Last week we saw the battle to reach the final of Britain’s most prestigious annual event. The two teams who have made it through the year-long knockout are BLACK (Andrew Black/David Gold, Andrew McIntosh/Tom Paske and Simon Hult/Gunnar Hallberg) and SENIOR (Brian Senior/Sandra Penfold, Alan Mould/John Holland and Vladislav Isporski/Rumen Trendafilov). They will play a 64-board match divided into eight 8-board stanzas to add their names to a list of Gold Cup winners that dates back more than 90 years.

As usual, we begin with some problems. Firstly, with both sides vulnerable, you are East holding:

What action, if any, do you take?

Next, with neither side vulnerable, you are in the South seat with:

What action do you take?

If you redouble, the auction continues (1♠)-Pass-(Pass)- back to you. What now?

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

What action, if any, do you take?

Finally, with only your side vulnerable, you are sitting West with this collection:

What action, if any, do you take?

While you mull those over, we start in the opening stanza. SENIOR picked up three early partscore swings, and they led 17-2 when both East players had to contend with this week’s first bidding problem:

As a member of the BBO expert bidding panel, I suspect Andrew McIntosh will get a second opportunity to bid this East hand. Although the 4♥ he chose at the table will certainly be one of the options chosen by the panel, it was not the winning choice on this layout.

Sandra Penfold led the ♣K and, playing game in the Moysian fit, McIntosh pitched a spade from his hand. Penfold switched to her diamond, so McIntosh won, cashed the ace and king of hearts, then ran his diamonds, allowing the defenders to score their two trumps whenever they wished. E/W +620.

Rumen Trendafilov (left) began a long international career representing Bulgaria in 1997. He collected a bronze medal from the Transnational Teams at the 2000 World Championships and again finished in third place at the 2009 Bermuda Bowl in Sao Paulo.

After an identical start to the auction on this deal, he was much more ambitious. His jump to 5NT offered Vladislav Isporski a choice of slams, and he was no doubt delighted to hear his partner choose diamonds.

The contract was not quite cold, but it was an excellent proposition. Both major-suit finesses are wrong, but declarer still made short work of the deal. Isporski ruffed the opening cub lead, drew two rounds of trumps, then played a heart to the king and a second round of hearts back to his ace. The appearance of the ♥10 on the second round enabled declarer to claim, just conceding a trick to the ♥Q. E/W +1370 and 13 IMPs to SENIOR, who led 30-2 at the end of the first eight-board set.

The second set was like night replacing day (or, perhaps more to the point, black replacing white). The first of three major swings came on another slam deal:

This time it was the Bulgarians who stopped short after what was a somewhat strange auction. Perhaps there is more to Isporski’s 2♦ bid than meets the eye, but there was no alert, which makes Trendafilov’s jump to 4♠ a curious choice. Whatever Isporski’s raise to 5♠ was supposed to mean, it clearly failed to get the job done. It is hard to blame Trendafilov: if all partner needed was three key cards, did he not have another way to find out about those? With trumps 2-2 and hearts breaking, there was nothing to the play: E/W +510.

The auction in the replay was more efficient. Andrew Black’s 1NT rebid was alerted, but there was no explanation so I cannot tell you exactly what it showed. David Gold’s 2♦ was artificial and created a game-force, allowing the partnership to find their spade fit. Blackwood then confirmed that slam should be a reasonable proposition. E/W +1010 and 11 IMPs to BLACK, who won the second set 40-2 to take a 10-IMP lead in the match. Still plenty of boards to play.

Both South players faced the second of this week’s problems on the opening deal of the third stanza:

Gunnar Hallberg started with a redouble on the South hand. When West’s 1♠  came back to him, he then advanced with a cue-bid. Simon Hult showed his spade stopper, so Hallberg raised to game. All very reasonable, albeit unsuccessful.

Rumen Trendafilov led spades and declarer then needed to find East with both missing aces but only three spades. With spades breaking 4-4, the defenders always had five tricks: N/S -50.

Sandra Penfold (right) made her international debut in a silver medal-winning Great Britain Women’s team at the 1988 Olympiad in Venice. Another silver medal followed in the same event four years later, and a third from the Women’s teams, this time representing England, at the 2017 World Championships in Lyon. In between, have come a number of silver and bronze medals from European championships.

On this deal, Penfold started with a natural and forcing 2♣ response, following the principle of essentially ignoring the double. Brian Senior rebid his hearts and Penfold introduced her second suit. Senior did not want to play 3NT unless his partner had some help in spades, so he advanced with a stop-asking cue-bid. Unable to help in that department, Penfold showed her semi-fit in hearts, which ended the auction. Although needing trump 3-3 (or 10-8 doubleton), this feels like the better game, and so it proved.

Senior ducked the opening spade lead, won the continuation, and took a spade ruff in dummy. With trumps behaving, the defence could score no more than East’s two aces. A somewhat fortunate but, nevertheless well-deserved, N/S +420 and 10 IMPs to SENIOR, squaring the match at 42-42.

SENIOR led by 4 IMPs (70-66) at the midway point, but BLACK began the fifth stanza strongly. They had moved ahead 87-70 when the South players were both faced with the third of this week’s problems.

Like many of you, I’m sure, Alan Mould saw no reason to do anything but await his partner’s opening lead when Andrew Black’s 4♥ opening was passed around to him.

John Holland led the ♦8, solving any problems declarer might have had in that suit. Black won with the ♦A, drew trumps ending in dummy, and led a diamond towards his queen. With that suit splitting 3-2, declarer was soon claiming: E/W +620.

Of course, Tom Paske (left) is still much closer to his days as a junior international than is Alan Mould (a medalist in the Seniors Teams at the last two World championships). Paske backed in with a double when Penfold’s 4♥ opening came around. Andrew McIntosh duly removed to 4♠ and Brian Senior correctly (there are three losers in 5♥) but forlornly (or should that be grumpily?) doubled.

There were only two hearts, one diamond and one trump to be lost in McIntosh’s spade contract: E/W +100 and 11 IMPs to BLACK, who had whitewashed their opponents 32-0 in the set to move 28 IMPs ahead with only 24 boards remaining.

Having overcalled 2♣ at his first turn, Paske decided that he had done his bit. Vladislav Isporski’s jump to 3NT looks like a normal if, ultimately, unsuccessful action. Andrew McIntosh’s opening club lead was ducked around to declarer, but Isporski had only eight tricks. N/S -50.

After the same start, Alan Mould thought he was worth one more effort, but he ran into the nightmare scenario with all of the missing high cards on his left and his partner holding nothing of any use. Simon Hult’s redouble let everyone at the table know that Mould had stepped back into an auction in which his side did not belong. John Holland bid his grotty four-card major but, a level higher, the eight-card club fit would have been no better: the defenders were due to collect their pound of flesh whichever black suit became trumps. N/S +500 and 11 IMPs to BLACK.

BLACK won the penultimate set 27-12 to lead by 49 IMPs (145-96) with eight to play. SENIOR won a dull final set 10-0 but the trophy went to BLACK. Congratulations to Andrew Black/David Gold, Simon Hult/Gunnar Hallberg and Andrew McIntosh/Tom Paske.