This is it, the last chance saloon. At the end of this round, the top eight teams in all four events ride into the sunset whilst the rest of the field slink off to lick their wounds. (If you missed the action from Day 7, follow the link here: Day 7 in Marrakech).

Going into today’s Bermuda Bowl action it looked quite likely that the match between Netherlands and New Zealand would be a shootout for all the marbles, with the winner surviving and loser going home. However, results in the early match of the day conspired to leave our featured match irrelevant except in unusual circumstances.

A big win for USA1 against China lifted them up into eight place and left the Chinese in ninth. Meanwhile, New Zealand were hammered by Canada and the Dutch lost to Ireland, leaving both of these teams some distance behind the pack. Only a big win combined with very favourable results elsewhere would now enable either of these teams to advance into the knockout stage. However, there was still plenty of high-quality bridge on show, so let’s take a look at the action.

As usual, we start with a couple of problems. With neither side vulnerable, you are West holding:

If you double, what action do you then take when North’s redouble is passed back to you?

Next, with only your side vulnerable, you are sitting in the North seat with:

What, if anything, do you open?

The action began on the opening deal, with both West players facing the first of the problems above.

Simon de Wijs doubled when North’s 2♥ came around to him. Bauke Muller had then to choose between bidding his diamonds or scrambling with 2NT. He opted for the latter, so de Wijs chose his lowest four-card suit and Matthew Brown had a fairly easy double in the South seat.

Michael Whibley began with the ♥10, keeping the defenders in with a chance of +800. Declarer took two hearts winners in his hand and then led a diamond towards dummy. When Whibley played low, dummy’s ♦Q won and De Wijs was able to cash the ♥K for a spade discard. Declarer was now able to scramble six tricks. N/S +500 still looked like a good board for the Kiwis, as the Dutch could have defended 2♥ for -140.

After the same start to the auction, Michael Ware also doubled. Here, though, Tim Verbeek redoubled on the North hand. Malcolm Mayer’s pass then left Ware with the subsidiary question posed earlier. Ware decided that his partner’s pass said that he wanted to defend (and there are certainly many top partnerships who would agree with that interpretation). Danny Molenaar (left) thus found himself playing in a redoubled contract on the opening board of the match.

There were probably more smiles on the faces of New Zealand supporters at Twickenham this week, watching the All Blacks go down to their biggest-ever defeat, against the defending World champion South Africans. There was no joy in Muddville. The defence here could make just three trumps and a club. 2♥-Redoubled with an overtrick added up to N/S +840 and an 8-IMP windfall for Netherlands.

The action continued on the very next board. Both East players opened a natural weak two and both Souths doubled…

Simon de Wijs introduced his diamond suit, caught a raise, and confidently took a shot at game in his partner’s suit. Matthew Brown opened the defence with a sneaky ♦7. Predictably perhaps, declarer won in dummy and ran the ♥Q. Winning with the ♥K, Brown continued with the ♦6, and it was always going to be difficult for Bauke Muller to get the suit right. Of course, he rose with the ♦K and Michael Whibley ruffed. A spade through declarer’s king allowed the defenders to take two tricks in that suit and then Brown exited with the ♣K. Declarer still had to lose a trick in each minor, so that was three down: N/S +150.

I could have reported that the Dutch confidently bid game in both rooms, although I somehow doubt that Tim Verbeek had a great deal of expectation when he tabled his threadbare dummy in 4♠-Doubled.

Michael Ware (right) settled for a defensive raise to 3♥ on the West cards, which encouraged Danny Molenaar to have another go on the South hand. Now Ware pounced – he thought that he had trapped his opponents and now he released the spring, first doubling 3NT and then 4♠. As inevitably happened in those wonderful “Tom and Jerry” cartoons, it all ended in tears for the cat.

Not that it was inevitable. Ware started accurately with a top diamond, but he then has to switch to a low heart at trick two. Making dummy ruff a heart whilst the defenders still controlled the club suit would have left declarer without a winning option. When Ware instead switched to a trump, declarer was in control. He started clubs right away, West winning and continuing the trump attack. Declarer was therefore able to draw trumps and run the clubs, losing just three aces. N/S +790 and 12 IMPs to Netherlands, 20-0 ahead after two deals and perhaps heading for the big win that would just about keep their slim chances alive.

The card play by one of the Dutch team on our next board was well worth the entry fee to the VuGraph theatre. The Kiwis perhaps hoped to inconvenience their opponents with a weak no-trump.

Mayer started with a 12-14 1NT, and Danny Molenaar’s 2♣ showed both majors. 3♣ was a transfer to diamonds, and Tim Verbeek (left) closed the brief auction with an aggressive jump to game on his flat 9-count.

Verbeek won the diamond lead and played a low spade to his queen. Winning with the ♠K, Mayer continued diamonds. Verbeek ruffed in dummy, crossed to the ♥A and then took a winning heart finesse. He then cashed the ♠A and ruffed a spade in his hand. After crossing back to dummy in trumps, Verbeek exited with a spade, simultaneously establishing the long spade in dummy and endplaying East to give him his tenth trick with the ♣K. Bermuda Bowl quality declarer play, indeed! N/S +620.

Muller opened the East hand with a Precision-style 1♦ (11-15 HCP, 2+♦). The Kiwis normally play standard Michaels but, against a Precision-type 1♦, 2♥ showed a weak hand with both majors. (3♦ would have shown a strong Michaels bid.)

No one can ever accuse the Dutch of being reticent in the bidding. There was no pussy-footing around from Simon De Wijs (right), and his jump to 5♦ left Michael Whibley with no winning options. Facing a weak Michaels, he could be certain that his side was not making 11 tricks, so he doubled and hoped they could make at least three defending.

Brown started with the ♦A, cashed the ♠A at trick two, then played a heart to his partner’s ace, so the play was over and done with as quickly as the auction at this table. N/S +200 and 9 IMPs to Netherlands.

It seems that the New Zealand West was in a similar situation to De Wijs on this deal, so he might also have bid 5♦ at some point. The IMPs were therefore earned by a combination of superior judgment in the auction and fine declarer play.

Most of this match was one-way traffic, with IMPs piling up in the Dutch column, but the Kiwis did have one bright moment. Both North players had to evaluate their hand on the last of today’s problems.

Michael Whibley (left) gave the vulnerability its full respect and opened 4♣ on his nine-bagger. Matthew Brown raised to game and Bauke Muller duly led the ♦Q through dummy’s king to prove everyone right. N/S +600.

Despite the result, I confess I would much rather be in the Dutch camp on this one. Even looking at both the North and South hands, you would surely want to be in slam on this type of auction. For a start, there is a 50% chance that the ♦A is onside. Secondly, after an uninformative auction, why should East have an obvious diamond lead? Can’t he have something like J109xx/x/Q9xxx/xx? Yes, he might fish out a diamond, but it is far from ‘obvious’. As the cards lie, though, it was N/S -100 and 12 IMPs to New Zealand.

Netherlands won the match 67-32, picking up 17.45 VPs, so they had done what they could at this stage. They also needed a big USA1 loss to Egypt. Egypt won, but only by 13 IMPs, so that left the Dutch in ninth place, 4.33 VPs behind the last qualifiers, USA1.

The other big result in this last round was India’s 20-0 loss to Norway, which knocked them out after they had been in the top 8 almost throughout the competition. China’s win over Singapore was enough to lift them up into the knockout stage in seventh place. That all left the top of the leader-board in the Bermuda Bowl looking like this:

That minuscule difference separating Poland and Israel is likely to make a huge difference as the leading teams get their choice of quarter-final opponent from the teams finishing fifth through eighth. Norway selected China, Switzerland chose Israel, USA2 opted to play USA1, leaving Poland to take on Italy.

In the Venice Cup, it looks like the strongest eight teams made it through into the knockout stage, although it is difficult to look beyond the top two for potential winners. I think everyone except those with a personal interest would like to see Sweden and Poland battling it out in the final. This is how the top of the Venice Cup leader-board looked at the end of the 23-match complete round robin.

The table here looks much closer than it really was, as Israel suffered a big loss in their final match, against India, and Denmark picked up a big win to close what had been an almost insurmountable difference going into the final round.

For the quarter-finals, Poland have chosen to play Israel, Sweden set-up an all-Scandinavia battle by selecting Norway, and France opted to play China, leaving Turkiye to take on USA2.

In the Seniors, the top eight looked to have been decided going into the last day. However, a big win for Netherlands against Argentina in the penultimate round pulled them back into contention. It was now a battle between four teams for the last three places in the knockout.  Going into the final round it was Norway 255.88, Argentina 251.72, Sweden 250.69 and Netherlands 248.68. All four were playing teams already out of contention.

Netherlands continued their good form and won big against Pakistan to carry them through. The other three were all involved in very close matches. Norway began with a 5 VP advantage over the others, so their 1-IMP victory over Canada was enough to see them qualify too. That left Sweden and Argentina and every IMP proved to be crucial. Argentina ended up tying with South Africa and Sweden beat China by 4 IMPs to leave the top of the table looking like this:

Finally, the Wuhan Cup for the Mixed Teams title. Going into the last round, it was Belgium chasing USA1 and Chinese Taipei for one of the last two places in the knockout stage. Belgium had a big win against Italy and the other two teams both lost. This is now the top of the leader-board finished:

USA were easily the most successful in terms of making it through the round robins, with all four USA2 teams and three USA1 teams (except for the Venice Cup) making it to the knockout stage. Poland, Norway, Italy and China all got three teams through to the knockout stage.

Just one note to highlight the remarkable success of Polish teams this month. At the World Youth Championships a couple of weeks ago, the only country to get teams into the knockout stage in all five events was Poland. Now, here, their teams have successfully negotiated the round robin in three of the four events. Their performance in the Bermuda Bowl is particularly notable as their two top pairs from two Bermuda Bowl wins in the last decade are now playing for Switzerland, and still their team is very competitive. Their woman’s team are current European champions and odds-on favourites to at least make the final here. The future of Polish bridge appears very bright indeed.

The format from here is three 96-board matches, each divided into six 16-board segments and played over two days. We will be back soon with the best of the action from the first day of the quarter-final matches. (To see the action from Day 9, follow this link.)