Eliminated… but winners of the BAM

This is MKB with more summer championships news! After the Transnational Championships held in Poland, I headed to Italy to play the World Youth Championships with Romaric.

On the way from Poznań to Salsomaggiore, Luc and I stopped off in Vienna, Venice and Verona… A nice trip for our 5-day bridge break!

My first U26 Championships

I played these World Championships in the Juniors category for the first time. Last year I played the European Championships — which serves as a qualifier for the World Championships — in the Girls category, and we actually won. 😎

Last year’s team was made up of Léo Rombaut, Théo Guillemin, Maxence Fragola, Nao Tabata, Romaric Guth and Luc Bellicaud. As Luc has just exceeded the age limit, he unfortunately had to give up his place… So I was able to sneak in and play with Romaric this year! 🩵

We were accompanied by our team captain Lionel Sebbane.

The French bridge federation sent 6 players in each category: U16, U21, Girls, U31 and Juniors. We are a very close-knit group of young people and we love to support each other between teams.

20 teams took part in the U26 category. The format is 3 days of qualifiers, which meant 19 matches of 8 deals for us. Then 8 teams can play in the quarter-finals.

The aim is not just to finish in the top 8, but to be as high as possible in order to be able to choose your opponents in the quarter-finals.

Which card should I return to help my partner?

Here is a first deal from Round 2 against India. I was playing with Romaric. Maxence and Nao were in the other room.

Against 4♠, I led my singleton club, taken by the king in West (Romaric played the 4, East the 3). Declarer then cashed the ace of hearts on which they threw a diamond before playing a spade.

On lead with the ace of spades, I knew I had to try to give the lead to Romaric in diamonds to take a ruff: with the king, declarer wouldn’t have discarded so quickly, and Romaric’s cards suggested he had an honour in diamonds. But which card should I continue with?

I couldn’t play the ace of diamonds followed by another diamond because if declarer only started with two, the king would be ruffed. If I played the jack of diamonds, Romaric wouldn’t know where the ace was and would never play the king unless declarer played dummy’s queen. So I played my smallest diamond — the encouraging low card — to show the ace.

Roro played the king, gave me my club ruff, then we played a red card to give up the lead to declarer, who was forced to give away the queen of clubs at the end, going one down. Not many people defeated the contract, so we were quite happy. 🙂

The four hands:

How to choose between 3NT and 5m?

This time, we were playing alongside Théo and Léo against USA2 (Round 11).

In the balancing seat over 2♥, Romaric had two options to make the sequence forcing: the double and the cue bid. So what’s the difference between the two?

When the double is the most frequent bid, the cue bid shows a heart shortage. So I didn’t bid 3NT with my bare ace, as that would imply making 9 tricks without losing the lead! So I bid 4♣ naturally and Romaric repeated his diamonds.

I showed my control in hearts, as Romaric had not limited his hand, and he signed off in 5♦. A good result since at the other table the opponents went down in 3NT!

The full deal:

A superb journey… But one that ends too soon.

We finished first in the qualifiers after 3 days, a very good performance! ✨

We chose to play against USA2 again in the quarter-final, but unfortunately we lost by about 10 IMPs over the day.

So we joined the Board-A-Match, which brings together all the eliminated teams, and we continued to support the French teams still in the running, namely the Kids and the U31s.

Both teams ended up winning the bronze medal, after losing in the semi-finals but winning the match for the third place. Well done to them! 🥉

The BAM, consolation with all teams

We mixed up the pairs a bit for the BAM, so I mostly played with Naotchou. 🍄

We met a lot of teams, as there were those eliminated from the U21, Girls, U26 and U31 categories. We even faced a few French teams. 🙂

It was great fun, and it allowed us to end the Championships on a positive note and to step onto the podium together.

The whole team was lovely (especially my partner, of course!) and these first Championships in the U26 category really made me want to play more, as the level is higher than in the Girls category.

But we’re only halfway through the Championships, as the pairs events will start after a 1-day break! I’ll be playing with Romaric again for the mixed pairs, then with Clara (my first partner on the French team) for the Open. 💛