November 2019 - 19

now knew East had four diamonds,
and eventually elected to play East for
6=1=4=2. After the session, though,
we determined that there is an excellent play available that doesn't rely on
guessing the heart. Do you see it?
There are two similarly themed plays
that work. After winning the ♦K, play
a club to the ace and a club toward your
hand. Once East follows (or pitches),
win the king, play ♥A and take a heart
finesse into East. The finesse will
either win, or East will be endplayed on
all the likely shapes/hands.
The other idea is to first ruff a diamond, then play ♣A, club to the king,
ruff the last diamond, and then do the
same tactic of playing the ♥A and
finessing into the East hand.
The match did not go well for our
side, and after seven boards, we were
down 29-5. We got some back on the
last board, though:
Dlr: West ♠ J 8 7 5 4
Vul: E-W ♥ 6
♦J764
♣AJ6
♠ A Q 10
♠3
♥K98
♥QJ75
♦AQ93
♦K52
♣K93
♣Q7542
♠K962
♥ A 10 4 3 2
♦ 10 8
♣ 10 8
West North
East
Duffie
Young
1♣
1♠
Dbl
3NT All Pass

South
3♠

Cornelius declared 3NT as West
on this board. The ♠5 lead went to
the king and his ace. Recognizing that
South was the danger hand, Cornelius made a concerted effort to lead
through the South hand. Note that he
likely needs to establish both heart and
club tricks. He made the excellent play
of cashing the ♦Q, then crossed to the
♦K to lead a club from the dummy. If
South had the ace, he would be forced
to duck, and Cornelius could then
switch to hearts with good chances of

success.
When North showed up with the
ace, Cornelius was home when North
continued spades; Cornelius could
knock out the ♥A for three spades, two
hearts, three diamonds and one club.
North's spade continuation wasn't
ideal, but on the actual hand, she was
almost endplayed. The best return was
a club, but declarer can still make with
some guesswork, and I have full faith in
Cornelius that he would have done so.
We won 13 IMPs on this hand when
declarer went down two at the other
table - playing hearts first. But we lost
the match 29-18.
Australia won the qualifying Swiss
handily (well done to them for that),
while we held onto third place, despite
losing our last match badly to Italy. In
the quarterfinal, we faced Poland in
a 32-board match. This was a match
where everything kind of went right for
our side, and we built a 50-IMP lead in
the first 16 boards.
The second half was wild, not just
because of our opponents trying to
make up the gap, but also because of
some of the hands. Check this one out,
for example:
Dlr: West ♠ A K Q 9
Vul: Both ♥ 10 7 6
♦853
♣953
♠J87654
♠-
♥-
♥K9543
♦-
♦KQJ9642
♣ K Q 10 8 6 4 2
♣J
♠ 10 3 2
♥AQJ82
♦ A 10 7
♣A7
West
Duffie
Pass
2♣
2♠
4♣

North
Pass
Dbl
Dbl
Dbl

East
Young
1♥
2♦
3♦
All Pass

South
1NT
Dbl
Dbl

I admit I don't agree with Sarah
opening 1♥ as East, but she showed
good discipline at the end of the auction, trusting her passed-hand partner

In the under-21 team championship, the
bronze medal went to Canadian Hao Zhen
Dong, Finn Kolesnik from the U.S., and
Canadian Bo Han Zhu. Not pictured is USA
player Harrison Luba. Dong and Zhu medaled
earlier in the tournament when they took third
place in the under-21 Pairs Championship.

and putting down the dummy in 4♣
doubled. On the ♠Q lead, Cornelius
was able to get out for down one; minus
200, as you might imagine, was a tame
score compared to some of the numbers collected at other tables. Ben and I
collected 1400 defending 5♦ doubled.
There were a number of 1100s at
other tables. In the U21, my American
and Canadian friends collected plus
2000(!), which helped them win their
quarterfinal match.
We moved on to the semifinals the
next day to play a 56-board match
against a team from England. Again,
this was a match where everything
seemed to go right for us. Take this, the
second board of the match:
Dlr: East
Vul: N-S

♠K742
♥J3
♦64
♣AKQ43
♠ Q J 10 9 3
♠A86
♥7
♥ 10 8 5
♦ Q 10 9 7 5
♦K32
♣96
♣J872
♠5
♥AKQ9642
♦AJ8
♣ 10 5

November 2019 Bridge Bulletin

19
November 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of November 2019
