Most of the biggest tournaments in Poland form two yearly ”Grand Prix” series ‒ one for pairs, and one for teams. Each of those series consists of about 15 tournaments and concludes with a final in December for the top of the classification. Sometimes we have both pairs and teams GP tournaments in one congress (for example teams Friday/Saturday, pairs Sunday), and sometimes a congress contains only one of them. In the case of Jurek Greś memorial played in Warsaw last weekend (30.05 – 2.06), it was Teams GP and some other lower-ranked pairs tournaments.

Jurek Greś (1953-2021) worked in the office of the Polish Bridge Union for about half of his life, starting in mid-80s. He was one of the best tournament directors in Poland and sometimes worked also as a bridge teacher. I remember him as someone appreciated by everyone. A few months after his sudden death, the first edition of a memorial tournament was organized. This year was the third edition.

41 teams took part in the main event. After qualification played on Thursday (9 rounds, 6 boards each), the top 16 teams advanced to the knock-out phase with 32-board matches.

My team had little success, though we can be satisfied that the closest match played by the eventual winners, Group One Team, was against us ‒ but unfortunately, it was already in the round of 16.

Their team was composed of Michał Klukowski, the famous Polish/Swiss champion, playing with Wojciech Strzemecki, Wojciech Gaweł – Rafał Jagniewski ‒ half of our current national open team, and Maciej Hutyra ‒ Jeremi Stępiński, silver medalists of a recent Transnational Teams.

So you could expect their good result, though they were not the only world-class players in the field.

The key element of this bidding was to establish solid Diamonds, instead of longer Clubs. My teammates played 6 Clubs. After the hand, Michał Klukowski told them that in his opinion Gaweł and Jagniewski would bid the best contract of 7 Diamonds. He was right. During over ten years playing together, Gaweł and Jagniewski spent many hours working on their system and practicing bidding. This has effects on boards like this.

After a natural start of 1♦-2♣, Gaweł bid 2♥, which meant ”extras (15+) without 4-card major”. Jagniewski’s 2♠ was a waiting bid. Opener’s 3♦ was natural, denying Club support and showing a very good 6-card suit or seven Diamonds. Jagniewski raised Diamonds and the rest was quite easy. Let’s move to another match from the round of 16, between two good teams, WawaBrydż Junior and Olczyk.

Board 2 - Closed room

Let’s start with the problem, with only South and West hands visible, without players’ names.

Against 4 Hearts, you lead ♦A and then ♦K. Partner plays ♦8 (high card discouraging) and then ♦4, and declarer ♦9 and then ♦Q. How would you continue?

Does your partner have ♣A? If yes, he should have shown it by a preference signal, playing his lowest Diamond to the second trick. But it seemed that he had ♦8743 and played his middle card.

This middle card should suggest having the ♣Q. With no high Clubs, North should play ♦7. So I think the correct play is to attack Clubs at the third trick. At the table, South player opted for passive defense, playing a Spade.

Yes, East had three Diamonds, not two! It was a great play by declarer, Łukasz Witkowski, to drop the Queen, making it much harder for South to find the Club switch.

At the other table, North decided to double the Stayman (2♣), so 4 Hearts was set down one easily.

From the semifinal:

Click here to see the full board

Board 20

West players made different decisions regarding their opening bid. Michał Klukowski started with 2♦ multi, which resulted in his partner playing 2 Hearts just made. Mariusz Bartkowski opted for a constructive opening bid, so Bogdan Szulejewski forced to game and played 5 Diamonds down two (could be even down three after better defense). Theoretically, 5 Diamonds (especially not doubled) was quite a good sacrifice against North/South making 4 Spades but in the open room, it was hard for Jakub Bazyluk and Jarosław Stach to enter the bidding.

And now it’s time for two boards from the final match where Group One faced TSDB team.

Click here to see the full scoreboard

Board 11

Quite simple methods were sufficient for Maciej Hutyra and Jeremi Stępiński to reach the best contract. Stępiński bid a Splinter and after his partner’s positive reaction had only to check the aces.

By the way, you may be surprised by North’s double over 1♦. It was the "bi” double, a convention used by some (rare) Polish players. Such a double doesn’t promise support in all the side suits, and can be made with a two-suited hand. And the strength may be lower, especially if partner is a passed hand.

At the other table, East/West pair stopped in 6 Diamonds.

Board 15

A few boards later, Hutyra and Stępiński overbid to 6 Diamonds and had to go down. In the other room, Maria and Jerzy Boczar played a Moysian 4 Hearts. At first glance, this contract looks quite easy but with poor communications it’s not obvious how to play it.

After Jagniewski’s Heart lead, the declarer played three rounds of trumps ending in dummy  and continued with a Spade to the 10 and a Spade back to the King and Ace. Gaweł played ♣J to the Queen and King. The ending was:

The defenders had to be careful not to give their opponent a tenth trick. Jagniewski and Gaweł found the only way to beat the game: North played his last Spade and South underlead the ♦Q. You can check that the declarer cannot avoid losing a trick to ♦Q or ♣10.