This is our third visit to the semi-final stage of the British Bridge League’s Gold Cup. The BBO VuGraph match features DE BOTTON (Janet De Botton, Artur Malinowski, David Bakhshi, Tom Townsend, Thomas Charlsen and Thor Erik Hoftaniska) against PENFOLD (Sandra Penfold, Brian Senior, Alan Mould, John Holland, Rumen Trendafilov and Vladislav Isporski). The format is a 64-board match divided into eight 8-board stanzas.

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

What action, if any, do you take?

Next, with only your opponents vulnerable, you are sitting in the West seat with:

What action, if any, do you take?

Next, with both sides vulnerable, you hold as South:

What action, if any, do you take?

Finally, with only your side vulnerable, you hold as South:

What action, if any, do you take?

We left the match with five of the eight sets played and PENFOLD leading by 24 IMPs (110-86). PENFOLD won a fairly uneventful sixth set 23-6, so it was 133-92 and a margin of 41 IMP with 16 deals left. Things went further downhill for DE BOTTON on the opening deal of the penultimate set.

Alan Mould got his side off to a decent start by leading his singleton trump. Artur Malinowski won in hand with the ♠A and led the ♥9, but Mould rose with the ace and switched to a diamond, leaving declarer with no chance.

Declarer won with the ♦A, cashed the ♠K, and advanced the ♥K. John Holland ruffed in, drew dummy’s last trump, and switched to the ♣10. Declarer had lost three tricks already, and had still to lose three more in clubs. N/S -150.

Thor Erik Hoftaniska did not double North’s 1♠ opening. N/S bid quickly to 4♠ and the Norwegian was left to find a lead with no real clues. Hoftaniska opened a club, which handed declarer one trick, but also meant that he had to defend accurately thereafter. Brian Senior (left) won in hand with the ♣Q and led the ♥9. Hoftaniska played low - Curtains!

The Norwegian won the second round of hearts and switched to a diamond, but it was too late. Senior won and led a winning heart, discarding his losing diamond as West ruffed in with one of his natural trump winners. The defence could make no more than the ♥A and West’s two natural trump tricks: N/S +420 and another 11 IMPs to PENFOLD.

PENFOLD won the seventh stanza 25-12 and thus led by 48 IMPs (158-110) with eight deals remaining. (The lead would have been 54 IMPs but for a mobile phone penalty.)

In the semi-final of the 1982 Gold Cup, a Scottish team captained by Gerald Haase had trailed 155-104 going into the final set against a London-based team. Hasse and his partner, George Cuthbertson, bid slams on the last five deals of the final set (making four of them) to win the set 64-5 and the match by 8 IMPs. Willie Coyle, Victor Silverstone and Barnet Shenkin were the other members of the Scottish team that went on to win the trophy that year.

In a Spring Fours semi-final some 15-20 years ago, my own team led by 62 IMPs at the end of the 32-board match. However, our opponents, as the undefeated team, had the right to an extra eight boards. I seem to recall that Tom Townsend (playing with David Price, I think) was a member of the team that won that match by around 15 IMPs. So, comebacks of this magnitude are not unheard of. In these circumstances, one thing that is essential for the trailing team is boards with potential for swings, and The Great Dealer smiled kindly on DE BOTTON in that respect. No flat 1NT hands in this set! The action began on the opening deal.

After a natural auction, John Holland’s 3♠ bid left Alan Mould with the first of this week’s problems. Do you have anything more than you showed with your original 2/1 response? Yes, you have three aces, but a singleton in partner’s first suit and poor diamonds are negatives. Mould’s decision to raise to 4♠ looks eminently reasonable, but unlucky on this layout. N/S +480.

Thomas Charlsen (right) began by responding with a forcing 1NT relay. I cannot tell you exactly what he found out about his partner’s hand, but it was apparently enough to take a shot at a diamond slam.

Slam is marginally worse than the diamond finesse (i.e. a 5-0 diamond break and some 5-1 spade breaks would also beat it). Charlsen won the ♣K lead with the ace. He then cashed the ♦A and took a successful trump finesse (East discarding a spade). After cashing the ♠A (just in case West held the five missing spades), he crossed to the ♥A and repeated the marked trump finesse. Drawing the last trump then enabled declarer to claim 12 tricks: N/S +920 and 10 IMPs to DE BOTTON.

Ah, at last, some respite – a dull, flat board. Declarer made ten tricks: E/W +420.

There is no alert or explanation in the VuGraph records, but it looks like Trendafilov’s 2♦ response showed a constructive three-card heart raise.

Despite the vulnerability, Charlsen braved the two-level to get his spades into the game, even though he had not opened the bidding. Vladi Isporski showed a good hand and, presumably, committed to game in hearts, with a 3♠ cue-bid. Facing a passed partner, Thor Erik Hoftaniska (left) was obviously not expecting to make game. Indeed, his 4♠ bid is probably best described as the desperate act of a man who is 50 IMPs down with a set to play and needs something to happen.

Which of the Bulgarians should double 4♠? When Trendafilov decided that he couldn’t double, Isporski was left with the second of the problems posed earlier. Isporski knows that his side has only a nine-card fit, but I suppose it is possible that North has five-card spade support, so applying The LAW to the problem is not so easy.

Perhaps declarer in 4♠-X can escape for one down if the defenders do not find their club ruff, but there is certainly a lot of work to be done. I think the odds are very high that the price would have been -500. When Isporski chose to bid on to 5♥, Hoftaniska even had the chutzpah to double. Not that 5♥ is a terrible contract. With the ♠A missing, declarer just needs one of the red-suit kings onside. When both finesses failed, he was one down. E/W -100 and another 11 IMPs to DE BOTTON, now 27 IMPs behind with four board remaining.

John Holland did not open with a weak two on the North hand, which gave Tom Townsend (right) the chance to make life very difficult for his opponents. Townsend’s daring vulnerable pre-emptive jump to 4♦ and Holland’s 4♠ bid left Alan Mould with the third of this week’s problems. Mould chose not to move, but the hands fit well and slam was good, needing little more than the heart finesse through the opening bidder. N/S +680.

After the same start, Isporski’s diamond raise to the three-level via 2NT did not get the job done. Hoftaniska was able to show a good hand by cue-bidding 3♦. He then showed his spades on the next round, and Charlsen was thus encouraged to advance with Blackwood. N/S +1430 and another 13 IMPs to DE BOTTON. Although odds-on this time, it was another slam bid and made on a finesse, and there was little doubt about the direction in which the river was flowing now.

DE BOTTON gained 7 IMPs on Board 62, reducing the deficit to just 7 IMPs with two boards remaining, and then came the real dagger in the PENFOLD corpse.

Charlsen passed the South hand as Dealer. After Isporski’s 1NT opening, Hoftaniska came in with 2♣, showing both majors, and Trendafilov advanced with a Lebensohl 2NT, attempting to buy the hand cheaply in clubs. Charlsen competed to 3♠ and Hoftaniska raised to game.

With the heart finesse working, game was never in danger. Isporski led a top spade and could have held the contract to ten tricks by playing two more rounds of trumps. When he instead switched to a club at trick two, Charlsen was quickly claiming eleven: N/S +650.

Fatigue is an important factor in these long matches, and tiredness is the most likely explanation for what happened at this table. Mould opened 1♦ on the South hand, and Holland made a penalty double of Townsend’s 1NT overcall. David Bakhshi (left) jammed the auction with a pre-emptive jump to 3♣.

After two passes, Holland re-opened with a 4♣ cue-bid. Looking at his hand, it is obvious that Holland intended this as a ‘choice of games’ cue-bid. Mould advanced with 4♦ and Holland then bid 4♥, clearly in his mind offering a choice of majors. That left Mould with the last of this week’s problems. From what happened, it is clear that Mould took 4♣ as a cue-bid agreeing diamonds, and then 4♥ as another control-showing bid with diamonds agreed.

In slightly different circumstances, perhaps either interpretation of this type of situation is possible. However, after West’s 1NT overcall of the 1♦ opening, is it really feasible that North is looking for a diamond slam? Understandably, Townsend hit 5♦ and, having started the set 50 IMP behind, who can blame him? How was he to know that any plus score would put his team into the lead? Or, indeed, that it was fairly easy to let 5♠ make if the opponents ran.

No one moved and 5♦ was not a happy spot for declarer. Mould managed to gather only eight tricks: N/S -800 and a massive 16 IMPs to DE BOTTON, who now led by 9 IMPs with one deal remaining.

In the end, DE BOTTON gained another 12 IMPs on the final board to win the set with a 69-0 blitz. DE BOTTON thus ran out winners by a deceivingly comfortable-looking 21 IMPs (173-152). What an epic battle it had been, and the DE BOTTON team now has to come back tomorrow and do it all again, in the final against ALLFREY.

In a post on BridgeWinners, Tom Townsend graciously commented, “I felt very sorry for the Penfold team, who'd outplayed us for seven out of eight sets.”

We will be back soon with the best of the action from the final. Is there any chance that it will not be anti-climactic after this thriller?