We are back in Perth, on the banks of the Swan River in Western Australia, for a brief visit to the 2023 Australian National Championships. We have already seen the best of the action from the finals of the Senior and Youth events. This week, we concentrate on the Open and Women’s finals.

The final of the Open event was contested by teams representing South Australia (Nicolas Croft, Arjuna de Livera, David Parrott, George Smolanko, Lauren Travis, Phil Markey) and ACT (Sebastian Yuen, Christy Geromboux, Brad Coles, David Appleton, Bernard Waters, Malcolm Carter, Stephen Fischer npc). South Australia began with a 7-IMP carry-forward advantage from the previous rounds.

In the Women’s event, it was Victoria (Kim Frazer, Kitty Muntz, Penny Blankfield, Sue Read, Eva Samuel, Laura Ginnan, Laurie Kelso npc) and South Australia (Therese Demarco, Sue Lusk, Alison Fallon, Pam Morgan-King, Ingrid Cooke, Anne Harris, Felicity Smyth npc) in the final. South Australia began with a 13-IMP carryforward advantage in this one.

Kudos to the teams representing South Australia, who have reached the final of all four events at these championships. The format of all finals is a 60-board match divided into five 12-board stanzas.

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

What do you bid?

Next, with only your side vulnerable, you are sitting in the North seat with:

What do you bid?

Finally, again with only your side vulnerable, you hold as North:

What action, if any, do you take?

While you consider those, we begin our coverage in the second set of the Open final. The opening set was dull in both matches: it finished 23-23 in the Open and SA won the first set 16-15 in the Women’s final. While the first set was somnambulistic for those watching live on BBO VuGraph, the players must have had a shot of steroids with their coffee during the break, as they came out with all guns blazing. At least, one team did…

Bidding systems are designed to handle the type of hand you will be dealt 99% of the time, rather than huge distributional monsters. This means that there will always be an element of guesswork when a player is faced with something like the first of this week’s problems.

I don’t know what options David Parrot had once George Smolanko showed a club shortage. I would guess that 4♣ would be forcing, but Smolanko would then presumably cue-bid his heart control, which is hardly of any help to North with this hand. It’s essentially a guess. At this table, Parrott guessed to take the conservative option and jumped to game in the suit in which his partner did not hold a known shortage. Unfortunately for the ACT pair, dummy could not have held a more suitable hand, with four-card trump support and the ♠A. Declarer mis-guessed the clubs and thus made ‘only’ 12 tricks: N/S +420.

David Appleton (left) made his first international appearance in the Australian team at the 1993 World Youth Team Championships. He made his debut in his country’s Open team at the 2009 Bermuda Bowl.

Australia is one of very few places in the world where there are few system restrictions. For ACT, Appleton and Brad Coles were playing a method with a 1♦ ‘fert’, where a 1♦ opening shows any hand in the 0-8 HCP range.

Coles began with his fert in second seat and Lauren Travis then overcalled (opened?) 1♥ on the West cards. Appleton’s 2♦ bid was alerted as a ‘normal 2♦ overcall’. Phil Markey raised to game in hearts via a 4♦ splinter and Coles judged to take the ‘save’ at favourable vulnerability. That his partner liked diamonds enough to support them at the five-level was enough for Appleton, and he raised to slam.

Coles picked up the ♣K at this table, so that was N/S +940. An exciting 11 IMPs to ACT, who had outscored their opponents 48-0 over the first six boards of the second stanza. ACT ended up winning the set 63-14 to lead by 42 IMPs (86-44). In the Women’s final, VICTORIA won the second stanza 36-4 to turn that match around, and they now led by 18 IMPs (51-33) after two sets.

This match was like sitting on a see-saw. Whilst the second stanza had belonged to the team from the region around Melbourne, the third set was dominated by those from the Adelaide environs…

The second of this week’s problems really should not be a problem for players at this level. Indeed, if you were writing a textbook and wanted a hand to illustrate a splinter raise of a major suit opening to game, this North hand would be a perfect example. Raising to 4♠ is what I would describe to my students as a ‘lazy’ bid. It costs nothing to tell partner so much more about your hand. A direct raise to 4♠ could show just about any weak hand with 5+ spades and some distribution, and opener is very seldom going to be able to bid again.

Not that it mattered, but South took her eye off the ball in the play. She lost a needless trump trick and thus made only 11 tricks: N/S an unimpressive +450.

The South Australia pair conducted some sort of relay auction, but there are no explanations in the VuGraph records so I cannot tell you exactly what each bid meant. However, it seems that they knew what they were doing and they duly breezed into the excellent slam.

Here, too, West led a diamond to the ace and East switched to her singleton heart, solving declarer’s problem in that suit. Unlike her counterpart at the other table, Therese Demarco (right) demonstrated that she understood suit combinations: she started trumps by cashing the queen from dummy. (As declarer cannot pick up J-10-x-x in the West hand, it is correct to cash the single honour first with this combination so that you see J-10-x-x in the East hand in time to do something about it).

With East’s trump holding now exposed, declarer played a second trump to ten and king. She then returned to dummy with the ♣A to take the marked finesse against the ♠J. Having drawn East’s last trump, Demarco claimed her slam. N/S +1430 and a deserved 13 IMPs in the SOUTH AUSTRALIA column.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA won the third set 42-10 to retake the lead. With two sets remaining, they have a 14-IMP advantage, 75-61. SOUTH AUSTRALIA also won the third stanza in the Open final, by 44-19, so they now trail by only 17 IMPs, 88-105.

Both matches were effectively decided into the fourth stanza, so we’ll take a look at the action from both finals in that set. First, the Women, where VICTORIA had reduced the deficit to only 1 IMP early in the set, but then came…

Whether 4♥ makes or not, it seems to me losing tactics to try to stop on a dime at the three-level on this type of hand. It is also a question of valuation. Imagine your hand was AKx/AQ109x/J10x/Q, Kxx/AQ109x/KJ10x/Q or even Kxx/AQ109x/J10x/A. Would it occur to you to bid less than 4♥ on any of those? Of course not. And, yet, that sixth heart in the original hand is effectively a guaranteed trick. When you have extra trump length, you should imagine your hand without the extra length but with a king or an ace replacing any low trumps you have mentally removed. Effectively, that is what the hand is worth. Those extra trumps are tricks, so evaluate them as you would an addition high card in a more balanced hand.

Yes, of course, on this layout, the defence can take two top diamonds and a diamond ruff, switch to a club, and then wait for their spade trick at the end, so stopping in 3♥ is theoretically the winning action. Fortunately, we do not play in Theoreticalland. Sometimes the hands do not fit as well as they need to, so contracts go down. However, defence is the most difficult part of the game and many contracts that can (should?) be beaten will be allowed to make anyway.

Here, Anne Harris led the ♦K and was unable to tell whether her partner held two diamonds or four. When she switched to a trump at trick two, the defence’s diamond ruff disappeared and thus declarer was allowed to make ten tricks. N/S +170.

This auction illustrates another significant improvement in competitive bidding theory in recent years. At the other table, South raised hearts with a 3♦ cue-bid. Here, South raised with 2NT, differentiating between a three-card raise (3♦ ) and a raise with four-card support (or more). That extra trump will often make a significant difference to how well the hand plays, and thus to partner’s evaluation. As already discussed above, North should really bid 4♥ anyway, but it is even easier to do so when you know partner has four-card support.

Penny Blankfield led the ♦A and saw the seven, five (presumably udca) and three. Does partner hold one, two or four diamonds? There is no way to be certain. Blankfield switched to a low club at trick two, which effectively gave declarer a free finesse. If you play low from dummy and West holds the ♣K, you have lost nothing as you can then throw your spade loser on the ♣A. After the ♣Q had won the trick, declarer could afford a trump loser, so Felicity Smyth simply laid down the ♥A. When the king came down, she could claim. N/S +650 and 10 IMPs to SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

When a VICTORIA pair bid a two-ace slam on the very next deal, that was another 13 IMPs out, and that was more or less the end of the comeback. SOUTH AUSTRALIA won the fourth stanza 36-23 to lead by 27 IMPs with a set to play. VICTORIA won the final stanza, but only by 27-26, so the title belonged to SOUTH AUSTRALIA by a margin of 137-111.

Let’s get back to the Open final now. ACT had led by 17 at the start of the fourth stanza. By midway through the set, that lead had been reduced to 7 IMPs. Then came…

Arjunea de Livera (left) was a member of the Australian Open team at the 2009 Bermuda Bowl. He made his debut in Australia’s Senior team at the 2012 World Bridge Games.

There is a remarkable similarity to this hand and the one we just saw from the Women’s final, both in the bidding and the play. Here, it is perhaps more difficult to see why this South hand is worth a jump to game facing partner’s invitational (or better) raise. Bidding game would also be more attractive if you knew partner had four-card support (as discussed above). Nicolas Croft only knew that his partner had at least three hearts and invitational or better values, but he jumped to game anyway, presumably based on the sound general principle that he was vulnerable and game might make.

Christy Geromboux led the spade king, two from dummy, eight (playing standard count) from his partner and nine from declarer. What is the layout of the spade suit? Are you prepared to put all your eggs in the basket of cashing the ♠A now and hoping that declarer does not ruff it?

Geromboux switched to a club at trick two, and that was the end of the defenders’ spade ruff. With the ♦A onside, declarer now had an easy ten tricks. N/S +620.

We have already seen that Coles/Appleton play an unusual system. Playing against the field certainly can be a good thing, but there are times when it does not work out so well. This was one of them…

Lauren Travis (right) made her international debut as a member of the Australian Youngsters team at the 2010 World Championships. She was a member of the team that won silver medals in the Junior Teams at the 2013 World Youth Open Championships.

Brad Coles’ 1♠ opening was described as 9-12 HCP with at least four spades and possibly a longer minor although, as we can see here, the longer suit is actually hearts. West overcalled clubs here too and Appleton advanced with 2NT showing at least an invitational raise with 4+ spades. As his counterpart had at the other table, Coles accepted the invitation purely because game might be making.

The defence here made no mistake. Travis led her heart, declarer winning in dummy and playing a trump to the ten. Travis won with the ♠K and switched to the ♦Q. Phil Markey won with the ♦A and duly delivered his partner’s heart ruff. The ♠A was the fourth defensive trick: N/S -100 and another 12 IMPs to SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA won the fourth stanza 41-10 to retake the lead, and thus they went into the final stanza ahead by 13 IMPs. With momentum on their side, they won the final set 30-16 and the match by a score of 159-132.

In a most impressive performance, the team representing South Australia made it to the final in all four categories and they won three of those four finals. What an excellent all-round performance by those from Adelaide and the surrounding region.

After our brief visit to Western Australia, we now face the long trip across the Pacific Ocean. We are headed for Chicago IL, venue for the 2023 U.S. Summer Nationals. We hope to arrive in time for the latter stages of the Grand National Teams. We will then bring you the best of the action from the prstigious Spingold Knockout Teams, so expect some upsets as well as plenty of superb bridge.