Match 9 - Norway

For the round robin phase, all teams have to play the other 17 teams once. The schedule is planned such that there is a 1-day break after 9 matches. Thus the match against Norway was the last before we can rest for one complete day.

For our team, the schedule of matches was quite lopsided. We were to play against mostly the 'weaker' teams first before the break, before ending with matches with USA 1, Poland, Italy , France, Canada in the second half of matches. Thus, the general gameplan was to try to secure as many VPs as possible early on and hope to 'survive' the stronger teams at the end.

The good thing about this is that due to the training we got in local competitions, we are quite adept at preserving leads and we know just what is needed to be done. The bad thing is that things are not exactly going according to plan. We have faltered against several teams which we expect to pick up convincing wins. Still, we have got some unexpected wins , so we are still reasonably optimistic. We do need to perform exceedingly well against the stronger teams in the later matches if we were in for a chance though.

The match against Norway was to be shown on vugraph. Kelvin and Liyu is to play in the closed room while Poon Hua and me is to play in the Open room where there is a powerful spotlight shining on the table for the convenience of the video camera for the audience in the vugraph room. One thing to be sure, none of us is tired despite 3 long days of bridge. At least for me, being of vugraph just gets adrenalin flowing.

Playing in the Open room, you start 15 minutes later than the rest of the field. This is to let the closed room get ahead of us so there will be comparison for the vugraph audience when the open room play the boards. Well, for me, that 15 minutes seemed like forever, I just cannot wait to start playing and concentrating on the match. Looking at the convention cards and discussing defence just takes a couple of minutes. After that, the players just sit there and wait.

Well, the director finally end your agony and give you the permission to start the match. I pick up my first hand on vugraph, hoping for an easy hand to calm nerves.

Well, my hand didnt look interesting:

♠ 9 8
♥ A Q 9 8 3
♦ Q 7 6 2
♣ 8 3

Partner deals and open 1D (4+) , RHO comes in with 1S and you have your first problem of the set. Your bid?

We play forcing freebids so 2H direct would show 10+ HCP so that was out. A dbl wasn't perfect either as partner will probably take you for only 4 card. You do not expect to rebid H as that might be uncomfortably high and will probably show 6 cards. Well, for now, a double looked best so you chose that and the bidding soon escalated:

North--East--South--West
1D-----1S----X------4S
5H-----P-----P------5S
P------P-----?

Over 5H, it didnt seem right to bid on given all the black losers. Now, 5S gave me a real problem. What do you bid?

Well, I can almost recognise the recurring theme... first board of a critical match... to bid or not to bid... So, it didn't take me long to bid 6H. Partner had:

♠ -
♥ K 7 6 2
♦ K J T 8 4 3
♣ A Q 7

Only a D lead from Ax would defeat the contract. At the table, my opps chose a club lead, so we made the slam. It felt like another great start. It turned out that at the other table, the bidding was the same up to 5S when Liyu decided to let the bidding go at 5H for -480 but 10 imps for us.

A few quiet boards , then this deal which created a swing in 7 of the 9 matches in Youth category.

♠ A 6
♥ A K J 7
♦ K Q T 4 2
♣ 4 2


♠ 8 5 2
♥ T 6 5 4 3
♦ A
♣ A Q J 3


After a relay sequence, we finally reached 6H by South. On a S lead, the obvious line was to cash 2 rounds of H and if the trump Q is out, to try to dispose of your S loser on the D and take the club finesse. Well, everything worked so we end up taking 13 tricks. The Norwegian pair at the other table missed the slam so we had another 11 imps (Why are all our slam swings always Non-Vul?)

Singapore had a 31-2 imp lead at this point of time but that soon changed:

All Vul, You hold:

♠ J 7 5 4 3
♥ 9 8 5
♦ -
♣ Q J T 7 2

Partner opened 1S, RHO dbled, you raised to 4S, LHO 5D passed to you. Your bid?

Over the double, I had a fit-jump available but judged that this hand is too weak for that. Well, that didn't seem like a smart thing to do. Over 5D, I finally chose to go quietly. Wrong decision as partner had:

♠ A K Q T 8
♥ A 2
♦ T 9 2
♣ K 5 3

Well, we did defeat 5D by a trick but there are at least 11 tricks in S. At the other table, the Norwegian opened a systemic 1NT with partner's hand so my teammates were never in the auction. 4S+2 , 11 imps away.

The rest of the boards were all flat with nothing exceptional but Norway picked up 3 partscore swings through no fault of anyone really. One of those was systemic like having a penalty double available over a strong NT.

Anyway, the end result was a 34-31 imp win for us (16-14 in VP)

We thus ended the first half of matches with a useful result and the leaderboard then read:

1 POLAND 177
2 ISRAEL 172
3 USA 1 171
4 SINGAPORE 166
5 FRANCE 149
6 EGYPT 148
7 NORWAY 146


Well, we have a considerable lead over the 5th place team but it is clear that if we want to qualify at the end of the RR, we better be looking at how to close the gap on the Polish team rather than looking back. With that, we entered a long-awaited one day break.