Welcome back to Marrakech on the second day of the eight-day round robin stage at the 2023 World Championships. With 24 teams in each of the four events, teams will play a complete round robin of 23 matches over eight days. The top eight teams will then advance to the knockout stage at the beginning of next week.

The news that USA2 were playing on BBO VuGraph today brightened my morning: who wouldn’t look forward to seeing the most exciting partnership in the competition in action? Their opponents, Netherlands, the beaten finalists from a year ago in Salsomaggiore, topped the table overnight and kicked off this second day with a 78-0 thrashing of Australia, so they appeared to be in fine form. It was a mouth-watering prospect.

The first cloud darkened the horizon on arrival at the tables to discover that Meckstroth/Zia were sitting out this match. By halfway through the match, the skies were seriously thunderous: after nine boards, the match score had advanced all the way to 4-2. Not that there weren’t chances to gain IMPs on some of those early deals.

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

What action, if any, do you take?

Next, with neither side vulnerable, you are sitting in the East seat with:

What action, if any, do you take?

While you consider those, we start with the second board of the match.

Joe Grue’s decision to back in with 3♥ when East’s 2♠ opening was passed around to him looks fairly normal. Moss might have passed, but it’s one of those hands on which nine tricks in no-trumps might be just as easy (or easier) than nine playing in the suit in which you hold a singleton.

Bauke Muller led the ♠K and Grue cannot have viewed dummy with any great enthusiasm. Muller switched to a club at trick two, Simon de Wijs winning with the ♣K to play a second round of spades through declarer’s jack. Grue won with the ♠A, took a winning heart finesse, cashed the ♥A-K, and exited with the ♣Q. De Wijs won, played the ♦K, cashed the ♥Q, and continued with the ♦Q. When Grue again held up the ace, De Wijs was endplayed to lead a club into the tenace, giving declarer his seventh trick. E/W +200.

At the other table, the American system perhaps gave the Dutch a chance to stay out of trouble.

After a Multi from Marty Fleisher and a pass-or-correct 2♠ response by Chip Martel (left), Berend van den Bos was faced with the first of this week’s problems. At first glance, Van den Bos may appear to be in the same position as Grue was at the first table, but is he? Although not definitive, there was a potentially significant clue that was not available to the American?

Martel’s 2♠ response says that he wants to play at the two-level opposite a weak two in spades, but implies that he may be interested in game if his partner has hearts (although he may also hold a weak hand with a long minor). West is thus likely to hold fairly short spades and will often have at least some length in hearts with reasonable values. Forewarned, Van den Bos might have realized that the hand did not belong to his side. But, no, he also came in with a 3♥ overcall. Chip Martel’s penalty double probably got the message across, but too late.

Had Martel found a diamond lead (or a high club and a diamond switch), we would have been in 800 territory. His ♣5 opening at least gave declarer some respite. Winning with the ♣8 in dummy, Joris Van Lankveld called for the ♦10, which tempted Marty Fleisher to cover with the jack. Martel won the trick with the ♦K and switched to the ♥10. Declarer took the winning finesse and then cashed dummy’s top hearts. A diamond to the ace then dropped West’s queen, so Van Lankveld was able to cash the ♦9 and concede a trick to East’s eight to establish his long diamond.

Martel had to find a black-suit discard on this trick. If he bared the ♣A and kept two spades, he needed his partner to exit with a spade. If he threw a spade, he needed his partner to play a club through declarer’s jack. Martel kept two spades but Fleisher won the diamond and played a club, so declarer’s ♦2 eventually provided Van Lankveld with an eighth trick. A disappointing E/W +200 and a push board when either side might have gained the first significant swing of the match.

That first double-digit swing took some time to arrive, and essentially came from a guess.

Van Lankveld led the ♦J and continued with a second diamond at trick two, declarer ruffing. Fleisher led a spade, dummy’s queen winning, and he then played a club to the jack and ace. Fleisher won the club return, crossed to dummy with a trump, and ruffed dummy’s remaining diamond with the ♥A. He then overtook the ♥J and drew the last trump. Knocking out the ♠A then left declarer’s hand high: E/W +620.

A similar auction landed Bauke Muller in 4♥, and the first three tricks were the same. When the ♠Q won, though, Muller continued with a second spade to South’s ace. Brad Moss (right)  continued with a third round of diamonds, shortening declarer to two trumps in his hand. Muller ruffed, drew trumps in three rounds, and played a club from dummy.

At the other table, playing clubs early effectively forced declarer to play North for the ♠Q. Here, with the spades in his hand already set up, Muller simply had to guess right. He chose to rise with the ♣K, but that was the losing option today. E/W -100 and 12 IMPs to USA2.

The Dutch kept the match close by bidding and making a major-suit partscore in both rooms on Board 13. Then came…

Playing transfers after 1Maj-Double allows partnerships to do various things with the 2Maj-1 bid. Most pairs play the direct raise to 2♠ as weak and use the 2♥ transfer to show a constructive raise or better. The Americans were using an innovative variation, where a raise to 2♠ would be constructive and thus, when Joe Grue (left) bid 2♥ here, it was either a weak raise or a strong raise. That left Bauke Muller with the second of today’s bidding problems.

Muller chose to pass, perhaps thinking that he could wait and see how the auction panned out. Brad Moss took full advantage of the situation. If his partner had an invitational or better raise, then his 3♥ game try would likely get them to a making game. Moss also knew the hand did not belong to them if his partner was weak, so any impression of strength he could portray might be an effective smokescreen. With his fitting heart card, Grue had the perfect hand to add to the confusion his partner had begun, and his jump to game left the Dutch completely in the dark.

With South holding most of the defensive honours, 5♣ and even 6♣ are decent contracts for E/W. With four top winners and two heart ruffs to take against South’s spade contract, there was also a 500 penalty available: more than adequate compensation for a non-vulnerable game. Of course, someone had to double, and the Dutch did not know that they had been hoodwinked, so Moss was allowed to play for 50s. When De Wijs opened the defence with a low heart, that was also the end of the ruffs, so the defenders made only their four top winners: E/W +50 and an uncharacteristically soft result for this Dutch pair.

System meant that Van den Bos simply raised to 2♠ after Martel’s double, so Fleisher was never likely to be silenced. Indeed, when Martel subsequently competed to the four-level, Fleisher raised himself to game. With both minors coming in for no loser, declarer was soon claiming twelves tricks: E/W +420 and 9 IMPs to USA2.

The Great Dealer had saved the best until last, and what a massive firework it proved to be.

This layout was a disaster waiting to happen for a Strong Club system. Not only did the Dutch not find their double fit, but the lack of knowledge about the distribution also resulted in a defensive catastrophe.

Muller led his singleton club to his partner’s ace, and who can blame De Wijs for returning the ♣10, asking for a heart switch? Declarer ruffed the heart return, drew trumps, and discarded dummy’s diamond losers on his long clubs. Joe Grue had to concede one diamond at the end, but that was still ten tricks: a spectacular N/S +590, but that was just the appetizer.

Martel began with a natural 1♥ opening and Van den Bos entered with a 2♥ cue-bid, showing both black suits. Marty Fleisher (right) judged well to compete to the three-level despite his meagre allocation of high cards, and now the blue touchpaper was well and truly lit. Did anyone know who was bidding to make and who was saving? Unlikely.

Although there was far less scope for accidents with the heart distribution known, Martel made absolutely sure that there would be no disastrous defence to 4♠-Doubled by bidding a fifth heart. Van den Bos thought 5♠ would be cheap, and he was right in that best defence gets only +500 out of 5♠-X. The problem was that Martel’s 5♥ would probably have ended the auction had van den Bos passed. Now, though, Fleisher could not be certain who was making what, and 6♥ rated to be close with short spades opposite.

Saving at the six-level after making the opponents guess to bid a slam is never an attractive proposition, but doing so would have been right on this layout. Not that N/S -800 would have improved the Dutch IMP score significantly.

Martel won the club lead and cashed a high heart to reveal the layout of that suit. A 3-1 trump split would have given declarer a losing option, but the 4-0 break was exactly what he wanted. Martel, ruffed a club to dummy in order to pick up South’s trumps. He then overtook the third round of diamonds to score dummy’s long winners in that suit. Five trumps in hand, five diamonds, the ♣A and a club ruff added up to twelve. E/W +1430 and 19 IMPs to USA2. No other pair in either the Bermuda Bowl or Venice Cup managed to bid and make 6♥.

Even after the very slow start, USA2 won the match 43-16. Both American pairs were very impressive. With Meckstroth/Zia to come in from the bench, USA2 must clearly be included in the fairly small list of serious contenders to claim the big prize at the end of next week. Perhaps this was a brief preview of what we can look forward to in the final, although I suspect the Swiss, the Norwegians and a couple of other teams might have something to say about that. We live in exciting times 😊

We will be back soon with the best of the action from Day 3 of the 2023 World Championships in Marrakech, Morocco.