Some of the best memories from Pau

Just a few memories from Pau.

The Witch Play

How do you play a trump suit of ♠KJ10xx opposite ♠Axx for no losers?

One of our team led the ♠J, but when it was not covered rose with the ♠A. She then led a small spade to the ♠K, dropping the ♠Q on her left!! The Croatian girl asked how she managed this, but our star just smiled and said she had 'a feeling'. The Croat, with a big smile on her face, said, "You are a witch, a witch".

The Support Redouble

I've already blogged this, but the support redouble incident still amuses me. More so as it was correctly explained as showing 3-card support. The idea of redoubling, when there is no double first, is a little bizarre, but why no-one called the director on the other side of the screen is totally off the wall.

You're barred!

I was trying to get my team to stand up for themselves. The best example was one of them getting a Bermuda Bowl winner to leave the Open room for not speaking English and chatting to his player when live cards were in play.

Eric

Eric was a caddy, a local lad and part of the young team helping to run the tournament. He lived in Aberdeen for a few years and just loved the Scots, and hated the English. Eric was always on hand to bring the girls coffee halfway through a match, and to me too if I was scoring. We gave Eric one of the Andy Murray sweatbands and he wore it every day.

Getting to the airport on time

The Seniors were very keen to be at the airport on time. After a little persuasion they were convinced to leave around the same time as us, despite their flight being more than an hour later than ours (their first plan would have got them to the airport at least 30 minutes before us).

Unfortunately being at the airport early was not necessary. We took off on time, but shortly after that there was a bomb scare at Pau Airport and they eventually took off two hours late, and their baggage did not make the transfer in Paris.

I shouldn't smile.

Norway - Open Winners

Norway won the Bermuda Bowl last year. As all the partnerships were breaking up, or taking a break, they took three top juniors and put each one in partnership with a BB winner. They still won and looked so happy.

Finis

It's over, we're done.

The team was not demob happy yesterday and played well in all three matches against top rated opponents. Naturally the team was a little tired after the hectic schedule and we missed chances in both the first two matches against Poland (who finished seventh) and Spain (bronze medallists) of a big win and finished up losing both 14-16 VPs.

In our final match we played the very young Swedish team (who finished fourth). The computer got its revenge after a couple of quiet sets and wild distributions abound. They handled them better than us and we emerged with a 8-22 VP loss.

The France team retained their title, winning comfortably by 16 VPs from Italy.

We finished a disappointing 19th. I'm sure we'll conduct a private post mortem on how we could have done better but all of us feel that a poor performance in the slam zone was responsible for a huge number of IMPs in the out column. If we had improved by just 10 IMPs a match (that is one game or slam swing in 20 boards) we would have finished above average.

So there is the closing ceremony this evening. Some of the team, including me, are going to watch the final match in the Open Series; some are off to Lourdes, although they should have gone before the tournament perhaps; and the rest are planning some retail therapy. Apparently these activities are not mutually exclusive.
 

On BBO

We started today with a third consecutive draw against a reasonably placed opponent, this time the Danes. We really had the opportunity to take more VPs from the match but small errors proved costly.

It has been mentioned, and it's come up in our preparations, that people only ever talk about bad boards. Well, unfortunately, that is the way of bridge players. We make far more mistakes than good plays and, really, you just need to have a thick skin.

So here is a potentially good thing - what do you respond to partner's 1♠ opening holding ♠ - ♥ Qxxxx ♦ AKQx ♣ xxxx (playing normal Acol methods)?

In our second match we played France on BBO vugraph. It seem to be a particularly wild set of hands, almost chosen for BBO (!), and there was one very interesting auction from Anne and Sheila:

West	North	East	South
Bessis	Sheila	Neve	Anne
			1♦
2NT1	3♣2	4♥	5♣3
p	5♦	5♥	5NT4
p	6♣5	p	6♦
p	p	6♥	6♠6
p	p	7♥	p
p	p

¹ hearts and clubs
² (1) Limit raise or better, according to Sheila (2) Spades, according to Anne
³ cue bid
⁴ Pick a slam
⁵ How can I pick a slam when there is only one suit? I'll just show the ace of clubs and see what partner does
⁶ OK, partner sort of chose diamonds, but maybe spades will still make

All's well the ends well, especially when the Director's ruled no damage from the misinformation. The small slam in diamonds makes, but the spade slam will be beaten by a diamond ruff.

By the way, it took Anne and Sheila about 10 minutes to bid this!

In the end we lost comfortably to France.

In the final match we played Turkey. The boards were not as swingy but we lost consistently throughout and eventually narrowly avoided being blitzed. More a case of the Turks judging the part scores better.

Final day tomorrow and a very tough schedule. We will not be going to San Paolo for the Venice Cup next year, but we will be a major factor in deciding who goes are we play three teams vying for the top six finish.
 

Win, draw, draw

We were unbeaten in our three matches today but failed to rise up the table. We beat Wales comfortably, but not by enough, and then had draws against the Czechs and Israelis.

The match against Wales featured a lot of strange bridge at the table where I was scoring. In the end an undisciplined overcall mislead our declarer in a game contract and reduced it to a 21-9 VP win.

The Czech Republic match swung on three hands - we bid a 50% slam that failed, they found a good sacrifice and the decision whether to open 1♥ with a strong notrump hand caused another game swing. We won by 2 IMPs but still a 15-15 VP draw.

In the final match we had the better against a good Israel team, but they flattened the score when their declarer dropped a doubleton queen offside - spurning the finesse despite knowing the split. No idea why, I'd have gone down. This turned a 18-12 win into a 15-15 draw.

So we have two tough days left, with all six matches against teams higher than us. Hopefully the results today will spur us on!
 

The eye of the storm

Just the two matches today.

In the first we played the Russian team who had so underperformed in Warsaw. They started slowly here but have risen rapidly in the past few rounds and now sit in a qualifying spot for the Venice Cup. It was a very tight match and the team played well, but a couple of missed games and a missed slam meant that we lost by 10-20 VPs.

Hopes were higher against Ireland but in the end I was happy to get a 14-16 VPs result. As is sometimes the case against the weaker teams, their errors cost overtricks and our mistakes cost double IMP swings. Not the result we were looking for and it did little for either side. Our failure to blitz the teams below us does mean that we are not doing justice to ourselves.

We now face three gruelling days and nine matches to finish the event. The team spent the evening in a local restaurant relaxing with no hand records in sight, and they all appear to be in fine spirits. A respectable position is still available if we can all play well consistently.
 

Failing to convert

After two excellent results yesterday we failed to use this as a springboard for further success. We were blitzed in our first match as we encountered the 'Perfect Storm' - we made a few mistakes, the opponents played well, and everything that could go wrong did.

We recovered in the second match against Portugal as we eked out a narrow win, and then we had a narrow loss to Lebanon in a match that was indescribable (so I won't even try now).

So we were a little downbeat at dinner and then got stranded in town again as all the taxis appear to vanish when we need one. Goodness knows where there all go!

So we were late back to the hotel, but it is a short day tomorrow with only two matches - the calm before the storm, peut être.
 

Bouncing back

So the team had an excellent day today.

We won the match against Greece comfortably but then had two really tough matches against leaders Italy and 'some people's favourites' Netherlands.

Against Italy all four players did really well. Italy had changed their line up, with my permission, at the last minute (due to an error inputting the pairs apparently) but we won by 16-14 VPs. One interesting feature of this match was the 'support redouble' used by the Italians against Joyce and Michele - normally this convention is used when your opponent has doubled your partner's call, but the Italian pair decided not to wait for the double and just redoubled a 1♠ bid instead! So the auction is 1♣ - 1♥ - 1♠ - 2♥ - REDOUBLE! The redouble was correctly explained as showing 3-card support and the tray was passed under the screen. I believe Joyce and her screen mate saw the redouble but just continued - who needs a Director anyway! No damage was done.

In the final match we played the Dutch. All four players forget their captain's instructions to discuss the Netherlands-Russia football match last night, and the fact that the Russian manager is Dutch, but played bridge instead. A very tight match finished with a 14-16 VP defeat, but I was very pleased with the result.

So a good day ... and I managed to avoid last night's problems and got food and taxis arranged (with Fiona's help).

C'est bien.
 

Tomorrow is another day

Not a good day for Scotland as none of the Open, Women or Seniors could register a win in 5 attempts (between us).

Our match against England only featured a small number of swings, with notrump range being the contributor in the main one, but they all went to England as we lost 8-22 VPs.

In our match against the four-woman Finland team, systemic differences accounted for more than the margin as we lost a close match by 12-18 VPs.

To be fair we did have chances in both matches to improve our score.

I then showed a little captaincy inexperience in getting us nearly stranded in the centre of town during a music festival on a very hot Saturday night. Luckily Joyce showed some leg, or did she say a wave, and we got a taxi back to the hotel by 11pm.

A full day tomorrow, so plenty of chances to move up the table.

A tougher day

We entered the second day in good spirits but faced a difficult match against the Germans. Andrew took over scoring duties so I watched the match on vugraph and could see that things were not running our way. Neither of our pairs did anything silly, in the sense that all their efforts could be seen multiple times in both the Open and Women Series, but the difference in our match was that all the IMPs went into the Germany column. Many matches shared far more IMPs, but it proved to be all one way traffic for us.

After a quick lunch we played the good young Norwegian team. A match with fewer swings but a couple of games going the wrong way left us with a 11-19 VP loss.

Fiona and Liz, having played well without success in both matches, sat out the final match of the day as the other four took their revenge on Austria, getting a maximum 25 VPs. The first board was a 2 IMP loss for us, but it created havoc in the other matches: 7NT was bid 5 times in the Women Series, each time making 9 or 10 tricks; there a 7♠ redoubled (losing -1000) and a ton of small slams failing. However this was nothing compared to the Open Series, where -1100 and -1400 could be found!

The Open Team had a good day beating England 20-10 VPs in the first match. They then had respectable defeats by Italy and Latvia (who have already qualified for the second week). They finish their program against Israel tomorrow morning.

So here is nothing like a good end to the day and we enjoyed our evening meal. We don't play in the morning but then we take on England, and will be appropriately kitted out with our uniform enhancements provided by Fiona.
 

And we're off!

The first day has finished for us already, courtesy of a bye in the evening.

Our first match was a tight affair against Iceland. The team had put a lot of preparation into their defensive methods against some of the strange Ice Lady methods, but in the end none of them came up. The match finished as 31-29 IMPs and a draw for us. The surprise of the round was Wales' 18-12 VP defeat of Germany - Patrick had told us at the welcome ceremony that both teams would be extremely surprised at the others' bridge and clearly Wales were better prepared.

In the second round we faced the leaders after the first round, Croatia. A good start at both tables, Liz and Fiona winning +1400 and Michele and Joyce defeating a slam, put us on the way to a healthy win 21-9 VPs.

So now it's an early night as we prepare for Germany, Norway and Austria tomorrow.
 

Introducing the team

I thought it was about time to introduce the team. Naturally the idea of profiling each player would be far too dangerous for me, so I asked everyone to write about their partner.

But I do get to start ...

Paul

Paul is the NPC of Scottish Women. This is his first European Championships but he was still the team's unanimous sixth choice as captain. He is also the coach, sports psychologist, bag carrier, 'shoulder to cry on' and first to be hit in times of strife. Paul's two weapons are fear, surprise and ruthless efficiency, so this will be a well prepared team. Paul is used to dealing with high-performance women as he is married to the world's leading female Scrabble player although he has been warned that his stock phrase, "Yes dear, you are right again", will not see him through this ordeal, sorry, event.

Anne

Anne was drafted into the Scottish Women's team in 2002 to inject some sex, drugs and rock n' roll into proceedings. Well known in the Falkirk area as a supplier of emergency contraception and hostess of so-called 'meatball' parties, she will dance with anyone or anything as long as it's in public. In between listening to The Killers and practising her combat yoga, Anne finds time to play a mean game of bridge. A terrier masquerading as a swan, she sinks her teeth into a match and refuses to let go. Or as she puts it herself, "I didn't come here to come f**king second."

Sheila

Sheila was brought up in a Bridge-playing household, developing her competitive spirit at an early age, playing with and against her father and two brothers. She first represented Scotland as a junior and was one of our most promising youngsters, but took a time-out in her late twenties to "get a life". So she led a rock'n'roll lifestyle for a few years, singing with a band, and having got all that out (well, nearly) of her system, has settled down to playing some serious Bridge again. Among her other interests are: Sport - she is knowledgeable about football, cricket and tennis ; Quizzes - she is an asset to any pub quiz team; and Dr. Who - on whom she is an expert. She retains her love of music and, after a drink or three, may be persuaded to give us a song and/or a dance. What a perfect partner!

Michele

Her cheery manner, big smile and words of encouragement always make Michele a joy to play with. However don’t be fooled, her will to win and determination to be the best at whatever she does are ever present.

Michele’s passion for bridge and love of the game is only surpassed by, of course, her family, however her other love is legendary - “designer shoes” of which she possesses a large collection that would be the envy of any footballer's wife.

Unfortunately we do not have the same size of feet.

One sure thing is we will finish the event in the same manner we start, as friends and partners.

Fiona

I approached Fiona in 1995 to see if she would like to play in Scottish Women’s events with me. We kicked off by playing in the English Women’s teams in Coventry – just the 6-hour drive there and back, and about 180 boards in between. Asking a lot of someone unaccustomed to quite such a hectic bridge schedule, but, as she has always done since, Fiona came through. Admittedly, we lost in the final, but she was up for returning the following year, when we won. Our efforts in the Trials were enough to get us into the Lady Milne team. Once again she was put under immense pressure: since I was the only player with any experience we were asked to play every board. Once again she came through, winning a prize for the best played hand en route. We might have won, if only I had not tired in the home stretch.

Since then we have played in 12 Lady Milnes, 2 World Olympiads, and are about to embark on our fourth European Championship – this is my longest-standing partnership, which says much for her patience and tolerance. Fiona is prepared to travel far and wide, so we also played in the World Championships in Verona and, winning the first ever medals for players representing Scotland, in the First European Open Championships in Menton.

Fiona is an accountant, meticulous in preparation and approach. She is loyal, witty, charming, quiet-spoken, and one of our team’s greatest assets. Her only flaw is a tendency to blame herself quite unfairly for failing to achieve perfection all the time; her only major fault a dislike of tomatoes, my favourite fruit – which is still no bad thing, since I get double portions.

Liz

Liz is the doyenne of Scottish bridge, with a world championship title in the transnational teams, 2 gold European and 2 silver World Olympiad medals with the British ladies team, and a Scottish medal in the European open championships among many credits in her playing career.

Always a fierce competitor, Liz relishes these international events. A prophet with honour, she greatly enjoys meeting and greeting old and new friends and adversaries at these events, across the spectrum of players, officials, administrators, journalists and spectators from many countries.

Liz works hard within Scottish Bridge, and this year she has spent many hours researching the history of Scottish bridge, for the 75^th anniversary book she is writing which will be published later this year.

Travelling with Liz is an interesting and enjoyable experience – and as well as working hard on the system with Fiona in preparation for the European Championships in Pau, and tackling the homework provided by our captain, she has as usual also prepared for our couple of days acclimatisation before the event by checking out the local area, its sights and its history.

Liz can be relied upon to carry the flag for Scotland to the best of her ability, both at the bridge table and beyond. She will contribute much to our team in Pau from her wealth of bridge experience at this level. She may also be seen at some point wearing the t-shirt she won for Scotland when our team at a previous European championship sent her out to represent us one evening in the Karaoke competition.

Joyce

Joyce first started playing bridge for Scotland in the 70s when she formed a partnership with Barbarah Kay. She followed in the steps of her father who also played for Scotland.

Her love of the game and her desire to win has been instilled in her partners and her students of which I am one. As a student I raised her one no trump to 2NT with a three count - when asked why I explained that Joyce had told me that 1nt was the hardest contract to play and I was helping her out (she made of course).

Joyce knows a good thing when she sees one and soon snapped me up, and whipped me into shape. We have enjoyed our bridge for 12 years and played all over Europe and are looking forward to Pau immensely.

A grand mother now Joyce has three strapping sons and continues to work at a firm of lawyers in Glasgow.

Vugraph MOTD 10-12

• Round 10: Italy v Greece - Greece shocked the Netherlands in the first round and they are a dangerous young team. After a couple of poor results this will be a big test for them.
• Round 11: Russia v Germany - third v first in Group B. Not important for this week but they will be looking to make impressions for their encounter in the second round robin.
• Round 12: Sweden v France - France are currently lying 7th and need to stay in the top 9 to qualify for the second round robin next week. They had a good day yesterday, but facing Norway and then Sweden will test their resolve.
  

Vugraph MOTD 7-9

Tuesday's picks:

• Round 7: Finland v Italy - actually you can pick any match this round as all five look like being great contests, but this features the two teams at the top of Group A. Finland beat Scotland by 27 IMPs in Round 1 and the team said they played very well.
• Round 8: Czech Republic v Iceland - Liz's favourites, the Ice Men, face a tough match against opponents who have started well. Both teams will be looking to consolidate their top six positions.
• Round 9: Russia v Poland - third v fourth overnight but there is no love lost between the supporters of these teams. The best Polish pair, known as B-Z to much of the world, 'defected' to Russia last year (having not played for the Polish team since before Warsaw) and they tried to play for their new team this time, but appear to have failed to convince the EBL Credentials Committee that they have been truly resident in that country for two years. So 'Z' is now the Russian coach. It does not seem to have affected the team as they have started well, but an important match for both teams.
• Round 9: Ireland v Bulgaria - both strong teams that are languishing in mid-table, so will be looking to improve. Should be a cracker!

Nous sommes arrivés

We arrived on the red eye flight from Stansted this morning, but luckily our hotel had rooms available early for the entire team, except the captain. After depositing our bags, unpacking and checking our uniforms (interesting selection of sizes apparently, but not my place to ask about this), we decided to check out the venue.

Our hotel is not ideally situated. It is about 4km from the venue, but it does appear to be a nice little establishment with good size rooms - Anne even has five beds in hers. So the first task was to see if we could catch a bus into town, something that we managed with very little trouble. Luckily the thunderstorm had passed by this point so walking to the stop was fine!

My only concern about catching the bus in the morning is that we have to go past the local casino, but I'm sure we can always drag Anne out of there if she is playing the first match. It's about 30 minutes door-to-door using the bus (only 10 by taxi) so will be fine in the morning.
 

Once at the Palais Congres we met up with the Open team. I got the low down from Alan about the captain's duties, well the technical aspects at least, and these all seem straightforward. The team has just drawn with the good, young Greek team and were preparing to play Lithuania. Suffice to say that Sheila has now been banned for scoring for them as they got on the wrong side of a wild set of boards (most matches shared more than 100 IMPs). As is always the case you focus on the slam decisions (which went against the team) but they didn't do much that was really wrong.

Finally, it does seem that we have arrived a day earlier than we needed to. Apparently the event was originally scheduled to start on the Wednesday and, by the time the EBL changed its mind, it was too late to change our (budget airline) travel plans. So we'll have a restful couple of days before getting down to business ... aside from the scheduled sessions tomorrow morning!
 

Keeping up to date

All the information on the European Championships, including current standings, daily bulletins and participants can be found on the EBL website.

The performance of the Scottish teams is available directly:

• Open
  
• Women
• Seniors

There is a link to the running scores on the results page.
 

European Championship vugraph

The championships start tomorrow with the Open Series on its own until Thursday. The organisers, in conjunction with BBO, are providing extensive vugraph coverage with seven matches (14 tables) being covered in every round.

Details of the matches being covered can found in this BBO thread.

Matches will be played at 0830, 1115 and 1435 GMT. You can uncover the timings in your timezone on the BBO Vugraph schedule.

You do not need to any software, or a BBO account, to watch vugraph as you can use the new BBOTV viewer in your browser. However if you wish to chat to the commentators, or your friends, then get the BBO software and register (free).

Plenty to watch over the next two weeks.

Recommended viewing

• Round 1: Italy v Switzerland (no big matches this round, so start by watching the defending champions)
• Round 2: Russia v Ireland (Russia disappointed in Warsaw, but Ireland must not underestimate them even though B-Z are not playing)
• Round 3: France v Poland (Both teams will be looking for a top six finish and a good end to the first day)
• Round 4: Czech Republic v Turkey (Turkey will have a lot of support on BBO and should be a good atmosphere)
• Round 5: Israel v England (Both teams underperformed in Warsaw and this will be an important match in the qualification round)
• Round 6: Norway v Ireland (Third v second from Warsaw, although the Norwegians won the Bermuda Bowl as Ireland disappointed - perhaps the first really big match)
  

Thinking with Andrew - NOT!

So I pleased the crowd by going down in a cold game in the 'Think with Andrew' session. And on a classic hand too.

♠ AQxx ♥ AKx ♦ Kxxx ♣ K9x

♠ KJTxx ♥ T9x ♦ xx ♣ ATx

West	North	East	South
Ruth	Andrew	Paul	Nick
1♣	1♥	1♠	p
4♠	p	p	p

Nick led the ♥5. Immediately the hand looks ripe for a throw in, but naturally you win the first trick and draw trumps, Andrew holding a singleton.

Now you cash the remaining top heart and Nick shows out. It is clear that Andrew holds the ace of diamonds for his overcall, although if absolutely necessary I can always lead to it at the end. If Andrew is 1633, then the best line is to throw him in immediately and play for split club honours on his return. Another option is to cash the top clubs and then throw him in, playing him to have longer diamonds than clubs.

The uncertainty of reading the club position suggests the latter line, but this was confirmed as a better line when Nick discarded a club on the second heart. This suggests club length (to me).

But I ignored all this and threw Andrew in straight away. He exited with his singleton club and waited for his diamond tricks.

Cue audience laughter.
 

Think with Andrew

I am taking part in the Acol at BBO's 'Think with Andrew' session this evening, starting at 2000 GMT (9pm London and Berwick, 10pm Paris, 4pm New York).

I am playing with Ruth, who played for Northern Ireland in the Junior Camrose earlier this year, but it's only three boards so we've gone for a simple system:

"Weak NT, 5cM with better minor, weak 2s in three suit, non promissary Stayman, 4 suit Xfers, Multi Landy, Checkback, Lebensohl (slow arrival no stop) Jacoby and unassuming cues, splinters RCKB 1430"

The session is free and open to all. Details on the club's website.

Hope to see some of you there.
 

Another solid performance

Archie and I delivered a solid 55% in the game last night. Okay, perhaps it contained a few too many tops and bottoms but we seemed to be on the same wavelength most of the time.

We showed good understanding for an irregular partnership early on:

♠ AQJxx ♥ KQT9x ♦ x ♣ xx

♠ Kxxx ♥ A ♦ AQT ♣ AKJxx

West	North	East	South
Paul		Archie
1♠	p	2NT1	p
4♥2	p	4NT3	p
5♦4	p	5♥5	p
6♥6	p	7♠	p
p	p

¹ 4+ spades, game forcing raise
² 5-5 majors
³ Keycard Blackwood
⁴ 1 or 4 of the 5 keycards (in spades)
⁵ Asking for ♠Q
⁶ Showing the trump queen and ♥K

With spades 2-2 the contract made trivially.

After the break we faced Liz and Fiona.

♠ 9xx ♥ AKTxx ♦ Axxx ♣ x

♠ AKJxxx ♥ xxx ♦ x ♣ Axx

West	North	East	South
Paul	Liz	Archie	Fiona
	3♣	4♠	p
6♠	p	p	p

Archie is a little light for his jump overcall, but I was not interested in subtle auctions to a grand slam and settled for a practical approach. With spades 2-2 and the heart honours well placed, Archie made an overtrick.

Finally a slightly off-centre pre-empt kept our losses to a minimum:

♠ xx ♥ x ♦ J98x ♣ AQJTxx

♠ AKxx ♥ KQxxx ♦ Q7xx ♣

West	North	East	South
Paul	Dave	Archie	Laura
3♣	p	p	p

Despite Laura holding 5 clubs I was able to make 8 tricks. The traveller was littered with -300 and -400 scores and we had something near a top. I don't consider it a particularly off-centre opening but I didn't hear of anyone else who did it!

On the same hand Brian was faced with finding a lead after the auction:

West	North	East	South
p	p	1♥	p
2♣	p	2♠	p
3♣	p	3NT	p
p	p

He held

♠ Jx ♥ AJTx ♦ Kx ♣ Kxxxx

and he found the best lead of the ♠J.
 

European Championship draw

The draft schedule has just been published for the Women Series. Overall I'm pleased with it with the favourites spread evenly through the event, although the final day looks to be tough.

Date	10:30 – 13:20	14:15 – 17:05	17:35 – 20:25
Thursday 19 June 2008	Iceland	Croatia	bye
Friday 20 June 2008	Germany	Norway	Austria
Saturday 21 June 2008		England	Finland
Sunday 22 June 2008	Greece	Italy	Netherlands
Monday 23 June 2008	Hungary	Portugal	Lebanon
Tuesday 24 June 2008	Russia	Ireland
Wednesday 25 June 2008	Wales	Czech Republic	Israel
Thursday 26 June 2008	Denmark	France	Turkey
Friday 27 June 2008	Poland	Spain	Sweden

 
Edit: updated on 04-June-2008
 

Feeling like Moss?

A world-class declarer failed to make the contract on the following deal at the US Team Trials:

♠ AQ7653 ♥ 84 ♦ T92 ♣ AJ

♠ ♥ AKJ975 ♦ ♣ KQ76532

West	North	East	South
Gitelman	Jacobs	Moss	Katz
1♠	p	2♣	p
2♠	p	3♥	p
4♣	p	5♥	p
6♣	p	p	p

A good auction and I particularly like the 4♣ and 5♥ bids.

But the play is the thing. Katz leads the ♦A, over to you! It is easier to play as a problem, without the pressure of the event or the added complication of being behind in the match.

At the other table there was less control in the auction:

West	North	East	South
Levin	Wolpert	Weinstein	Spector
1♠	p	2♣	p
2♠	p	3♥	p
4♣	p	5♦1	p
5NT2	p	7♣	p
p	p

¹ Exclusion Keycard (I presume)
² 2 aces w/o queen of clubs

The grand slam is easier to play, in the sense that there are fewer options. In the event both contracts failed for a small swing to the Spector team.
 

Feeling like Zia?

From a friendly team match on BBO last night:

♠ QT86 ♥ ♦ T8753 ♣ QJ95

West	North	East	South
			1♣1
p	1♥	p	1NT2
p	2♠3	p	3♥
p	3NT	p	p
p

¹ Either natural or 11-13/17-19 balanced
² Any 11-13 balanced without 4 hearts
³ 4+ spades, 4+ hearts, game forcing

There is a single card to beat this contract. Any guesses?