Match 13 - Italy

We enter the last 2 days of the RR with a heavy heart. We are still in the running but with so many tough matches ahead, we cannot afford ANY slip ups. The fixture list for the day read a daunting Italy, Poland , Chile. Tuff, tuff...

First up is Italy who boast the famous pair of Fabio Lo Presti - Stelio Di Bello. One of the big attractions of playing in the World Youth Championship is that we can play against some famous teams like the Americans and the top teams from Europe.

Contract Bridge is one of few sports where the average player can play against a world champion and have a good time, especially if the match is short. In my experience, over 20-28 boards, anything can happen. Someday , you beat a team flat out, on another day, they can roll right over you, it is just too short a match if you want to find out the relative strength of 2 teams. Even if the match is 64 or 96 boards you will frequently find 'upsets' too.

Thus we look forward to playing famous names like Joe Grue, Justin Lall from USA, Buras from Poland, Ginossar from Israel, the Bessis brothers from France, just to name a few. To a certain extent, we can actually perform better against these big names as the pressure is not on us anymore. What is important is we enjoy the matches and take away valuable lessons and experience from the matches. Hopefully, the results are not too disappointing :-)

On the other side of the coin, it was also a valuable chance to meet players from other less well-known countries like us. Teams like Jordan, Canada, Chile, it prob is the first time we meet them in any bridge event. It was a good experience in that it was great to see that we can put aside any language and culture differences just by playing bridge.

The match against Italy was a pretty high level one with only a few large swings.
here is a tough decision i had in the second board:

Vul against not,

♠ T 7 5 3
♥ A 7
♦ A J 9 7 6 5 3
♣ -

RHO deals and pass, what is your bid?

Again I chose to pass and later overcalled in D, opps climbed to 3NT and went 2 down on the D lead. Our opp at the other table chose to open 1D, so our teammates managed to stop in a partscore for 7 imps. The result proved nothing but I believe the popular expert choice is to open 1D.

A couple boards later, I faced another tough decision:

All Vul,

♠ 7 2
♥ A 6 4
♦ J 9 5 3
♣ A Q 9 3

Partner opened 1H, RHO overcalls 1S, you cuebid 2S showing 10+ HCP, 3+ H. Now LHO jumped to 4S passed to you, your bid (partner's pass is not forcing)?

Well, I chose a conservative pass and defeated 4S by a trick when the lead was the ace of H. Perhaps I should have just doubled based on the 2 aces? At the other table, our teammates didnt find the fine sacrifice and left opps in 4H which made with no problems, 11 imps away.

It wasn't always that much of a coin toss:

What would you bid to with:

♠ A K Q J T 5
♥ J 5
♦ A 9 7 6
♣ 7


♠ 7 3
♥ Q 9 8
♦ 5 4 3 2
♣ A Q T 8

most of the field reached 4S which had no chance. We managed to bid to the much better contract of 3NT, ironically with the aid of an Italian gadget. 11 imps back for us.

We continue to pile on the pressure and had a healthy 24 imp lead going into the last board:

♠ A
♥ A J 9 6 2
♦ Q J 4 2
♣ K J 4


♠ Q 8 7 5
♥ 7 5
♦ A 9
♣ A T 5 3 2

You end in 3NT and received a small S lead. How would you like the chances? This is a convoluted hand to analyse and I do not propose to say how best to play it. Well, our opps at the table got everything right and made 11 tricks. My teammate got everything wrong and went one off. His line of play was certainly reasonable, just unlucky.

So at the end of everything, the match ended pretty close, a 51-40 imp win (17-13 VP) for us. And so we survived the first match against a fellow contender... next up the Polish 'Machines' :)

1 USA 1 239
2 ISRAEL 231
3 POLAND 230
4 EGYPT 225
SINGAPORE 225
6 NORWAY 223
7 FRANCE 220
8 ITALY 212