We return to South America this week for the last day of the Brazilian National Championships. We have followed the Open Teams through the semi-final stage and the first half of the final. This week, we will see the best of the action from the remaining two 14-board sets of that final.

Just a couple of problems this week. Firstly, with neither side vulnerable, you are West holding:

You are probably used to playing either weak or strong jump-shift responses but, on this occasion, you have agreed to play them as intermediate (like a sound weak two opening, perhaps). What action do you now take?

Next, with only the opponents vulnerable, you are sitting East, with this motley collection:

How many diamonds (if any) are you thinking of bidding?

After two very close semi-finals, the final saw MONPERI jump out to a 40-IMP lead at the end of the first stanza. HENRIQUE won the second stanza, but by only 5 IMPs, so MONPERI led 101-66 at the midway point. There has been some excellent bridge played during the first five days of this event, but either tiredness or pressure seemed to affect both teams on this final day, and there were some, shall we say, strange decisions made. Not that there wasn’t also plenty to entertain the large crowd watching live on BBO VuGraph.

There was perhaps an inevitability about the final contract on our first deal:

Mauricio Figueiredo (right) made his international debut in the Brazilian Junior team in 1991. Five years later, he established himself in his country’s Open team. He collected a pair of bronze medals at the 2009 South American Championships, as a member of the Brazilian squad in the Open Teams, and in the Open Pairs playing with Gabriel Chagas.

With a balanced 21-count facing an opening bid, it is unrealistic to expect to stop out of slam. When he failed to find a fit, Mauricio Figueiredo made the same bid that just about everyone would. 6NT is not hopeless: a 3-3 heart break gives you 12 top tricks, as does a 4-2 heart split plus the spade finesse. When hearts broke 5-1, though, declarer was down to needing to find East with either ♠Q-x-x or ♠Q-x. The former would give declarer four spade tricks, the latter three spade tricks and a subsequent major-suit squeeze against West.

With East holding the spade length, declarer had no play. (A black suit squeeze against East does not work as the North hand has to discard in front of his intended victim.) Figueiredo managed to go an extra trick down in a vague attempt to make 12 tricks: N/S -200.

At the other table, a poor bid gave declarer the chance to be a hero in the play, as it landed him in the one slam contract that could, theoretically, be made.

Raul Leon began with a normal 1♠ response and Diego Brenner quite correctly (unless you are French) raised to 2♠ on his minimum with three trumps and a ruffing value. In this situation, where partner has not guaranteed four-card support, it is normal for responder to offer his partner a choice of contracts. For example, a jump to 3NT would say “I have the values for game but only four spades, which game do you want to play?” On this North hand, assuming you are willing to abandon grand slam chances so early in the auction, you can achieve the same goal with a jump to 5NT. This would offer a choice of slams, 6♠ or 6NT, depending on how many spades opener holds.

Obviously, bidding the hand correctly would have landed you in the same no-play 6NT reached at the first table. More by luck than judgement, Leon had managed to get himself to the only slam that could be made, but accurate timing of the play was vital.

Leon won the opening ♣Q lead with the ace and successfully played a spade to the jack. He then returned to his hand with the ♣K and ruffed a club. Declarer then cashed the ♠K, crossed to hand with the ♦A and cashed the ♠A. However, when he then played the ♥A and a second heart, East ruffed and cashed his club winner to set the contract by a trick. N/S -100 and 3 IMPs to HENRIQUE, but it could have been much more.

Note the difference if declarer plays hearts earlier. After winning the club lead and taking a successful spade hook, you play a heart to the ace and a second heart towards dummy. It would not help East to ruff as he would just be ruffing a loser with his natural trump winner. So, East discards a diamond and declarer scores the ♥K. Now declarer plays a club to the king and ruffs a club. He can then lead the ♥Q and pitch his last club. East can ruff now or wait until later to make his natural trump winner. Either way, declarer would have 12 tricks and a chance of earning a nomination for the annual IBPA ‘Best Played Hand’ award.

There are no alerts or explanations in the VuGraph records, so I can only guess what East’s jump to 2♥ showed based on his actual hand. Playing these jumps as akin to a sound weak two opening is an unusual method, to be sure, but it might perhaps have allowed Mauricio Machado to find the winning action over 4♣. (Consider the problem if East has responded 1♥, when no one would even think of bidding 4♥.) Machado’s double was certainly conservative, and bidding 4♥ surely looks like the more obvious move, but credit Jose Paiva for giving him the decision to start with. I suspect that his 4♣ overcall would not have been everyone’s choice on that South hand!

Machado led a top diamond against 4♣-X. Declarer ruffed, crossed to the ♣A, and advanced the ♠10, covered by jack, king and ace. Machado forced declarer with another high diamond, but Paiva ruffed and played a second round of trumps. East won with the ♣K and the defenders cashed two hearts and the ♣Q, but that was it. With spades breaking 3-3, declarer had the rest, just two down: E/W +300.

As commentators or writers, we generally like to see good bridge rewarded, rather than seeing players who do the wrong thing benefit due to a favourable lie of the cards. Unfortunately, bad bridge does sometimes prevail. Justice was not the winner on this deal, although the defenders did theoretically have a chance to punish their opponents. Here’s what happened at the other table:

East/West broke all the rules that teachers try to instil in their students when the subject of Blackwood comes up. Henrique Salomao opened a potentially short 1♣ (clubs or balanced outside the 1NT opening range; 1♦ openings always show an unbalanced hand). This allowed Raul Leon to intervene with what can best be described as an enterprising 3♦ pre-empt. Joao Paulo Campos bid his hearts and now Solomao broke rule number one and used RKCB with two top losers in a side suit, (not that it is obvious how he gets his partner to show a club control). Campos duly showed one key card with his 5♣ response, and Machado signed off in 5♥. Now came a breach of an even more important principle: although his partner had taken control and effectively made the decision, Campos overruled him and raised himself to slam.

With a void in his partner’s suit, Diego Brenner (right) had nothing to tell him that a club was the winning lead. Indeed, I suspect that the ♠K would be the choice of just about every expert. Of course, a club beats the slam by two, North winning with the ♣A, giving his partner a diamond ruff, and receiving a club ruff in return.

Declarer won the spade lead with the ace, drew trumps, discarded his two spade losers on dummy’s high diamonds, and knocked out the ♣A to claim 12 tricks. E/W +980 and a fortunate 12 IMPs to HENRIQUE.

Unfortunately, the VuGraph record for the final board of the stanza is completely missing at one table. However, it is still worthwhile looking at what happened at the one table we can see, as it highlights a subject I have spoken about many times in these pages and elsewhere. The subject is sacrificing on balanced hands, and the lesson is that it is often more expensive than you think. This deal provides an excellent illustration:

Faced with the second of this week’s problem hand, how many diamonds were you prepared to bid on that East hand? If your answer was ‘six’, keep an eye open for the men in white coats, as they will surely be along shortly. Bidding as Da Silva Neto did here is wrong on so many counts, and simply offered N/S fielders’ choice: if they were going to bid 6♥, they will still do so, but they can choose instead to take a penalty if they are not sure that contract is making.

For a start, it is quite possible that South was going to pass 4♥. Yes, North/South would make 6♣, but you have pushed them into that contract and, perhaps more to the point, were they going to play there or was South going to give preference to hearts? Not only was 6♦ an expensive sacrifice (did I mention that declarer made just your ♥A and his four trump tricks, so the penalty from 6♦-X was -1700?) Not only that, but if the opponents were bidding 6♥, they are likely to go down: declarer essentially has to find the ♥J, and is he not likely to play the hand with the shorter diamonds for that card?

Unfortunately, we do not know what happened at the other table, but you can be sure that -1700 was not a winning board for East/West!

MONPERI won the third stanza 50-36, and thus led by 49 IMPs (151-102) going into the final 14-board set. It did not take long for MONPERI to put the icing on their cake and, once again, it was a misadventure in the slam zone that was to prove costly for HENRIQUE,

Joao da Silva Neto’s 4♥ opening bid is not an unreasonable choice, particularly at this vulnerability. With ♥A-Q doubleton onside, the defenders cannot stop 12 tricks, but it was far from obvious for West to advance.

South led a helpful diamond and declarer, not willing to take any chances playing in game, simply led a trump from his hand. He was soon claiming 11 tricks: E/W +450.

I never mind missing slam on a finesse, and this one is much worse than that. (Not only do you need to find the ♥Q onside, but it also needs to be singleton or doubleton.) Scoring +480 can win in many ways, but when you come back to teammates with -50, having gone down in a poor slam, it is always IMPs out. To illustrate the point, they did get to slam at the other table in this match. However…

Jose Paiva opened 1♥ and Mauricio Figueiredo forced to game with 2♣. Paiva’s jump to 4♥ in a game-forcing auction should, presumably, show a hand just a tad too good for a 4♥ opening. Even so, Figueiredo liked his hand enough to roll our RKCB and he found two key-cards opposite. His club suit did look fairly solid, didn’t it, so who can blame him for choosing to play slam in that suit rather than making his singleton the trump suit? Things didn’t work out quite as declarer hoped. The first bad news was the lack of any trumps in dummy.

The opening diamond lead went to South’s nine and declarer’s king. Figueiredo cashed three top trumps and then led his heart towards dummy. North rose with the ♥A and switched to a spade, declarer winning with the ace. He can now cross to dummy with the ♦A and dispose of one spade loser on the ♥K and a second on the ♥J while South ruffs with his trump trick. When, instead, declarer tried the diamond finesse, he was five down, not that how many 50s he lost made a great deal of difference, but it did rather sum up how this final had gone for the HENRIQUE team. E/W -250 and another 12 IMPs to MONPERI.

MONPERI had led the final from start to finish. They won the fourth stanza 43-20 and the match 194-122. Congratulations to Roberto de Oliveira, Diego Brenner, Raul Leon, Mauricio Machado and Joao de Silva Neto.