♠J. That meant 14 IMP’s to the U20’s. It wasn’t enough, as they were decisively outscored on the other 9 boards for a 4-16 loss.
Spectacular, sure, but I bet there is more action coming up in the next days, so log on to BBO or drive over to Amsterdam.
O, and did I tell you that the exhibition of the Paul de Pecker collection of stationary engines will open this Saturday at the "Grootmoederstijd en Motoren Museum”?
Well, if I didn’t or you forgot: the official opening will be on April 1st. After that, the collection will be on display for the general public, daily except Monday’s For the full press release (in Dutch), go here.
And if you have a project like this lying around that needs to be done, you know where to find me.