14th World Bridge Games
Captain's Log, Stardate 120810-1
A disappointing day.
We started against Iceland - my assessment pre-event was that we were in by far the toughest of the four groups. Monaco look a virtual lock on a qualifying spot, China and Israel are excellent chances to progress and then there is Norway, Finland, Turkey, Iceland, Japan, Greece and us competing for the last spot (possibly two spots if one of China and Israel underperforms).
To qualify I think we will need to average around 17-18 VPs against our main opposition (the group of six I just listed) so I sent in Terry & Avi and David & Zol to get us off to a good start. To be fair we were unlucky - Sartaj once told me that the difference between an OK team and a great team is that the great team will be dealt a minus 20 set and finish minus twenty - whereas an OK team will lose by fifty. We were not dealt a winning set against Iceland - they made very few mistakes - but we finished minus fifty.
How do you deal with this hand (you are dealer) with your favourite partner?
Void
Ax
AK9x
AKQJT97
Playing with Griff I'd be tempted to open at the one-level - but because of the vagaries of our approach I'd probably be forced to open 2C. Partner responds 2D (negative or waiting) and you bid 3C. Partner bids 3S - what now? Several players in the open now bid 3NT and played there - partner's hand was
KJTxx
xxx
Qxxx
x
So 7D makes if trumps are not 4-1 and slam is excellent.
Terry and Avi bid 2C-2D-3C-3S-6C - the Icelandic pair reached 7D. The decision to bid grand is only 3 imps better than the decision to stop in the long run - however bridge is scored in the shortrun and today the diamonds broke.
Paul Lavings advocates a method which would certainly have worked better on this hand - in response to 2C;
2D 0-4 any
2H 9+ any
2S 5-8 balanced
2NT 5-8 with spades
3x 5-8 natural
So on this hand the auction would start 2C-2NT-3C-3D - now you are much better placed. We lost the match 25-4
In the second round we had a bye - then in the third round we played Costa Rica - Terry & Avi lined up with Paul & Robert - we were leading for much of the match but they bid a slam which most of the field missed and had another couple of good results (at least one of which could be considered lucky) in the last four boards to beat us 17-13.
Today we face Reunion, Norway and Venezuela with both the second and third matches being shown on the http://www.bridgecardreader.com/live website (although there have been problems in some of the rounds today).
The good news for Australia is that the ladies team have had an excellent start - after a maximum win against Spain and a narrow loss against Kenya they finished the day with a 24-6 win against England (who recently won the European championships) - there is still a long way to go in the event - but I feel this result shows that they have real potential to make it deep into the knockout stages of the event.
Bye for now,
Michael Wilkinson