BBO Vugraph - Soloway KO Teams - the quarter-finals

Vugraph #210

Welcome back to Phoenix, Arizona and the 2022 U.S. Fall Nationals. Last week we saw the carnage of the early knockout rounds of the Soloway KO Teams, with the top three seeds all being eliminated. This week, we’ll concentrate on the best of the action from four riveting quarter-final matches.

As usual, we start with a couple of problems for you. Firstly, an opening lead. With both sides vulnerable, you are sitting North and hear the following auction:

What do you lead?

Next, with neither side vulnerable, you are South holding:

Do you open the bidding?

While you think about those, we start with the conquers of #1 NICKELL in the round of 16, with #17 FELDMAN taking on #8 ROSENTHAL. As it was presented as a problem, it will come as no surprise to learn that a large number of IMPs hinged on the opening lead problem posed above.

An experienced campaigner, I am sure that Swedish star Peter Bertheau (left) has read every book ever written on how to bid 6-0-0-7 hands. 

Of course, you would prefer not to reach a grand slam needing two finesses, and this one was not even that good. Looking at all four hands, you can see that 7♣ is unbeatable, thanks to the fortunate lie in the black suits. However, the grand slam in spades also needs an entry to declarer’s hand, and Aaron Silverstein’s unfortunate choice of the 6 in response to the lead problem provided one for Daniel Zagorin. 

Zagorin won the diamond lead in his hand and ran the J successfully (following with the 10 from dummy). A second round of trumps collected North’s king, and declarer then crossed back to his hand via the carefully preserved 3. The appearance of North’s king on the first round of clubs then enabled the 2011 Bermuda Bowl finalist to claim the remaining tricks: a spectacular if rather fortunate E/W +2210. 

Of course, you cannot really complain about the opponents’ luck when your teammates reach the same poor slam, and North at the other table faced a very similar lead problem:

Oren Toledano (right) collected a silver medal at his first international event, representing Israel in the Schools Teams at the 2013 European Youth Championships. Still in his 20s, he made his debut in the Israel Open team at the European Championships in Madeira earlier this year.

At this table, the Norwegians arrived briefly in the unbeatable grand slam, but Boye Brogeland ‘corrected’ to spades, leaving Toledano with the same lead problem. His choice of the A forced Brogeland to ruff. Stranded in dummy, declarer’s only chance was to find the ♠K singleton, so Brogeland laid down the ♠A. When the king failed to make an appearance, he was one down: E/W +100 and a massive 20 IMPs to FELDMAN.

This board was essentially the difference in the first set, which finished with FELDMAN ahead 54-36. ROSENTHAL recovered 14 IMPs in the second stanza, and thus trailed 76-80 at the midway point. The final two sets were virtually flat: FELDMAN won the third 27-26 and ROSENTHAL the fourth by the exact same score. Thus, FELDMAN survived a nail-biting finish to win by 4 IMPs (133-129) and claim a place in the semi-finals. 

Let’s now take a look at the match that appeared to be the tie of the round, with the two highest original seeds remaining facing off head-to-head, #4 LEBOWITZ against #5 STREET. STREET led 27-10 after the first stanza, and extended their advantage in the second, not in small part thanks to this deal:

Possession of the ♣10-9 means that the defenders cannot defeat 3NT – if they lead clubs, declarer makes 1♣, 3 and 5. If they do not give declarer a club trick, he has time to set up his spades. However, bidding to the nine-trick game is not so easy, and it is hard to criticize Paul Street for choosing to play in the known eight-card (or bigger) spade fit. 

A speculative lead of the ♣J would have enabled the defenders to take the first six tricks (two clubs, a club ruff, a heart ruff, the ♠A and a second heart ruff). Larry Lebowitz’s quite reasonable choice of the 2 at least put the defence on the road to a plus score. Adam Grossack ruffed and returned a trump to his partner’s ace. A club switch now would still have beaten the contract by three but, of course, Lebowitz gave his partner a second heart ruff. The ♣A was then the fourth trick for the defence: N/S +100. 

At this table, the question was not which game to play, but “How many spades?” Zack Grossack decided that his hand was too strong for just a simple raise to game after the transfer, so he advanced with a 4 splinter/cue-bid. Michael Rosenberg cooperated by showing his heart control, and then jumped to slam when Grossack ventured beyond game with a club cue-bid.

Curiously, with game in spades failing in the other room, getting to slam could easily not be disastrous on this layout – just a couple of extra 100s. But that all changed when Poland’s twice European junior champion Piotr Zatorksi (left) found a double on the way out.

Israel’s Ron Pachtman led the 6. Not taking any chances, Zatroski ruffed and laid down the ♣A. He then played a second club to his partner’s jack and dummy’s king. A trump went to South’s ace and Pachtman gave his partner a second heart ruff. The ♣Q completed declarer’s misery: E/W +1100 and 14 IMPs to STREET.

STREET won the second set 29-25 to lead by 21 at the halfway point of the match. When they added another 26 IMPs to that lead in the third quarter, the match looked done and dusted, but LEBOWITZ had other ideas. The trailing team dominated the final stanza, winning it 42-2, but it was just too little, too late as STREET managed to cling on to win the match by 7 IMPs, 94-87. They will play FELDMAN in one semi-final.

#19 COPE had seen off #3 BERNAL in the Round of 16. #27 CAYNE, the lowest-ranked of the eight quarter-finalists, had beaten #6 HANS and #11 MULTON to reach this stage. The first half of the match was nip-and-tuck, COPE leading by 5 IMPs after the first set and CAYNE ahead by 3 IMPs (79-76) after two. The third stanza was to prove critical. 

On this deal early in the set, both South players had to decide whether the South hand constituted an opening bid as Dealer with neither side vulnerable.

I suppose it is a matter of style: the South hand is only a rather ‘quacky’ 10-count but, with that shape, I cannot imagine passing it in this position. The Dutch are rarely shy in the bidding, so it came as no surprise to see Danny Molenaar open, but that decision was to prove disastrous on this layout. 

Finn Kolesnik (right) overcalled 1NT and Tim Verbeek introduced his spade suit, but Ishmael Del'monte was able to get his diamonds into the auction via a 3♣ transfer. Molenaar did his best, jumping to game, but Kolesnik had enough to bid 5 and Verbeek, predictably, tabled the ♣9 as his opening lead. 

After the opening bid, declarer was probably going to get the hand right anyway, but now it was plain sailing. Kolesnik captured South’s J with the king, drew trumps in three rounds ending in dummy, and advanced the 8. Whether South covered or not did not matter: one of dummy’s major-suit losers was destined to disappear on declarer’s fourth club winner. E/W +400.

Kevin Rosenberg (left) made his international debut collecting a bronze medal from the Junior Teams at the 2013 World Youth Open Championships in Atlanta. In a glittering career as a junior, he has won four World titles, most recently collecting gold from the Under-26 Teams at the World Youth Championships in Salsomaggiore earlier this year. 

Showing remarkable restraint for one so young, Rosenberg did not open the South hand. West got the ball rolling with 1♣ and N/S pre-empted to 4♠ by the time the auction returned to Bart Nab, who showed his extra values with a double. Bob Drijver removed to the same 5 contract played at the first table but, with little information to guide him, the Dutchman had no realistic chance when Rosenberg opened the ♣5. 

Can you hand-on-heart say that you would have put the 10 in at trick one? Of course not. Drijver was not clairvoyant either: when he rose with the A, his goose was just about cooked. He drew trumps in three rounds and led a spade towards dummy, but Rosenberg rose with the A and led the Q. Declarer won with the K and pitched his club loser on the K. Ruffing a club to hand, Drijver took his last chance, leading a heart to the king. When that lost, he was one down: E/W -50 and 10 IMPs to COPE.

COPE piled on the IMPs – racking up 64 of them before CAYNE registered their first plus of the set on the penultimate deal. COPE led by 52 with a set to play and held on comfortably enough to win by 37 IMPs (167-130).  

That leaves us with the match between #7 FLEISHER and #15 GOODMAN, the latter having seen off #2 GRUE to reach this stage. The first stanza finished in a 31-31 tie, but FLEISHER won the next two sets to lead by 31 IMPs, 88-57, going into the final 15 boards. But, GOODMAN was not quite ready to throw in the towel. They started with a 12-IMP swing on the first deal of the last set, Lair-Passell making 5-X with three top losers on the opening lead whilst their teammates were losing -100 in a partscore. A couple of boards later, came:

Chip Martel opened 1NT and Simon de Wijs interfered with 2, showing a one-suited hand with either major. Martin Fleisher advanced with a 3♣ transfer showing diamonds, and then asked for key cards with 4 over Martel’s 3NT. The three aces and the Q just about accounted for Martel’s 15-17 HCP, so Fleisher settled for 6NT.

Declarer won the spade lead with the king, cashed a couple of high diamonds, and played a club to the jack. When the finesse won, declarer claimed his contract, presumably having miscounted his tricks. E/W +`1440.

Of course, you do not want to reach a grand slam on a finesse:

Mike Passell (right) is one of the most experienced players on the North American tournament circuit. He made his international debut collecting a silver medal at the 1977 Bermuda Bowl in Manila. Two years later, in Rio, he went one better, earning his first World championship title. He won the Transnational Teams at the 2001 World Championships in Paris, and the Seniors Teams in Bali in 2013. More recently, he won the Seniors Pairs with Marc Jacobus at the 2018 World Championships in Orlando, and finished second in the Seniors Teams at the World Championships in Wroclaw earlier this year.

Passell opened 1NT and Mark Lair responded with a 2NT transfer, showing diamonds. Passell’s 3 showed a fit, so Lair asked for key cards with 4 and then jumped to the grand slam when Passell showed the missing three aces.

As we have already established, 13 tricks can be made by taking the club finesse, but Passell has not won so many major events in his career by relying on good fortune. He won the trump lead and played four rounds of the suit, pitching a heart from his hand, before cashing the ♠K. Then came the ♣K and a club to the ace. After discarding dummy’s remaining club on the ♠A, Passell ruffed a club, North discarding a spade. When he then cashed dummy’s last trump, South had to keep the ♣Q, so he had to reduce to a doubleton heart. Away went the ♣J from declarer’s hand, it’s job now done. That left North with no good discard from ♠Q/Q82. He kept his high spade and thus declarer made the thirteenth trick with dummy’s 10. E/W +2140 and another 12 IMPs to GOODMAN, trailing now by only 6 IMPs with 11 deals remaining. The game was, as Mr Holmes might perhaps have put it, once again afoot!

GOODMAN had the best of the next few deals and, with just four boards to play, they had opened an 11-IMP lead. FLEISHER gained 2 IMPs on Board 27 and 28 was flat. FLEISHER then gained another 8 IMPs on Board 29, and a single IMP on the final deal, tying the match at 113-113. Those watching live on BBO VuGraph settled in for an 8-board tie-break. 

After six boards of the extra set, GOODMAN led 12-7. However, 7-IMP swings in favour of FLEISHER on each of the final two deals ended the gallant comeback, and FLEISHER advanced to the semi-finals with a 134-125 overtime win. 

The semi-final line-up is #5 STREET vs #17 FELDMAN and #7 FLEISHER vs #19 COPE. We will be back next week with the best of the action from those two semi-final matches. 

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