A look back at the International Bridge Tournament in St. Moritz

The 76^th International Bridge Tournament in St. Moritz was staged from 23^rd January to 1^st February.

Based in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, this festival brings together international teams.

Funbridge Team member Jérôme Rombaut took part in the Team Tournament. His team included three France Team players, namely Cédric Lorenzini, François Combescure and himself, the last player being Kiki Wordplatt-Ward.

“The first two days went very well with six wins and two losses, allowing us to finish top of the first elimination stage. Here are the standings at that stage:

1^st Ward 112.06 (France/Ward-Lorenzini-Combescure-Rombaut)

2^nd Piedra 108.5 (Switzerland/Piedra-Wildavsky-Magnusson-AbouChanab)

3^rd Wrang 102.4 (Sweden/Wrang-Wrang-Wrang-Kamras)

4^th Auken 101.19 (Germany/Auken-Welland-Jahr-Reim)

 

We selected Wrang Team (Sweden) including three brothers as our semi-final opponent. We started with a 6-imp lead thanks to our previous clear win over them. When the first half ended, we had taken an impressive lead: 18-1. We had an overall 23-imp lead with seven deals to go. The second half was a complete disaster: 23-0 loss! We finally tied and had to play two more deals in sudden death. We won 11-1 and thus qualified for the final where we faced Piedra Team (Switzerland). We had a carry-over of -0.6 imp. The first half was very tight and won by the Swiss, 5-11. We came back into the game in the second half, 18-12. Unfortunately, that was not enough. Final match score: 23-23. But we lost because of the carry-over.

Here is a deal played in the final.

All vulnerable, second half, first deal:

N	E	S	W
PASS	PASS
PASS	PASS		PASS
?

 

I sit North:

Q 6  Q 10 9 8 5  8 3  Q 9 5 3

 

I decided to bid 5C, which became the final contract.

The full deal was:

Q 6   Q 10 9 8 5  6 3  Q 9 5 3

K 10 9 8 7 4 3  2  A Q 8 4  8

J 5  A J 7 6  J 9 7 2  10 7 6

A 2  K 4 3  K 10 5  A K J 4 2

 
We lost two diamond and one heart tricks on the spade lead to go one down (The result would have been the same regardless of the lead). In a 4S contract, declarer would easily win because on the diamond lead (the one that I would have made), as he would not lose any diamond trick, he could afford to give away two trump tricks. On the club lead, declarer would give away one diamond trick but should lose one trump trick only if playing spade to the king, which would be the natural play.

The deal seemed to be quite good. Unfortunately, our opponents sitting at the other table made their 3NT contract from the right hand, scoring 600 points. We lost 12 points on the deal without having anything to be ashamed of. Thanks to their aggressive 4S bid, opponents at our table (our partner having just overcalled 1S and then bid 3S at the other table) won the deal and the match.

Better luck next year!”