We have reached the penultimate day in the qualifying stage of all four competitions, and we return to Bermuda Bowl action for our featured match. (If you missed the action from Day 6, follow the link here: Day 6 in Marrakech).

Two Bermuda Bowl giants meet here today. Italy, a nation with the strongest imaginable history in the competition but without a recent win, against the Netherlands, beaten finalists a year ago and the current European champions. There are just three matches remaining after this one, then the top eight teams move on into the Promised Land and the rest head off into obscurity.

Italy come into this match in sixth place, two places and 4.05 VPs ahead of their opponents. The Netherlands hold a slim advantage of only 1.99 VPs over ninth-placed China, who play 17^th-placed Brazil in this round. Both USA teams are a further 1-2 VPs behind the Chinese. The battle for the last three or four places in the knockout stage will come down to tiny margins. A few IMPs dropped unnecessarily, or a single bad loss, may be the difference between playing on and catching the next flight home.

As usual, we start with a couple of problems. With neither side vulnerable, you are East holding:

West’s 2♥ is a constructive or better three-card spade raise. What action, if any, do you take?

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

What action, if any, do you take?

Spectators were still getting their coffee and finding their seats when the action began, with both teams coming out of the traps like greyhounds on heat. Both sides had chances for substantial gains on the first two deals. On the first, both East players were faced with a variation of the first problem above.

Simon de Wijs showed an invitational or better spade raise with a 2♥ transfer. Antonio Sementa then jumped all the way to 4♥, leaving Bauke Muller with the decision to bid on or not with the East cards. Muller passed and thus Sementa was allowed to play 4♥. Could he overcome the problem of limited entries to dummy?

The defence began with two rounds of spades, forcing declarer to ruff. Sementa crossed to dummy with a diamond and played a trump to his ten and East’s ace. Muller continued with a third round of spades and, again, Sementa had to ruff.

Needing the remaining tricks but one, it seems that declarer has a choice between playing for the ♣K to drop singleton with four missing or effectively taking a club finesse, by playing West (the hand known to hold no more spades) for the ♣K. Perhaps surprisingly, Sementa went for the drop, cashing the ♥K and then the ♣A. When West then won the second round of clubs, he could exit with a diamond and East had to make a spade trick at the end for down one: N/S -50.

After cashing the ♥K, declarer can make the contract by leading an intermediate club, say the queen, from his hand. West wins but has no spade to play. Declarer therefore wins the diamond return and dummy still has a club to reach the winners in his hand. A better alternative is to cater for both club positions. After taking the second spade ruff, declarer can cash the ♣A. If the king falls, he draws the missing trumps with the ♥K and claims. If the ♣K has not appeared, he plays a second round of clubs immediately. West wins and returns a diamond, but declarer crosses to his hand with the ♥K to reach the clubs winners.

After the same start to the auction, Berend van den Bos doubled at his second turn, leaving Giovani Donati (left) the problem as presented earlier. Donati jumped to 4♠ and it looks as if perhaps South should have doubled. Whether that would have silenced North on his extreme shape is unclear, but there was no question that Van den Bos was going to bid on when his partner had not doubled 4♠.

After the same defence, Van Lankveld made ten tricks in hearts as described above, but his good play only served to flatten the board at N/S -50.

The best the Dutch can do once Donati has bid 4♠ is to double and collect +300. A club lead allows North to take two tricks and exit with a diamond. South wins and switches to a heart, ensuring a fifth trick for the defenders, whatever declarer does.

I can imagine David Bird spluttering into his oatmeal, “How can players at this level be playing something as stupid as a weak no-trump?” as he watches the Dutch pair getting caught for a big penalty at the two-level after opening a 9-14 1NT in third seat.

However, defence is always the most difficult part of the game. In the end-game, Sementa could have put his partner in with the ♥K to play diamonds through dummy’s king. When he instead exited with a diamond around to the king, that handed declarer a fifth trick. Only three down: N/S +500.

Giacomo Percario opened a quasi-natural 1♣ in third seat, and Giovani Donati deemed the East hand worthy of a pre-emptive raise to the three-level, leaving Joris van Lankveld (right) with the second of today’s problems. Van Lankveld bid 3NT, but would a responsive double not suggest a hand something like this? Might North not then choose to defend? If North bids over the double, South can always bid 3NT at his next turn. It seems strange that one pair gets caught in 2♣-Doubled at one table, but the other escapes undoubled in 3♣. So, the Italians sidestepped the potential -1100.

Declarer had no problem making ten tricks in 3NT: N/S +630 and 4 IMPs to Netherlands to open the scoring.

“That seems to be a 4-IMP gain for the weak no-trump, Abbot,” points out the impudent Brother Cameron.

Although there have been few significant swings so far, I won’t embarrass a world-class declarer by detailing how he went off in a game contract that the average club player would have made easily. Suffice it to say that Italy gained an unexpected 10-IMP bonanza.

Simon de Wijs opened a Tarzan Strong Club. When Bauke Muller (left) then jumped to 3♠ over North’s 2♥ intervention, I turned to the amazing Al Hollander for an explanation. After a brief pause, he told me that it was a bid that had been in his notes for more than a decade but had never come up, so he had to check the notes – remarkably it showed a game-forcing three-suiter with a heart void. (Of course. What else would it show? LOL)

Versace got in a lead-directing 4♦ bid on the way to 4♥, and De Wijs bided his time before bidding to exactly the right contract for his side. Sementa led a diamond, but it wasn’t essential on this layout as there was nowhere for declarer’s two losers to go. E/W +600.

Percario began with a quasi-natural 1♣ and, here too, North jumped in hearts. Surprisingly, Donati had no convenient bid to describe his hand immediately, so he began with a negative double. Van Lankveld now jumped to 4♦ as a lead-directing/fit-showing heart raise and, for want of anything better to show his extra values, Percario doubled. It is unclear exactly what Donati’s 4NT meant, but Percario was sufficiently encouraged by it to jump to slam.

There were two diamond losers here too: E/W -100 and 12 IMPs to Netherlands.

Board 12 was a curio indeed. The Italian pair bid all the way to the one-level on the N/S cards whilst, at the other table, the Dutch bid them freely to the six-level. Someone was surely wrong!

Van den Bos opened a multi-purpose 1♣ and Van Lankveld’s 1♦ also had numerous meanings. The 1♥ rebid showed either 12-14 balanced or 4+ hearts in an unbalanced hand. Percario waited until his third turn to come into the auction with a club bid, and now North’s 2♦ showed 12-14 balanced with at least four diamonds.

Suddenly, the auction took off. Donati made a competitive club raise and Van Lankveld cue-bid to agree diamonds. When his partner then co-operated by showing a heart control, he thought he had enough to bid a slam.

Percario knew from the auction that the ♥K was on his left, so he began the defence with an imaginative low heart lead. Declarer won in dummy, ruffed a club, and played a spade to the queen and king. Donati returned a trump, revealing the 4-0 break, but just about all lines of play from here lead to only nine tricks for declarer. E/W +300.

Going three down in a freely bid slam is rarely a winning result, but there are exceptions to every rule.

It was perhaps a surprise not to see Simon De Wijs (right) open that West hand, and he certainly wasn’t prepared to allow his opponents the time to have a constructive auction before he got into the game. Muller raised his partner’s jump to 3♣ to game, which rather stuck it to Versace. What else could he do but double?

The Italians were right to defend in that they could not make any contract at the five-level. The problem was that they also had no defence to 5♣-Doubled. De Wijs lost just one trick in each major. E/W +550 and a rather strange 6 IMPs to Netherlands.

Not content with this board, they doubled De Wijs in another 5♣ contract a couple of boards later. That one also scored -550 for the Italians, but was duplicated at the other table.

Italy edged a close match by a score of 33-23. That lifts the Italians up into the relative safety of fifth place with three matches to play. The Dutch fall behind both China and USA2, into tenth place, more than 5 VPs behind the last qualifying spot. There is work to do to keep the travelling Orange Army singing into next week.

In the Venice Cup, after a remarkable 18 consecutive victories to open the tournament, the Swedish women not only finally lost a match, but they lost two in a row, to Egypt and Chinese Taipei. As a result, the Swedes now trail the Poles by more than 30 VPs. Sweden are still 15 VPs ahead of third-placed France, so we can be sure that we’ll see them in the knockout stage. What a mouth-watering prospect we can look forward to if two of the youngest teams in the field meet head on in a long knockout match later in the week.

To see the action from Day 8 follow this link.