Before heading to the U.S. for the Fall Nationals, we are taking a diversion via Australia for the final stage of the National Open Teams. We arrive just in time for the semi-final stage.

The line-up for the semi-finals is LU (Charlie Lu, Peter Gill, Liam Milne, James Coutts, Tony Nunn and Nabil Edgtton) v GUE (David Gue, Joshua Tomlin, Joachim Haffer and Nicolas Croft); and THOMPSON (Ben Thompson, Renee Cooper, Peter Newman, Matthew Thomson) v SPOONER (Andrew Spooner, Philip Markey, Mike Doecke, Will Jenner-O'Shea, Shane Harrison and Matt Smith). The format is 120-board matches played over eight 15-board stanzas. LU and THOMPSON each start with a carry-forward advantage of 0.1 IMPs just in case of a tied match.

As usual, we start with a couple of problems. Firstly, an opening lead. With both sides vulnerable, you are West holding:

What do you lead?

Next, with neither side vulnerable, you are sitting in the East seat with:

What action, if any, do you take?

While you consider those, we start in the opening set of THOMPSON v SPOONER.

Andrew Spooner (left) was a member of the Australian Junior team at the 2018 World Youth Championships. At the same event a year later, he twice just missed out on a medal, Australia finishing fourth in the Under-26 Teams and Spooner landing in the same place in the Under-26 Individual. A junior medal did at last come along when he earned silver playing with Jamie Thompson in the Under-31 Pairs at the 2022 World Youth Championships.

Phil Markey showed a good spade raise and a club shortage with his jump to 4♣. Spooner cue-bid a diamond control but, when Markey then denied a heart control, he gave up. With apparently unavoidable loser in both clubs and hearts, that looked well-judged.

Spooner won the opening diamond lead, drew three rounds of trumps, and pitched his club loser on dummy’s long diamond. He then claimed twelve tricks, losing just a heart. N/S +680.

Ben Thompson just raised to 4♠ at his second turn, but Renee Cooper (right) liked her hand enough to make another move. Advancing with RKCB, she found two-key-cards opposite and took a shot at slam, although not in spades but in diamonds. That left Matt Smith (no, not the one who played the eleventh incarnation of Dr Who) with the 25-IMP opening lead problem posed at the top of this article.

With little to go on, Smith fished out the ♥4. Thompson had little choice but to run the lead and, when the ♥Q won, he had twelve tricks. N/S +1370 and 12 IMPs to THOMPSON.

With no discards available in a diamond contract, it may look as if a ‘safe’ diamond or spade lead would be good enough to defeat 6♦, but look again. Declarer wins, draws trumps, and cashes his spade winners. When he then exits with a club, whichever defender wins is endplayed to lead a heart. Possession of the ♥10, means that a heart lead from either defender hands away the twelfth trick. To beat the contract, Smith has to find a club lead at trick one. Not so easy, after all.

THOMPSON won an exciting opening stanza 58-26 to lead by 32 IMPs. In the other semi-final, LU led by 19 IMP, 33-14.

We stay with the THOMPSON v SPOONER match for the second stanza. There were some curious events at both tables on this early deal. Had Shakespeare been a bridge player, he would surely have observed, “To bid or not to bid, that is the question…”

The partnership between William O’Shea (left) and Michael Doecke goes back to at least 2008, when they were both members of Australia’s Under-28 team at the World Youth Championships in Beijing.

It's hard for me to be critical of O’Shea’s bidding on this deal, as I’m sure I would have done exactly what he did, for better or for worse. With only three cards in the majors, the impulse to pre-empt at any excuse should be even greater than it would normally be at in first seat non-vulnerable. Doecke’s 2♠ advance shows a good hand but is non-forcing, and the only sort of hand on which opener usually passes is a minimum with no fit. O’Shea might perhaps have bid 3♣ on this East hand, but the principle that it is usually right to stop bidding as quickly as possible on a misfit has to be considered. Ask yourself, if you bid 3♣, how happy will you be when partner repeats his spades (particularly if someone then doubles)?

Considering that this 2♠ contract was a serious transgression of Burn’s Law (“When bidding, choose a trump suit in which you have more trumps than the opponents”), declarer did well to make seven tricks. N/S +50. Which side would be happiest with that result on this potential trap hand?

Peter Newman and his teammate in this event, Ben Thompson, both made their international debuts as members of Australia’s Junior team at the 1989 World Youth Championships. Two years later, they collected bronze medals from the same event, in Ann Arbor MI, USA.

On this deal, Newman must have thought Christmas had arrived early. Perhaps he did not have a natural 2♦ opening available but, for whatever reason, he passed as dealer, only to hear Philip Markey open 1♦ on his left. While I am happy to advocate opening at the sniff of an oil rag, one should always be wary of 4441 hands, as they often do not play well. For his part, Spooner might have preferred a 1NT response to the diamond raise on three low. Having started with a 1♠ overcall on his good hand, Matthew Thomson came again with a double to show extra values. I am guessing that Newman’s Pass was not the most difficult decision he has ever faced at the bridge table.

When I mentioned earlier that 4441 shapes often do not play particularly well, that was something of an understatement when describing declarer’s experience in this contract. The defence actually dropped a trick, and yet declarer still only managed to scramble five. N/S -800 and 13 IMPs to THOMPSON.

After just a handful of deals in this second stanza, the match score had advanced to 74-27. Then the tables turned and SPOONER blanked their opponents 34-0 over the rest of the set. After two stanzas, THOMPSON therefore led by just 13 IMPs, 74-61. In the other semi-final, LU won the set 49-17, and they now held a 51-IMP advantage, 82-31.

Let’s join the match between LU and GUE for the third stanza to see whether there are any signs of a comeback. On the first deal of the set, both East players had to decide what action to take on the second of this week’s problems…

With his 4♠ opening, Joachim Haffer (left) made it very difficult for Charlie Lu to avoid walking into trouble. Whether Lu chose a direct 5♥ (as he did) or to show a two-suited hand with 4NT, the final destination would probably have been the same.

Nicholas Croft led the ♦K, taken in dummy with the ace. Not being blessed with X-Ray vision, declarer’s first move was a club to the king. Winning the switch to the ♠K with his bare ace, Lu then tried to cash the ♣Q. When Croft ruffed and then played the ♥A and a second round of trumps, declarer was limited to just eight tricks. E/W +500. With 4♠ likely to be at least one down, that looked like an excellent result for the trailing team.

When Nabil Edgtton chose not to open the East hand, North/South’s chances of avoiding getting overboard were greatly enhanced, although it didn’t work out that way. David Gue (right) did not give his partner much encouragement, but Joshua Tomlin still decided that he should carry on to the five-level once his opponents had bid game.

Whilst the same contract was reached at both tables, Edgtton’s pass was effectively punished in the play. After the same start, West here also ruffed declarer’s ♣Q at trick four. However, when Tony Nunn then continued with a second spade, declarer was thus able to score three club ruffs in dummy and escape with losing only three tricks. That was E/W +100 and 9 IMPs to GUE to open the third stanza.

The set ended up fairly flat, LU edging it 30-24 to lead by 57 IMPs after three stanzas. It was also a low-scoring set in the other semi-final, THOMPSON winning 21-19 to increase their advantage to 15 IMPs. We stick with the LU v GUE match for the final segment on the first day. LU was ahead by 4 IMPs on the set when the final deal before the overnight break arrived at the tables.

With the points equally split, it was no surprise that this was a competitive auction. As so often happens in these circumstances, the higher-ranking black-suit won the bidding contest at the three-level.

Joshua Tomlin (left) opened his diamond against 3♠. Declarer won in dummy and led a spade to around to South’s king. Tomlin then found the excellent switch to the ♥9. When Gue won, he gave his partner a diamond ruff to hold the contract to nine tricks. E/W +140.

The auction was quite different in the replay…

Haffer was able to open the East cards with a 2♦ bid that showed a weak hand with at least 4-4 in the pointed suits. (See, it’s come up once this year, partner!)  Croft competed to the three-level and, when North joined in with a responsive double, Haffer decided that his extra spade justified taking a second bid on his powerhouse. David Gue ended the brief auction with a red card.

The vagaries of system meant that North was on lead at this table, and Peter Gill duly led his partner’s suit, the ♣8. Of course, former Australian junior international Nicolas Croft had no reason to even think of running the lead to his queen, so he won with the ♣A and took a club ruff. With only one fast entry to dummy, declarer crossed to the ♦10 and ruffed dummy’s remaining club. Now Croft played a trump and Lu won. In a similar position to his counterpart at the other table, Lu needed to get his partner in to deliver his ruff and restrict declarer to nine tricks. When he cashed the ♥A, that was the end of the defensive chances. E/W +590 and 10 IMPs to GUE.

GUE won the stanza 26-20, which meant that LU led by 51 IMPs at the overnight break. In the other semi-final, SPOONER won another low-scoring set, 24-18, so they trailed by just 9 IMPs (104-113) at the midway point of the match,

We will be back soon with the best of the action from the second day’s play in these semi-finals.