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Tournament Report

The EBU Summer Meeting 2000

As always, the English Bridge Union's main congress of the year was held in the Metropole Hotel, on the seafront at Brighton, over a ten-day period in the middle of August.

The main events were at the two weekends, first a four-session Swiss Pairs and then a teams event that started out with three sessions of Swiss, qualifying the top eight to an all-play-all final and the next eight to a consolation final. While those were being played, the rest of the field played another session of Swiss. During the midweek period, there was a whole range of pairs and teams events of shorter duration. For the last couple of years, the EBU has also made more effort to add a little life to the proceedings.

This year, there was a morning post-mortem session with a panel of experts every day, and on five occasions during the tournament there was a midnight speedball competition - 26 boards in less than 80 minutes quick enough for you? Alongside the usual bridge bookstalls, there was a stall covering a wide range of other mind sports and the organiser had brought chess boards, backgammon boards and scrabble for anyone to play at any time when they were not playing bridge. It was also possible to play bridge online, using the EBU's own online bridge club.

Brighton is an ideal venue for a major bridge congress. There is a plentiful range of places to stay to suit almost any pocket, and a similarly wide range of eating houses in easy reach. For the player with a family, there is plenty for non-players to do to keep themselves amused, and this year the weather was mostly very good also. But, of course, the bridge is still the main thing. The experienced pairing of Andrew Thompson and Tony Clark won the Swiss Pairs, while the main teams event was won by Nick Sandqvist, Rob Cliffe, Tom Townsend and David Gold.

This deal from Wednesday evening's Mixed Pivot Teams was nicely played by David Jensen.

Dealer East. E/W Vul.

			J 10 4 3 2
			J 8 6 4 2
			K 9 8
			-
	Q 8 7 6	N   W E   S			A 9 5
	A Q 5 3				K 7
	J 10 2				Q 6 4
	K 9				Q J 6 4 3
			K
			10 9
			A 7 5 3
			A 10 8 7 5 2

West	North	East	South
		1NT	3
3NT	All Pass

I was sitting South and was relieved to find that my opponents were not playing take-out doubles. Had they been doing so, West would have made one and East passed it for penalties. And I would have been taken out - on a stretcher! As it was, West had to guess to bid 3NT, ending the auction. I led a low club to dummy's nine and Jensen led a spade to his ace, looking pleased when my king fell, then a club. At the other table, South won the ace of clubs at this point and declarer had only to establish a diamond for his ninth trick. However, I ducked the club, making life a good deal more awkward.

Even had declarer had an extra entry to hand, he could not have afforded to play on clubs to establish an extra trick as I could have won and returned the suit, establishing two more club tricks for the defence while I still had the A as an entry to cash them. Instead, Jensen played the jack of diamonds, which was allowed to hold. He had eight tricks now and the ninth would have to come from an endplay.

Declarer continued with a second diamond to North's king and North, David Martin, played a third diamond. I won and it didn't matter what I did next. In practice, I cashed the 13th diamond before exiting with a heart. Jensen won in hand and, with dummy and North having come down to the same lengths in each major (three cards), he could cash the other top hearts then exit with a low spade. North could win but then had to lead into dummy's spades to give the last two tricks for a flat board. Nicely played.

My team of David Martin, Jeff and Ann Wilkins, went on to win the Pivot Teams. As the name suggests, each member of the team has to play an equal number of the boards with each other team member. While we had two regular partnerships, two-thirds of the time we would be playing with someone we had never faced before. That made it particularly pleasing when Jeff Wilkins and I were almost the only pair in the field to reach the top spot on this next deal.

Dealer West. All Vul.

			8 2
			9 8 3
			Q 9 8 7
			K Q 6 3
	K Q 10 6 4	N   W E   S			A 9 7 5
	A 6				K Q J 10 5
	6 5 4 2				-
	A 8				10 9 7 5

West	East
Wilkins	Senior
1	4
4	5
6	7
Pass

A perfectly fitting 23-point grand slam and from what I saw there were more pairs languishing in game than managed to reach even the small slam - which makes it particularly unlucky for our opponents who did manage to get to six at the other table, only to lose 13 IMPs. Four Diamonds was a splinter bid, showing at least the values for game in support of spades and a singleton or void diamond.

When Jeff cuebid 4, he said not only that he had a heart control, but also that he quite liked his hand in the context of my splinter. As you can see, he had no high cards in diamonds and so nothing wasted, while he could hope to ruff his losers in the suit in dummy. By cooperating with a 4 cuebid, Jeff suggested that he had at least an opening hand after ignoring any wasted diamond values. He might count the A, but would ignore lesser honours.

At the very worst, he might have around 13 HCP including the A, so to sign off in game would be a bit wet on my hand - though it was just possible that we might have three quick club losers if he did have the A. Five Diamonds confirmed that the diamond control was actually a void and Jeff's hand was looking even better. He decided to accept the slam try and, because his club control was first-round, cuebid 6 in case I might be interested in the grand slam. If partner could bid six and invite seven, he surely had to have decent trumps and both his cuebids had to be showing first-round controls. I had a nice source of tricks in the heart suit, and could jump to seven. There was nothing to the play, of course, declarer simply needing to take two diamond ruffs to bring the total to 13 tricks.

Sometimes the game all seems very easy, doesn't it? Other times….