Leaving Poland, we have travelled south to Turkey for the 2023 Summer Festival. There is a wealth of international experience split between the two teams that have reached the final of the Women’s Teams. The format is a 56-board match divided into four 14-board segments.

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

What do you bid?

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

What do you bid?

Finally, with both sides vulnerable, you are in the North seat holding:

What action, if any, do you take?

While you consider those, we start midway through the opening stanza. The score stood at 18-14 in favour of EGETOR when the first of this week’s bidding problems arose.

Having made her debut in the national Women’s team at the 2002 European Championships, Dilek Yavas (left) is one of Turkey’s most experience international players. She was a member of the team that just missed out on a medal, finishing fourth, at the 2008 World Team Olympiad in Beijing. Her all-Turkish team won the Women’s Teams at the 2011 European Transnational Championships. Yavas won a bronze medal at the 2012 European Team Championship and, in 2022, she was part of Turkey’s most successful ever Venice Cup team, losing in the final in Salsomaggiore. She finished fifth in the 2013 European Women’s Pairs playing with Denmark’s Christina Lund Madsen.

On this deal, Ozlem Kandolu opened a fairly standard 3♣ in first seat, and two passes left Yavas with the first of the problems above. Do you show both suits with a 4♣ cue-bid or, in view of the suit disparity, opt for some number of spades? Yavas took the optimistic view and jumped all the way to 6♠.

South led the ♠8 and the sight of the ♦A in dummy undoubtedly brought declarer great joy. Having drawn the outstanding trumps, she was about to claim but, when South’s discard on the first round of hearts, ecstasy was replaced with heartbreak. Bridge can be a cruel game: E/W -100.

Berrak Erkan also opened 3♣ on the South cards, but here Asli Acar responded with an optimistic 3NT. With the chance of anything useful opposite diminished, Nese Dirim’s optimism was somewhat tempered so she settled for a sedate 4♠ overcall. She must have been very disappointed at the sight of dummy, but then overjoyed when hearts subsequently failed to break. E/W +650 and somewhat fortunate 13 IMPs for EGETOR.

The penultimate deal of the set presented one North player with the second of this week’s problems:

Some bidding problems appear to have no good solution. If I were to present this North hand to the BBO expert bidding panel, I suspect there would be a near unanimous vote for a 2NT rebid, not because it is necessarily likely to lead to the right contract, but simply because, “What else?” The problem is clear: South will raise 2NT to 3NT with something like Kxx/xx/KJ10xx/Jxx, and yet you would clearly rather play in 5♦ rather than 3NT with only eight tricks. Is there any real alternative to the obvious choice?

At the table, Tuna Elmas guessed that the diamond game would be best, and jumped all the way to the five-level. Ferda Kanlikilic led the ♥2, exposing a loser in that suit and, when there were two trump losers, declarer was one down. N/S -50.

Berrak Erkan (right) won a bronze medal on her debut in the Turkish Women’s team, at the 2012 European Team Championships in Dublin. Her most impressive result came in partnership with one of her opponents in this match, Tuna Elmas, with whom she finished second in the Open Pairs at the 2017 European Transnational Championships in Montecatini.

On this deal Erkan chose to pass after East’s double of her partner’s 1♣ opening. West responded 1♠ and Asli Acar showed a good hand by reversing into diamonds. East raised spades, Erkan showed her spade stopper and some values with a 2NT bid, and Acar raised to game. Easy game, isn’t it!

Funda Ozbey led a spade and declarer essentially needed to bring in the clubs for five tricks. Although there were only 14 HCP missing, Erkan was not tempted to finesse into the likely shortage suggested by East’s takeout double. When East’s jack came down, declarer was home. Indeed, after forcing major-suit discards out of East as she ran the clubs, she even had time to set up a long diamond for an overtrick: N/S +430 and 10 IMPs to FUTURE.

At the end of the opening 14-board stanza, EGETOR led by 8 IMPs, 44-36. The second set began fairly quietly and, with four deals left, the match was tied at 53-53. Then all hell broke loose.

N/S stretched to a game on their combined 23-count, but it was not without play. West opened the ♣7, ducked to East’s king, and a second club was returned to dummy’s ace. If declarer plays a low spade off the dummy now, the contract is likely to hinge on declarer successfully finding the ♦J in the two-way guess position later in the play. When, instead, Berrak Erkan led a low diamond at trick three, the defence had numerous ways to succeed. If East plays low, declarer might misguess and lose to the ♦J right now. If not, the defence can always take a diamond ruff when East later gets in with the ♠K.

At the table, Nese Dirim went up with the ♦A but then paved the way to defeat the contract by continuing the suit. Declarer won with the ♦K, played the ♥A and continued with the ♥Q, covered and ruffed. Erkan now ran the ♠Q, but Dirim won with the king and delivered her partner’s diamond ruff. N/S -100. That seemed to be a poor board for FUTURE, but events were positively ugly in the other room…

As mentioned earlier, Tuna Elmas (left) finished second in the Open Pairs at the 2017 European Transnational Championship playing with one of this week’s opponents. Two years later, at the same event, on home soil in Istanbul, she went one better, earning gold in partnership with former Turkish Junior international Berk Basaran. Elmas was a member of the team that represented Turkey in the Mixed Teams at the 2022 World Championship in Salsomaggiore.

Elmas opened a normal 1♥ on this deal, and Ferda Kanlikilic chose an inopportune moment to get involved on her shapeless 14-count.  When the 1NT overcall came back to Elmas, she doubled to show her good hand. Ozlem Kandolu had no reason to remove the double but, Dilek Yavas decided to brave the two-level, despite her balanced shape. It looked like she had got lucky and found a 4-4 club fit, but the wheels were about to fall off. Maybe Kanlikilic mistakenly thought this was some sort of Stayman, or perhaps they were playing a wriggle variation and one of them had forgotten, I don’t know, but West clearly thought her partner’s 2♦ was natural. 2♦-X was not a success: declarer managed to scramble four tricks: N/S +800 and 14 IMPs to EGETOR.

On the very next deal, both North players had to answer the last of this week’s problems. It is a curious attraction of the game that you can sometimes take an action that screams “Asking for Trouble” and yet come up smelling of roses.

Tuna Elmas’s pass looks eminently sensible to me, and she seemed to be well rewarded when her partner managed to make exactly seven tricks. N/S +80.

By contrast, Asli Acar chose to try to improve the contract with a 1NT response. As often happens in such cases, partner’s raise to 2NT was not a welcome development. Having already jumped from the frying pan into the fire, Acar decided a second effort to find a better-looking landing spot was in order, so she tried 3♣. Partner was having none of that and advanced to 3♦ and, I have to admit that, if I had come this far, I would have taken my chances and put down dummy at this point before someone woke up and started doubling. But, no, Acar chose to have one more go, with 3♥, only to hear the inevitable 3NT from her partner. It looks like you are truly all the way into the furnace now!

One reason why many players will always prefer the overbid when they have a choice is because defence is the hardest part of the game. Even when you reach a contract that should go down, there is always a chance you will get some help from your friends.

A diamond lead would virtually guarantee that the defenders beat 3NT by a couple of tricks, but Dirim struck out with a rather strange-looking ♣5 as her opening salvo. Dummy won with the ♣J and declarer called for the ♥Q. This was West’s chance to defeat the contract, by withholding her king, but no. Ozbey then compounded that error by making things even easier for declarer by not only returning a club, but choosing the ten! Acar covered with the ♣K, so East won with the ♣A and merrily cashed the ♣Q, establishing two winners in that suit for declarer.

Acar didn’t know that she now had ten tricks, so she put in the ten when East switched to spades. West won and returned a fourth round of clubs. Declarer won and cashed her other winner in the suit before playing a second round of hearts. The appearance of East’s ♥J allowed declarer to claim the rest: a remarkable N/S +600 and 11 IMPs to FUTURE.

FUTURE won the second stanza 39-31, so the teams reached the midway point of this final with the scores tied at 75-75. We will be back soon with the best of the action from the second half of this enthralling contest.