We are back in the Baltic Coast city of Sopot in northern Poland for the 2023 World Bridge Tour Masters event. The 12-team field includes many of the best players in Europe. The format is a complete round-robin of 20-board matches, from which the top four teams advance to play semi-finals and final for the title.  After the eleven-match round robin, this was how the top of the leader-board looked:

The semi-final match-ups were SKEIDAR v NAWROT, with the Norwegians enjoying a 12.1-IMP carry-forward advantage from the round robin stage, and APRES-BRIDGE CHAMPS against DE BOTTON (ABC starting 0.1 IMPs ahead). Matches are of 28 boards split into two segments.

As usual, we start with some problems. Firstly, a lead problem. With both sides vulnerable, you are sitting in the East seat with:

What do you lead?

Next, with only your side vulnerable, you hold as South:

What action, if any, do you take?

For some reason, the BBO VuGraph records of the first half of the semi-final stage is missing. At the halfway point, APRES-BRIDGE CHAMPS led DE BOTTON by 21-10. In the other semi-final, SKEIDAR won the first half 22-15, and therefore lead by 20.1 with their carry-forward advantage. The first major swing came down to playing a trump suit of K-10 doubleton opposite Q-9-8-x-x-x for one loser. For the Poles, Piotr Nawrocki played low to the ten and lost to the singleton jack. In the replay, Nicolai Heiberg-Evenstad played to the king and thus brought home his game, which meant 12 IMPs to SKEIDAR.

After six boards of the second half, the match score stood at 53.1-14, so it was all over… or was it? The Poles recovered a huge chunk of the deficit on our first deal. The IMPs essentially hinged on the lead problem presented above. I will leave you to judge whether you think most of the damage was self-inflicted.

Jerzy Skrzypczak (left) made his first international appearance in the Transnational Teams at the 2001 World Championships. He made his debut in the Poland Open team at the 2006 European Team Championships. Since 2016, Skrzypczak has played for Lithuania, and he was a member of their silver medal-winning team at the 2022 European Small Federation Games.

The auction here was relatively straightforward, with North bidding a slam after South had agreed hearts with via a splinter bid.

Skrzypczak has no legitimate winning lead, but his selection of a trump gave declarer the chance to go wrong at trick one. (More of that later.) Stian Evenstad won in hand, ruffed his spade losers in dummy, and eventually played a diamond, needing to find a short honour (or both honours) on his right. When those chances failed to materialize, declarer was one down: N/S -100.

To make the contract, declarer must win the opening lead in dummy with the ♥A and begin ruffing clubs immediately. Only by using all four of dummy’s trumps as entries, can he ruff four rounds of clubs to eliminate that suit. After cross-ruffing the black suits and drawing the last trump, East will be reduced to only diamonds and can then be endplayed. A double-dummy line, for sure, so a good lead from Skrzypczak.

East in the other room heard the auction given when the problem was posed at the top of this article…

Arve Farstad (right) made his international debut in the Norway Seniors team at the 2008 European Championships and he has been a regular member of that team since. He just missed out on his first major medal in 2015, finishing fourth in the Seniors Pairs at the European Transnational Championships.

On this deal, Farstad was rather led down the garden path by his partner. Of course, Lasse Aaseng was trying to help when he suggested a diamond lead by bidding that suit at the four-level. Making such a bid on a singleton is fraught with danger, as you really have no information suggesting that a diamond is the right lead. Indeed, on this deal it directed partner towards the only lead that handed away the contract on a plate. N/S +1430 and 17 IMPs to NAWROT.

High-level bidding decisions are never easy, and even the most experienced players do the wrong thing fairly often. Young players almost universally bid too optimistically, whether hoping partner will have the right hand to make a slam, or guessing that it will be better to declare than to defend in high-level competitive auctions. Our next deal illustrates the type of decision that perhaps experience will teach the youngest of the Norwegians to get right, although as things turned out his was not the only high-level error of judgement on the deal.

I confess that I am not a fan of Piotr Wiankowski’s double. I therefore have considerable sympathy for Piotr Nawrocki (left), whose decision to bid 5♣ over East pre-emptive raise to 4♠ does not look unreasonable as a two-way shot. I suppose the blame for turning a plus score into a minus can be shared close to equally at this table. Not that there isn’t plenty of blame to go around: which of the Norwegians should shoulder the responsibility for taking only +200 out of 5♥? Who, if anyone, should have doubled?

You see what I mean about high-level competitive bidding decisions being difficult. Here we have a table of experts and we are allocating some degree of blame for the final result to all four players. N/S -200, but for which side was that a good result? If the Norwegians defend at the other table, they will gain 7 IMPs. If they also bid to the five-level but are doubled, they will lose a similar amount. That’s a 14-IMP swing in real terms.

Boguslaw Gierulski (right) is the second member of the Lithuanian Open team guesting as Poles for the NAWROT team. To be fair, Gierulski had made his debut in the Polish Open team at the 2006 European Championship. He has represented Lithuania since 2016.

Stian Evenstad overcalled 2♥ on the North hand and, here too, East pre-empted to 4♠. That left Nicolai Heiberg-Evenstad with the second of this week’s problems. Whilst I think it is a fairly close decision whether South bids over 4♠ opposite a takeout double, my view is that the 5♣ bid is much more of a wild stab in the dark facing an overcall. At this vulnerability, even if you think 4♠ is making, to bid 5♣ you must surely expect to make at least ten tricks. I don’t see that this South hand gets close to suggesting that is the case.

Gierulski did manage to find a double at the five-level, which is what ultimately earned the swing on the board for his team. I suggest that he should not have been given the chance at this table. N/S -500 and 7 IMPs to NAWROT.

Alas, for the Poles, it was all too little, too late, but only just! The Poles managed to regain enough IMPs to win the match, but not to also overcome the 12.1-IMP carry-forward advantage enjoyed by the Norwegians. NAWROT won the second half 38-25, but SKEIDAR advanced to the final by a score of 59.1-52. APRES-BRIDGE CHAMPS dominated the other semi-final, defeating DE BOTTON 59.1-24 to join the Norwegians.

For logistical reasons, the teams agreed to play the final over a single 14-board session. The Norwegians began with a 0.1-IMP carry-forward advantage. The match began with a tricky bidding challenge for the E/W pairs…

Arve Farstad had a natural 2♣ overcall of Auken’s nebulous 1♣ available, just as he would had North opened, say, 1♦. This somewhat unusual sequence left Lasse Aaseng with no obvious way forward. With no cue-bid available, he settled for a rather heavy raise of his partner’s minor. Farstad had no reason to bid on, so there matters rested. E/W +130.

Rafal Jagniewski (left) won a bronze medal at his first international appearance, as a member of the Polish Junior team at the 1994 European Youth Championships. He made his debut in his country’s Open team at the 2005 Bermuda Bowl. Jagniewski and Wojciech Gawel finished 11^th in the World Open Pairs final in 2016.

Jagniewski passed North’s 1♣ opening, but he then backed in with a takeout double at his second turn, after N/S had bid and semi-supported spades. Gawel cue-bid to show his values. Jagniewski finally bid his long clubs and then raised to game when his partner bid hearts.

North was effectively endplayed a trick one, although Gawel did not take immediate advantage of the low spade lead. He won in dummy with the ♠A and started on trumps. North won with the ♥A, cashed the ♠K, and then continued with a third round of spades. Away from dummy went the ♦K as declarer won with the ♠Q. Declarer did not even need to guess the clubs now: E/W +450 and 8 IMPs to APRES-BRIDGE CHAMPS.

A few boards later, came another deal with plenty of scope for a swing.

Wojciech Gawel (right) collected a gold medal from his first international appearance, as a member of the Polish team at the 2009 European Universities Championships. He made his debut in his country’s Open team at the 2013 European Transnational Championships. In 2014, he won a bronze medal in the Mixed Teams at the World Series in Sanya. He joined the Apres-Bridge team for the 2022 World Championships in Wroclaw.

On this deal, Gawel opened at the one-level. Thereafter, it was always going to be difficult to stop Rafal Jagniewski driving to game. With no attractive fit to play, the destination was inevitable.

Nicolai Heiberg got off to the best start, leading a low diamond. The defenders cashed five rounds of the suit and switched to a club through dummy. Declarer won and successfully took a spade finesse, but that still only gave him seven tricks: E/W -200.

The auction at the other table tempted the Germans in at a much higher level…

Sabine Auken braved the three-level after Lasse Aaseng’s 3♣ opening, and Arve Farstad made a penalty double on the East cards. Declarer seems destined to lose at least two clubs and three trumps in 3♠-X. Roy Welland didn’t fancy his partner’s chances in spades, so asked her to choose a red suit with a rescue redouble. Auken duly retreated to 4♦ and, remarkably, the Norwegians allowed her to play there undoubled.

Only leading a club or a top heart legitimately defeats 4♦. When Farstad opened a trump, declarer had a chance. After capturing West ♦Q with her ace, can you see how declarer must play to make ten tricks?

Kudos to you if you saw the winning line of play (see below) as it is far from obvious. At the table, Auken ruffed a spade in dummy at trick two, and was thus again booked to go down. She then cross-ruffed the majors, establishing the spades but she was left with only one trump. She cashed the ♦K and exited, but the defenders made three top hearts to go with the ♣A and the long trump. E/W +200 and 9 IMPs to SKEIDAR.

What does declarer have to do to make the contract? After winning the opening diamond lead with the ace, declarer plays a spade and discards a heart from dummy, rather than ruffing. East wins with the ♠10 and, whatever he does next, declarer now has the entries to set up the spades and keep trump control. Very difficult.

The final was nip-and-tuck throughout, and there was still very little to choose between the two teams at the end. Although the Norwegians had led the event from the first board, their dominance had perhaps begun to wane in the last couple of days.  With just four deals remaining in the final, SKEIDAR were ahead by 2 IMPs. Alas for the Scandinavians, they were to fall at the final hurdle at the end of this week-long event. In the end it was APRES-BRIDGE CHAMPS who emerged with the victory, and by the narrowest of margins. The final score was 34-33.

Congratulations to all four teams that reached the knockout stage out of a strong field.  

We are now headed west across Europe, to the France/Germany border and the city of Strasbourg, the venue for the 2023 European Transnational Championships. The first week of this marathon event concentrates on the Mixed Teams and the Seniors Teams events. The Open and Women’s Teams then occupy the second week of the championship. We will be bringing you the best of the action.