This week, we conclude our coverage of the 20^th European Champions Cup from the beautiful Finnish capital of Helsinki. The battle between National Championship winners from countries around Europe has now been reduced to just two contenders, team RIVIERA (Belgium) and CONTACT 1 (Switzerland). 

The Swiss Bermuda Bowl winners reached the final here with a stonking semi-final victory over the European Champions, Netherlands. The Belgians may have begun the weekend as dark horses, but they are an in-form team. In Madeira, a couple of months ago, they qualified as one of Europe’s representatives for the 2023 Bermuda Bowl in Morocco and, in the semi-finals here, they saw off the Polish team who had led this strong field through the qualifying stage. 

Only one bidding problem for you this week. With both sides vulnerable, you are West holding:

What action, if any, do you take?

The drama began on the very first deal of the final, with both N/S pairs managing to reach a good game despite holding fewer than half of the high-card points. 

Steve de Roos’s light 1♥ opening set the ball rolling. With the opening limited to a maximum of around 15 HCP by the failure to open a Precision Club, there was no need for Geert Arts to do anything other than simply raise to game. Now the spotlight was on West: was South bidding game to make or pre-empting? Fernando Piedra was left with a complete guess, and he did what most expert players would and took his chances with a 4♠ bid. Of course, Arts was happy to double on this South hand.

Only a heart lead gives declarer a chance of making ten tricks, and De Roos did indeed kick off with an unfortunate choice, the ♥A. After ruffing, declarer correctly played a trump at trick two but, desperate to get to dummy to throw a loser on the ♥K, he rose with the ♠K rather than finessing the jack. His chances of bringing home the contract had thus disappeared as quickly as they had materialized. 

Piedra threw a club on the ♥K, and now needed to play a diamond to hold the defenders to four tricks. When he instead played a second trump, he was in trouble. With no more entries to dummy, declarer had now to lose two diamond tricks which, combined with the bad trump break, meant that he lost control of the hand to go three down: N/S +500.

Piotr Gawrys did not open the North hand. Although Switzerland’s Polish faction still got themselves to 4♥ fairly quickly, the Belgians had managed to exchange just enough information to identify their best fit.

Michal Klukowski led his singleton spade against 5♦-X. Alon Amsel (right) captured North’s ♠Q with his king but, mindful of getting a spade winner ruffed, he immediately played a diamond to the ace and a second back towards his queen. Klukowski therefore made two trump tricks and the ♣A to defeat the contract in quick time. However, as the cards lie, it looks like all lines of play will eventually produce the same result. N/S +100 and 9 IMPs to BELGIUM.

This potential slam deal arrived towards the end of the first half:

This is not an easy hand to bid, and the Belgians never came to grips with it at all. Amsel’s 2♣ response was theoretically a ‘natural’ game force, although their system card offers no clues as to why he cannot both force to game and show his five-card major with a 2♥ response. The upshot was that they never found their eight-card heart fit (although that was probably a good thing on this layout). However, they also never looked at any contract beyond game either.

On the surface, assuming declarer can make four heart tricks, he appears to have 11 top tricks in notrumps and a possible spade-diamond squeeze against South for the twelfth. Klukowski led the ♦J against 3NT, and declarer won in hand to play a heart, South’s bare ace popping up. Declarer won the diamond continuation in dummy with the nine and, although he now seems to have 12 tricks, blockages in every suit means that he cannot reach them all. E/W +460.

Pierre Zimmerman (left) did start with the obvious-looking 2♥ response and, although there are no alerts or explanations in the VuGraph hand records, it would seem that Piedra’s jump to 3NT agreed his partner’s suit. Zimmermann advanced with a 4♣ cue-bid and then committed the partnership to slam when Piedra limited his hand. Exactly what choices 6♦ offered to Piedra is unclear (hearts/diamonds? hearts/no-trumps?), but the resultant 6♥ was a sensible contract. However, although slam in notrumps may have had some play, a heart contract was destined to flounder on the rocks of unfriendly distribution. 

Whilst Arts did not hit pay dirt with his opening lead (the ♦J), he was never likely to miss out at the second time of asking. Declarer won the diamond lead in hand and led a trump, South winning with the ace and switching to a spade for his partner to ruff. A fast one down: E/W -50 and a somewhat fortunate 11 IMPs to BELGIUM. 

At the midway point of the 32-board matches, the Belgians had their noses in front, but only just, 43-39. All still to play for!

Early in the second half, Brink/Drijver played three consecutive doubled contracts. On the first, they saved for 500 against a vulnerable game (+4 IMPs) and then they made 2♦-X for +180 while their teammates were one down in 4♥ (+4 IMPs). The third, where both West players had to solve this week’s bidding problem, was not quite so successful:

North/South can make 6♣ on the trump finesse, but the predictable Polish auction never looked like getting beyond game. Declarer enjoyed a stress-free ride on De Donder’s opening lead of the ♥J. Gawrys won, played ace and another club, and claimed his eleven tricks: N/S +660. All very straightforward.

Aggressive competitive bidding has gained the Swiss team innumerable IMPs over the years, but this was not the time to get into the auction, as their Dutch contingent discovered to their cost:

Did you consider coming in on that West hand over South’s 3♣  pre-empt? Sjoert Brink felt his hand worthy of a takeout double, and paid a heavy price for his enterprise. 

Geert Arts (right) led the ♣Q against 3♥-X, and declarer ruffed the second round. Drijver needs to play a diamond at trick three if he is even to get out for four down. Indeed, playing a trump would see declarer restricted to only two tricks! 

It looks obvious to play a spade, and that is what Drijver did. Steve de Roos won with the ♠A and played four rounds of trumps, so Drijver was able to cash his two spade winners before conceding the rest. N/S +1400 and 12 IMPs to BELGIUM.

Since we were just talking about enterprise, take a look at the action on Board 25. Things appeared relatively normal at one table:

The East hand looks like a perfectly normal, albeit maximum, 15-17 1NT opening, but De Donder upgraded it to 18-19. Over the 2NT rebid, De Roos used a 3♣ puppet to show a six-card spade suit and game-forcing hand, and De Donder duly raised to the obvious game. Declarer lost just two hearts: E/W +650.

With only a combined 27 HCP and no shortages, bidding a slam was never in the picture. And, neither is it an attractive proposition, needing favorable positions in both red suits. So, this looks for all the world like a flat board, doesn’t it?

In the last few years, attitudes towards pre-emptive opening bids have relaxed considerably, with many partnerships now willing to roll the dice at any excuse. Even so, Steve de Roos’s effort on this deal would still be a step too far for most players. Not for the faint-hearted, that’s for sure!

This deal reminds me of a story I heard about a young Barnet Shenkin, playing in one of his first Camrose matches for Scotland. Aware of Barnet’s reputation for pushing the boat out, the elderly npc of the team took a seat immediately behind our hero, making it clear that he was keeping an eye on Barnet to make sure that he didn’t do anything outrageous. Towards the end of the session, the npc had to take a bathroom break and, when he returned to the table five minutes later, the Tournament Director was there, and people were waving their hands and remonstrating with each other. “Well, I told them it was weak, and you can’t get much weaker than three small,” pointed out Barnet, who had apparently opened 3♣ on a 3-4-3-3 Yarborough. 

Steve de Roos (left) perhaps still has a ways to go if he is to match the audacity of the young Shenkin, but his effort on this deal really stuck it to the Dutch contingent of the Bermuda Bowl champions. Yes, perhaps Brink might perhaps have bid 5♠, but doing so is rather like flying a kite on a blustery day. Sure, things could go well, but you might just as easily end up holding one end of a broken piece of string. The defence could never take more than four tricks against 5♣ -X. When one of those got away, that was N/S +100 and another 11 IMPs to BELGIUM.

The Belgians won the second stanza 48-30 and the match by 91-69. Like their country’s soccer team, this Belgian team may not (yet) be one of the ‘big names’ at major championships, but they are fast earning a reputation as a team that no one wants to be drawn against.

Congratulations to the 20^th winners of the European Champions Cup, team RIVIERA: Steve de Roos (playing captain and coach), Alon Amsel, Geert Arts, Sreve de Donder, Daniel de Roos and Bert Geens.

We will be taking the long trip Down Under, to see the best of the action from the final of the trials to select the Australian team for the 2023 Bermuda Bowl in Morocco. We will then be heading across The Pond, to Phoenix, Arizona, home of the US Fall Nationals. Be sure to keep that dial tuned!