By Bryan Senior

The ninth APBF (Asia Pacific Bridge Federation) Open Congress was held from May 18-27 at the Montien Hotel, Surawong, Bangkok, just across the road from the famous, or should that be infamous, Patpong adult entertainment area and night market.

The Montien has been hosting national and zonal championships for many years and has proved to be an excellent venue, but this year there was a problem ‒ the entry was substantially bigger than expected, meaning that there was insufficient room to permit the events to be played with screens. Well, the lack of screens for an important event would horrify some, for whom security is a major issue, but against that the atmosphere is more relaxed and sociable when all four players can see each other and interact at all times.

May is the off-season for tourism to Thailand due to the weather ‒ there were days where the temperature reached 35 degrees, and there was rain on more days than not, with that rain sometimes heavy and prolonged. But Thai food is excellent and both food and accommodation are cheap by Western standards. I would say that there are plenty of things to see in Bangkok, but that would have required spending extra days there as the 9-00 am starts put paid to any prospect of sight-seeing during the tournament.

There was a one-session warm-up pairs the day before the congress really got underway, then a one-day pairs championships, which was played as a Swiss of three-board rounds with up to date pairings. The first round of that was painfully slow but visions of a midnight finish quickly vanished as the organisation got into its stride.

The main event was the teams, with a five-day qualifier to semi-finals and final, each played over one day. The qualifiers were 12-board matches, the KOs 3 x 16-boards, with a mixture of round Robins and Swiss to give a sensible number of matches according to the different size of field in the different series. For the Open, that meant one complete round Robin comprising 24 matches plus one sit out.

There were 25 teams in the Open, 11 Ladies teams, 20 Mixed, 10 Senior, 8 U26, 5 U26 Girls (the two U26 events were combined), 10 U21 and 7 U16. 54 teams continued on into the two-day Consolation Swiss after failing to make the semi-finals of their event. There were also 94 Open Pairs and 82 Youth Pairs.

The teams events included players from 18 countries ‒ Australia, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, China, Hong Kong China, Macau China, Chinese Taipei, England, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore,Thailand, USA.

China everywhere…

The winners of the various events were as follows:

Consolation Swiss: Suicide Squad (Bangladesh/Thailand)

As can be seen, China dominated the tournament, with six gold medals, and there were several silver and bronze to go with those. The 25-team Open series included seven Chinese teams, six of whom ended the qualification stage lying first, and third through seventh, with just one team never being in contention and finishing fifteenth.

… but New Zealand wins the Open Teams

The Open Teams is, of course, always the biggest prize and this one eluded the grasp of China, with ECSY Bridge Open Team being defeated in the final by TISLEVOLL (New Zealand) by 94-54 in the 48-board final. These two deals helped TISLEVOLL to an 83-34 lead after 32 boards, and a quiet third set offered little opportunity for the Chinese team to fight back.

For ECSY, Ni Kun opened the East hand with a 3♣ pre-empt and Leon Meier overcalled 3♥. When Wu Xiaobing made a penalty double, the New Zealanders were heading for –800, only for Ni to come to their rescue by running back to 4♣, where he was left to play. Ni had no business bidding 4♣, of course, and bidding in this fashion basically means that you think you have made the wrong bid in the first place.

Despite the two trump losers, 4♣. Clubs should make, of course, but Ni added to his crimes by going down. Meier led the king of diamonds to dummy's ace and Ni played a club. Tislevoll won the bare ace and returned a diamond, which Ni ruffed, bringing down the jack and establishing dummy's ten. Ni played king and another club, Meier winning the queen and playing the queen of spades. Now, rather than cash his 10 sure tricks, Ni won the ♠K and ran the ♠10, losing to the jack. The ♥A was the setting trick; –100.

For TISLEVOLL, Ashley Bach opened 4♣, Sun Xudong overcalled 4♥, and Nick Jacob's double ended the auction. Jacob led his club to dummy's ace and Sun led a spade to the queen and ace. Jacob returned a spade, Bach winning the ten then playing the king, which Sun ruffed. Next he played the queen of clubs, which Jacob ruffed with the ten, and he now played ace and another diamond for Bach to ruff. There were still two hearts to be lost, so that was down four for –1100 and 15 IMPs to TISLEVOLL.

For ECSY, Jin Ke opened 4♠ and Bach overcalled 4NT for take-out. When Jacob responded 5♣ to that, Bach guessed to raise to slam. There was nothing to the play, with two inescapable losers, so down one for –100.

Was that a good result or a bad result for the New Zealanders? Well, in the other room, Tislevoll opened 1♠ and, when Li Jianwei doubled, Meier jumped to 3♥, showing a raise to 3♠ with high-card strength in spades (he would have bid 3♠ with only weak spades). With his extreme distribution, Tislevoll jumped to 4♠, and Li bid 5♣. When Tislevoll came again with 5♠, how could Li not double? Well, the beautiful double fit meant that Tislevoll had 11 easy tricks and that was worth +850 and 13 IMPs to TISLEVOLL.

Photo credit: Chaiyut Assaneeyawong, Napatsawan Supawan, Deddy Wirata