dec.indd

English 54 At the other tableWest happened to be the declarer in 6 ♦ and he made it easily after North underled his ♥ K. However, Sementa (South) led a heart, leaving Bilde with two inescapable losers. Dennis still had to try to make it. He won the ♥ A and played three rounds of trumps, ending in hand. Both defenders chose to discard a small spade, so declarer already knew that this suit was not splitting 4-4. When Bilde led ♠ T from his hand, Sementa was afraid that declarer had a doubleton and chose not to cover. However, would his partner really have discarded from a singleton spade? After some thought declarer realized that his only chance was to assume that the defense had just made a huge error. Bilde let the ♠ T run (risking down two) and later discarded his heart losers on the ♠ AK. Both Italian teams made it to the next stage, and they had to meet in the semi fi nals. The holders Allegra showed their class by winning the 32-board match by 74:47, while in the other semi fi nal the Dutch Champions beat the EBU team despite the following disaster: Board 13, Dealer North Vul All ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ AJ963 8 AT97 K87 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ K5 - KQJ65 QT6532 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ QT84 KQT64 32 A9 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 72 AJ97532 84 J4 West North East South Mahmood Ritmeijer Hanlon Ticha 1 ♠ Pass 1NT 2 ♦ Pass 2 ♥ Pass 3 ♣ Pass 3 ♦ Pass Pass Dbl All Pass At the other table East chose to overcall 2 ♥ aggressively and the Dutch pair rested in a strange contract of 2NT, making three. Ireland's Tom Hanlon chose a more reasonable Pass, and now it was Zia's choice over 1NT. He could have overcalled 2NT for the minors, but preferred to indicate a diamond lead by bidding 2 ♦ . Eventually he played 3 ♦ in a 7-card fi t instead of 3 ♣ with an 8-card fi t. Ritmeijer (North) liked this, but doubling Zia is always a risky business. Perhaps North was in fl uenced by an earlier board in the set, where Zia was doubled in 5 ♣ , tried to run away and eventually landed in 6 ♣ doubled. However, this time nobody ran away. After the ♠ A lead followed by a small spade, North was able to shorten declarer's trumps only once, so Zia lost only the obvious four tricks – plus 670. The fi nal match consisted of two 16-board segments. The fi rst one was very close. The score after 15 boards was 38:29 in favor of the Dutch team, and this was the fi nal board of the segment: Board 16, Dealer West Vul E/W ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ J42 AQT84 A3 AK8 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 953 763 J2 JT642 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 8 KJ92 Q875 Q973 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ AKQT76 5 KT964 5 West North East South Ticha Bocchi Ritmeijer Bilde 1 ♥ Pass 2 ♠ Pass 2NT Pass 3 ♦ Pass 3 ♠ Pass 4 ♣ Pass 4 ♦ Pass 4NT Pass 5 ♦ Pass 6 ♣ Pass 7 ♠ All Pass