We are back in Delhi, India at the 2023 HCL International Bridge Championships. The field in the Teams of Four Gold event for the Naresh Tandan Trophy, has been reduced from 52 teams to just four. The format for the knockout rounds is 56-board matches divided into four 14-board segments. On our last visit, we saw the highlights from the first half of the semi-final matches.

An all-Indian semi-final had pitted 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). At the midway point of the match, FORMIDABLES led by 70 IMPs, 103-33.

The other semi-final featured two Polish teams. It was 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). After an even first stanza, AZS BUBOSLAVIA have opened a 29-IMP advantage, (77-48) at the midway point of the match.

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

What, if anything, do you bid?

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

What do you open?

Finally, with neither side vulnerable, you hold as East:

What action, if any, do you take?

What would you do if your partner doubled 3♥, rather than passing?

While you consider those, we start our coverage early in the third set. Both East players faced a variation on the first of the problems above.

Wojciech Gawel had the first decision on this deal, and he opted for a negative double of South’s 2♣ overcall. Having passed as Dealer, Kamil Nowak’s 3♦ bid was natural but also implied a club fit. That left Rafal Jagniewski (left) with the problem posed earlier. His solution was a jump to 5♦ which, although there is no alert in the VuGraph records, looks like Exclusion RKCB. When Gawel showed no key cards outside the diamond suit, Jagniewski signed off at the five-level.

Unfortunately, dummy’s ♦A was exactly what declarer needed to take care of his club loser.  There was just the ♠A to be lost: E/W +680.

Patryk and Jakub Patreuha (right) made their first international appearance together as members of the Polish squad that won the Under-16 Teams at the 2014 European Youth Championship. They made their debut in the Polish Open team in 2021.

Jakub chose to advance with 2♠ on the West hand, and now Patryk’s hand was enormous. Whether 5NT was looking for two top spade honours for a grand slam or just offering a choice of majors is unknown, but the destination would have been the same on this combination. That was E/W +1430 and 11 IMPs to AZS BUBOSLAVIA, pulling away from their opponents now.

In the other match, FORMIDABLES bolstered their lead in similar fashion.

By the time our next deal arrived at the table, AZS BUBOSLAVIA had added 29 unanswered IMPs to their halftime lead. Events at the first table looked fairly routine…

Pepsi might have made more tricks as the cards lie, but he played safely for his contract. N/S +110. In the replay, there was a hint of ‘we’re 50 down’ to East’s bidding. If his goal was to generate a swing, he certainly achieved that objective.

Jagniewski opened the East hand with a Polish Club, ostensibly showing a weak no-trump hand type. Gawel’s 1♠ bid after South’s heart overcall was negative, denying as many as four spades. N/S then got themselves to the same 2♠ contract that had been played at the first table. With his partner likely to hold at least eight cards in the minors, Jagniewski did not want to sell out at the two-level, so he gambled on finding a diamond fit. Piotr Marcinowski did not need a second invitation to this party!

A trump lead would have put declarer in four-figure territory, but Marcinowski understandably opened the ♥K. Declarer still found himself with way too many losers. He managed to scramble six tricks: N/S +800 and another 12 IMPs were added to the quickly-mushrooming AZS BUBOSLAVIA tally.

A late POLAND rally meant that AZS won the third stanza only by 41-17. However, their lead was now 53 IMPs (118-65) going into the final set. In the all-India semi-final, FORMIDABLES won the third segment 37-22, so they led by 85 IMPs (140-55). HERMANT JALAN decided not to insult their opponents by asking them to play the final 14 boards.

Both West players had to decide what to open on the second of this week’s problems…

Wojciech Gawel (left) made his international debut as a member of the Polish team that won the 2009 European Universities Championship. His first appearance in the Poland Open team came at the 2013 European Championships. More recently, he collected a silver medal from the Open BAM Teams at the 2020 European Winter Games.

Gawel chose to start with a quiet 1♦ on this West hand. Despite holding only 5 HCP, Rafal Jagniewski managed to find a reason for doubling every time it was his turn to bid. His partner eventually believed him and gave up. 5♣-doubled looks like a decent spot for declarer, as long as East does not find an opening heart lead for his partner to ruff.

Jagniewski was not up to that and, obviously led the suit his partner had bid all the way to the four-level on his own. Unfortunately, for declarer, Jagniewski’s diamond was the ten! When his partner followed with the ♦2 and Jagniewski found himself still on lead, it did not take him long to work out that his partner wanted a heart. Gawel ruffed and continued with the ♦J. Nowak ruffed high and drew trumps, but he still had to concede a trick to the ♥K at the end. E/W +100.

Patryk Patreuha chose to roll the dice with a Gambling 3NT opening. Krzysztof Buras (right) doubled on the North hand and Jakub essayed a pass-or-correct 4♣. When Wojciech Strzemecki joined in with a responsive double, Patryk decided that his opponents would surely be able to make a major-suit game, so he took an advanced save in 5♦ despite the adverse vulnerability.

Buras doubled and led the ♠A. I suspect that dummy was a serious disappointment for declarer. Buras switched to a trump at trick two and it appears that declarer is destined to make only his eight trump winners. However, he ran seven rounds of trumps throwing all of dummy’s spades. Eventually, South was persuaded to release his low spade. When declarer then played a spade at trick nine, the king and queen came crashing down together. Declarer was thus above to score the ♠6 as a ninth trick to ‘escape’ for two down. Of course, it was something of a Pyrrhic victory, as that was still E/W -500 and 12 IMPs to POLAND.

On our final deal from this match, the East players each faced one of the variations posed in the last of this week’s problems…

Gawel chose to open the West hand with a 15-17 1NT and Piotr Marcinowski had then to decide what to do after East’s 2♥ transfer bid. One option is to double showing hearts, but Marcinowski decided that was not sufficient, so he braved the three-level in his long suit. When Gawel passed, Jagniewski was then left with the problem posed earlier. Knowing that your side holds approximately half of the high-card point, does it look right to sell out to 3♥ with this 6-5 hand? I find it hard to disagree with Jagniewski’s decision to bid 4♣.

With only 2-2 in your suits, and half its points opposite your shortages without an ace, dummy could hardly have been less suitable. There were two aces and two trump tricks to be lost, and declarer had to play carefully to avoid going more than one down. E/W -50.

After an identical start to the auction, Patryk Patreuha (left) doubled 3♥ on the West cards. It might still have been right for East to bid on but, warned that his partner held wasted heart values, Jakub opted to defend. This time it was South who was presented with an unsuitable dummy, with short trumps and wasted values in both black suits.

West led the ♦Q against 3♥-doubled. Declarer won with the ♦A, crossed to the ♥A, and led a club towards dummy. Patryk rose with the ♣A and continued with the ♦J. Strzemecki won and cashed the ♣K to shake one of his spade losers. When he then led a spade from dummy, Jakub went in with the ace and played the ♣Q. Declarer ruffed with the ♥8 and Patryk correctly discarded. With the ♥7 promoted, the defence still had to come to a diamond and three trumps. Two down: E/W +300 and 8 IMPs to AZS BUBOSLAVIA.

POLAND won the final set 39-23, but that merely dented the winning margin. AZS won the match by 37 IMPs, 141-104. The final will be Poland’s AZS BUBOSLAVIA against the home-town favourites, FORMIDABLES.

We will be back soon with the best of the action from that final.