After spending more than two weeks at the European Transnational Championships in Strasbourg, I was in dire need of a vacation. So, what better idea could there be than to travel to one of the most idyllic tourist destinations in the world, Goa, on India’s west coast. Of course, we are not here just for sun and sand, but also to bring you the best of the action from the latter stages of the Gold Teams at the Mavericks Summer National Championships. 30 of the best teams in India began the journey early in the week. Now just eight survive, amongst them plenty of familiar names. The format is 56-board matches divided into four 14-board segments.

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

What action, if any, do you take?

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

Do   you agree with East’s 3♥ bid over North’s 1♠ opening?

What action, if any, do you take now?

Next, again with only your opponents vulnerable, you are sitting in the East seat with this collection:

What action, if any, do you take?

While you consider those, we begin our coverage in the opening stanza of a match featuring the pre-tournament favourites, FORMIDABLES. This team includes two of the three pairs that will represent India at the upcoming Bermuda Bowl. They start this quarter-final against SHREE CEMENT with a 14-IMP carry-forward advantage from the qualifying stage of the event. Early in the match, both North players heard the auction given in the first of this week’s problems.

For Shree Cement, Arun Bapat opened the South hand 4♥. Rajeshwar Tewari backed in with a double on the East cards, and Sumit Mukherjee (left) removed to 4♠.

Perhaps cognizant of the frequent admonishments in this column about sacrificing on balanced hands, Rajendra Bhiwandkar saw no reason to get involved on that North hand. Having already opened 4♥, it is unclear to me how the South hand had been improved by the auction to such an extent that Bapat thought he should double 4♠, but what do I know?

North led a heart and declarer ruffed the second round. Mukherjee ran the ♠9 at trick three, losing to South’s singleton king, and Bapat exited with a club to his partner’s ace. Declarer won North’s trump switch, drew the remaining trumps, and claimed the rest once everyone followed to the first round of diamonds. E/W +790.

Kaustubh Bendre also opened 4♥ on the South hand, and the auction proceeded in identical fashion. However, Sayantan Kushari saw no reason why 4♠ should be going down so, with an eye on the favourable vulnerability, he took his chances at the five-level.

What little Kushari had turned out to be ideally placed, opposite his partner’s club length, and that was enough to ensure a profitable save. With the ♥K well-placed, Bendre was assured of eight trump tricks plus dummy’s ♣A, but a discarding error in the end position let declarer score a second club trick. E/W +100 and 12 early IMPs to FORMIDABLES. However, SHREE CEMENT fought back admirably and, by the end of the first set, they had overcome not only that early deficit, but their opponent’s carry-forward advantage too. After 14 boards, they led the match 35-34.

In the second stanza, we get a look at another of the pre-tournament favourites, MAVERICKS. After the first stanza, they trailed RUIA BLAZERS 33-11. Early in the second set came a hand not unlike the one we have just seen - another battle of the majors…

Keyzad Anklesaria (right) opened 1♠ on the North hand to leave East with the first part of the problem posed earlier. East’s pass allowed South to agree spades with a jump to 3♥, showing a weakish (but not the weakest) four-card spade raise. Anklesaria decided that he liked his shapely hand, despite holding only 11 HCP, and he jumped to game.

With three top losers in the red suits, declarer essentially needs to find the ♦Q onside to give 4♠ a chance. There are just enough entries (one high trump and a heart ruff) to lead diamonds twice from dummy. However, with trumps 3-1, the defenders may be able to force declarer often enough that he loses control.

With that objective, Gautam Biswas got the defence off to the best start by leading a club. Declarer ruffed, drew two rounds of trumps ending in dummy, and advanced the ♦J. Mukund Jagannathan correctly rose with the ♦A, and now does best to play a heart so that his partner can force declarer with another club through dummy. (Exiting with his trump is also good enough to beat the contract.) When Jagannathan instead exited with his low diamond, declarer was back in control. Anklesaria took the winning diamond finesse, drew the last trump, and claimed ten tricks. N/S +620.

Jaggy Shivdasani and Sandeep Thakral (left) are the third pair in the Indian team heading for Morocco in a few weeks. On this deal, Thakral was quite rightly unwilling to allow his opponents the auction to themselves. He entered with what looks to me a fairly routine jump overcall on the East hand. South and West both supported their partner’s suits, and T.V. Ramani also bid 4♠ on the shapely North hand. That left Thakral with the second of this week’s problems.

The first question is, “Is it my decision to make?” The usual practise is that you do not bid again after pre-empting. Is it the same when you make a pre-emptive overcall rather than an opening?

I’m not sure why it shouldn’t be. The theory is that West has a fairly accurate picture of his partner’s hand, and should therefore be well-placed to make a good decision. East, though, knows virtually nothing about his partner’s hand. As on the first hand we looked at, where the decision made at the table seemed to run contrary to the established rules of competitive bidding. The same is also true here. However, in both cases, the bidder appears to have taken the winning decision. Good judgement or just lucky? I’ll leave you to decide.

Of course, we don’t know whether the defenders would have managed to defeat 4♠ at this table. What we do know is that 5♥ was very cheap (and, indeed, could have been made when South understandably did not find a club lead).

The defence against 5♥-X began with two rounds of spades, declarer ruffing. Perhaps foreseeing potential entry problems, declarer’s next move was a club to the queen. Curtains! Not only did North score his ruff, but declarer now had an unavoidable club loser. Declarer’s diamond loser eventually went on dummy’s long club, but that was still one down. N/S +100 but 11 IMPs to MAVERICKS.

MAVERICKS won the second stanza 38-10 and thus led by 6 IMPs (49-43) at the midway point of the match. For the third quarter, we check in with a close match involving MAGNUM and DHAMPUR SUGAR MILLS. They go into the third quarter separated by just 3 IMPs, with MAGNUM trailing 64-67. This high-level competitive bidding deal arose early in the third set…

Subhash Gupta got things rolling with a Multi, showing a weak two bid in one of the majors. Sapan Desai then jumped to 4♥, which was to play in his partner’s major. Ajay Khare (right) judged that his opponents’ suit was hearts and entered with a 4♠ overcall on the West cards. The first high-level decision then fell to Khare when 4♠ came back to him. He elected to double.

North/South could take two hearts and a diamond, but that was all. E/W +590

At this table, Swarnendu Banerji started with a natural weak two bid and Sunit Choksi raised to game. Like his counterpart at the other table, Simon Stocken also essayed 4♠ on the West cards. When that came back to Choksi, he was not willing to sell out and continued with 5♦. Banerji might have passed 5♦ but he actually converted to 5♥. Either way, Sabir Majumdar was going to be left with the decision posed in the third of this week’s problems.

Who is saving? If N/S are bidding to make and partner has interfered on something like AKxxxx/x/xxx/QJx, chances are that you are not beating 5♥, but 5♠-X will be a cheap save. The danger is that 4♠ was the making game and that the vulnerable opponents are saving, which is the case on the actual layout. As you can see from the full diagram, there are three losers in spades but 5♥-X would have collected an easy +500. This is a hard decision for East to get right, I think, and when Majumdar bid on to 5♠, that was E/W -50 and 12 IMPs to DHAMPUR SUGAR MILLS.

The third set in this match was another close one. DHAMPUR won it 36-32 and thus take a 7-IMP lead into the final 14 boards. Elsewhere, FORMIDABLES lead by 10 IMPs going into the final set and MAVERICKS lead by 15. The only match we haven’t seen yet, between TORNATAE and MAVERICKS PRODIGIES is the closest of all, tied at 74-74. When I looked to see if I could find a key deal from the last set of that one, guess what I came across – yes, another high-level competitive deal…

Pritam Das opened 1NT on the North cards and Pranab Bardhan doubled, showing any single-suited hand. Anindra Sarkar (left), a member of the Indian Junior team at the 2014 World Youth Championships, judged to raise to 3NT. And, quite right he was too, as North would have had nine easy tricks in that contract.

However, Bardhan wasn’t prepared to sell out. He introduced his hearts at the four-level and Sakhar decided that the time had come to take the money.

The defence was accurate: Sakhar started with a top spade and switched to a trump at trick two. Declarer thus lost two clubs, two diamonds and a trick in each major for three down. N/S +500 against their vulnerable game.

Badal Das chose an unfortunate moment to distort his hand by opening 1♦ and Pijush Baroi put the pressure on with a 3♥ overcall. After South’s negative double, Rajendra Sirohia judged very well to up the ante to the four-level.

We have already seen what happens to 4♥-X. With 3NT no longer an option, was there an alternative game contract available to the vulnerable N/S pair? It appears that game in either minor depends on finding one of two red-suit finesses right. Indeed, that is exactly what declarer needs (and would find) in 5♣. However, there is a rather nasty sting in the tail of 5♦, as N/S at this table discovered to their cost.

Baroi led what looked like a harmless enough ♠J. Declarer won in dummy and played a diamond to the jack. East won with the ♦K, crossed to his partner’s ♥A, and ruffed the spade return for one down. Unlucky! N/S -100 and 12 IMPs to MAVERICKS PRODIGIES, who ran away with the final set, winning it 58-25 to claim their place in the semi-finals. Joining them will be FORMIDABLES, MAVERICKS and DHAMPUR SUGAR MILLS.

We will be back in Goa soon with the best of the action from those semi-finals.