Örebro bridge festival
Örebro Bridge Festival
For ten days straight, the city of Örebro gets invaded by bridge players from all around the country, all there to attend the yearly Swedish Bridge Festival. Every day, those hungry for quantity can play up to 72 boards in various levels of field.
The main event, however, is called the Chairman’s Cup. As a part of the World Bridge Tour, we often see international professionals visit Sweden.
This year, the event was won by Team Alpert: Claire Alpert, Francisco Bernal, Agustin Madala, Marion Michielsen, Antonio Sementa and Alfredo Versace.
A deceptive defensive play
With neither of us authors making a great run in the Chairman’s Cup, the first highlight comes from António Palma and Team Ventin.
Antonio decided to lead the ♥8 to dummy’s ace. Declarer pitched the ♦J, and Andrea played the ♥5.
When Andrea followed with the ♥5, he denied the ♦A. So, if the jack of diamonds was an honest card, declarer had 6-5 in the black suits, which was also consistent with the bidding.
Declarer now played the ♣J at trick two. Antonio ducked smoothly, giving declarer a losing option.
Afraid of losing a club to Kxxx while also potentially finding the ♠Q offside, declarer finessed clubs again.
The defence could then score an overruff on the third round of clubs for one down.
Sometimes a good story matters more than a good board
After his early exit in the main event, Abragi instead spent the following days playing some side events.
Here is a hand from one of the shorter and more relaxed tournaments – one of those where getting a good story to tell is more important than scoring well…
♠ KJT8x
♥ –
♦ K9765
♣ Axx
Abragi opened 1♠ and his LHO doubled. Partner splintered with 4♣ and RHO “raised” to 5♣.
It seemed like the diamond suit would decide whether there was a slam or not, so Abragi bid 5♦.
This should be more specific than just a cuebid; since partner’s splinter bid establishes a forcing-pass situation, that is the bid we would have chosen with more spread-out values.
Now LHO bid 6♣ and partner made a forcing pass, re-inviting slam.
Partner probably wouldn’t do this without any diamond help, so Abragi took a shot at 6♠.
When LHO doubled, it was quickly sent back with a blue card by Abragi.
In case you forgot: good stories are more important than good boards in this event.
Trying to make 6♠xx
RHO leads the ♥A, and dummy’s cards tell us one very good and one very bad thing.
The good thing is that partner clearly has a lot of faith in our declarer play.
The bad thing is that those skills seem fairly unlikely to help us make this contract.
There isn’t much to go on, and with LHO having confidently doubled, the prospects are not exactly encouraging.
Anyway, we ruff the lead in hand. For the contract to have any chance, we must pick up the ♠Q with East.
So we continue by ruffing a club in dummy and running the ♠9.
West wins the ace – good! – and surprisingly returns another spade – even better!
Now all that remains is to draw trumps and pick up the diamond suit. Our remaining club can be discarded on the ♥K in dummy.
Reading the distribution
So what is the layout?
West had two spades and, with East not bidding hearts over 4♣, it looks as though West has four of them.
Bidding 6♣ seems rather adventurous with fewer than four clubs, so West should have either a 2-4-3-4 or 2-4-2-5 distribution.
The 6♣ bid makes more sense with the latter distribution, but that would leave only five clubs with East, who might then have chosen to double 4♣ rather than bid 5♣ himself.
So Abragi cashed the ♦K and took the diamond finesse.
East showed out.
Perfect. Now we’re making it!
The good story?
Well, +2070 is already a pretty good start. But the cherry on top is that, if you play carefully enough, you can win the last trick with the ♦7 and cash in a beer from partner.
Cheers!
The full deal:
Into the Gold Mine
The final weekend sees two major events collide: the Swedish Open Pairs and the Gold Mine.
Abragi played in the championship while Andrea chose the Mine.
The Gold Mine starts with a one-day qualifier, after which the field is divided into various finals of 20 pairs.
The top 20 qualifiers play the A Final, the next 20 battle in the B Final, and so on.
Andrea comfortably qualified for the A Final partnering Palma.
During the final, this board helped them climb the rankings:
Suit preference: communication is key
Partner led a spade, which was necessary to create a spade ruff in my hand.
Looking at the ♠A-K in dummy, you now know that partner is singleton.
Declarer won the first trick and played a trump.
I decided to duck the first trump, and partner followed with the ♥4.
On the second round of trumps, partner played the ♥3 and I won with the ace.
When partner plays the trumps in that order, it is a suit-preference signal for the higher-ranking remaining suit.
So I played a diamond to his ace.
Partner then gave me the spade ruff, and we could also cash the last winning diamond for one down.
Communication is the key in life – but also in bridge!
Chairman’s Cup podium
| Place | Team | Players |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alpert | Claire Alpert, Agustin Madala, Alfredo Versace, Antonio Sementa, Francisco Bernal, Marion Michielsen |
| 2 | Ventin | Juan Carlos Ventin, Simon Hult, António Palma, Andrea Manno, Fredrik Nyström |
| 3 | Gyllene Hörnan | Lasse Aaseng, Svein-Gunnar Karlberg, Stian Evenstad, Nicolai Heiberg Evenstad, Aasmund Forfot, Karl Morten Lunna |
| 3 | Gillis o Co. | Simon Gillis, Erik Saelensminde, Odin Svendsen, Christian Bakke, Ole Berset, Martin Schaltz |
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