Welcome to Phoenix, Arizona and the 2022 U.S. Fall Nationals. We start our coverage with the Soloway KO Teams, which began on the Friday following Thanksgiving with a two-day Swiss qualifying event. That reduced the original field of 53, with 32 teams advancing to the knockout stage.

The Swiss stage ended with GRUE (Joe Grue, Brad Moss, Roger Lee, Sheri Winestock, Marion Michielsen, Per-Ola Cullin) more than 35 VPs clear of second-place NICKELL (Nick Nickell, Ralph Katz, Steve Weinstein, Bobby Levin, Geoff Hampson, Eric Greco). In third place was an Australian/New Zealand foursome, HANS (Sartaj Hans, Peter Gill, Nabil Edgtton, Michael Whibley).

Those watching live on BBO VuGraph got their first look at the event as the knockout stage began. As usual, the early knockout rounds inevitably produced their share of upsets and nail-biting finishes, as well as a number of blowouts. GRUE continued their dominant start, winning their Round of 32 match by an even 100 IMPs. Perhaps the biggest upset was the 188-93 defeat of ZIMMERMANN (Pierre Zimmerman, Piotr Gawrys, Michal Klukowski, Sjoert Brink, Seb Drijver, Michal Nowosadzki) by NARASIMHAN (Carlos Pellegrini, Maximo Crusizio, Vesa Fagerlund, Kauko Koistinen) from USA/Argentina/Finland.

The highest-ranked seed to lose in the Round of 32 was #6 HANS, who went down 156-137 to CAYNE (Patricia Cayne, Dano de Falco, Tim Verbeek, Danny Molenaar, Bart Nab, Bob Drijver). A couple of top seeds made it through to the last 16 by only single-figure margins: #1 NICKELL beating the Canadian/US team captained by John Carruthers by 114-105 and #5 STREET surviving with a 118-112 win against Marcel Verharegen’s Dutch/Danish/Italian/French combination.

We start our coverage with action from the Round of 32 but, as usual, first, some problems. We begin this week with an opening lead. With neither side vulnerable, you are South holding:

What do you lead?

Next, with only your opponents vulnerable, you are sitting in the East seat with:

What is your plan? What action, if any, do you take?

Finally, with only your opponents vulnerable, you are sitting West as the Dealer with these cards:

Do you open the bidding and, if so, with what?

If you pass, South opens a 15-17 in fourth seat. What action, if any, do you then take?

While you mull those over, we start in the opening stanza of the match between GRUE and CARMICHAEL.

Per-Ola Cullin opened a natural 2♣ for GRUE’s Swedish contingent, and North/South quickly reached 4♠. Cullin bid a fifth club and North doubled on the way out. South led a spade and declarer immediately claimed twelve tricks, one of his heart losers going on dummy’s fourth diamond winner. E/W +680.

At the other table, Canadian and USA international Sheri Winestock held the South cards, and she heard the auction shown in the lead problem at the top of this article.

East opened a natural 1♣ and, here too, North/South were in 4♠ by the time the auction came back to the opener. Adam Kaplan also essayed a fifth club but, at this table, Arthur Gong decided that he had enough to raise to slam on the West cards. Roger Lee doubled on the North hand, and now it was up to Winestock (left) to find the winning lead.

Reasoning that her partner’s double should have Lightner implications, Winestock immediately ruled out a black suit. Her choice of the ♥Q was exactly what Roger Lee wanted, and he overtook and cashed his side’s second winner in the suit. E/W -100 and 13 IMPs to GRUE. They led by 43-24 after the first stanza and eventually marched on into the Round of 16 with an emphatic victory by 171-71.

#28 VERHAEGEN came into the final stanza of their match against #5 STREET with a 13-IMP lead. With just two boards left in the match, the Europeans still led 112-98. Then came this:

This match was a truly international affair, with four European nations represented in the VERHAEGEN team, and the STREET team containing players from USA, Canada, Italy, Israel and Poland.

Ron Pachtman (right) made his debut in the Israeli Open team at the 2004 European Championships. He was a member of the winning French/USA/Israel foursome in the Open Teams at the 2007 European Transnational Championships, and reached the Bermuda Bowl quarter-finals representing Israel in 2011. More recently, he won the Open Teams at the 2016 European Winter Games.

On this deal, Pachtman started by responding with an artificial 2♣ game-force. Both his 2NT and Piotr Zatorski’s 3NT were alerted, although the VuGraph records do not have any explanations. Pachtman’s 4♦ was clearly a cue-bid agreeing hearts, and Zatorski showed his minimum by retreating to 4♥. Pachtman pressed on with Blackwood, discovered that all of the key-cards were present but, when he tried again with 5♠, Zatroski denied having anything useful to show in either of the minors. The key is North’s spade holding, which had not been revealed in the auction, but where was Zatorki’s opening bid if he had nothing in the minors. Pachtman took the bull by the horns and raised to the grand slam.

Zatorski won the opening diamond lead and was able to claim once the trumps behaved. An impressive N/S +2210. If N/S at the other table stopped in 6♥, that would produce a 13-IMP swing and leave STREET trailing by just a single IMP with one board remaining in the match,

At the other table, both teams were represented by their Italian pairings:

This use of 2♣ as an artificial game-force is becoming ever more popular, but this deal perhaps offers a salutary lesson for those who use this method. If you play a detailed relay system of responses to 2♣, all well and good, but if you do not, I fail to see how starting with 2♣ can be better than agreeing hearts immediately using something more traditional such as Jacoby 2NT. (Improving on the traditional responses to Jacoby, seems like a far more useful application of resources BTW.)

At his second turn, Francesco Mazzadi could, presumably, have agreed hearts with a simple raise to the three-level. Instead, he chose to start showing controls with a 2♠ bid. It is unclear why Gabriele Zanasi did not raise spades to describe his hand, but his jump to 3NT presumably showed his minimum opening. Undeterred, Mazzadi continued showing controls with 4♣. Again, Zanasi showed no interest, just rebidding his hearts. When Mazzadi then bid 4♠, is it so obvious to North that he is not facing a hand with 4-6 or 5-6 in the black suits? It patently was not clear to Zanasi, as he produced dummy.

It was unlucky, perhaps (although some would say ‘fitting’), to find trumps breaking 6-1, so that even game was too high in spades. Having said that, even scoring N/S +620 would still have cost 17 IMPs. With 4♠ going down by a trick, that was N/S -100 and a massive 20 IMPs to STREET, which gave them a 6-IMP lead going into the final deal of the match. The last board was flat, so STREET emerged with a victory by 118-112. They advance to the Round of 16, where they will play Richard Plackett’s Anglo-Norwegian team, conquerors of #12 LEVINE in the opening knockout round.

If there weren’t enough upsets for you in the Round of 32, the second day of knockout matches saw the demise of the top three seeds. #1 NICKELL went down to #17 FELDMAN (Jason Feldman, Daniel Zagorin, Peter Bertheau, Oren Toledano, Ami Zamir, Simon Ekenberg). NICKELL led throughout the match and went into the final set ahead by 9 IMPs, but FELDMAN emerged with victory by 126-121. #2 GRUE trailed from an early stage and ended up losing by 90 IMPs (156-66) against #15 GOODMAN (Andy Goodman, Mike Passell, Mark Lair, Bauke Muller, Simon de Wijs). #3 BERNAL (Francisco Bernal, Miguel Villas-Boas, Antonio Sementa, Alfredo Versace) lost 180-123 to #14 COPE (Simon Cope, Ishmael Del’Monte, Finn Kolesnik, Kevin Rosenberg).

In the second set of the GRUE-v-GOODMAN match, both East players were faced with a variation of this week’s first bidding problem.

Simon de Wijs chose to overcall in his semi-solid six-card minor. With partner’s third-seat ‘green’ pre-empt very wide-ranging, Per-Ola Cullin passed at his first turn, and then had to make a decision when Marion Michielsen reopened with a double. With five trumps, a potential defensive value in clubs, and a partner who has suggested spades, would you consider doing anything other than passing?

Having made that ‘easy’ decision, would you then have been up to finding the trump lead needed to legitimately beat the contract? Nor was Cullin, who understandably opened the ♥K against 5♦-X.

Not that playing 5♦ is any easier than defending against it. To ensure eleven tricks, declarer must immediately play four rounds of clubs after ruffing the heart opening. Obviously, that was never going to happen in real life, and Simon de Wijs played a trump at trick two. Cullin’s chance to collect +500 slipped past when he did not rise with the ♦A and play a second round of trumps, declarer instead winning in dummy with the ♦9.

With the trump layout now revealed, De Wijs played safe for one down, leading a low spade to his jack, and a second round of the suit back to king and ace. He then won Michielsen’s club switch in hand and played four rounds of that suit, ruffing away East club stopper with dummy’s last trump. With East’s trump length equalling that of declarer, Cullin was bound to come score a low trump in addition to his ace. An exciting E/W +200.

Andy Goodman (left) was the playing captain of the team that won silver medals in the Seniors Teams at the recent World Championships in Wroclaw.

After the same start, Joe Grue chose to treat the North hand as both minors, so he essayed 4NT over Mike Passell’s 4♥ opening. That left Goodman with the problem posed at the top of this article.

With good defensive holdings in both minors, one could be forgiven for thinking that the choice is whether to pass and see what happens, or to double intending to defend, whichever suit the opponent land in. Goodman clearly did not see it that way, as he competed to 5♥.

One can hardly blame Brad Moss for doubling, opposite a partner who has come in at the five-level at ‘red’, facing a passed hand.

The defence to 5♥-X is easy enough – Grue leads a low club to his partner’s king and Moss switches to a trump, enabling the defenders to stop declarer ruffing a spade in dummy. Of course, as they were not playing in Fantasyland, Grue led the obvious diamond, and away went declarer’s club loser on the ♦A. Passell then played a spade to the ace and a second spade. Although Moss overtook and played a trump, declarer was always going to be able to score one spade ruff now. Passell ended up losing just two spade tricks: E/W +650 and 10 IMPs to GOODMAN.

GOODMAN had led by 18 after the first set and won the second stanza 49-12 to lead by 55 at the midway point of the match. The wind continued blowing in the same direction in the second half, and GOODMAN claimed their quarter-final place with a 90-IMP victory.

NARASIMHAN came into the third set leading 44-38 against LEBOWITZ. Three-quarters of the way through the set, they had extended their advantage to 19 IMPs. The last of this week’s problem hands then posed both West players the question “Is this hand one-suited or two suited?”

Agustin Madala (right) made his international debut in Argentina’s Junior team at the 1999 World Youth Championships. Two years later, he played his first Bermuda Bowl, in his country’s Open team. In 2002, he was a member of the Americas team that jointly won the Junior Teams at the IOC Grand Prix in Salt Lake City. He last represented his native country at the 2005 Bermuda Bowl, before joining the Lavazza team a year later. He won gold on his debut in the Italian Open team, at the 2010 European Championships, and a year later he collected a European Championship silver medal as a member of the Italian Junior team. He won the 2013 Bermuda Bowl in Bali representing his adoptive country and has now been a regular member of the Italian Open team for more than a decade.

On this deal, Madala decided to treat his hand as one-suited and opened 4♥ in first seat at favourable vulnerability. Maximo Crusizio re-opened with a double on the South cards and Carlos Pellegrini offered a choice of minors. Although 5♦ is hardly a stellar contract, both black suits lie well for N/S, so it is destined to make. Sacrificing on balanced hands is fraught with danger, but Danish star Dennis Bilde judged well to bid a fifth heart on this unspectacular East hand, and Crusizio closed the exciting auction with a double.

With trumps 2-1 and the king in the slot, and spades splitting, the defenders could make no more than their three aces: E/W +100.

At the other table, NARASIMHAN’s Finnish contingent were in the East seats. Creative thinking is a vital attribute for top-level players. However, when both members of a partnership stretch its limits on the same deal, disaster is often the result.

Vesa Fagerlund chose to pass as Dealer, and then overcalled 2♣ showing both majors when Zack Grossack opened 1NT in fourth seat. Michael Rosenberg advanced with a 2♥ cue-bid, alerted but not explained in the VuGraph records, but probably showing both minors with longer clubs. Both Finns are former junior internationals, but Fagerlund played at that level just a few years ago, whereas Kauko Koistinen (left) has been a member of his country’s Open team since 1984. One expects juniors to do ‘imaginative’ things, but here it was the experienced campaigner…

The logic for Koistinen’s 2♠ bid makes perfect sense – as partner couldn’t open the bidding at ‘green’, there’s no risk that he’ll bid too much, so I can safely make a lead-directional bid in spades.

So much for that theory! Grossack bid 3♦ and Fagerlund jumped to game in spades. Rosenberg was probably going to bid 5♦ anyway, picking up a game swing for his side. Offered fielder’ choice, though, he opted for the sure plus score defending.

Grossack led a club to his partner’s ace and Rosenberg played the ♦K and a second diamond, beginning the force. A trump to the king was allowed to win, and declarer played a heart to king and ace. When Rosenberg then ruffed the second round of hearts and forced dummy again with a second round of clubs, declarer’ goose was just about cooked. He managed to score one more trick, but that was still down five: N/S +1100 and 14 IMPs to LEBOWITZ.

A second 14-IMP swing followed on the final board of the set, when the Finns bid a grand slam on a 3-3 break, with the result that LEBOWITZ led by 10 going into the final stanza. The final margin was 120-90.

All that leaves #4 LEBOWITZ (Laurence Lebowitz, Michael Rosenberg, Adam Grossack, Zach Grossack, Agustin Madala, Dennis Bilde) as the highest-ranked original seed left in the draw. They will play #5 STREET (Paul Street, Nicolas L’Ecuyer, Andrea Manno, Massimiliano di Franco, Ron Pachtman, Piotr Zatorski) in what seems likely to be the tie of the round. The rest of the draw pits GOODMAN against FLEISHER, ROSENTHAL against FELDMAN, and COPE against CAYNE.

We will be back shortly with the best of the action from those quarter-final matches.