Welcome back to Atlanta, Georgia, the venue for the 2023 Fall NABC. Today sees the final 16 teams battle it out for a place in the quarter-finals of the Soloway Trophy. Plenty of world class players have already been eliminated and there are no easy matches left in the draw.

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

What do you bid?

Next, with only your side vulnerable, you are sitting in the North seat with:

What action do you take?

Finally, with only your opponents vulnerable, you hold as West:

What is your plan?

While you mull those over, we start our coverage in the opening set of the match between KNOTTENBELT (England and USA), the winners of the Swiss qualifying stage, and BREMARK (Sweden and Portugal).

Johan Upmark and Fredrik Nystrom (left) got to show off their relay system and, whatever it all meant, they breezed into the excellent slam. North showed a strong hand with his 2♦ rebid. Upmark then relayed to find out that his partner had a 3-5-1-4 shape with 11-13 A-K points and, armed with that information, he picked the contract. Trumps behaved and there was no club ruff, so declarer was soon claiming 12 tricks: N/S +1430.

Life was much more difficult for the English pair in the replay…

Leif Bremark started the trouble with his 3♦ opening, but it was Simon Hult (right) who made things impossible with his imaginative raise to 4♦. That raise took away South’s easy cue-bid raise, leaving Maggie Knottenbelt with the first of the problems posed above. She is heavy for 4♥ but can she underwrite the five-level? She decided that the answer was no, and thus the good slam was missed. N/S +680 and 13 IMPs to BREMARK, who won the opening stanza 47-32.

Increasing the pre-empt and robbing the opponents of space is not always the winning strategy. Let’s take a look at the action from the second set of the match between the Bermuda Bowl champions, ZIMMERMANN (Switzerland), and GOLDBERG (USA, England and Sweden). ZIMMERMANN led 34-27 after the first stanza. This was the second deal of the second segment.

Tom Paske raised his partner’s hearts via a 3♠ splinter. Jacek Kalita passed the North hand and Simon Cope showed slam interest with a 4♣ cue-bid, but Michal Klukowski (left) was not yet done. Sensing that there was plenty of bidding left in this auction, he judged to rebid his spades at the four-level. Paske co-operated with his partners slam try with a return club cue-bid and now Kalita joined in by competing to the five-level. Cope showed his continued interest with a forcing pass, but Paske did not know quite enough to commit to slam. Paske led the ♥A and switched to a trump at trick two, but that was not the winning defence on this layout. Had Paske started with his other ace at trick one, the defenders could have scored two club ruffs for +800. After this start, all they could get was their four aces. E/W +300.

After the same start, Hua Poon raised freely to 4♠ on the North cards. Michal Nowosadzki moved forward with a diamond cue-bid, which turned out to be exactly what Pierre Zimmermann (right) wanted to hear. Connie Goldberg competed to the five-level on the South hand, but Zimmermann was always going to bid slam whatever she did.

Slam is a good proposition, apparently needing to find one of the red-suit kings onside. In fact, Nowosadzki ruffed the opening club lead and started with a heart to the ace. The ♥K failed to appear but, when he then took a winning diamond finesse, he could claim twelve tricks. E/W +980 and 12 IMPs to ZIMMERMANN.

ZIMMERMANN won the second stanza 54-33 and thus led by 28 IMPs (88-60) at the midway point of the match.

In the third stanza, we check in on the match between the #1 seeds, LEBOWITZ (USA, Argentina and Denmark), and FREEMAN (USA and Canada). LEBOWITZ led 70-34 coming into this set, and both North players had to answer the second of this week’s problems on the second board.

Agustin Madala’s 3♠ pre-empt put Peter Weichsel under pressure. When he chose to advance with 4♣, the Americans were in trouble. Jim Krekorian rebid his diamonds but Weichsel retreated to his long suit. Weichsel won the opening spade lead and took an immediate heart finesse. Two spades disappeared on dummy’s high diamonds, but there was still a spade and two trumps to be lost. N/S -100.

In the same position, Michael Rosenberg (left) took a shot at 3NT, and now the spotlight fell on Franco Baseggio to find the winning opening lead (more of that later). When he chose the ♥6, declarer was in the game. Rosenberg won with the ♥J and played a club to the two, nine and king. He won the heart continuation in hand and cleared the clubs. Four clubs, three hearts, two diamonds and one spade added up to ten: N/S +630 and 12 IMPs to LEBOWITZ.

It may look as if declarer has nine tricks on any defence, but take a deeper look. Suppose East leads his singleton spade. Declarer wins (if he ducks, the defenders can switch to diamonds and set up two tricks there to go with their two club tricks). He cannot afford to lead a low club from hand, as West will win and cash spades. However, it seems that he can play a heart to the jack and then safely duck a club into the East hand. Note what happens, though, if West puts the ♣J in on the first round of clubs. Declarer cannot then afford to duck, so he has to win with the ♣A. He can play a second club now but, with only one entry to his hand, he can no longer set up the long clubs and get back to cash them.

LEBOWITZ won the penultimate set 31-17, so they go into the final stanza leading by exactly 50 IMPs (101-51). For the final set, we return to the match between ZIMMERMANN and GOLDBERG. The Bermuda Bowl champions led by 33 IMPs after three stanzas. Both West players had to evaluate their hand on the last of this week’s problems.

Michael Klukowski chose to simply transfer to spades at the four-level and settle for game, proving that even the best player in the world sometimes does the wrong thing. Slam is a more than reasonable proposition, needing spades not 3-0 offside and diamonds to play for one loser. E/W +480.

In the replay, Simon Cope (right) decided that he was worth one try, so he began with a two-level transfer and then jumped to 4♥, showing a heart void and self-agreeing spades. Now Tom Paske took over and Blackwooded his side to slam. With diamonds behaving, there were 12 easy tricks. E/W +980 and 11 IMPs to GOLDBERG.

GOLDBERG won the final set 38-16, but that was not quite enough. ZIMMERMANN advanced to the quarter-finals with an 11-IMP victory, 133-122.

Four of the original Top 8 seeds are still alive. Two teams originally outside the Top 16 have also made it this far. The line-up for the quarter-finals is:

#1        LEBOWITZ   v          #8        GOODMAN

#2 (15) BREMARK    v          #7        STREET

#3 (19) FLEISHER     v          #6 (11) AMOILS

#4 (20) HANS             v          #5        ZIMMERMANN

We will be back soon with the best of the action from the quarter-finals.