Welcome to Sydney, Australia. We are here for the New South Wales Bridge Association Spring Nationals, and we have arrived in time for the latter stages of the main event, the Open Teams. A field of 50 teams set out on Wednesday morning. By Saturday, just four remained alive. In one semi-final, it is JOEL (Geeske Joel, Geo Tislevoll, Liam Milne, James Coutts, Leon Meier, Will Watson) against ASHTON (Sophie Ashton, David Wiltshire, Sartaj Hans, Andy Hung). In the other, it is GUE (David Gue, Joshua Tomlin, Philip Markey, Joachim Haffer) versus KOZAKOS (George Kozakos, Ian Thomson, Matt Mullamphy, Maurits van der Vlugt).

The format is 56-board matches divided into four 14-board stanzas. ASHTON begins their semi-final with a 5-IMP carry-forward advantage, whilst GUE starts with a 14-IMP lead.

As usual, we start with a couple of problems. Firstly, with only your side vulnerable, you are East 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?

While you mull those over, we start early in the opening stanza of the match between GUE and KOZAKOS. Both East players had to answer the first of the problems above.

David Gue (left) and Joshua Tomlin made their international debuts together as members of the Australian Junior team at the 2022 World Youth Championships in Italy. Last year, they collected silver medals as part of a combined Australian-New Zealand team at the World Youth Team Championships in Veldhoven.

On this deal, Gue balanced with a simple 2♦ and Ian Thompson competed in hearts on the South hand. When Tomlin advanced with 2NT, Gue raised to game. Thompson won the heart lead with the king and switched to a spade. It looks to me like declarer now has ten tricks, but the VuGraph record shows that a claim of 12 tricks was apparently accepted, so it was E/W +690.

I would have said that George Kozakos’s jump to 3♦ was a more accurate description of this East hand. Remember that jump overcalls in the balancing seat are not weak. Who are you pre-empting? If you have a weak hand you can just pass and defend cheaply at the one-level. It would seem that Maurits van der Vlugt was not on the same wavelength as either me or his partner, as he passed and the good game was missed. E/W +130 and 11 IMPs to GUE.

High-level competitive bidding can be very difficult. It is often not obvious who is bidding to make and who is sacrificing. On our next deal, the par contract (absent a double) was reached at three of the four tables in the semi-finals but, at the fourth, there was complete carnage…

The auction began sedately enough. Then Will Watson found himself with very few high cards but six-card support for his partner’s suit.

Both sides can make exactly ten tricks, N/S in hearts, and E/W in either spades or diamonds. When Geeske Joel (right) bid 5♥ over Sophie Ashton’s 4♠, the par contract had been reached (although no one could find a double). Declarer lost two spades and a diamond for one down: N/S -100.

This result was duplicated at both tables in the other semi-final. However, at the other table in this match, at which four of Australia’s strongest players were opposing each other, N/S were playing a Strong Club system. That had two major effects: N/S did not immediately find their huge heart fit which, in turn, allowed E/W to find their diamond fit. That proved to be good news for one side, but which one? Let’s see what happened…

The introduction of their respective red suits by East and South was the signal to light the blue touch paper and stand well back. North didn’t get the chance to pre-empt at this table, as Liam Milne had already boosted the auction to the four-level before it got to him. Sartaj Hans reached the par contract when he pulled his partner’s double of 4♠ to 5♥. When James Coutts then bid a fifth spade, N/S had a chance to go plus, and Andy Hung (left) correctly doubled.

Milne’s decision to give preference to diamonds despite going a level higher, theoretically increased the penalty from -200 to -500. Then the true madness started. In the end, it was Hung who won this high-stakes game of chicken and got to inscribe a large score in his plus column. 7♦-doubled lost two clubs and a spade: N/S +800 and 14 IMPs to ASHTON.

ASHTON won the opening stanza of their semi-final 24-3, and thus led 29-3 with their carry-forward advantage. In the other match, KOZAKOS won the opening set 13-12, which meant that GUE went into the second set leading 26-13 with their carry-forward.

An eminently sensible auction landed James Coutts in 4♥, and David Wiltshire led a spade. Dummy’s ♠Q was allowed to win, and a heart to the king revealed the position in the trump suit. Coutts played a second round of trumps and, again, Sophie Ashton ducked. Now declarer played a spade to the ace and a spade back to North’s king. Had Ashton exited with a diamond, declarer would have been forced to abandon trumps and cash black-suit winners, allowing North to score her small trump. When, instead, she played the ♥A and a fourth round of trumps, and Coutts was therefore able to claim the balance. E/W +450.

After the same start to the auction, New Zealand junior international Leon Meier went for subterfuge on the South hand, psyching a 1♠ bid on his singleton, and leaving Sartaj Hans (right) with the second of this week’s problems. Hans, an experienced campaigner who has been around the block often enough to recognize South’s effort, was having none of it. He brushed the youngster aside with a jump to 4♠.

One would have thought, perhaps, that would be the end of the story, and the board would be pushed, but Meier decided that he was going to have another go, and tried 5♣ when the bidding came back to him. I know that Marty Bergen once famously observed that, “Colours are for Children,” but you can take a principle only so far. Perhaps 5♣ would be a reasonable shot on this South hand non-vulnerable, but at red it just looks like too much of a gamble. And, so it proved to be. 5♣-doubled would probably have escaped for three down (losing a diamond, a spade and three trumps), but Geo Tislevoll decided that he couldn’t sit there and ‘corrected’ to 5♦.

Andy Hung accurately opened the defence with a trump, which should have led to three down in this contract too, but declarer took his eye off the ball and slopped an extra trick. E/W +1100 and 12 IMPs to ASHTON.

By the midway point of the second set in the other match, a storming start for KOZAKOS had turned the match around and the score stood at 54-35 in their favour. However, as Alan Shearer has often observed, “It’s a game of two ‘affs, Gary.” GUE gained IMPs on every one of the remaining seven boards to retake the lead. This was the final board of an exciting set…

George Kozakos (left) was a member of the Australian team at the 1995 Bermuda Bowl in Beijing. Last year he represented his country at the World Championships in Wroclaw in the Senior Teams.

A combination of the adverse vulnerability and the strong 2♣ opening by the former Dutch junior international Maurits van der Vlugt served to keep N/S out of the auction. Van der Vlugt bid and rebid his eight-card suit, eventually persuading Kozakos to raise to game.

Joshua Tomlin had no reason to lead anything other than a top diamond. The 3-3 spades break subsequently allowed declarer to dispose of one of his heart losers. E/W +420.

Joachim Haffer (right) was a member of the German Junior team at the 1988 European Youth Team Championships. Haffer’s 1♣ opening on this deal allowed his opponents cheap entry into the auction, which ultimately worked out very well for him.

Once Phil Markey had shown at least some signs of life with his 1NT response, there was no stopping Haffer, who bid on to game in his long suit after his opponents had reached 4♥. It’s hard to blame Matt Mullamphy for thinking that it was his opponents who were sacrificing against his side’s vulnerable game. Indeed, his side was probably in a forcing auction anyway, so one of them was committed to doubling 5♣. Haffer’s sharp redouble quickly disillusioned Mullamphy and, having reached this point, North only had unpalatable options left. He chose to retreat to 5♥.

The defence got every trick due to them. Haffer started with a top spade, cashed a high club, and then played two more spades. Winning with the ♠Q, Markey returned a diamond for his partner to ruff. That meant three down: E/W +800 and an exciting 9 IMPs to GUE.

GUE led by 12 IMPs (66-54) at the midway point of their match. In the other semi-final, ASHTON won the set 26-11 to lead by 41 IMPs (55-14) at halftime. A substantial, but not insurmountable lead but, if the trailing team is to mount a comeback, now would be a good time to start.

We will be back soon with the best of the action from the second half of these semi-final matches