August 2010 - 21

Canadian Bridge Championships

made a psychic 2 overcall over the
2 opening his West chose and eventually led the 5, only to have his
partner win the 8 and return a club!
And for another underleader of the
heart sequence whose partner chose
the perfectly wrong time to give a
standard count signal (by playing the
2!) in lieu of the old standby "third
hand high"!
Even the other CBC couldn't produce comedy (tragedy?) any better
than this!
Twenty-three teams entered the
top-level event, and as the four-day
round-robin neared completion, there
was some amazing news brewing:
Korbel, one of the pre-event favorites,
was in serious jeopardy of not qualifying for the playoff rounds. But two
late blitzes and an unlikely parlay
of results by other contenders left
Korbel looking forward to a spot in
the quarterfinals.
Special condolences to the Gamble
squad that, for the second straight
year, was left on the outside looking
in by the narrowest of margins - 1
victory point.
For the first playoff match, roundrobin winner Gartaganis chose to play
Rayner and prevailed 167-106.
Todd did less well with their pick
as they found Korbel had rallied from
their earlier troubles and were in fine
form as they sent their Winnipeg rivals to the sidelines 194-92.
Janicki picked my squad (Thurston)
and, for us, this was an extremely
unlucky match: It's always unlucky
when your opponents play as well as
Janicki's sixsome did in their 148-106
victory.
Team Whiteman, so named to honor
Gary Whiteman, a recently deceased
and very popular member of the
Canadian bridge scene, won a tight
match with Hanna, another pre-event
favorite that never quite found the
good form expected of them.
In the semifinals, Gartaganis played
Janicki and overcame a sluggish start
to win 167-104 to set up an intriguing final-round encounter with the

resilient Korbel, who advanced by defeating Whiteman 178-106.
There would be several intriguing
sub-texts to what would turn out to
be a very close and well-played final
that had the thousands watching on
Bridge Base Online, glued to their
computer screens for the 128 deals
spread over two days.
Defying conventional wisdom that
you can't win such a grueling event
playing four-handed, both finalists
would try to do just that, although
Korbel had been assisted by Danny
Miles during the round-robin when a
teammate was unavailable.
Adding further spice, Keith Balcombe
for Korbel had many times played on
teams featuring various members of
the Gartaganis squad, most notably
while winning the 2002 IOC Grand
Prix in Salt Lake City with Gordon
Campbell and Nicholas Gartaganis
(also on that team were Peter Jones
with Fred Gitelman and Joey Silver).
This time, it would be Judith and
Nicholas Gartaganis with Gordon
Campbell and Piotr Klimowicz versus Dan Korbel-Darren Wolpert and
Keith Balcombe-Ross Taylor for all
the marbles.
Before we get to the details of the
final, since the "other" CBC features
lots of award shows, let's have a
break in the reportage to show my
nominees for best declarer play and
best defense of the playoff rounds.
Dlr: South  A K J 8 7
Vul: E-W  10 8
J842
97
Q96
543
N
54
KJ932
W E
K65
97
S
 A 10 8 4 3
K65
 10 2
AQ76
 A Q 10 3
QJ2
West

North

East

Pass
Pass

2
3NT

Pass
All Pass

South
1NT
2

After a standard transfer and
choice-of-games sequence, Darren
Wolpert declared the notrump game
with the fourth-best club lead won by
East and the continuation ducked by
West to preserve defensive communications.
As his main chance, South had to
assume spades would play for five
winners, but even that bit of good
fortune would leave him needing a
successful red-suit finesse to get to
nine winners. Question of the day:
Which finesse to try? Wolpert found
the best possible answer to that vexing question when he decided to try
both finesses!
At trick three, South led a spade to
the ace and called for the J. If East
covered and the suit played for four
winners, three spade tricks would be
enough but when East didn't produce
the K, a la Zia's famous advice, Wolpert decided it was because he didn't
have it.
And so it was up with the A,
spade to the jack and run the suit
when the necessary split existed.
Nine tricks for declarer with a late
heart finesse.
Dlr: West
Vul: E-W

 10 5 4
 10 4 3
3
AKQJ96
AKQ872
J96
N
J7
A962
W E
 Q 10 9 6
KJ7
S
 10
743
3
KQ85
A8542
852
West
1
Pass

North
2
Pass

East
4
Dbl

South
5
All Pass

For the best defense of the playoff rounds, I give you the successful
campaign conducted by Klimowicz-
Campbell for Korbel in their winning
semifinal tilt with Janicki.
East followed up his slightly for- ➤
August 2010 Bridge Bulletin

21
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of August 2010
