Flying back from Australia to England, it was convenient to stop off in Delhi, India, the venue for the 2023 HCL International Bridge Championships. We have arrived just in time for the latter stages of the Teams of Four Gold event for the Naresh Tandan Trophy. 52 teams began the journey on Tuesday. After two days and ten 10-board Swiss matches, the top 16 teams advanced to the knockout stage. Two days of 56-board matches reduced the field to just four by Saturday.

As it happens, the draw has ordained that the Gold Teams final will be contested by teams from India and Poland. In an all-Indian semi-final, it is FORMIDABLES (Kiran Nadar, Bachiraju Satyanarayana, Rajeshwar Tewari, Sumit Mukherjee, Kaustabh Nandi and Sagnik Roy) against HEMANT JALAN (Hemant K Jalan, Ashish Malhotra, Abhijit Chakraborty, Prasun Kumar Mukherjee, Sayantan Kushari and Kaustubh Milind Bendre). Ironically, these two teams had finished 15^th and 14^th respectively in the qualifying Swiss, but had then defeated higher-seeded teams to reach the semi-final stage.

By contrast, the other semi-final featured the winners and 5^th-place finishers from the Swiss, both Polish teams. It is POLAND (Jacek Pszczola, Krzysztof Buras, Wojciech Gawel, Rafal Jagniewski, Przemyslaw Janiszewski and Wojciech Strzemecki) against AZS BUBOSLAVIA (Kamil Nowak, Piotr Marcinowski, Jakub Patreuha and Patryk Patreuha). Although POLAND had won the Swiss qualifier, AZS began this semi-final with a 2-IMP carry-forward advantage by dint of victory over their opponents in their head-to-head meeting in the Swiss.

As usual, we start with some problems. Firstly, with neither side vulnerable, you are South holding:

What, if anything, do you bid?

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

What do you bid?

Next, with neither side vulnerable, you hold as North:

What action, if any, do you take?

While you mull those over, we start with the final deal of the opening stanza in the all-Polish semi-final.

Piotr Marcinowski (left) made his international debut as a member of the Polish Schools team at the 2013 European Youth Championships. He just missed out on a medal there, Poland finishing fourth, but he earned a bronze medal from the Junior Teams at the 2017 European Championships. He again narrowly missed out on a medal, finishing fourth in the 2018 European Junior Pairs. Marcinowski made his debut in the Polish Open team in 2021.

On this deal, Marcinowski came in with a 1♠ overcall of East’s Polish Club opening. Kamil Nowak showed an invitational or better, three-card spade raise with a 2♣ cue-bid. He then advanced with a natural 2NT after Macinowski had shown a minimum for his overcall. That left Marcinowski with the first of the problems posed above. Marcinowski chose to jump to 4♠.

Declarer has a loser in each suit as long as the defenders avoid opening up the club suit. Wojciech Gawel got the defence off to a safe start with the ♦5. Although that solved declarer’s ‘guess’ in that suit, it did not give him anything that he could not make himself. The defenders were careful, so declarer finished one down: N/S -50.

Przemyslaw Janiszewski did not overcall on the South hand. Jacek ‘Pepsi’ Pszczola (right) doubled West’s negative 1♦ response and Janiszewski jumped to 2♠. When Pepsi then made a game try with a natural 2NT, Janiszewski could not be certain that his partner held three spades, so he raised to the no-trump game.

Patryk Patreuha was in some trouble right away. The ♠J would have been safe, but dummy’s suit was not an overly attractive prospect when that suit looked to be breaking evenly for declarer. Patryk opted for the ♦6. Pepsi won with the ♦10 in hand and played three rounds of spades, putting East back on lead. Now the defenders had a chance: The ♦A and a third round of diamonds would have left declarer with only eight tricks, but Patryk chose to attack, switching to the ♣J.  Now declarer had a third club trick to go with four spades and two diamonds: N/S +400 and 10 IMPs to POLAND.

So, could declarer legitimately make the contract? Yes, but only by making the counter-intuitive play of assisting the defenders in setting up a long diamond trick. Notice the difference if declarer returns a diamond at trick two (or at trick three after cashing the ♠K). East can take the ♦A and clear the suit. However, when he is then thrown in with the third round of spades, he can cash his long diamond winner, but he has then to give declarer his ninth trick by opening either the clubs or hearts. A difficult hand indeed.

POLAND won the opening stanza 32-30 so, with the carry-forward, that match was tied at 32-32 after one set. In the other semi-final, FORMIDABLES opened up a 43-8 lead in a set without a single double-digit swing. The second set made up for that relative lack of action, with big swings in both matches on the opening deal. In the all-India match, both South players had to answer the second of this week’s problems…

One of her country’s most experienced players, Kiran Nadar made her first international appearance as a member of the Indian Women’s team at the 1988 World Team Olympiad. Along with Bachiraju Satyanarayana, Nadar made her debut in India’s Open team at the 2000 Olympiad, and they have been a regular partnership on that team since. They have also been regular members of the FORMIDABLES team for more than ten years, and they have recently played on India’s Mixed team.

On this deal, Nadar jumped to 4♣ in response to her partner’s Unusual No-Trump overcall. Abhijit Chakraborty rebid his diamonds at the four-level, but Satyanarayana jumped to 6♣, ending the auction.

There was nothing to the play. After drawing trumps, declarer’s spade loser went on one of dummy’s heart winners. A spade ruff then gave Nadar 13 tricks. N/S +1390. Yes, they had missed a grand slam, but which side was happiest with their result?

After the same start, Kaustubh Milind Bendre also jumped to the four-level on the South hand, but he preferred to bid game in hearts. Now, when Sumit Mukherjee rebid diamonds from the West seat, it was at the five-level. Like his counterpart at the other table, Sayantan Kushari jumped to slam on the North cards. Emerging from the long grass, came Rajeshwar Tewari (right), to win the board for his side with a 7♦ sacrifice.

7♦ appears to have four losers, and so would cost 800, but that would still have been an 11-IMP gain for FORMIDABLES. When 7♦ came around to Kushari, of course bidding the cold 7♣ was not an option, but he wasn’t willing to sell out on this monster hand, so he took a shot at 7♥. Alas for the underdogs in this match, there were only 12 tricks available in hearts. N/S -100 and 16 IMPs to FORMIDABLES, but most of the damage had already been done by Tewari.

In the other semi-final, E/W saved in 7♦-doubled at both tables. At one, Nowak/Marcinowski duly collected their four tricks for N/S +800. At the other table, two tricks got away from the defence, allowing declarer to make eleven tricks. That meant N/S +300 and a bonus 11 IMPs to AZS BUBOSLAVIA.

It is a matter of style, but I confess that I am in total agreement with the decision to overcall 1♠ made by Kaustubh Bendre (left). That left Kushari with the third of this week’s problems. One lesson that I hammer home to my students is to raise at any excuse when you have support for partner. Yes, this North hand is minimum for a raise to 2♠, but a raise to 2♠ it nevertheless is.

To illustrate the confused thinking, North willingly made a free bid of 2♠ at his second turn, after East had shown a good hand with some spade values, but by then it was too late. Kushari was never going to convince his partner that he had enough to make game a good proposition. Yes, Bendre had a good hand. However, opposite a hand that couldn’t even dredge up a raise to 2♠ on the first round, he didn’t even compete to 3♠, let alone think of bidding game.

South led the ♦A, and surely North should play the queen to tell his partner that he can safely underlead his king. A low diamond to the jack would then allow North to play a spade through declarer’s king. The defenders would get two diamonds, two spades and a club to beat the contract by a trick. When North instead followed with the ♦3 at trick one, then false-carded with the queen when his partner cashed the ♦K next, South duly played a third round of diamonds, expecting his partner to ruff. Instead, it was declarer who ruffed. After three rounds of trumps ending in dummy, declarer discarded two black-suit losers on winning diamonds. N/S -140.

Nadar started with a takeout double on the South hand. This meant that she had to overstate her spades on the next round (2♠ here should surely show at least a six-card suit). Satyanarayana managed to dredge up a raise to 3♠ and, having perhaps already shown a better hand than she actually held, Nadar found a raise to four from somewhere.

With both black suits breaking and the ♠K in the slot, there were just two aces to be lost. N/S +450 and another 11 IMPs to FORMIDABLES.

Sayantan Kushari (right) began his international career as a member of the Indian Schools team at the 2016 World Youth Teams. A seven-year career in which he played multiple events representing his country in various youth teams culminated with a bronze medal from the Under-31 Teams at the World Youth Championships in Veldhoven earlier this year.

Bendre raised only to 2♦ on the South hand. Nevertheless, Kushari immediately took an advanced save at the five-level. It is true that E/W can make game in either major, so taking the save perhaps looks like the right thing to have done.

The defence started with the ♥K, then the ♠A and a second spade. Declarer ruffed and exited with the ♣K. He could now reach dummy with a club ruff to pick up the trumps. He then exited with the ♥Q, establishing the ♥J in dummy for a discard of his fourth club. That was two down: E/W +300.

Although Nadar made a pre-emptive jump to 3♦ at this table, Bachiraju Satyanarayana (left) was not tempted to bid again on the North hand. Chakraborty introduced his hearts and Prasun Kumar Mukherjee bid spades, but Chakraborty elected to move forward with 3NT rather than a spade raise.

The defence began with the ♦A and a second diamond, clearing the suit. From declarer’s point of view, it would probably have looked like the contract depended on finding the ♣K onside. So, he played a club to the jack at trick three and it won. Now the problem was how to return to hand to repeat the club finesse. A spade to the king looked like the obvious answer. (Would you risk taking the spade finesse? Of course not.)

However, when Chakraborty now played a club to the queen and South discarded, his six club tricks had suddenly become three. Only now did he discover that he needed three spade tricks (to go with three clubs, two hearts and one diamond). He tried cashing the ♠A but, of course, the queen did not come down. Adding salt to the wound, North’s discard confirmed that the finesse had been working!

Declarer could not even get to his second heart winner now, so he ended with just seven tricks. E/W -200 and another 11 IMPs to FORMIDABLES.

FORMIDABLES won the second stanza 69-25, so they led by 70 IMPs (103-33) at the midway point of the match. If there was to be a miraculous comeback, it would need to start very soon. In the other semi-final, AZS BUBOSLAVIA won the second stanza 45-16, so they had opened up an advantage of 29 IMPs (77-48).

We will be back soon with the second half of these semi-final matches.