First match - China HK

After reaching the venue early, we had to endure 2 long days before the real action started. Trust me on this, it is truly miserable suffering from the anticipation...

The format of the tournament is a complete round robin of the 18 teams involved, playing 20 boards against each opponent. The top 4 will qualify for the knockouts, so it is going to be a long fight.

First match on schedule was against old rivals, China HongKong. Well, they are fellow Zone 6 competitors, finishing 2nd in our zone championships and hell they are tough to play against. So, we all silently knew the first match is important as we need to get to a good start.

Finally I picked up my first hand of my first ever World Championships., praying for a mundane hand but it was not to be so:

A 5
8 7 6 5 3
Q 8 7
Q T 9

RHO pass you pass, LHO opens 4S (upon enquiry, they play NAMYATS) now pard comes in with 5H. What do you do?

There is no 'correct' solution to this sort of problem, just what you feel at the table. Well, I took my time to think.. then decided I had not come so far to pass
:-) I raised to 6H.

For those who thinks it is a clear raise, you may want to note that USA 1 and France players passed in the exact situation and only 4 out of 18 tables bidded slam. So I will put this down to luck than good judgement :)

Well partner had a truly great hand: xx AKQJT9x A AJxx club K was onside so no problems in the play 13 tricks.

At the other table, my teammate Liyu opened 1S instead of 4S. It worked well as the opponents lost their way and subsided in 5H. 10 imps to us.

Good start you think? wait till you see the next:

You pick up another mundane hand:

xxx
QJTx
QJTx
xx

Partner opens 1S and the bidding quickly escalates:

1S (3S) Pass (3NT)
4C (4D) ?

Hmm.. what is happening, RHO seems to have a 'good' D suit, I reached for the dbl but something told me to hold on a moment. this is clearly a freaky hand, if partner has a good hand, he may well dbl. if he has a greatly distributional hand, I wont mind playing in 4S too. So I finally decided to (trap)pass 4D (not a popular decision, I know). It worked beyond my wildest dreams:

1S (3S) Pass (3NT)
4C (4D) Pass? (4NT)!!
X Pass Pass Pass

the other hands:

_____________ ♠ 3
_____________ ♥ 6
_____________ ♦ A K 9 8 6 4 3 2
_____________ ♣ A 9 2

♠ A K J 8 4
♥ A K 5
♦ -
♣ K J 7 6 4
_____________ ♠ Q 9 7 2
_____________ ♥ T 9 8 3 2
_____________ ♦ 7
_____________ ♣ Q T 8

the play was quick and brutal and it suffices to say declarer only scored AK D and A C. 4NTx-7 +2000 to the good guys! If this is not luck, what is?

That was the way it went.. basically we didnt do much but just waited. Our teammates did their part, bidding aggressively and reached par on most deals. They were lucky too:

♠ 8 7
♥ A K 8 7 5
♦ A K
♣ A K 7 2


♠ A K Q 9
♥ 6
♦ J 9 6 5
♣ Q 6 4 3

On paper, the contract you want to be in is 6C. Our opponents did reached 6C. My teammates reached 7C and with clubs 3-2 and H 4-3, it was tougher to bid than to make. (there are also extra chances if H are not 4-3)

so another lucky 13 imps.

It was generally a 'swingy' set of boards, but we were prepared for it and made good use of our luck.

There were a few adverse swings too, but not from any glaring errors, just wrong takes of the situation.

At the end of the battle (The way things are swinging, you can really feel the firepowder in the air), we came out 85-36 in imps (25-5 in VPs). So great start!

Could we keep it up? Up next are Brazil... Second in the South American Youth Championships, losing to Chile by a solitary imp. So, they are clearly no pushovers, we can only hope to play our best.. it is clearly the beginning of a long long battle.