Marc Smith visits the quarter-finals of Alt Board-a-Match Invitational II

Fourteen teams lined up at the start of Alt B-a-M Invitational II. After a three-day round robin, eight survived to contest the knockout stage. The quarter-final matchups are SELIGMAN (USA, England, Norway) vs QUARANTEAM (USA, Denmark, Israel), MIKADINHO (Italy, Netherlands) vs HUANG (USA, China), RIPPEY (USA, Canada, Poland) vs GUPTA (USA, England, Netherlands) and DONNER (USA, Sweden) vs SALVO (Turkey, Canada). As winners of the round robin, SELIGMAN begin their quarter-final with a carryforward advantage of 2.1 VPs. RIPPEY and MIKADINHO start 1.1 VPs ahead, and DONNER 0.1. All knockout matches would be contested over two 8-board segments.

There is no such thing as a ‘big swing’ in a B-a-M event. Whether you win a deal by 10 or by 2000 makes no difference – think of it as matchpoints with teammates. (Some would say that makes it the worst of both worlds.) Even so, some deals are more exciting than others, and there was plenty to intrigue the live audience watching on BBO VuGraph. As usual, we begin with some problems for you to consider. We will find out later how your choices would have worked. Firstly, with just your side vulnerable, you are South holding:

What action, if any, do you take?

Next, with neither side vulnerable, you are South with this hand:

What action, if any, do you take?

If you make a takeout double, what do you then do when West’s 1sx bid is passed back to you?

Whilst you consider those, let’s jump straight into the action with the second board of the quarter-finals. This deal was flat at N/S +620 in two of the quarter-finals, so allowing your opponents an overtrick could be very costly at B-a-M scoring:

David Bakhshi reached the normal contract after a heart overcall from West. Katherine Todd led a club to her partner’s ace, and Christian Lahrmann returned the suit to dummy. Declarer now ran the ♠10 around to Todd’s ace, and she continued with a third round of clubs. Away went declarer’s heart loser and Bakhshi claimed a valuable overtrick: NS +650.

Fortune, apparently, favours the brave, but sometimes the truly maniacal also benefit. Of course, having a teammate like the brilliant Boye Brogeland means that the outcome of events will rarely be decided by anything as trivial as an overtrick.

With 2-to-1 odds that it is an opponent who will have the good hand, first in hand non-vulnerable has become the position where many players are willing to open a pre-emptive bid of some genre on just about anything. Even so, Boye Brogeland did not fancy a 3♣ opening on this sterile, 5332 collection of junk. When the auction began with 1♠ on his left, a pass from his partner, and a game-forcing spade raise on his right, though, he reassessed the situation (rearrange the words ‘already’, ‘horse’ and ‘bolted’) and waded in where perhaps even angels would fear to tread. South showed his second suit and his extras but Espen Lindqvist found himself with a wonderful hand in support of clubs, so he innocently bid what was in front of his face. North made a forcing pass, showing what for most would have been a discouraging double, and what else could South do but defend?

The defence began by cashing their three diamond winners, followed by a heart switch through dummy’s A-Q. Brogeland had not come this far to go wrong now, though, so he rose with the ♥A and played two rounds of trumps. The Israelis had one heart trick to come, but that was it: N/S +500 and a brilliant result for the Norwegians, who were not to know that their teammates had already done enough to win the point on the board at the other table.

In DONNER vs SALVO, the Turks also managed to get to 5♣ -X (after a takeout double of 1♠ by West!!). However, that was the end of the good news for them, as declarer’s attempt to limit the loss to 300 suffered a set-back when he took a losing heart finesse and ran into a ruff: N/S +800.

Not that it mattered, as the Turks at the other table had been persuaded by West’s 2♥ overcall to try their luck in 3NT – and no one could argue that North had an adequate heart stopper. When Sandra Rimsedt meanly ignored her partner’s overcall and led here club suit, though, that contract was two down: N/S -200 but, at this form of scoring, two huge results was still only worth just the one point on the board for DONNER.

SELIGMAN added to their carryforward lead by winning the first three boards of the stanza to lead 5.1-0. However, the rest of the set was one-way traffic in the other direction and the halftime score stood at 5.1-5. Meanwhile, nothing went well for the Turks, and DONNER won the first half 7-1 to virtually seal the match by halftime. The other two matches were close: MIKADINHO-HUANG finished 4-4 so the Europeans still led by their 1.1-VP carryforward. RIPPEY edged GUPTA 4.5-3.5, extending their carryforward to a 2.1-VP halftime lead.

Board 15, in the second set, turned out to be a strange one in a number of matches. N/S were cold for game in a 6-2 heart fit, but with only a combined 23 HCP. E/W had a cheap save in 5♣ , for -500, but N/S could make 11 tricks in hearts (even the diamond ruff is with the defence’s natural trump winner). So, it would be a battle to see who judged to bid on, yes? Well, actually, no. In RIPPEY vs GUPTA, the deal was flat at 4♥+1 with E/W not bidding at all in one room, and nothing beyond a 1♠ overcall in the other. It may be strange therefore, to find this as the first of this week’s bidding problems:

Holding an 11-count and four-card diamond support, it seems very possible that Ami Zamir intended his 3♦ bid as non-forcing, merely correcting to the safer partscore when his partner could bid only 2NT. When presented with the South hand, did you mirror Asaf Yekutieli’s pass? Declarer managed to amass eleven tricks in diamonds: N/S +150 but that didn’t look like a great result for the Israelis with the heart game as easy make

Here, the young proteges of American and European bridge got their clubs into the game. One would guess that David Bakhshi’s pass of 3♣ showed something like a minimum opening bid without a heart fit, much the same as South’s 2NT had at the other table. Here, though, do doubt spurred on by the opponents club bidding, Marty Seligman decided that his hand was worth game, so he closed the auction with a jump to 5♦.

Eleven tricks in hearts may be relatively easy. The same is not true when it comes to making the same number of tricks in the 4-4 diamond fit, particularly when you are forced at trick one. Finn Kolesnik led the ♣A and Bakhshi ruffed. He then led the ♦K from dummy, ducked all around. The 4-1 break means that a second round of trumps is fatal, but Bakhshi continued with the ♦J. Christian Lahrmann won with the ♦A and, had he continued with a third round of trumps, declarer would simply have been left with too many losers. When Lahrmann switched instead to his singleton spade, though, declarer was back in the game.

Bakhshi won the spade in hand and played the ♥K and a second heart. Unfortunately, when he won with dummy’s ♥A he could again no longer make the contract. Strangely, he must lose the heart trick to East’s queen: if East returns a trump, declarer simply draws trumps and dummy is good, if he forces dummy to ruff a club, declarer runs winning hearts through him until he ruffs, then declarer overruffs and the ♠K is still in dummy to access the rest of the heart suit. Having played the ♥A on the second round, though, declarer played a third heart. He couldn’t afford to ruff without losing control of the hand, so he pitched a club. Kolesnik won with the ♥J and quickly delivered his partner’s spade ruff for one down. N/S -50 and the point on the board goes to QUARANTEAM, who win the second half 6-2 to eliminate the favourites with victory by 11-7.1 despite the 2.1-VP deficit with which they began the match. This deal provided the one bright spot in an otherwise unmemorable match for SALVO. The Turks found the paying sacrifice in 5♣ in one room, but Giorgia Botta judged well to bid on to 5♥ with the South hand. N/S +650. DONNER looked set to win the board when the Turkish N/S pair followed the identical auction to Seligman/Bakhshi above.

Even making +600 would not have salvaged the deal for SALVO, until East doubled. So convinced was Bulent Aslan in his decision to jump to 5♦ that he even redoubled when it came back to him. All that was left was for Nezih Kubac to amass eleven tricks.

He ruffed the opening ♣A lead, crossed to his hand with a high spade, and led a low trump to dummy’s jack, which held. Now came a heart to the king and a second heart. In this scenario, though, declarer had to rise with the ♥A, which Kubac duly did. A heart ruff put declarer back in hand, and there was now only one card he could play to bring home his contract, the ♠Q. But Kubac had a plan, and he instead played the ♠8, concealing the two. When West carelessly played low, Kubac called for the ♠9 from dummy, and suddenly everything was rosy in the Turkish garden once again. Indeed, Sandra Rimstedt had to ruff this just to save the redoubled overtrick. She ruffed and forced dummy with another club, but declarer simply ran winning hearts through her and all she could make was the ace of trumps. A spectacular N/S +1000 for the Turks. Unfortunately, having lost the first stanza 7-1, they also succumbed 5-2 in the second, so DONNER advanced to the semi-finals with an ultra-comfortable 12.1-4 victory. That decided one semi-final matchup.

In the other half of the draw, RIPPEY held on to their halftime lead with a 4-4 split of the second stanza against GUPTA, sending another of the tournament’s hot favourites to the benches. But who would they play in the semi-final? Which team would win the last quarter-final was in doubt until the last moment. After seven boards, HUANG led 3-2 in the stanza, leaving MIKADHINO clinging to the lead by just 8.1-8 with one deal to play. A tied board would be enough for the Europeans. Both South players were faced with the second of this week’s bidding problems:

When you make a takeout double after the opponents have bid two suits, the one thing partner can usually be sure of is that you will hold at least four cards in each of the unbid suits, and particularly the unbid major. What, then, are you to do on this South hand after 1♦-Pass-1♥? None of the options are particularly palatable: do you overcall 1NT on this sterile 15-count with no heart stopper? Do you make a takeout double with only three-card support for the unbid major? Or are you a mouse? Sure, pass is the obvious third choice.

We had universal agreement at this point:  the auction began the same way at all eight tables and all eight South players doubled 1♥. That this led to one North playing in 2♠ on a 3-3 fit after West chose to rebid his diamonds is, of course, the price one pays for playing with partners with imagination, I guess. In our match, both West’s had the courtesy to save us from that fate by bidding their chunky four-card spade suit. After two passes, though, were then back in the hot seat.

Two South players in this position gave up and allowew their opponents to play in 1♠. For the Italians, Gabriele Zanasi tried her luck with a second double, and was probably much relieved when Emilio Romano essayed 1NT. When East then competed to 2♠, should South then have yet another go? Anyone for a competitive raise to 2NT? (Indeed, at another table, where West had backed in with 2♦ after 1NT was passed back to him, and East had then advanced to 2♥, Polish star Michal Klukowsi did exactly that, winning the board for his team when his partner made eight tricks in 2NT-X!)

Zanasi decided against further competition, and the Americans found themselves in a very playable spot. Indeed, four West players played in low spade partials -- three emerged with eight tricks whilst the fourth somehow made ten: E/W +110 was looking like the most normal score on the deal, which is exactly what MIKADINHO needed – normal results and a flat board.

An experienced international player, Kwok-Fai Mak represented Hong Kong in three World Junior Championships between 2003 and 2005. Ten years later, he was the coach and/or npc of the China-Hong Kong junior teams at numerous major events. He was also a member of the China Hong Kong Open Team at the 2019 World Bridge Teams Championships in Wuhan.

Here, Mak found himself in the same position as Zanasi had done at the other table. Having been faced with three vaguely reasonable choices at his first turn, Pass, Double and 1NT, he found that he again had the same three options when West’s 1♠ bid came back to him. Passing would have probably led to the Italians making +110 in 1♠ for a flat board, resulting in a win for MIKADINHO by the narrowest possible margin, just 0.1 VP. However, Mak also refused to go quietly but, rather than a second double, he opted for 1NT.

There was good news and bad news. The good was that 1NT was the perfect spot for N/S, but the bad was that Baron Chi-Cheung expected his partner to hold a much better hand, so he raised to 3NT. Massimiliano Di Franco’s double made the stakes significantly higher: one down would now mean E/W +100 and the American/Chinese team would claim the point on the board with just a difference of 10, whereas two down would mean +300 and the point would go to the Europeans, which would be enough to take them through to the semi-finals.

To beat the contract by two, West has to lead a minor, and Andrea Manno duly fished out the ♦6. Mak won in hand to advance the ♣K and, remarkably, needs to unblock the ♣6 from dummy to stop the defence being able to beat the contact by three. (Needless to say, declarer missed that play.) Di Franco correctly won with the ♣A and continued the optimum defence by switching to a spade. Manno correctly won with the ♠K and could have ensured +500 by reverting to the diamond attack whilst still holding two major-suit aces as entries. Instead, though, West cashed the ♠A and suddenly it was the Chinese who had their noses in front. West exited with a third round of spades and declarer won in hand to lead a heart towards dummy. The appearance of West’s singleton ♥A meant there was no guess: declarer now had seven obvious tricks (three diamonds, one heart, one spade and two clubs). Yes, declarer can make an eighth trick by playing three rounds of clubs without first cashing the ♥K, and then endplay East for an eighth trick. When West cashed the thirteenth spade, though, the noose around East began to tighten.

Declarer won West’s diamond exit in dummy with the queen as East released his last spare card. Mak now led a club to his hand and, when he then cashed the ♦K, East was finished, forced to discard from ♥Q-10/♣10-x. Either discard was fatal as it handed declarer that precious eighth trick. E/W +100 and the point to HUANG who earn themselves a matchup with RIPPEY in the semi-finals with victory by 9-8.1.

In the semi-finals, DONNER will hold a 0.1-VP carryforward advantage against QUARANTEAM, whilst RIPPEY start ahead of HUANG by the same margin.

We will be back next week with the semi-finals and the final, where perhaps we will get some more nailbiting finishes.