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Rafal Jagniewski (North) bid very well, having understood that in order to justify everyone’s bidding, his partner must have all the club top honors. Still, there was a danger of going down five (-500), had Sabine found the spade lead. But Sabine led an uninspired ♦ A (catering for a singleton king in North – but who would bid like that with a singleton king in a European Championship?). In my opinion, the spade lead was not impossible to work out after this auction, but this was not her day. Perhaps East should just bid 5 ♦ and not risk defending, since it was impossible to tell whether partner’s entry would be in hearts or spades. After the diamond lead, North collected ten straightforward tricks: ♦ K, seven clubs and ♥ AQ. Poland +690. Closed Room West North East South Narkiewicz Gromöller Buras Häusler Pass 1♠ 3♣ 3 ♥ Pass 4 ♦ Pass 4 ♥ Dbl 5 ♦ Pass Pass Dbl All Pass Here everything was natural. I am sure many experts would argue about the relative merits of the one spade and one diamond opening bids. In my opinion, both opening bids are acceptable, and the big swing was not due to the discrepancy between 1 ♦ and 1♠. The Polish players just bid their hand patterns with no reservation and reached the correct spot, even though they were steered in the right direction by North’s greedy penalty double of four hearts (In several other tables North was wiser and the final contract became four hearts undoubled). Gromöller tried tobe consistent by doubling fivediamonds aswell, but he was soon disillusioned: first declarer ruffed out his club loser, then he established spades by one ruff and finally he found the doubleton king of diamonds onside. Those somewhat lucky twelve tricks cost Germany 950 points and a total swing of 17 IMPs, which determined the match result, as the other fifteen deals produced a placid 18- 15 total score in Poland’s favor. Board 28. Dealer West, Vul N/S ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ AQJ2 A4 AQ9852 A ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 6 983 KT76 98654 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ T5 K652 3 KQJ732 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ K98743 QJT7 J4 T Our second exhibit comes from Round 8. Almost every North-South pair was in a slam here (if we disregard the Irish pair who by accident played in a five club cue-bid, going six down), and the big question was whether to bid seven spades or be content with six spades. This time we shall follow the Norway-Netherlands match: Open Room West North East South Brogeland De Wijs Lindqvist Muller Pass 1♣* 3♣ 4 ♥ ** 5♣ 7♠ All Pass * strong ** 6+ spades, 6-8 HCP The Dutch auction was short and sweet. Even though 4 ♥ didn’t show a big hand, North didn’t bother to investigate with 6♣. The play was also straightforward. North was hoping to set up diamonds with only one ruff in order to get three heart discards from dummy. He took the ♣K lead with the ace, drew two rounds of trump and ran the diamond jack from dummy. West covered and North took the percentage line of cashing the diamond queen and hoping for a 3-2 break. His hopes didn’t materialize and when the heart finesse was offside he had to register a sad, but quite normal, minus 100.