I had to adjust the title a bit, the plan was to finish this blog yesterday but life interfered.
Lots of bridge over the weekend. In Utrecht, the top league in the national teams competition aka “the Meesterklasse”, had reached the semi-final stages. 4 teams had qualified, 3 from ’t Onstein and a 4th from “the White House”.
First a bridge problem, matchpoints, decent field: 1♣ by west, 1NT by east, all pass. South led a spade and declarer puts up the ♠K with partner inserting an encouraging ♠2. He then played the ♣4 to the ♣A and led a heart. Your turn?
In the first semi-final, “the White House”, with Brink-Drijver, currently regarded as the world strongest pair, disposed of the 1st team from ’t Onstein. The latter team included the number 2 pair in the country, Simon de Wijs and Bauke Muller. The difference was a convincing 50 imp’s over 12 boards. This loss means that Bauke and Simon won’t break a record for at least 7 years. Today’s trivia quiz: which record?
The other match was a match between the second and third team from ’t Onstein. The third team won, 145 over 125. Practice made perfect here, as two of the players in the 3rd team are members of the Thursday training group at the Denktank. Every week, we meet for 24 boards and a few hours of discussion of the hands. If you are interested in joining, contact Ruurd at the Denktank. In two weeks time, G and T will have a chance to prove that practice made really perfect.
The finals will be in the weekend of 27-28, take a look a http://bridge.nl/ for kibitzing and vuegraph info, and the match will be on BBO as well. It will be an exiciting match and I’m taking bets.
Finally, if you want to see 2 world champions in action, there is this one. On January 30, current chess world champion Magnus Carlsen will play a game against current bridge world champion Simon de Wijs. The event is a fund raiser for childern’s hospital. Even though Simon in his youth won a chess championship (juniors under 14), I’m not taking bets on this result. I have no idea if it is possible to kibitz, but here is the URL with details.
A request for publicity that landed on my desk over the weekend.
For those of you who want to escape the bad weather in the north, this tournament in Casablanca, Marocco early March might be a good idea. March 9-12, open and mixed pairs, in both cases with play starting daily at 4pm, leaving ample time to enjoy the 8 hours of sunshine and 20 degrees near the local pool during the day. For details, contact the organisation by email.
And I also picked up the cards myself this weekend. Once a year, the club organizes the so-called “house to house” drive. The idea is quite simple: half the players host a table at their own home, the other half moves from one house to another as in a regular Mitchell movement. After the event, all players meet at a central location for drinks, food and the results.
This year, we were hosting which meant that players came to our house. We prepared by providing good wine and homemade Belgium waffled’s according to the recipe of the wife’s great-grandmother from the 1800’s.
A couple of the opponents returnd the favor by bringing a present in the form of a pile of matchpoints. Here is one example. The auction was short (1♦ by north, 1NT by east, all pass) and the hand would not have made it to history if south had led the ♦10.
However, she tried to set up her own suit by leading the ♣9. Declarer won the ♣Q and cashed the ♣A. North’s methods forced him to contribute the ♣6 in an attempt to encourage diamonds. A 3rd round of clubs was won by south and she finally led a diamond. Now it was north’s turn to go wrong by putting up the _A and continuing the suit, thus cutting communications between the defender’s hands. A 4th round of clubs was played and presented south with their last chance to set up the suit where they can make 3 tricks, spades. No, she tried a heart to the ♥K and ♥A. Declarer cashed the ♥Q and the ♣6, then exited with a heart, setting up the ♥9, with the ♦K and ♠A still to come as well. 9 tricks and 100% of the matchpoints. After another disaster, 5♥x down 1100 against a partial, the opponents where ready for the long drive to the next house.
Defending 1NT at pairs is always a risky affair, in particular when the auction has been rather unrevealing. Back to the problem: 1♣-1NT, you lead a spade to ♠K with partner playing an encouraging ♠2, club to the ♣A and a heart back.
You can see that clubs are running, so declarer is trying to steal his 7th trick here. Go up with the ace, and try to cash as many tricks in diamonds and spades as you can. In practice, south didn’t pay attention for a second and ducked. That was -90 and only 10% of the matchpoints. This is actually one of those problems that you cannot get wrong when shown as a problem, but miss easily in real play.
Of course, the hand was really lost in the auction as NS are cold for about 9 tricks in spades. Double over 1NT is risky but passing is even riskier.
The trivia question: The record that Bauke and Simon won’t break for at least 7 years, is the number of consecutive wins of the Meesterklasse. They had a series of 4, with 2 to go to break the record set by the brothers Goudsmit, Martijn Cats and Jut Kramer in the early 1950’s. Their winning streak is now over. On the right a picture of one events in the 1950’s. Note the differences with today’s play: no screens, no bidding boxes and all players smoking.