We remain in Buenos Aires, Argentina for the South American Transnational Championships, which attracted 35 teams with plenty of big names from around the world in the field. The format is a Swiss qualifier of twelve 12-board matches with the leading eight teams advancing to the knockout stage.

As usual, we begin with some problems. Firstly, with only your side vulnerable, you are East holding:

What action, if any, do you take?

Next, with both sides vulnerable, you are sitting West with this uninspiring collection:

What action, if any, do you take?

Finally, with only your side vulnerable, you hold in the South seat:

What action, if any, do you take?

While you consider those problems, we begin our coverage with a Round 1 match that has a distinctly European flavor, with VENTIN’s Swedes playing BRENO’s Italians. The biggest swing of the match hinged on East’s decision on the first of the problems above.

Arrigo Franchi (left) made his first international appearance at the 2003 World Junior Pairs. Representing Italy, he won a bronze medal in the Junior Pairs at the 2008 European Youth Championships, and silver medals at the 2007 European Junior Teams and in the Junior Swiss Teams at the 2009 World Youth Congress. He joined the BRENO team in 2015 and has been a regular member of that team at major tournaments around the world since then.

On this deal, Franchi passed Massimo Lanzarotti’s 1♠ overcall. South protected with a double, and Juan-Carlos Ventin opted to bid 1NT rather than defend at the one-level. Franchi led a top club and, whilst it was possible to time the play to squeeze East in the rounded suits in the endgame, declarer did not get the timing right and thus made only three diamonds and a trick in each of the other suits. N/S -50.

At this table, after the same start, Per-Ola Cullin chose to advance with 1NT on the East cards. This completely changed the dynamic of the auction. Antonio Sementa doubled on the South hand to show extra values and Marion Michielsen retreated to what looked like the safety of her good six-card suit. Romain Zaleski’s red card may have disillusioned the Swedish star of that notion, but it was too late for her to do anything about it.

Dummy proved to be of no use at all and the defence was deadly accurate. Declarer had five losers in the side suits and, with South even scoring his singleton ♠J, three trump losers. Declarer emerged from the carnage with only five tricks: N/S +800 and 13 IMPs to BRENO.

BRENO started with a 29-13 win. Two teams began with identical 56-7 wins, PROTO and CEVICHE, to lead the field after the opening round. The most interesting match in the second round was at Table 2, with the Argentina/Australia/New Zealand combination, WHIBLEY, taking on the ZIMMERMANN All-Stars. Both West players had to answer the second of this week’s problems on the opening board of the match…

Carlos Lucena (right) made his debut in the Argentine Open team at the 1991 Bermuda Bowl. Over the past three decades, he has been a regular member of that team, along with the occasional appearance in his country’s Mixed and Seniors teams.

Lucena did not think this West hand worth any sort of diamond raise. That left the Polish Bermuda Bowl champions to attempt to find a making game on the N/S cards. 4♥ would certainly have made and, so too, might 4♠. The game that the Poles chose, though, was the one with no chance: 5♣ had three obvious losers. N/S -100.

Pierre Zimmermann took a much rosier view of his balanced Yarborough, making a pre-emptive raise to 4♦. Zimmermann was certainly right in that reaching a major-suit game was now next to impossible for the Australians. Indeed, had Franck Multon passed 4♦, Michael Whibley may well have contracted for the same doomed eleven-trick contract as the Poles tried. Multon had just too good a hand, though. He needed very little opposite to make 5♦. Unfortunately, for the Frenchman, his partner had even less than very little. To add insult to injury, Nabil Edgtton doubled on the way out. Here, too, declarer had three top losers: N/S +200 and 7 IMPs to WHIBLEY.

That was the largest swing in a rather dull set of boards.  WHIBLEY won the match 17-9 to remain in fourth place. Meanwhile, at the top table, PROTO scored another big win and led the field with 37.88 VPs from a possible 40. It's time to take a look at the leaders, and the BBO VuGraph coverage moved up to Table 1 for Round 3, with the high-flying PROTO (Brazil/Uruguay) meeting STERN (USA/Australia/Argentina). There was plenty of excitement in this set of boards…

Horacio Oliveira (left) was a member of the Brazilian Senior team at the 2022 World Championships in Salsomaggiore. On this deal, he opened his 6-6 9-count in third seat and then introduced his second suit facing a passed partner with both opponents bidding. West competed to 3♥ and Mauricio Machado, who might have made a negative double on the previous round, could hardly do less than jump to game.

Now the spotlight fell onto Argentina’s Maximo Crusizio: would he manage to cash the ♦A to beat the contract? Understandably, he opted for a heart lead, and away went declarer’s diamond loser on dummy’s ace. There were now just two trumps to be lost: N/S +600 and what looks like an excellent result for the Brazilians.

The auction followed identical lines at this table, except that Luis Proto continued with 5♥ over North’s jump to 5♣, leaving Australia’s David Stern with the last of this week’s bidding problems. Even with such extreme shape, do you expect to be making twelve tricks facing a passed partner? You might – perhaps he has something like x/xxxx/Axxx/Kxxx or xx/xxx/xxxx/AKxx, but, at times like this, it is perhaps wise to remember Hamman’s Second Law – “If you need me to hold an exact hand, assume I don’t have it”.

Looking at the problem from the other angle, are you concerned that 5♥ might be making? Did you remember than East, who has bid five-over-five after only moderate encouragement from his partner, was a passed hand? After your partner's jump to game, is pass forcing? It would certainly be nice to consult your partner. Looking at all those defensive values, North will be in no doubt at all. And, if you are worried about the size of the penalty you might get from 5♥-X, there is no need. If you manage to lead your diamond, the defence will come to two diamonds, two spades, the ♥A and a spade ruff, for four down and +800.

These high-level competitive decisions are rarely easy, and even if it turns out that both contracts go one down, then bidding is often right (as just moving just one card will usually mean that one of the contracts would have made). However, when one contact can be two down and the other four down, as is the case here, bidding would seem to be a clear error.

The defence here also dropped a trick by leading a heart but, at this table, that was just the extra undertrick. N/S -200 and 13 IMPs to PROTO.

Despite this board, STERN ended PROTO’s winning run with a 35-25 victory that carried them to the top of the leader-board after three rounds. WHIBLEY also won again, and they moved up into second place. We conclude our first visit to these championships with the Round 4 meeting between those top two teams.

Michael Whibley (right) represented both New Zealand and Australia at Junior level between 2005 and 2011. He made his debut in the New Zealand Open team at the 2009 Bermuda Bowl, and has been a regular member of the Kiwi squad since. At the 2022 World Championships in Wroclaw, Whibley and his partner Nabil Edgtton finished second in the World Open Pairs, the best result ever achieved by a pair from Oceania.

On this deal, although Rodrigo Garcia da Rosa opened 1♦ on the North hand, some serious shenanigans by Whibley took much of the steam out of the Argentine auction. Rather than pre-empting in spades on a deal that he could be sure belonged to the opponents, Whibley set out on a successful mission of obfuscation. The result was that, by the time the Argentinians decided that they were not going to defend, they were already in game. Crusizio agreed diamonds at the four-level, but there was little room left for investigation. There were twelve easy tricks: N/S +420.

Carlos Pellegrini did not open for WHIBLEY’s Argentinian partnership, but the opponents’ pre-emption gave their auction all the impetus it needed. Carlos Lucena opened 1♥ and then jumped to 5♦ at his second turn. With the ace of the opponents’ suit and a huge trump holding, Pellegrini had a relatively easy raise to slam. N/S +920 and 11 IMPs to WHIBLEY.

WHIBLEY won the match 37-20 to move 5 VPs clear of a closely-packed field. With four of the twelve rounds completed, these were the standings at the top of the leader-board:

We will be back soon with the best of the action from the next four rounds of the Swiss qualifier.