Semifinal Part 2 - USA

At the halfway point of the semifinals, the results were at such:

USA 1 124.5
Singapore 87

Poland 83
Italy 77

Still 32 boards to go and lots of bridge to play.. The ironic part is that we were playing without much stress now, surely noone can expect much more from us and that perhaps explains how well we were playing...

At the PABF in Korea, Poon Hua and me finished second in the Butler imps, also known as the datum pairs. For PABF and WYC in Bangkok, we finished first in butler with scores of +2.2(ratio of postive to negative imps) and +1.14 (net imps per board).
A lot of hoo-ha have been made over these 'acheivements', especially the one for the World Youth RR, where we finished ahead of many better-known names.

Imo, a good datum score is only a rough gauge... that is if you are in the high positive, you aren't playing badly. There is no way to compare the first in datum to the second pair and state any correlation in skill level.

To do well in butler imps, you need to play well. Maximise your score on every hand and concentrate totally throughout the set, in short , play bridge as well as you can. This is no guarantee you finish ahead in the butler standings, especially when the number of boards played are smaller. You basically need a lot of luck, to be at the right place at the right time. If you read my posts so far, you no doubt have noticed how much luck is involved :) Do not be mistaken, there are many hands which we did the right things but I didn't comment on as they look routine and un-entertaining. Arguably, these hands are the more important ones since bridge is after all a game of errrors, not brilliancies.

Still, when you are 'in-form', you need to do the right things, to take advantage and to sustain the momentum. There is no secret formula to this but to continue playing what in your opinion the best bridge in the situation. I fondly remember a quote by Justin (Lall) , always be prepared to back your judgement since it is your judgement that brought you there.

Somehow, when the third segment started, there was no strong feeling that an upset was on the cards...

The critical (widely publicised) board of segment came early and partner was caught in a common bridge mistake:

Vul against not,

♠ A Q
♥ 8 6 5 2
♦ A
♣ A K Q J 8 2


You open 1C, LHO overcalls 1S, partner bid a forcing 2H, RHO 4S your bid?

It was a tough decision here, would 4NT be clearly KC in H? Perhaps motivated by the state of the match, partner decided to punt 5NT, Grand Slam Force.

He hoped for at least AQ of H with me which meant the grand slam had chances. When I obliged by bidding 7C (showing 2+ top honours in H), he was ready to gambled it out. Until.. RHO nows comes in with 7D!

Fixation is a very common error among bridge players, especially in defence. The idea is that the player have made an assumption early in the hand and proceeds to play /defend the hand without checking its validity in the light of how the play went. Many a times, you would find that you can work out the actual position if you had gave it more thought and think through ALL OVER AGAIN...

Here partner had a fixation in the bidding.. at this point of time, if he had reviewed his options, the right bid undoubtedly would be to double 7D. If partner had been staring AKQ of H, surely he would know to bid 7H. Partner was caught in the fixation and prceeded with 7H over 7D anyhow, this was promptly dbled and the subsequent 7NT was dbled too...

I had:

♠ 5 4
♥ K Q T 9 7
♦ K Q 3
♣ 9 6 5

A little pushy for 2H but ir was the only acceptable bid, so we were missing the ace of H. Luckily the other table reached 6h which went 2 light on a S lead for an unusual push. Still, it was a big opportunity lost and for the purist, if partner had stopped to dbled, we would have collected 16 imps instead of the push. (A number that might be crucial later :p )

That set the momentum of the match as you immediately have another tough decision:

All Vul, you hold:

♠ 9 5 2
♥ A T
♦ K Q 8 4
♣ A K Q 8

you open 1C in third seat, LHO dbls, partner raises to 2C, RHO jumps to 4H.. your bid?

Over a simple raise, it didn't look like we can make 5C, so I opt to dbl. Well, I was right in a way, 5C cannot be made but 4Hx cannot be defeated. 12 imps away when the other table was in 5C.

The Americans continue to bid boldly :

♠ A K Q T
♥ A K J 7 2
♦ T 2
♣ 8 7


♠ J 7 2
♥ 8 3
♦ J 9 7 4
♣ K Q T 4

They reached the vulnerable 3NT which made when H Q is onside. Our teammates stayed in the safer 2H for another 10 imps away.

We traded swings for the rest of the boards and were almost level for the rest of the segment. The Americans had a disaster on the last board to close out the set
52-33 in imps. Their lead grew to 176.5 to 120, a healthy but not insurmountable 56.5 imps.

In the other match, Italy was leading Poland by 134 to 109. In theory, this match is closer but things do not work that way...

Our match against USA will always be remembered for the last segment. Our NPC was keen to stick with the same lineup again. However, given we were not playing well for the third segment, and that we had a podium finish in the bigger picture, we opt not to play the last segment, instead resting in preparation for the match the next day. It turned out to be one of the masterstrokes of the tournament.

I will re-emphasize again.. we didnt play in the last segment of the match and our teammates who played did a fabulous job, they did it so well that we couldn't have done better even if we played. It was great fighting spirit and I cannot say more about how proud we were of their performance.

Although we didn't play, we took a 'rest' in the vugraph room. The match on vugraph was naturally Italy vs Poland. But trust me, the attention of the spectators were soon not on the vugraph match... A tiny bit of trivia, the Americans rested their anchor pair, Joe Grue and John Kranyak. Joe Grue was thus invited to commentate on vugraph. Midway through the set, Joe disappeared from the room and John Kranyak who was watching together with us couldn't bear staying in the room.

The fireworks started on the second board

♠ 8
♥ A T 9 6
♦ A 8 5 3
♣ A K 6 4


♠ K 7 5 3
♥ Q 8 2
♦ J 9 6 4 2
♣ Q

After a weak NT by West, NS was goaded into 3NT, promptly dbled for 500, when the other table stopped in the sensible 3D, it was 12 imps for us.

The incredible thing about the set is that most of the boards were very flattish. Indeed in the vugraph match the score after all 16 boards was 20 - 7.

In our match though, our teammates defended better by 2 vulnerable undertricks for 5 imps. Next they found a NV sacrifice for -500 against their +620, another 3 imps.

That was the way it went, all on undertricks and overtricks. USA got 2 imps while Singapore earned 8 more. Opps overreached to 3NT while we stopped safely in 1NT for 6 imps. Mark my words, it is no mean feat to outscore the Americans on partscore hands. They had to be playing at full intensity and concentration to grab all the tricks available.

The score after 12 boards was 34-3 in our favour.

Then came board 13:

♠ A J 9 8 2
♥ A Q J 7
♦ 6
♣ A Q 5


♠ Q T 7 5 3
♥ 9 2
♦ A K Q 9 5
♣ 9

All 4 tables in the semifinals reached 6S. When Alex was defending, he found the H lead that gave declarer the most problem. Where Kelvin was declaring, West led a trump. Plan your play on a trump lead.

Kelvin played the hand to perfection when he rose with the S ace, and cash D, hoping to discard 3 hearts from dummy if D was 4-3. When D turned out to be 5-2, he stripped the minors and exited with a trump. East was truly endplayed , +1430.

On a Heart lead, declarer didn't have the endplay available and chose to rely on either the trump or H finesse to be onside. Unlucky! both Ks were off side and the slam went one off for 17 imps.

We froze in the vugraph room when the result appeared: Singapore 171 USA 179.5

3 more boards to go, if they can maintain their fine performance...

Incidently, this board also ended the hopes of the Polish against the Italians. Lo Presti brought the slam home on a H lead when he correctly discern to take the club finesse instead of the H (his job was made easy when East had dbled a H cuebid). When the Polish declarer took the H finesse, it was all over for the Polish.

Well, the match didn't have a fairytale ending, the Americans were the ones who scored on the final 3 boards, 7 more imps to make the score 186.5 to 171. the winning margin is exactly that of the carryover: 15.5 imps. It translates that over 64 boards, we have actually tied the Americans on net imp. Now where did we miss a 16 imp swing? :-)

So, the day ended with the USA and Italy winning the semifinals. We are to play the Polish in the playoff for third place. Our mission is far from over... Indeed, the most important match may yet to have started :)