Vugraph Deals #143

Marc Smith visits the early rounds of Event-X in the Alt New-Co 

The final event of the 2021 monthly Alt New-Co was dubbed, Event-X. Qualification for Group A was based on the performance of the teams throughout the year, and only SALVO and LEBOWITZ were missing from the ten highest-ranked teams. With four heat wins to their name, MOSS was the number one seed, but BLACK was the form team, having dominated the last two heats. The star-studded field would play a full round robin, and then an eighth round with opponents decided on Swiss basis. The remaining 14 teams, in Group B, would play an eight-match Swiss. 

As usual, we begin with some problems. Firstly, with both sides vulnerable, you are South holding: 

What action, if any, do you take?  

Next, with both sides vulnerable, you hold as South: 

What action, if any, do you take? 

Next, with both sides vulnerable, you are East with: 

What action, if any, do you take? 

Finally, with just your side vulnerable, you are sitting East holding: 

What action, if any, do you take? 

While you consider those, we start with the action in Round 1.  

Tom Townsend opened a natural weak two. David Bakhshi had a good hand, but not good enough to look for game on what looked like a misfit. Perhaps E/W can make 4♥, but getting there after this normal-looking start is not at all easy. The trumps split badly for declarer, but everything else was right, so Townsend emerged with nine tricks: E/W +140. 

The average player always likes to see experts with egg on their face, so the large crowd watching on BBO VuGraph at the other table no doubt enjoyed this deal. The Multi reared its ugly head with the result that the first of this week’s problems produced one of the costliest decisions during the entire annual Alt event. 

Alon Apteker had to start with a Multi on the East hand, and Peter Fredin’s 2♠ pass/correct response showed game interest opposite hearts but not facing a weak two in spades. When 2♠ was passed around to Thomas Charlsen, the inference that West was likely to hold a decent hand with short spades seems to have been lost. When he backed in with 3♣, the Norwegians were in trouble. It probably made no difference, but Thor Erik Hoftaniska’s 3NT bid was a case of jumping from the frying pan into the very heart of the fire. Accurate defence netted the defenders four hearts, three clubs, two spades and a diamond, leaving declarer with just three tricks: E/W +1400 and 17 IMPs to FREDIN. This helped the Swedes to the biggest victory of the round, 69-25 over DeBOTTON, and a place atop the early leaderboard. 

In Round 2, Board 10 generated a swing in two of the Group A matches, one in the play and one in the bidding. 

The young American pair bid uncontested to 5♦ and Gunnar Hallberg led his singleton club. Simon Hult won and returned a low club, ruffed by Hallberg and overruffed in dummy. After cashing the ♠A for a heart discard at trick 3, the only way for declarer to make the contract is to lead the ♠Q from dummy. When Jiang Gu instead led the ♠10, West covered with his now-singleton jack, and declarer could no longer come to eleven tricks. West eventually ended up with the long trump, and declarer finished two down: N/S -200. 

Tom Paske first represented England at junior level in 2007. He twice finished second in the Youngsters Teams at the World Youth Championships (in 2008 and 2010) and he collected a bronze medal from the Junior Pairs at the 2014 European Youth Championships. He became a European champion in 2019, winning the Open Teams at the European Transnational Championships. 

After a similar auction, Paske also declared the diamond game from the North seat. At this table, West won the opening club lead and switched to a heart. Paske took the ♥A and immediately ruffed a low spade. He then ruffed a club in dummy and cashed the ♠A. When he then continued with the ♠9 from dummy, West erred by pitching a heart rather than ruffing. Paske needed no second invitation: he threw the last heart from his hand. East won with the ♠K but could not stop declarer ruffing a heart in hand, drawing trumps, and claiming the rest of the tricks with dummy’s winning spades. N/S +600 and 13 IMPs to BLACK. 

Things were much more exciting in the match between DeBOTTON and VINITA, where both West players doubled the strong/artificial 2♣ opening to show clubs. At one table, South then had to decide what to do in the position set as a problem at the top of this article. 

Did you find the pass of 2♣-Redoubled on the South hand? No? You are not alone, as Norwegian ace Tor Helness also missed the chance to teach young Danish protégé Andreas Plejdrup to stay out of auctions in which he had no business. 2♣-XX would surely have made nine (+1160) or ten tricks (+1560). Alas for the Norwegians, it was the Danes who laughed last, as 4♠ had four unavoidable losers (one club, one heart and two trumps), so that was N/S -100.  

At this table, the not-so-young Artur Malinowski could not resist the urge either. Here too, North also redoubled (although neither the double nor the redouble were alerted/explained at this table). Here, Hemant Lall did not get the chance to ‘teach West a lesson’, as Janet DeBotton did the job for him. When she essayed  2♠, Lall must have thought Christmas had arrived early. DeBotton removed herself to her second suit, but Lall was never going to be talked out of doubling again. 3♥-X was not a happy spot for declarer. An extra trick got away in the play and she finished three down, not that -500 would have been much better. N/S +800 and 14 IMPs to VINITA. 

For DeBOTTON, it was their second thumping in two matches, going down 28-84 this time. Collecting almost the maximum VPs from the match carried VINITA to the top of the leaderboard after two matches. Their opponent in Round 3 was DONNER, who had started well, drawing with MOSS and recording a small victory over FREDIN. Late in the match, all East players had the ‘overcall or pass’ decision detailed in this week’s third problem hand: 

Brad Moss chose to remain silent on the East cards, which resulted in a difficult 2/1 auction for North/South. There are two styles for opener’s rebid after a game-forcing 2/1 response. In one, 2NT shows stoppers in the unbid suits and reverses show at least some extra values, leaving opener to rebid their major on all hands that do not meet the requirements for one of the alternatives. The other option is that rebidding the major shows a six-card suit, which means that opener has to bid 2NT with unstopped suits or bid a second suit (even if it is a reverse on minimum values). Both methods have their advantages and downsides. 

The latter method would have worked well on this deal, as opener could then rebid 3♣ after the 2♦ response. Vinita Gupta could not do that, though, so she had to rebid her suit. When Morten Bilde continued with 3♦, this presented another problem which, again, depends on systemic agreement. When there are two unbid suits, things are easy if you are able to bid both suits (after an auction such as 1♦-2♣-3♣-?). Opener can bid either major, so he bids the one in which he has values to suggest weakness in the other. In the auction at the table here, though, you can only bid one of the two unbid suits below 3NT. If you play 3♠ as asking for a spade stopper (better IMHO), this hand is easy. If, in your partnership, 3♠ would show a spade stopper and suggest club weakness, though, you have a problem. With no reason to assume that 4♥ was a playable alternative, Gupta guessed to take a shot at 3NT. Of course, Moss led a spade and defenders cashed the first five tricks: N/S -100. 

For the Danes, Emil Jepsen overcalled 1♠. Thereafter, wild horses could not have stopped Andreas Plejdrup making a pre-emptive raise to game. Choosing to defend was not a difficult decision for North/South, and they duly cashed their four top winners and took a diamond ruff to defeat the contract by two. N/S +500 and 12 IMPs to DONNER, whose 46-11 victory enabled them to replace their opponents at the top of the leaderboard. 

The Great Dealer produced a wild set of boards for Round 4. The last of this week’s bidding problems saw a number of East players in the hot seat on the final deal of the match: 

The auction began slowly but quickly gained momentum. The favourable vulnerability and four-card trump support may perhaps make a 5♦ bid look attractive on the North hand. Experience suggests, though, that sacrificing on balanced hands is seldom the right thing to do: even if the opponents can make their contract, the penalty often turns out to be higher than expected. The upside to making such bids, though, can be enormous if, as Peter Fredin did here, you manage to push the opponents overboard.  

Should Emil Jepsen take the push? “The five-level belongs to the opponents” is a mantra worth remembering. Is East here really worried that the opponents can actually make eleven tricks in diamonds? Can he be fairly sure that his side can make eleven in spades? If the answer to both of those questions is no, then bidding on is likely to be the wrong thing to do. Fredin led the ♣K and, although declarer appears to have only two losers, he simply does not have eleven tricks. Andrea Plejdrup ducked the first club, won the club continuation with the ace, and set about ruffing all three of his diamond losers in dummy. The problem, though, is that declarer’s only route back to his hand is by ruffing hearts. He eventually ran out of trumps and thus was never able to set up and score his second club trick. E/W -100. 

Marten Gustawsson reached the semi-finals of the Rosenblum Cup on his international debut in 1994. More recently, he was a member of the Swedish team that collected bronze medals at the 2021 European Champions Cup.  

Faced with the same problem as his young Danish counterpart, the experienced Swede passed North’s 5♦ bid around to his partner. Johan Sylvan had no problem at all, and his double ended the auction. Four top tricks and two trump winners for the defence added up to four down: E/W +800 and 14 IMPs to FREDIN, who collected maximum VPs from the match with a 97-11 blitz.  

Elsewhere, DONNER defeated BLACK 50-34 to hold on to first place, whilst a 70-34 victory over AMATEURS moved MOSS ominously up into the top three. With half of the eight rounds complete, these were the standings after two days of play: 

In Group B, the top teams are closely bunched, with SCORWAY (Scotland/Norway) leading HOK (Netherlands), JEDI KNIGHTS (England/Wales) and HARRIS (England/Bulgaria). 

We will be back next week with the best of the action from the remaining four matches.