Welcome back to Strasbourg, where we have reached the Last 16 in the Mixed teams at the European Transnational Championships. Having lost the reigning World champions in a 2-IMP thriller yesterday, I looked around to see where another of the pre-tournament favourites might fall. The obvious match was one that pitted two of the potential contenders against each other in a do-or-die battle. The meeting between DE BOTTON (England/Norway) and SPARKLING VINTAGES (Germany/Denmark) promises to be an action-packed affair.

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

South’s jump to 2♠ is weak, and West’s 4♣ shows a club control and agrees hearts. What action, if any, do you take?

Does it affect your decision if I tell you that you are a maniac?

Next, with neither side vulnerable, you are sitting in the West seat with:

What action, if any, do you take?

SPARKLING VINTAGES jumped out to a 20-IMP lead after the first stanza. With England’s record against Germany (in any sport) nothing to shout about, this situation prompts the question “Does the DE BOTTON team include a Harry Kane, or just a bunch of Emile Heskeys?”

When the team sheets for the second stanza appeared, Auken/Welland, who have been in sparkling form of late, were left on the bench. DE BOTTON immediately halved the deficit on an opening lead decision. On lead against 3NT, you hold a 3-count and have to choose between ♥10-9-8-7 and ♣K-8-x-x-x after RHO has shown 20-21 balanced. For the Germans, Nadia Bekkouche chose the ♥10. Nevena Senior attacked with a club and found her partner with ♣Q-J-x-x and an outside entry: 11 IMPs to DE BOTTON. Then came the first of this week’s problem hands…

It is well-known that the best strategy when playing with someone who is inclined to overbid, is to overbid yourself -- if they catch you underbidding to compensate, that only makes them overbid even more. However, one can take this concept too far, perhaps. Although Artur Malinowski (left) is a self-confessed maniac, one does have to question the merits (sanity?) of Nevena Senior’s 2♠ overcall at ‘red’. We all recall Marty Bergen’s advice that “Colours are for Children”, but one surely has to pay some heed to the vulnerability. I’ll leave you to decide who is most responsible for this result.

Not that it was as bad as it might have been… Peter Schaltz started accurately with a low spade to his partner’s king. The defence switched to diamonds, declarer winning the second round and playing the heart from dummy. West duly overtook and played the ♠A and a third spade. Declarer should now make only five tricks, but a discarding error later in the play allowed her to score a sixth. Even so, it was still E/W +1100.

Thor Erik Hoftaniska opened an off-shape 1NT. Gunn Tove Vist (right) started with Stayman and then jumped to 3♠, control-showing, when she found a heart fit. Hoftaniska was decidedly uninterested, but there was no keeping Vist out of slam now. E/W +980, so ‘only’ 3 IMPs to SPARKLING VINTAGES.

Of course, it is possible to go for a costly penalty without anyone doing anything obviously wrong. South’s 1♦ overcall is far from being the worst bid you’ll see at this tournament, and yet it cost 800 against a non-vulnerable game. Indeed, it is perhaps a surprise that this result was only duplicated at two of the other 15 tables where the deal was played. Declarer lost two tricks in each black suit, a heart and four trumps, three down: E/W +800.

I could have presented the East hand as a problem after 1♣-1♦-Pass-Pass-? but I can imagine the blank looks I would have gotten as everyone tried to think of a possible alternative to double. Apparently, there was one…

East’s 1♣ and both West’s Pass of 1♦ and his 1NT were alerted, so perhaps there are some inferences about the Danish auction that are not clear to this simple scribe. Quite why East cannot re-open with a double, though, remains a mystery. The Danes bid effectively to their game but that was only E/W +450 and thus 8 IMPs to DE BOTTON.

Can you see a pattern emerging here? We seem to be getting a perfectly normal result in one room and something completely different in the other. The next deal followed that pattern, and both sides had a chance for a big gain…

All was fairly routine at this table. Nevena Senior (left) handled this tricky South hand by opening a heavy 2NT and they duly landed in what is obviously the best contract. Declarer won the ♣Q lead in dummy and played two top hearts. When she then ran her diamonds, East had to follow three times, so two of dummy’s spades had disappeared by the time he got to ruff in with the ♥Q. N/S +450.

The action in the other room was much more exciting…

An experience campaigner, Nadia Bekkouche (right) made her first international appearance at the 1994 European Mixed Championship. She made her debut in the Danish Women’s team at the 2000 Olympiad. She reached the quarter-final stage of numerous major events before eventually collecting a medal, a bronze in the Mixed Teams in this event in Ostend in 2013. She has also come close in major matchpointed events, finishing 7^th in the 2000 European Mixed Pairs and 6^th in the Open Pairs at the 2018 European Championships.

Bekkouche decided that this South hand was too strong for 2NT, so she started with her system strong bid and then showed her diamond suit. Flemming Danielsen's 3NT bid apparently showed five hearts. When Bekkouche then corrected to 4♥, Danielsen advanced with a club cue-bid. With no spade control, Bekkouche again signed off, but Danielsen advanced to slam anyway.

Bidding a slam off a cashing Ace-King is often fatal but, after this auction, it is hardly clear that is what has happened here. Surely someone must hold a spade control, so it is far from obvious for Thor Erik Hoftaniska to lead from his ♠K-J-x.

When the trump lead appeared on the VuGraph screen, the general consensus was that the Danish pair had landed on their feet: not only is the ♥Q in the slot with the suit breaking, but the Great Dealer was good enough to provide declarer with a trump entry in the ♦9. The percentage line of play is to win the first trump, cash a high heart, cross to the ♦9, run the ♥J, cross back to dummy with the ♣K, draw the last trump, unblock the hearts, and the ♣A then provides entry to the winning hearts on which the spade losers can be thrown. That seems to add up to 13 tricks. When declarer instead drew trumps and played hearts from the top, he was not rewarded by the fall of the ♥Q, and was thus two down. N/S -100 and 11 IMPs to DE BOTTON when it could easily have been a similar number in the other column.

The Norwegians benefited from playing a method seldom seen in these days when everyone wants to pre-empt as often as possible… Does anyone even remember intermediate or strong jump overcalls?

Gunn Tove Vist’s 2♦ overcall shut North out and Thor Erik Hoftaniska jumped to 4♥, ending the brief auction.

This does not look like it should be a difficult defensive problem for players at this level. Bekkouche led the ♠A, Danielsen following with the ♠9. With the ♠Q in dummy, can North’s signal be anything other than count? Bekkouche now cashed the ♣A and, despite ‘knowing’ that her other high spade was standing up, continued with a second club. A grateful declarer won with the ♣K and cashed two high diamonds to discard his remaining spade. The defenders made the ace of trumps to hold the contract to ten tricks: E/W +420.

After the normal 1♦ overcall, Artur Malinowski stretched to get his spades into the auction at the one-level. When Nevena Senior then bid 4♠ over East’s jump to 4♥, Peter Schaltz was left with the last of the problems posed at the top of this article. High-level competitive decisions are rarely easy and no one gets them right all the time, particularly when both contracts are close to making. In this case, both 4♠ and 5♥ are two down, so perhaps it should be clearer to defend? I’ll leave you to be the judge. The defence here made no mistake and collected all four of their tricks. E/W -300 and 12 IMPs to DE BOTTON, when the loss could (should?) have been only 3 IMPs despite the defensive calamity at the other table.

DE BOTTON won an action-packed second stanza 45-22.  For a change, it seemed that an English team did have someone who could put the ball in the net against Germany! DE BOTTON led by 3 IMPs (69-66) at the midway point of what promised to be a nail-biter of a match, and so it proved to be. In the third quarter, DE BOTTON gained another 5 IMPs to lead by 8 IMPs with 14 boards remaining. They added another 11 IMPs to lead by 19 with eight boards still to play.

But, of course, German teams never know when they are beaten, and a history that is familiar to English sports fans of all ages duly repeated itself when SPARKLING VINTAGES outscored their opponents 20-0 over the final eight deals (including 7 IMPs on the penultimate board) to win the match by the narrowest of margins, 123-122. Boy, do we hate penalty shoot-outs!

By some strange quirk of fate, the four surviving teams that might have been considered amongst the pre-tournament favourites (Sparkling Vintages, Edmonds, Turnips and Robinson) all manage to avoid each other in the draw for the quarter-finals. However, do not be at all surprised if at least one of them fails to make it to the semi-finals.

We will be back in Strasbourg soon to bring you the best of the action from the quarter-finals of the Mixed Teams and, of course, to provide details of any acts of giant-killing.