The must-attend youth event

A bridge week by the seaside

As every year, the Biarritz Festival is the biggest event for young bridge players. The French youth teams come here to practise ahead of the summer championships in a competitive, educational and convivial setting.

Personally I have played:

• the Mixed pairs with Luc,
• the Teams event with Farès Ait Mouhoub, who will be my partner this summer, alongside Luc and Romaric,
• and the Open pairs with Zoey, who co-wrote this article.

We have already played together several times and became European champions in the same team in 2024. Zoey also played the Mixed with Lionel Sebbane (not bad!), and the Swiss teams with Élise, her partner in 2024. Clara and Saveria (Girls team) completed the team.

The Mixed pairs

Hi everyone! I’m Zoey Mauberquez. On this first deal played with Lionel Sebbane in the Mixed pairs, North opened 1♠, my partner doubled, South passed and I bid 2♣. North passed and my partner bid 2♥.

So I decided to rebid my clubs, hoping to find him with two. He finally chose to pass with 19 HCPs, which proved to be the right decision.

The defence could defeat the contract after the lead of the ace of spades by continuing with the king of clubs and another club to partner’s ace. Now they could cash two extra tricks in spades, the club return preventing me from ruffing my spade loser and cashing them before I could discard one on the ace of hearts after the finesse against the king (which could be quite easily located with the opening leader given the bidding and knowing that South holds the ace of clubs).

Hopefully, they didn’t play that way and I was able to make, scoring 100%!

The Swiss teams: Zoey–Elise and Farès–MKB

Let’s start with a deal played by Zoey, or rather one of her teammates!

In the Swiss teams, my partners Clara Bouton and Saveria Garcia bid grand slam. It wasn’t declared at my table, whereas we were facing the top-seeded team!

Here is the bidding at their table. Saveria opened 1♠. Clara responded 2NT, a game-forcing bid showing 4 trumps in their system. Sav bid 3♣, showing a shortage. Clara bid 4♠. She responded 6♥ to the Blackwood, showing the queen of trumps as well as the king of hearts. Saveria signed off in 7♠.

At my table, the bidding started similarly with 1♠, but South responded 2♣. That slowed North down in the quest for a grand slam, as they thought their partner probably had some values in their singleton. Well done, girls! 😉

Now a deal played by my partner Farès. I bid 3♦ in North before supporting in hearts to try a micro-invite to slam if Farès really held the perfect cards. You’ll see, 4♥ was already hard to make.

Spade lead. In dummy, club discard to duck towards the ace. I played a diamond to the queen, then the queen of hearts and another heart. I saw the 4-1 split with four trumps in East. Then I returned a diamond from my hand. West followed with the king. I played small and the RHO discarded. They played the ace of clubs followed by a spade. I ruffed and started to run the diamonds.

In the end position, I had the jack of hearts left in dummy, and the king and a small heart in hand. East still had two trumps. If they discarded, I would do the same. If they ruffed, I would over-ruff. I could then cross back with trumps, depriving them of their last trump thanks to the diamond winners.

Aquarium and walks

The Open started at 8pm on Friday, the perfect schedule for people with a job who can participate without having to take too many days off.

I really enjoyed this day off before the event kicked off. It gave us time to do some sightseeing. In a previous edition, I spent the day in San Sebastian.

The Open pairs, the final event of the week

This year, 80 pairs registered. The winners were David Harari and Philippe Molina with 59%, ahead of the young pair Romain Bloch–Olivia Ver Hulst, who produced a great performance with regard to their theoretical ranking. The podium was completed by Anne Rouanet-Labé and Olivier Desages.

Zoey and I finished with around 53%, a decent achievement for our first time together. I will now tell you about one deal from this Open where we could have defended even better.

In this contract of 2♠ doubled, I led the ace of trumps to see the dummy and prevent declarer from ruffing there. Then I returned the queen of diamonds, not knowing where my partner’s values laid. Zoey won with the ace and played ace-king-queen of hearts, and the 10. Declarer ruffed and I over-ruffed with the jack — why not!

At that point, I didn’t really know what to play. I knew that my partner had five hearts and probably two spades, but I didn’t know about the diamonds and therefore the clubs. Playing in one of these two suits seemed risky: I placed the king of diamonds with East but the position of the clubs remained unclear.

I chose the king of spades and another spade, imagining giving up the lead to the declarer and pushing them to play in one of the two minor suits, and reveal the positions… But unfortunately, the queen of spades fell under my king.

We defeated the contract by three tricks for 500, better than the games played in our line since we were also non-vulnerable.

When I led the ace of spades in that sequence, after having passed a take-out double, I thought that I necessarily had the king. Zoey, on lead with the ace of diamonds, could perhaps have played the queen of spades to help me locate it before continuing in hearts to allow me to over-ruff the declarer. Not easy to see it at the time!

Slam deals with Zoey — we’ve got that covered!

This was the first deal of the Open that I was playing with MKB. I admit that it gave us confidence for the rest of the event…

My partner opened 1♥, North overcalled with the 3♠ pre-empt. I bid 5♣. South bid 5♦ and my partner doubled.

With nine clubs and the king of hearts in my partner’s opened suit, I felt that we had good chances of winning the club slam. I was not certain that 5♦ would go down, having no obvious defensive tricks. So I chose to bid 6♣ and crossed my fingers. South doubled. A brief stressful moment, true, before seeing my partner’s wonderful hand. I had only one diamond loser: 6♣ doubled making!

And finally, the last deal of this article. I opened 1♠ in South. My partner responded 2♣ (game-forcing). Then I bid 2♦. She continued with a 2NT relay bid, over which I decided to rebid my diamonds rather than spades to show my fifth diamond, without denying the possibility of a sixth spade.

My partner bid 4♦. I said 4♠. I should probably have bid 4♥ instead, but I didn’t dare to show my void. I bid Blackwood. I responded 5♦ (2 key cards… still not daring to show my void 😂).

West doubled my response to Blackwood, lead-directing double. My partner, having ace-queen of hearts and the king-10 of spades complement, decided to declare 6NT. The contract was lay-down, conceding only the ace of spades.

What do you think of this article co-written by Zoey and Margaux?

Share your view in the Comments section of this article!