This week, we return to Phoenix, Arizona and the 2022 U.S. Fall Nationals for the prestigious Reisinger Board-a-Match Teams. Of the 32 teams that lined up for the qualifying rounds, 20 advanced to the semi-finals. Leading the way, with 33 points, is FLEISHER (Marty Fleisher, Chip Martel, Tom Hanlon, Leslie Amoils, Thomas Bessis and Cedric Lorenzini). Close behind them are the teams captained by Pierre Zimmerman (with 32.83) and Vinita Gupta (32).

As usual, we start with some problems for you to consider. Firstly, with only your side vulnerable, you are East holding:

What action, if any, do you take?

Next, with only the opponents vulnerable, you are sitting in the West seat with:

What action, if any, do you take?

At Board-a-Match (similar to matchpointed pairs), scoring +420 whilst teammates are conceding -400 is worth exactly the same as a swing that would gain you 20 IMPs in a normal team game. Even so, it is worth looking at some of the more spectacular boards. A pair of Kolesniks made life particularly difficult for their English opponents on this deal:

Emma Kolesnik (left) represented the US as a junior international as recently as 2018. She was also a member of the USA’s Women’s team at the World Championships in Salsomaggiore earlier this year. She started with a simple 1♠  overcall here, which seemed to encourage her partner rather more than might be expected. 

Ben Handley-Pritchard showed an invitational or better diamond raise with a 2♠ cue-bid, which allowed room for Alex Kolesnik to introduce his six-card club suit. Tom Townsend showed extra values with a 3♠ cue-bid, but it is hard to criticize Handley-Pritchard for not being too over-enthusiastic on a hand which is truly ‘aces and spaces’. Townsend would, presumably, have advanced with 4♦ had North passed 3NT, but Alex climbed back in with 4♥ now. Townsend passed and then pulled his partner’s double to 4NT, but the Americans had managed to convince their opponents that they actually had much better hands than was actually the case, and the auction died in 4NT.

Declarer made his eleven top tricks: E/W +660 but, with two spade ruffs in dummy augmenting the top tricks, a high diamond contract was clearly where you wanted to be.

Dana Berkowitz (right) was also a junior international, in 2010, and she was a member of the silver medal-winning USA Mixed team at the 2022 Salsomaggiore World Championships. On this deal, she heard her partner jump to 3NT after South had entered with a 2♠ weak jump overcall. With North silenced, Berkowitz advanced with 4♦ and caught a 4♠ cue-bid from Alex Perlin. 4NT found that all three missing aces were opposite, and now Berkowitz drove to the excellent grand slam. 

There was nothing to the play: E/W +2140 and the point on the board to KOLESNIK.

Our next deal perhaps has more of a matchpoint feel to it, with East at one table faced with the first of this week’s problems from above.

You open 1♥ and hear 1NT on your left. Partner bids a competitive 2♠ and RHO then makes a non-invitational 3♦ bid via Lebensohl. Do you simply pass and defend, do you compete to the three-level in one of the majors, or do you perhaps double and hope that your partner can work out what to do? 

Passing, (or doubling, assuming that partner converts for penalties) gets you a plus score, as you have two clubs, a club ruff and the two pointed-suit aces for one down. But is +50 or +100 enough to win the board?

Denmark’s Andreas Meister decided that his singleton jack was sufficient support to compete to the three-level in spades. Emma Kolesnik thought he was wrong, and expressed her opinion in the traditional way. Which of them was correct?

The answer may surprise you as,  theoretically at least, it was the Dane. However, declarer still has to find the right line of play to prove the theory is valid. 

Alex Kolesnik led his trump against 3♠-X, dummy’s jack winning. Declarer needs to score dummy’s three-minor-suit winners plus six trump tricks. The route to achieve this goal involves playing two high clubs and ruffing a club, then crossing to the ♦A and taking a second club ruff. The defence cannot then stop declarer from scoring three tricks with A-Q-10 of trumps in the endgame.

However, when Soren Bilde led a low heart from dummy at trick two, the defence was in with a chance, but it was hard for South to play low and allow her partner to win with the ♥J. She won with the ♥Q and switched to diamonds, Bilde ducking the first round. Winning the diamond continuation with the ace, he then correctly called for the ♥K from dummy, forcing South to cover and squashing North’s ♥J in the process. Bilde won the club switch in dummy, and instead of cashing the ♥10 for a diamond discard and his ninth trick, he played the ♥3 from dummy and ruffed when South perforce followed with the ♥4. When he continued with the ♠A and the ♠9 to South’s king, Kolesnik could safely exit with a second round of clubs. Declarer had already lost two hearts, one diamond and one spade, and he still had a second diamond loser to come. N/S +200 was surely a winning board.

If you chose to compete with 3♥ in the problem position, your chances of a flat board would be good:

Emil Jepsen preferred a 1♠ overcall on the South hand, effectively silencing West. When that came back to her, Dana Berkowitz reopened with 2♣, and Alex Perlin simply gave preference to the major.

Had you been defending a heart contract with that South hand, would you have been up to finding the defence that holds declarer to nine tricks? Surprising as it may seem, looking at that South hand, the only way to defeat game in heart is to cash the ♥A and follow with a low trump. 

Against 2♥, Jepsen led the ♦K. Berkowitz won with the ♦A and played the ♠J, overtaking with dummy’s queen. She then played three rounds of clubs, ruffing in dummy. Now came the ♠A, Simon Hult ruffing with the ♥J and declarer overruffing with the king. Berkowitz then played her remaining club. Jepsen could score his two high trumps and one diamond, but that was it. N/S -170 and the point on the board to KOLESNIK.

Facing a passed partner, do you come in over South’s strong 1NT opening on this shapely 7-count and, if so, with what?

Italy’s Aldo Gerli (left) decided that allowing his opponents a free run was the wrong thing to do on this hand. Indeed, although it is likely that North will pass 1NT on his actual hand, declarer is destined to make nine tricks for E/W -150, which would surely have been a losing board. Gerli’s pre-emptive jump to 3♦ was enough to buy the contract cheaply. He had four side-suit losers to go with two in trumps for two down, but E/W -100 looked like it might be a winning board on this layout. 

In the replay, Kevin Rosenberg passed the West hand. North also passed, but Simon Cope (right) was not prepared to give up so easily, and he backed in with 2♣, showing both majors. Leonardo Fruscoloni doubled (showing clubs) and Rosenberg showed his heart preference. Norberto Bocchi competed with 3♣ on the North hand but, when that was passed back to Rosenberg, the young American decided his hand was worth a second attempt to declare. Now the spotlight fell on Fruscoloni. With just one trick to be lost in each of the side suits, he could have won the board by bidding and making 4♣ for N/S +130. When he elected to defend, the board was effectively lost for the Italians.

Declarer is always likely to make eight tricks. North led a diamond, Rosenberg winning in dummy with the ace and playing a spade. It is hard for South to rise with the ♠A looking at the holding in dummy but, when Fruscoloni played low, declarer won with the singleton king and now had only four losers. E/W +140 and a good result in both rooms meant that the point went to COPE.

There are certain inevitable truths about bridge, whatever the form of scoring. Hamman’s Law: if 3NT is a reasonable option, bid 3NT, Burns’ Law: choose a trump suit in which your side has more cards than the opponents. As far as I know, this one has no one’s name attached to it, but it seems to make eminent sense, so I am perhaps surprised that no one has claimed it yet: in a team match, do not choose the same trump suit as your teammates. Whenever this happens, either you or your teammates will inevitably be in the wrong contact. This deal illustrates the point.

David Hoffner correctly applied another suggestion that most of my students have heard from me plenty of times: when the auction suggest you have a misfit, stop bidding as quickly as possible. As it happens, N/S could have afforded to climb higher on this layout as declarer can make ten tricks on any lead. However, there is no better strain at BAM scoring, so N/S +130 looked like a potentially winning board. As it turned out, though, E/W could have done just about anything on this deal and still won the board.

I do not have any adjectives to describe West’s overcall that I can use in polite company. As my students will all attest, I wholeheartedly approve of seeing such bids get exactly what they deserve. 

Passing his partner’s negative double was not a difficult decision for Andrew Dyson (left). Glyn Liggins found the best lead, his singleton spade, but the defence dropped a trick later in the play. Not that it mattered that declarer was permitted to make a fourth trick: N/S +1100 and the point on the board to DYSON.

The semi-final finished with the Bermuda Bowl champions, ZIMMERMANN (Pierre Zimmermann, Fernando Piedra, Sjoert Brink, Bas Drijver, Piotr Gawrys and Michal Klukowski), a country mile ahead of the field. They go into the final with a carry-forward advantage of over two boards more than the second-placed team.

These are the qualifying teams and the score they carry forward into the final:

We will be back next week to see the best of the action from the final of what many top players consider the world’s most difficult event.