Marc Smith visits the first weekend of the French Premier League.

We remain in France for the second day’s play on the first of three weekends of the Premier League. There are 12 teams in Division 1 of the three-tier French league, and each will play a 32-board match against the other eleven over three weekends.

As usual, we begin with a couple of problems. Firstly, with both sides vulnerable, you are West holding:

What do you bid?

Then, with only the opponents vulnerable, you are South holding:

What do you bid?

The Vugraph match for Round 3 featured the Sports Association of BRENO, who we saw score a big win in the opening match of this event, against the team captained by Gaston MEJANE. Judging how high to bid is not unlike making porridge: it needs to be not too hot, but not too cold either. Let’s see how the two teams fared on this early deal:

Natural systems are not overly efficient when dealing with very strong hands. One reason for this is that the 2♣ opening uses up a considerable amount of bidding space. What little space remains, therefore, needs to be used wisely. The auction at this table was virtually over before it had begun, mostly because Herry Lagadec effectively pre-empted his own side’s auction with what looks like an unnecessary jump to 3♥. Presumably, 2♥ would have been forcing, and perhaps North would then have had ample space to bid both of his suits.

On this auction, South had no real opportunity to show what was an excellent hand facing a 2♣ opening. It is easy to see how he was discouraged by news of hearts and more hearts from opposite. Undercooking such excellent ingredients left the partnership with a bowl of gruel.

As a result, the partnership considerably undercooked this bowl of porridge.

East found the most threatening lead, the ♣Q. Declarer won with the ♣A, cashed the ♥A-K and the ♠A, then crossed to dummy in diamonds, and cashed the ♠K, discarding his club loser. Returning to hand with a club ruff, declarer then drove out the ♥Q. Ruffing the return, he drew the last trump and claimed the remaining tricks with high diamonds.  N/S +480.

Cedric Lorenzini’s 2♥ was Kokish, showing either a very strong balanced hand or hearts. Over the forced 2♠ from Thomas Bessis, 3♦ then showed hearts with diamonds as a second suit. Bessis agreed diamonds and Lorenzini checked on key-cards. His 5NT then showed the ♥K and Bessis alerted his 6♣ bid as “better than 6♦”.

Not that 7♦ was such a poor contract, but declarer cannot realistically cope with neither red suit breaking. (Yes, double dummy he can make by taking the heart finesse but that was never an option single dummy.) Bessis won the opening club lead, cashed the ♠A and ♥A, and ruffed a heart. He then pitched a dummy’s club loser on the ♠K. A trump to dummy revealed the bad news in that suit, and now declarer needed hearts to break, so he continued with the ♥K. When East ruffed, that was curtains. N/S -100 and a somewhat fortunate 11 IMPs to MEJANE.

A couple of boards later, MEJANE gained another slam swing for stopping in game whilst Hanlon/Volcker got to a slam missing the trump ace and an unavoidable slow loser in a side suit. It was not long before the next potential slam deal arrived, and a clear pattern started to develop:

Tom Hanlon opened 1♦ and rebid his suit at the two-level. Frederic Volcker advanced with a third-suit-forcing 2♥, and now Hanlon jumped in spades to show his three-card support. A couple of cue-bids and Blackwood later, the partnership had reached the excellent slam. North cashed the ♣A and continued the suit. All that remained for declarer was to draw trumps and claim. E/W +1430.

That all seems fairly straightforward, but E/W did not have the auction to themselves in the replay. Gaston Mejane had to deal with the first of this week’s bidding problems.

Cedric Lorenzini’s passed-hand takeout double and the subsequent jump to 3♥ by Thomas Bessis left Gaston Mejane in a much more difficult position. His jump to 4♠ was the practical solution, but there was no way for Patrice Dumazet to know that the hands fit so well. North led a heart and thus declarer made all 13 tricks: E/W +710 and 12 IMPs to S.A. BRENO.

An exciting set of boards produced a score-line of 78-54 in favour of MEJANE. 

The BBO VuGraph match in Round 4 saw the return to centre stage of the ZIMMERMANN team, this time against the squad captained by Stephane GARCIA. The boards in this stanza were even more swingy that the previous set, and the two teams exchanged a whopping 138 IMPs over 32 boards, which was excellent news for both kibitzers and writers.

There are some deals on which both teams deserve to lose IMPs but, of course, someone ends up gaining a swing despite their best efforts. See what you make of this board:

To my mind, you should automatically lose 10 IMPs for bidding 1♠ in response to 1♥ on this South hand. What are the basic objectives of bidding? Firstly, to decide which strain to play and, secondly, to determine how high to bid. It stands to reason that the sooner you achieve the first objective, the more space you have to work on the second. With a known eight-card heart fit, why would you want to start looking for an alternative on this hand? I realize that bidding 1♠ is slightly safer in France, where I believe raising with fewer than four-card support is still a guillotineable offence. Anywhere else in the world, where partner would raise automatically to 2♠ with Kxx/AKxxx/Axx/xx, you would find yourself playing in the wrong major for a start. Still, despite this start, the final contract was the right one. Everything lay well for declarer: N/S +680 and, presumably, a flat board, but The Great Dealer moves in mysterious ways.

In this room, it was Bermuda Bowl champion Piotr Gawry who seems to have been temporarily inhabited by a raving lunatic. Michael Klukowski raised eminently sensibly to 2♥ and, over Gawrys’ 3♦ game try, he then showed a minimum. When Gawrys continued with 3♠ cue-bid, Klukowski thought it was safe to admit to a diamond control. Moments later, he found himself giving preference to hearts at the six-level.

Slam is a terrible contract. Not only do you need the trumps 3-2, but you also need the club finesse, and the diamonds to play for five tricks (so a 3-3 break or jack doubleton) so that you can discard the two remaining clubs from dummy and score a club ruff for your twelfth trick. Clearly, Gawrys must have been a fine upstanding fellow in a previous life, as his 15% slam rolled home: N/S +1430 and a 13-IMP gain for ZIMMERMANN.

Not that the world champions had a monopoly on the luck factor. Looking at the N/S hands, where would you want to play this deal?

The auction started normally enough, and then Luc Bellicaud had to answer the last of this week’s problems. There are two main flaws with the 2NT bid chosen: firstly, it may wrong-side no-trumps if partner has a heart holding such as Q-x. More importantly, though, your hand is not well-suited for no-trumps, particularly with partner having already shown at least nine cards in the pointed suits. Do you not think you should tell partner that you have a diamond fit? Might he not have ambitions beyond game on which he will give up when he has been unable to find a fit? Sometimes, as is the case here, 5♦ is actually the right game. Indeed, having bid 2NT, to then settle for 3NT even after partner’s 3♦ bid has suggested alternative contracts might be better seems particularly perverse.

Yes, clearly 5♦ is best, but 3NT still needs excellent defence to beat it. Frank Multon led the ♥K, Zimmermann unblocking the jack. Multon continued with the ♥Q, which was also allowed to win. On the surface, it may seem that declarer needs to find the defender with only three hearts with the ♠A, so his luck is in, but it is not that simple. Had Multon continued with a third round of hearts, declarer has nine top tricks irrespective of the location of the ♠A. He can discard the blocking ♣A as he wins with the ♥A. He then cashes the ♣K-Q in his hand before taking dummy’s six diamond tricks.

Instead, Multon correctly played a spade at trick three. The defence can afford for declarer to make one spade trick to go with six diamonds and one club as, having ducked the ♥A twice, declarer can no longer get to that card for his ninth winner. However, when Multon switched to the ♠3, declarer played low from dummy, and Zimmermann put in the jack. Bellicaud was thus able to win with the ♠Q, cash the ♥A (pitching the ♣A) and claim ten tricks: N/S +430.

Had Zimmermann won with the ♠A and continued the suit, the defenders’ spade spots are good enough to restrict declarer to only one trick in that suit. The defence will eventually come to a second and third spade trick to pip the contract by a trick. Is it better for Multon to switch to the ♠10 at trick three, or does Zimmermann just have to read the position?

The Poles did manage to play in diamonds at the other table:

Gawrys showed his diamonds via a transfer after West’s 1♥ overcall, and Klukowski supported his partner’s suit in competition. When Garwys made two slam tries, cue-bidding both spades and clubs, Klukowski decided that the ♥A and his top clubs were enough to bid slam. With the ♠A missing, declarer obviously cannot afford a heart loser. It might appear at first glance that North’s heart can be thrown on declarer’s club winners but, of course, the heart lead removes the only outside entry to the South hand whilst the clubs are blocked. Declarer still had chances, if the third round of diamonds provides an entry. However, with trumps breaking 3-1 there was no winning line of play. Indeed, with declarer having already drawn two rounds of trumps in an attempt to make twelve tricks, East was then able to play a third round when he won the ♠A. That left declarer with two more losing spades: N/S -150 and 11 IMPs to GARCIA. 

We just have time for one more deal from this match. It provides a salutary reminder of a sound principle often ignored by players fed a never-ending diet of matchpoint events. When bidding a slam, it is often wise to play in your best trump suit. Yes, even at matchpoints, you will rarely score poorly for making a minor-suit slam, even if you could also have played in a major. Take a look at the layout on this deal.

After 1♦-1♥-2♥, admittedly usually four-card heart support in France, it seems that they were irrevocably locked into playing in hearts. Even after West’s 3♦ bid, East never seemed to consider that diamonds might be better, despite the likely ten-card fit in the suit. Yes, of course it is unlucky to run into a 5-0 trump break, but is 6♥ not also going to fail on close to half of the 4-1 breaks too? After cashing a high heart from hand, declarer then has to judge/guess which defender might have started with J-x-x-x trumps. Here the 5-0 break gave declarer no chance: E/W -100.

For a start, playing in diamonds you can delay committing yourself in hearts until later in the hand, when you will have more information, and you are thus more likely to have an idea which defender might hold a singleton heart. Yes, the defenders can beat 6♦ on this layout by leading a spade to the ace and taking a heart ruff. On a trump or a club lead, though, declarer has two extra chances. He may find the ♠A onside, allowing a heart discard on the ♠K. Or, as here, finding the ♣Q with the long heart hand means that he does not have to guess as South will be forced to discard two hearts when declarer plays off his trumps after taking a spade ruff.

After the same start to the auction at the other table, the contract was the same. Declarer there went an extra one down, though: E/W -200 and 3 IMPs to ZIMMERMANN.

ZIMMERMANN won a very high-scoring match 94-44, which hauled them back close to average after a surprisingly rocky start. Jerome and Leo Rombaut, hot off their victory in the final of the National Interclub Championship a week ago, top the leader-board here after four matches. These are the top eight teams in the Division 1 standings at the end of the first weekend: