We are two days into the Swiss qualifying in the Open and Women’s teams events. There are five more matches today to determine which 32 teams (in the Open, 8 in the Women’s) will advance to the knockout stage.

Our featured match from Day 3 comes from Round 12. SCORWAY (Scotland/Norway) began this event with seven straight wins and, after two consecutive losses on Day 2, they have won their last two and top the table with nine wins from their first 11 matches. By contrast, ZIMMERMANN (Switzerland) lost three of their five matches on the first day and were languishing in mid-table. With two-thirds of last year’s Bermuda Bowl winning team augmented by a pair of double Bermuda Bowl winners, no one was writing them off, and they will surely be carrying the bookies’ money as the tournament heads towards the business end. A run of seven consecutive wins coming into this match has seen them rise to second place, less than 1 VP behind the leaders.

Both of these teams are virtually assured a place in the latter stages of this event, but the higher you finish today, the wider your choice of opponent for the opening knockout match.

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

East’s 2♦ opening is a Multi, showing one major. 4♦ asks opener to bid his major. What action, if any, do you take? If you pass, do you take any action when East’s 4♠ comes back to you?

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

What do you open?

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

East’s 3♥ shows a weakish four-card spade raise and your partner’s 3♠ is equivalent to a takeout double after 1♠-P-3♠-? What action, if any, do you take?

Finally, an opening lead problem. With only your opponents vulnerable, you hear the following auction from the West seat:

What do you lead?

While you consider those, we jump right into the action on the opening deal of the match.

Despite his extreme shape, Nils Kare Kvangraven had no particular reason to get involved in this auction facing a weak two in spades. Michal Nowosadzki thus got to declare a peaceful 3NT from the North seat. The defence began with the ♦A and a diamond to the king. West’s heart switch ran around to dummy’s queen and declarer had no problem making the rest. N/S +660

Jacek Kalita also opened with a weak two, but via a Multi, and Barnet Shenkin duly overcalled in his strong eight-bagger on the South hand. However, Michal Klukowski (left) was not prepared to make life easy for his opponents, and he jumped to 4♦, asking Kalita to bid his major. That left Stephen Levinson with the first of the problems posed above. The main question is the meaning of double – does it show diamonds or just values? It is far from obvious that you want to steer partner into 5♣ but, on this layout, he will surely take a shot at game in his long suit if you are able to double to show some values. North might also have doubled 4♠ on the way out, if only to minimize the damage.

Avoiding a club lead would have beaten the contract by three, but that was not so easy to do, and at only 50 a trick is not a big deal. Kalita ruffed the ♣A at trick one, crossed to the ♦A, and took a second club ruff. One trick came back to the defence when South was able to ruff the ♦K with his low trump. The defence still had one club, one heart and two trumps to come. Two down: N/S +100 and 11 IMPs to ZIMMERMANN.

On the very next board, both East players had to decide what to open on the second of today’s problem hands.

Jacek Kalita opted for a 1♥ opening. This allowed South to describe his big balanced hand and for North to bail out to the relative safety of 3♣. Kalita admitted to spade support at his third turn, but Michal Klukowski was never bidding any more.

Stephen Levinson almost found the winning lead: he opened the ♦7, but only the ♦10 or ♦Q defeat this contract. Barnet Shenkin won with the ♦J and returned a trump, which ran to dummy’s ten. Klukowski accurately continued with two top hearts and a heart ruff. A club was ruffed in dummy, and a winning heart played – Shenkin ruffed, so declarer overruffed and repeated the process. Two hearts and seven trumps add up to nine tricks: E/W +140.

Tor Eivind Grude (right) made his first international appearance as a member of the Norwegian Schools team at the 2007 European Youth Championships. In 2014, he won both the Open Pairs at the European Youth Pairs Championships and the Junior Teams at the World Championships. He made his debut in the Norway Open team in 2021. At this event in 2019 in Istanbul, he collected a bronze medal in the Open Pairs playing with Christian Bakke.

On this deal, Grude preferred the pragmatic opening of 4♥. That silenced Zimmerman, despite his 19 HCP, although doubling would likely have led to a relatively cheap (-500) save in 5♣-X. The play’s the thing, though, and this deal provided the opportunity for excellence from both declarer and defenders.

Grude ruffed the ♣A lead and started trumps from the top. To beat the contract, South must unblock the ♥Q-J, allowing his partner to win the third round with the ♥10 in order to lead diamonds through declarer’s king, giving the defenders three diamonds and a heart.

You might think this is an impossible play to find but, with North holding ♥10-9-x, perhaps top-class signalling might have prevailed. Suppose South prepares the way by unblocking the ♥J on the first round. If North then follows with the ♥10, does it not tell his partner that he can afford to unblock the queen? That is a play that would surely have been worthy of a nomination for best defence of the year.

Not that declarer was home yet. Grude threw three clubs from dummy as he drew trumps, so South exited with a club for declarer to ruff. Now Grude had to play the spade suit. He started with the ♠10 from his hand, covered by jack and queen, and was rewarded by the fall of the singleton ♠9. Now he exited with a low spade from dummy. Zimmermann won with the ♠7, but declarer now had a finesse position against South’s ♠K. Whether Zimmermann cashed the ♦A now or exited with a club, the defence could come to only three tricks. A magnificent E/W +620 and 10 IMPs to SCORWAY.

East showed a weakish four-card spade raise with his 3♥ bid. Exactly how you deal with such artificial bids is a matter for partnership agreement. (Transfer responses to 1♣ openings are the most common analogous situation.) Probably, the most standard approach is to use double to show the suit bid (ie hearts here) and 3♠ as a takeout double of spades. At this table, Barnet Shenkin (left) was able to double to show a takeout of spades. Either method is certainly playable, but be sure that you and your regular partner agree. (A general principle can be agreed, and can then be applied in similar situations you have not specifically discussed.)

Michal Klukowski retreated to 3♠ and Shenkin doubled again, showing extra values. Stephen Levinson was not the least bit interested, and retreated to his admittedly-weak suit at the four-level. 4♣ proved to be one too high: E/W +50.

It is always reassuring for non-expert players to see that experts are equally capable of producing ridiculous results on occasion. So, buckle up, because this one is a real doozie.

After the same start to the auction, Pierre Zimmermann had to bid 3♠ as a takeout (because double would have shown hearts). Klukowski upped the ante to the four-level and Zimmerman doubled again to show extras, leaving Michal Nowosadzki with the last of the bidding problems posed at the top of this article.

A good principle when confronted with these high-level doubles is that you bid only if you expect to have a chance of making your contract. When you have a bad hand, the idea is that it is easier to take four tricks than eleven. (This also means that when you do bid at the five-level, partner will know you have some values and he may be able to raise to a good slam.)

Holding this North hand, you do not expect to make 5♣, but you do have what may be a useful defensive card in the ♥K. I suspect that if this hand was presented to the BBO expert panel, there would be a big majority for passing. And they would have been right at the table, with 4♠-x likely failing by a trick, and 5♣ by North going one or two down.

In what I suspect would have been a solo effort on the panel, Nowosadzki did not fancy either of those options, and he chose to move with 4NT, suggesting two places to play. Zimmermann might have bid 5♣, but he had a distinct preference for diamonds. Presumably expecting a 1-4-5-3 or 1-5-4-3 shape opposite after his partner had not bid 5♣, Nowosadzki ‘corrected’ to hearts. Tor Eivind Grude managed to find a double card in his bidding box, and the result was one that meant whatever happened at the other table would be almost irrelevant. Declarer finished five down in his 3-3 fit: E/W +1100 and 14 IMPs to SCORWAY.

There was still one huge firework left in The Great Dealer’s locker.

Jacek Kalita chose an excellent moment for a relatively heavy pre-empt in third seat at favourable. He caught Barnet Shenkin with a strong minor and a couple of aces. Shenkin could count nine tricks opposite the right bust, something like, xxx/xxx/J109x/xxx, so 3NT seems like the clear choice. Everyone passed and Klukowski led a spade. Dummy was a little better than it needed to be, but Shenkin’s arithmetic proved to be accurate: nine tricks meant N/S +600.

For the Norwegians, Grude preferred a 1♠ opening. Like Shenkin at the other table, Pierre Zimmermann (right) could also count nine tricks, so he bid what he thought he could make. However, with four-card spade support and a void in South’s likely long minor, Nils Kare Kvangraven was not prepared to give up on what could be a game in spades. When Nowosadzki showed some values by competing to 4NT and a high certainty of a singleton spade opposite, Zimmermann liked his chances at the six-level. Indeed, he would probably have made the same bid had East passed 4NT.

No doubt regretting his decision to get involved in the auction, Kvangraven now found himself with the lead problem posed earlier. Could he find the killing heat opening?

No, Kvangraven led a spade. Zimmermann won with the ♠A and immediately led his diamond, putting in the ten from dummy when West followed low. The ♦10 forced the ace from East, so declarer was soon able to claim. N/S +1370 and 13 IMPs to ZIMMERMANN when it could easily have been a similar number in the other direction.

This was a match with something interesting on just about every deal. The final score was a 48-24 win for ZIMMERMANN, which left the favourites sitting atop the leader-board for the first time with just three matches remaining in the qualifying Swiss.

We’ll be back in Strasbourg soon with the best of the action as the knockout matches get underway with the Round of 32.