This is our final visit to the Australian National Open Teams final. The two surviving teams are LU (Charlie Lu, Peter Gill, Liam Milne, James Coutts, Tony Nunn and Nabil Edgtton) and SPOONER (Andrew Spooner, Philip Markey, Mike Doecke, Will Jenner-O'Shea, Shane Harrison and Matt Smith). The format is a 120-board match played over two days and eight 15-board stanzas.

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

What action do you take?

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

What action, if any, do you take?

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

What action do you take?

At the end of our last visit, we left the final at the midway point with LU holding a 33-IMP advantage (158-125) with 60 boards remaining. The opening stanza of the second day was a wild affair, with plenty of big swings from which to choose. I picked out this early deal, on which both South players had to answer the first of the problems above.

There is no ideal bid on this South hand but, when you compare it to the alternatives (Double? 3♣?), the 2NT bid chosen by Tony Nunn (left) seems to be the best of a bad lot. Nabil Edgtton moved forward with Stayman but, when Nunn denied a major, he did not think he had enough to venture beyond 3NT.

Phil Markey led the ♥K, so declarer was soon claiming the obvious 11 tricks. N/S +660. With 6♦ cold and 6♣ on the spade guess, which side was happiest with this result?

Shane Harrison started with a double on the South hand. Liam Milne’s gentle raise to 3♠ perhaps offered Matt Smith a way out, as he could have started with a responsive double. Whilst perhaps not optimum, the 4♥ bid that Smith chose certainly doesn’t qualify as stupid, but that adjective certainly could be applied to the contract. Well spotted by Liam Milne in the West seat that this was not the time to double.

Declarer managed to make five tricks in his 4-2 fit: N/S -500 the hard way and 15 IMPs to LU. Not a bad return for a missed slam!

Both North players were faced with the second of this week’s problems on our next deal. An aggressive bid from one North player in competition made life difficult for his opponents and deserved to earn a swing for his team. However, teammates threatened to undo the good work…

Nabil Edgtton (right) came in with a jump to 3♥ on the North hand, and Andrew Spooner opted to make what he obviously intended as a takeout double.

Should double be for takeout? Would pass (clearly forcing) not effectively be a takeout double? Would you not want to be able to make a penalty double with a very strong balanced hand? Playing double as takeout here seems to allow your opponents to push you around with impunity. Indeed, on this particular layout, things would have worked much better had East just bid his long suit.

What can Phil Markey do with the West hand after 4♥? His double looks right to me. After all, do you really want to encourage partner to bid at this level? Surely not.

The defence began with a top diamond, and Spooner then switched to the ♣A and a second club. Declarer drew the missing trump, ruffed his last club, and played a spade to the jack, leaving East endplayed to give declarer a ninth trick. E/W +200.

After the same start, Matt Smith came in only with a 2♥ overcall on the North cards. At this level, it was clear for James Coutts (left) to bid his diamonds. Harrison did what he could by jumping to game, but Liam Milne had an easy 5♦ bid now.

Having done the good work and reached their game despite the opponents’ pre-emption, East/West were booked to gain 9 IMPs courtesy of their teammates excellent result at the other table. When Coutts raised himself to slam, he risked undoing all that good work.

Had Milne shown any values at any point in this auction? Coutts had already forced to game. What reason was there to expect that partner would take care of enough losers to justify bidding slam? As it happens, 6♦ was not far from an even proposition, and today was declarer’s lucky day.

Coutts ruffed the opening heart lead and drew trumps ending in dummy. He then tested clubs. Had clubs broken 3-2 with the king onside, declarer would have been home, as he would be able to eliminate clubs before playing spades. If South won a spade trick, he would be endplayed. When the club finesse lost, that was declarer’s main chance gone. He still had one small chance – finding North with both the missing spade honours. With both spade finesses working, declarer was able to make his twelve tricks. E/W +1370 and 15 IMPs to LU.

LU won an explosive opening stanza 67-43, so they led by 57 IMPs (225-168) with three sets remaining.

There were plenty more fireworks in the next stanza. On this deal, one team pushed the limits in the auction just too far at both tables, with very expensive consequences…

Mike Doecke chose to upgrade the East hand to 17-19 balanced although, to me, it looks like a perfectly average 15-count. The upshot was that Will O’Shea drove to a no-play slam.

One thing worth noting about the auction is that this pair (apparently) switch the meaning of 3♥ and 4♣ after responder has shown hearts and clubs via a transfer sequence. That makes sense, as it keeps the auction below 3NT when opener wants to agree clubs, allowing responder to offer the nine-trick game when he has only marginal values. So, Doecke’s 4♣ agreed hearts, but O’Shea’s jump to 6♣ suggests that he did not know this was the case. Playing clever conventional methods that gain tiny margins is all well and good, but those advantages are hugely offset if only one of you remembers them. That’s how expensive accidents happen.

No matter how declarer played the suit, South’s heart spots ensured the defence two trump tricks against 6♥. N/S +100.

Perhaps East/West would have flattened the board in the replay by also bidding to slam, but they were offered an alternative…

The auction here was short, but not so sweet if you were sitting in the North/South seats. There are two points worth mentioning. I have played things such as mini no-trump, so I understand the attraction, but 9-13 is simply too wide a range for responder to be able to bid with any degree of accuracy. Much more important, whether you are playing 9-13, 10-12 or 12-14, any method that does not allow you to play in 1NT-doubled is seriously flawed. Yes, 1NT-doubled may not be a great contract on this sort of layout, but it is clearly better than having to go to the two-level with no fit. Put simply, you are just adding 300 to the penalty. To justify going up a level, the contract has to play two tricks better. Here, declarer loses eleven tricks whether he plays in 1NT or in 2♦, so does it not make sense to play at the lowest possible level?

Here, South’s pass forced opener to redouble, so playing in 1NT-doubled is not possible in their methods. The defence started with two rounds of trumps, a spade through dummy, and two more rounds of trumps. The defenders scored four diamonds, three spades, three clubs and one heart: down six. N/S -1400 and 17 IMPs to LU. LU won the sixth stanza 38-25, boosting their advantage to 70 IMPs with two sets remaining. If there was to be a comeback, it would need to start soon. Both players had to decide on a course of action on the last of this week’s problems…

It’s a question of flexibility. If you start with a double on this East hand, you are virtually obliged to bid spades at your second turn, as Smith did here. Is this hand good enough for this auction? Would you not be much happier if you had started with a 1♠ overcall and could then double 3♣ to show your extra values? With a fairly clear picture of your hand, it seems that partner will be well placed to make a sensible decision after that start.

The next question is, with the auction having gone as shown in the diagram, should Harrison raise to game? Doubling and then bidding a suit at the three-level should show a hand with close to nine tricks (probably about a king better than this actual East hand). With three trumps and an ace, is the West hand really not worth a raise?

The cards lay fairly well for declarer so, even though Smith dropped a trick in the play, he still made a comfortable 10 tricks. E/W +170. Could East/West get to game at the other table?

Although James Coutts did start with a 1♠ overcall on the East hand, they still didn’t manage to bid their game. However, non-vulnerable, they didn’t need to!

Had 3♣ been passed back to Coutts, I have no doubt that he would have doubled back in. Whether Liam Milne (right) would then have jumped to 4♠, we will never know. I will leave you to decide which adjective (brave, imaginative, foolhardy or something else) best describes North’s 3NT bid here. Suffice it to say that it was not a success.

The defenders took six spades, two diamonds and one heart before declarer gained the lead. Doecke claimed the last four tricks: E/W +500 the hard way and 8 IMPs to LU.

LU won the penultimate stanza 36-26 and thus took an 80-IMP lead into the final set. The last set was a debacle as the trailing team attempted to close the huge deficit. They had some successes, but plenty of failures too, and LU won the stanza 73-48.

LU won the match by a margin of 105 IMPs, 372-267. Congratulations to the 2023 Australian National Open Teams champions, Charlie Lu, Peter Gill, Liam Milne, James Coutts, Tony Nunn and Nabil Edgtton.We are now heading for Atlanta, and the U.S. Fall Nationals. We will arrive in time for the two-day Swiss qualifying stage of the Soloway Trophy. With plenty of world class players from both sides of the Atlantic in the field, stay tuned for the best of the action from one of the most exciting events on the calendar.