sept_D

English The main event of the Summer Nationals in Las Vegas was the Spingold Knockout Teams, where European bridge prevailed over American bridge. The final match was contested by ZIMMERMANN (Multon-Zimmermann, Gawrys-Klukowski, Martens-Hellness) and TEAM BLASS (Nowosadzki-Kalita, Pszczola, Brink-Drijver). This was a curious confrontation, as Nowosadzki-Kalita teamed up with Gawrys- Klukowski to win the 2015 Bermuda Bowl for Poland, while Brink-Drijver have announced their intentions to represent Switzerland in the future together with… Zimmermann. The first interesting moment came as early as the third board in the first session. Board 3. Dealer South. Vul E/W AK654 T T7654 98 QJ972 T3 875 AKQJ43 AQ82 K9 7 532 8 962 J3 AKQJT64 West North East South Klukowski Drijver Gawrys Brink 1♣ 1♠ Pass 2♣ 4♣ Pass Pass 4 ♥ All Pass Notably, East didn't bid 2 ♥ , probably because this bid was not forcing in their system. Those who play new suit non-forcing over an overcall prefer to use a general-force cuebid 2♣ even without spade support. In this case South preempted with 4♣, and then East showed his hearts at level 4, which became the final contract. At the other table, South opened with a gambling 3NT bid (a convention not used by the Dutch pair) and ended up in five clubs doubled, down one. The intriguing question is: Can North-South defeat a contract of four hearts? At the table they didn't. Brink led his singleton spade (he expected at least one opponent to be very short in clubs). Drijver cashed ♠AK and tried another spade. Declarer ruffed high, drew trumps and used ♠QJ to discard all his clubs. East/West +650. As amatter of fact, four hearts can be defeated, but it is not easy to see this even in double- dummy mode. Did South miss a killing lead? Leading trumps in order to cut down club ruffs is insufficient. Spades didn't help at the table. Is there anything else? The Spingold Final (1) // Ram Soffer 2019 ספטמבר 193 גיליון 55