We are back in the Indian capital of Delhi, the venue for the Mohanlal Bhartia Memorial Grand Prix. The main team event began with a field of 68 teams, but a Swiss qualifying event and three rounds of knockout matches have reduced that to just two. They are TORNATAE (Prasad Keni, Sujit Bhattacharya, Sanjit Dey, Binod Shaw, Rana Roy and Sukamal Das) and INDIA GLYCOL (Hemant Jalan, Kaustabh Nandi, Sagnik Roy, Ashish Malhotra, Sandip Datta and Gopinath Manna).

The format of the final is a 48-board match split into four 12-board stanzas. TORNATAE began the final with an 8-IMP carry-forward advantage from earlier in the competition but, at the end of our last visit, we left the match at the midway point after two fairly quiet sets with INDIA GLYCOL ahead by 8 IMPs, 40-32. The Great Dealer woke up and produced a much more interesting set of boards for the third segment.

As usual, we start with a couple of problems. Firstly, with only your side vulnerable, you are North holding:

What do you open?

Next, with both sides vulnerable, you are sitting in the North seat with:

What do you bid?

While you consider those, we start with the opening deal of the third set.

Kaustabh Nandi protected with 2♥, showing both majors, and Sagnik Roy duly gave preference to spades. Sanjit Dey had a routine takeout double, and Binod Shaw an equally routine pass.

Dey found the best opening, the ♠J. Shaw played low and declarer won with the king. Shaw won trick two with the ♦K and played two more rounds of spades. Declarer won in dummy, drew a fourth round of trumps with the ♠10, and ran the ♥Q successfully. Declarer played a heart to the ace and a club to the ten and jack. North had mostly winners left now, although he had do concede a trick to dummy’s ♣K at the end. N/S +300 looked like a good result on a deal where they were prepared to play in 1NT.

The auction in the replay began in identical fashion, but Gopinath Manna for some reason thought he should introduce his moderate spade suit into the auction, despite knowing that there were at least four on his right. Now N/S were in trouble. Sandip Datta retreated to 2NT, perhaps natural or maybe suggesting both minors. Whatever it meant, Sukamal Das (left) decided that he had enough to double on the way out.

Das led the ♦4 and it looks like declarer is destined to go at least one down, so Manna’s task was to limit the loss. Winning the diamond in hard perforce, he began by running the ♣Q and, when that held, he played a club to the nine and ten. Rana Roy switched to a spade, Das winning with the ♠K and exiting with his remaining club. Of course, thanks to Roy’s earlier good play, declarer misguessed, and the ♣J lost to West’s king. A second low spade came back, the ♠9 losing to the king, and East exited with a diamond. Manna cashed the ♠A and exited with the fourth round of the suit to West, but the ♥Q, trapping the king, completed declarer’s misery. The defenders had to concede a trick to the ♦J at the end, but that was only declarer’s fifth trick. N/S -500 and 13 IMPs to TORNATAE, who retook the lead in the match.

A few boards later, both North players had to decide what to open on the first of the problems posed earlier.

Gopinath Manna (right) began with a 1♥ opening, which looks very sensible to me. He then forced to game with a jump to 3♣ at his second turn and elected to pass when Sandip Datta could do nothing more constructive than suggest 3NT as a contract.

The opening heart lead went to the jack and queen, so Datta unblocked the ♥10 and then played three rounds of spades. When East exited with a club, declarer had 12 tricks via five hearts, four spades and three clubs. N/S +690.

When Binod Shaw chose to open a strong/artificial 2♣ on the North hand, there was always potential for N/S to overreach. After all, South has a fabulous hand facing a 2♣ opening, and Sanjit Dey can hardly be blamed for thinking that the only real question is which slam to play. Shaw used Kokish to show hearts and clubs, but having found no fit, Dey jumped to the no-trump slam.

The heart lead, confirming five tricks in that suit, gave declarer some hope. First, he tried to drop the ♠Q and, when that chance failed to produce the good, he hoped to split the clubs. When they did not break 3-3, declarer could do little more than cash his ten top tricks and concede the rest. N/S -200 and 13 IMPs to INDIA GLYCOL, who get their noses back in front.

Moving into the second half of the set, one North had to answer the second of this week’s problems…

When Dey showed a minimum weak two in spades, one has to wonder what hand North was hoping to find opposite on which slam would be good. Perhaps KQJxxx/Jxx/x/xxx and now slam would be on the heart finesse or KJxxxx/Kxx/x/xxx, when it would be on the trump finesse and a 3-2 break. It seems to me that slam can never be better than 50% once partner shows a minimum, even if you find him with the magic singleton diamonds. And, remember Hamman’s Second Law of Bidding – “If you need me to hold a specific hand, assume I don’t have it.”

To my mind, North should simply raise 3♠ to game. Shaw moved forward with the club cue-bid and heard his partner show a diamond control. Now he rolled out Blackwood, found one key card opposite, and just managed to stop at the five-level when the ♠Q was also missing.

Kaustabh Nandi led a heart, so declarer rose with the ace, hoping to draw trumps and later pitch his heart loser on dummy’s fourth club winner. Cashing the ♠A brought both good and bad news – the spade finesse was working, but the 4-0 break meant that East still had a trump trick. Declarer drew three rounds of trumps and then played a club, needing East to follow to four rounds (so he could pitch his heart loser and still be in dummy to lead a diamond to the king). No dice!

Sagnik Roy (left) ruffed the first round of clubs and cashed the ♦A and the ♥K for one down. N/S -100.

The auction at this table started with a natural weak 2♠ opening by Sandip Datta. North also began with a 2NT inquiry here, but Sukamal Das intervened with a 3♥ overcall from the East seat. What is the difference between South bidding 3♠ and passing here? Are you sure that your regular partner would give the same answer to that question? For me, 3♠ should be the weakest action and pass should show something extra, but it is a matter for partnership understanding.

When Rana Roy (right) raised to 4♥, Gopinath Manna decided that his hand was now worth a jump to slam. Really? With partner very likely to hold a singleton heart based on the opponents bidding, are the odds not now very high that he will hold two or three low diamonds? Also, with the opponents bidding to 4♥ on not many values and without even good holdings in their own suit, are not bad breaks almost assured?

Das decided that his spade holding justified a double of slam, and right he was too. West here also led a heart and declarer won with the ♥A. When his next move was a spade to the king, he was in deep trouble. He managed to make nine tricks: N/S -800 and 12 IMPs to TORNATAE meant the third lead change of the stanza so far,

When the final deal of the set arrived at the table, TORNATAE was winning the set 42-21 and thus the match by 13 IMPs, 74-61. Again, the choice of opening bid proved critical…

Manna opened the North hand with 1♣ and then showed a strong heart raise with his jump to 3♦. Perhaps Das was put off by his diamond holding after East’s double but, with good trumps and a diamond control, his jump to 4♥ seems rather timid. Perhaps a raise to game via a 4♦ cue-bid would better reflect the value of his hand. However, I cannot argue with the success of his actions, as the mirror shape meant that slam was a very poor prospect.

Declarer duly lost a diamond and a spade: N/S +650.

I see people opening balanced 19-count hands 2NT fairly often, and I have never understood why. Bidding over 2NT openings is not a strong part of any system, so widening the range does not seem the right thing to do. On this deal, it was almost inevitable that South would drive to slam once he located the 4-4 heart fit.

With the contract played from the North side, there was no opening lead to let the slam through. Sagnik Roy opened the ♦Q. Declarer won with the ♦A, drew trumps, eliminated clubs and then exited with his diamond. However, it was not difficult for the defenders to arrange things so that the player holding the ♠Q did not win the second round of diamonds. East won with the ♦J and exited with a spade through dummy’s jack, and thus the defenders had to score a spade trick at the end. N/S -100 and 13 IMPs to INDIA GLYCOL.

TORNATAE won the stanza 42-34, and thus the match was tied at 74-74 going into the final 12-board set.

We will be back soon with the highlights from that final stanza.