European Youth Teams Championship - Match 16/17 vs Latvia/Israel

Could we overhaul Ireland and finish second last? Our first match today was against Latvia, who for a while were close to us at the bottom end of the table.

I spent the day at Efteling theme park, and while this match was being played I was on a rollercoaster. It started in the dark, went up a little bit, then came crashing down. That was similar to our scorecard, as we first raced into an 18-0 lead.

It's very rare for us to get a gain from directly outplaying out opponents, more often they come from a divergence in the auction. The board below produced some huge variation, with contracts ranging from the one to seven level, with most of them doubled.

South (Michael) was spared the decision over what to open the bidding when his North (Donald) opened 1H. East came in with 2S and Michael started with 3D. When partner bid 3NT, Michael passed. I would have bid 5C. Not often you get a 0-0-7-6 hand. Here partner has a double stop in the majors plus entries, so 3NT made.

On the other table North also opened 1H, but this time East passed. South took the low road, passing, and North had a rather tough time playing 1H. It would have been a fun dummy to table, though rather useless in 1H. Two off and 11 IMPs to Scotland.

When we came crashing down we hit the ground hard, including an attempt to make a grand slam missing the Ace of trumps. It didn't work out. 

Round 16 Victory Points: 0

Total VPS so far: 40.91 (18th place, 2.4 IMPs behind Ireland)

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For our final match we needed to produce a result against Israel. 

Although bidding is the thing players worry about, and spend most time discussing, it shouldn't be the priority. I've had many Juniors tell me "the play's fine, I'm just not sure about the bidding". They all need to improve their play.

In fact, given that this is our last match, some team awards. The best play goes to Donald, best bidding Michael, best performing pair Lydia and Jack, and most improved Tamsin and Jamie.

Here are two missed opportunities from this final match:

Well done the pair who got to 6C, played by South. If I tell you that every finesse works and trumps are 2-2 it seems easy, but I can see how you could run into problems. Suppose you get a low Heart lead from West (the 3). What's your plan?

The Heart lead is annoying, but you can't avoid the Heart finesse so have to take it. It wins. Since you are worried about a Heart ruff you next play Ace of trumps and another, accepting that this may mean you go down if trumps are 3-1 and Hearts 4-1 (as you can't ruff out the Hearts). Otherwise you are home.

I don't know what happened, but presumably the Scotland defender was talked into a losing line (the sneaky low Heart lead from K3 maybe), and took only 10 tricks.

Next a challenge for East-West

Well done getting to 6S. West was declarer and got a Heart lead. How do you play it?

The key thing is what to do with your Clubs. You could take a finesse (a 50/50 shot), or try and ruff them out (much better). If you draw two rounds of trumps and they turn out to be 2-2 you are home (unless Clubs are 5-1). If trumps split 3-1 you need to stop drawing trumps after only two rounds, and start ruffing Spades high. It's therefore good technique to win the first Heart in dummy (so you have the King of Hearts entry back to hand).

Here trumps are 2-2 so it shouldn't be a problem. The Scotland declarer went down, which I guess would be taking an unnecessary finesse (North had Qxxx in Clubs), or maybe playing three rounds of Clubs before drawing trumps and ruffing low in dummy and getting overruffed.

Either way, I'd like to give the declarer the same contract in a year or two and see if they make it then!

Unfortunately the 0.58 Victory Points we achieved here was not enough to overhaul Ireland. Well played to them! (And France, the overall winners of the U26)

Round 17 Victory Points: 0.58

Total VPS so far: 40.91 (18th place, 2.4 IMPs behind Ireland)

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European Youth Teams Championship - Match 13/14/15 vs Poland/Ireland/Turkey

In our first match we were soundly beaten by Poland, the scorecard a barrage of Polish scores against nothing our side. A couple of times Poland bid a good minor slam, more often we were missing game. 

A constant theme has been our players undervaluing distributional hands, and being strict point-counters rather than trick-counters. But we are getting better. In the last match before I left I was delighted to see Tamsin upgrade her hand with ♣AKxxxx and get straight to 3NT. We need more judgement like that.

Our East opened a weak NT. East transferred to a minor and played 3♦. Not much can go wrong in the play and declarer took 11 tricks.

On the other table of course Poland were in 5♦, making the same 11 tricks.

On another day West taking the low-road might have been a winning choice, but I think on balance the hand is worth at least an invite to game. The key thing is to count tricks, not points. Or, to put it another way, if East has just a couple of good cards then game is good, and when you need so little from partner to make game you should probably bid it. We've not discussed it but I think the way to do it would be for West to transfer with 2♠, then when East bids 3♣ you jump to 4♦. This must be both minors, as with just one you could make an immediate strong 3♣/3♦ bid over 1NT.

Well done to table-topping France who got to the top spot of 6♣.

Round 13 Victory Points: 0

Total VPS so far: 32.58 (17th place)

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Next up was the big one - our match against Ireland. The 20 Victory Points on offer was sure to provide a bumper haul for one team, or maybe both of us if it was 10-10.

Ireland raced into the lead when we played 4H on a 4-3 fit, then we got some back with this good effort from Jack and Lydia.

West (Jack) opened a weak 2S and East (Lydia) bid an immediate 4H. This was passed out (well done Jack not bidding 4S). On their card it says that a new suit from East is game-forcing, but when you know the final contract is going to be 4H, why bid anything else? (They don't play splinters, so 4H must be natural).

4H went very nicely for 11 tricks. The Irish East-West, and many other pairs, played 3S.

Most of the action was in the Open Room. Jack and Lydia bid not one but two grand slams. 

I didn't say they made two grand slams, It's easy to find several places where this auction could have gone better. East could begin with a game forcing strong 2D response, then it would be clear when she bids 6D it's to play. Bidding RKCB after the 2H bid means Hearts are trumps, so is a bad idea. Better would be fourth suit forcing, or a forcing jump to 4D. West could have passed 6D, which was surely natural since they didn't have any other meaning for it. Finally East could have bid 6NT instead of 7D (knowing that partner had the Ace of Clubs).

I agree with the rest of the bids though :)

The Irish had a more straight-forward auction where East leapt to 6D earlier on. This is exactly the sort of hand you should jump to slam with, as partner is never going to support you with all those Diamonds, although maybe it's worth doing Blackwood to see if you can play 7D.

Sweden joined us in this hand on 7D-1, showing it can happen to anyone.

Next, came a happier outcome:

East (Lydia) opened a game-forcing 2C. This seems reasonable to me, in that partner only needs the King of Diamonds to make game good. On the other hand, when you have such a distributional hand like this it's very unlikely that a 1C opening will be passed out, so that would probably be my choice.

I'm not sure what West (Jack) thought when partner opened 2C. He made a positive response of 2S, then when East bid 3C jumped to 7NT. If that was his plan he might as well have bid 7NT the first time, which would have been even more stylish.

There are exactly 13 top tricks (without requiring Spades to split or the Diamond finesse). That's my kind of grand slam. Well done you two!

The Irish played 2C+5. Just kidding. They played 6C, along with the majority of pairs.

In this high-scoring encounter Ireland prevailed 50-44, with the result in the balance even on the final board (a further 6S slam was available to Jack and Lydia). Well played to the Irish four of Isabel Walsh & Sheila Burke and Aileen Armstrong & Andrew Newbold.

This is our highest scoring game, but feels like a loss (which it was). We now slip behind our biggest rivals.

Round 14 Victory Points: 8.33

Total VPS so far: 40.91 (18th place, by 1.5 VPs)

♣ ♦ ♥ ♠

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We now need to gain a few more VPs than Ireland in the last three matches to overtake them. It didn't happen here though, as we were trounced by Turkey by an astonishing 133-10 VPs.

Whenever our East-West pair made a game Turkey made a slam. When our North-South pair went one off in game Turkey made it. This was the most surprising:

North opened Our East overcalled 2C. The bid is obviously far too weak for an overcall, especially vulnerable. It's costly if you get doubled, but can also cost in another way, as I expect happened. Getting two level overcalls up to strength still needs more work!

The Turkish South got to 5D. A low Heart was led from East. I don't have the play records but assume West took two Hearts. After this declarer can place the King of Diamonds with East, to make up his vulnerable two-level overcall (East can't have KQJ of Clubs else he would have led one). So he played for the drop. The alternative possibility is that West for some reason didn't take his top Hearts, after which the natural line for declarer would be to play the Ace of Diamonds then try and set up the Spades, also leading to success.

Well done Donald and Jamie getting to 5D, which goes down on the normal line of finessing Diamonds.

So a 20-0 loss but Ireland didn't get any victory points either so we remain 1.5 VPs behind going into the final day.

Round 15 Victory Points: 0

Total VPS so far: 40.91 (18th place, by 1.5 VPs)

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European Youth Teams Championship - Match 11/12 vs Bulgaria/Germany

I'm now in Amsterdam with the children so no blogging today. However, I received this from Alisdair, a report on the start of Match 11 vs Bulgaria:

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Today is my first full day with all the Captain duties to myself. I was there for all of Saturday, but the competition rules meant that Danny had to submit the lineup for the Netherlands match on Friday night, even though it was played on Saturday morning. Once the Italy match was underway, I went right ahead and enthusiastically submitted my lineups for the next three matches - forgetting that Sunday has only two, and we're good up to Monday morning now. Three mornings in a row where Jamie and Tamsin are playing the morning match - twice with Jack and Lydia as team-mates. Oops! I was prepared to go to the Director with my begging bowl and ask if I could change the lineup, but the team unanimously assured me that what we had already was probably the right idea.

The team are still in good spirits despite the fact we are still seeking our first win. Donald needs to be constantly reminded that we didn't actually "win" against Hungary. We socialised on Saturday night playing anything-but-bridge (although lots of card games were involved). I couldn't get the hang of all of them, but I won all the "chips" at Texas Hold Em'. (Scotland players and coaches do NOT gamble while on International duty; the chips were returned to the board game from whence they came). I found out Danny had schooled the team at the same game a couple of nights previously. Coaches have to show their worth somehow! The players' tendency to raise All In without so much as a pair revealed a lot about their bidding habits!

Conversation at Breakfast was upbeat as we pored over the Bulgarian convention cards and I gave some pointers for competitive auctions. Alas, we were not off to a good start. Board 2 was one of those boards where our pairs did little wrong, but are just not experienced enough to achieve the optimum result:

After a strong 1NT Opener from East, Lydia and Jack found their 8-card (6-2) heart fit, and their better quality 5-3 spade fit never got a look in. They rightly believed that Slam was a possibility, but investigated in the wrong major. They quickly found a missing Key Card as well as a missing Queen of trumps, and stopped in Game to notch up +650. At the other table, a Precision 1 Club opening allowed the Bulgarian pair to discover the spade suit, and they went to Slam in the correct Major. An 11-IMP setback was not the start we wanted.

Still, this team has learned nothing if not resilience this week, and they came storming back two boards later.

Unfortunately, we don't get Play records, so we rely on the players' recollections to report how it happened (and we can't ask until after the match). Quite often, all memory of the cardplay is flushed from their brains the moment they leave the playing area. 

What we know is that our East-West Lydia and Jack got to a good - but tight - four hearts contract. It should make, but there is plenty opportunity to go wrong. Fortunately, our Declarer didn't and +620 was a good start. It got better: Tamsin came in with her spade suit at the 2-level over the Bulgarian's Stayman. Her counterpart had bid 3 when her LHO already knew of the heart fit, making 4H an easy bid. Here, I can only assume Tamsin's opponents had a misunderstanding about what the double of 2 Spades was, and Tamsin happily made an overtrick and collected +870 for a 16-IMP swing.

For the third match running, we had taken a lead early on, but far too early for me to have legitimate hope that we would still be ahead at the end of the match. Still, Jack and Lydia did their best to give me hope on the very next board:

The two main "bridge" topics of discussion at breakfast came together here, as Lydia and Jack had to deal with a Precision 1 Club Opener and compete. They had agreed what their double of the 1 Diamond relay was, and I thought they might use it here, but no: A direct 2 Diamonds bid was the choice. This was raised, the Bulgarians competed in hearts, and the eventual contract was 4 Diamonds Doubled. -100 was an excellent result considering a vulnerable Game was available the other way. Unfortunately, Tamsin (South) was not as forceful with her hearts as she should have been, and allowed her partner to play in 3NT rather than 4H. At first glance, it looks like he has plenty of tricks. But not if East ducks the Ace of hearts! This blocks Jamie out of dummy, and is why it was crucial to play in 4 Hearts which would have made. -200 scored for -7 IMPs, and thoughts once again turned from "Can we actually win this one?" to "Can we at least score some VPs?" On the face of it, not an encouraging thing, but this is a very inexperienced team that are gaining a lot of valuable experience. To have a glimmer of hope for three consecutive matches is not something that would have been possible at the start of the competition. As Tamsin said to me yesterday: "I've learned more in the last two days than I have done in the last two years". Comments like that, from a teacher's point of view, justify the team's participation in full.

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The final score was 25-51 IMPs.

Round 11 Victory Points: 4.16

Total VPS so far: 26.77 (17th place)

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Match 12 against Germany was a cracker. The four of Donald-Michael and Jack-Lydia lost 37 IMPs on the first four boards, but followed that up with several good ones to lose 40-57 IMPs.

This board caught my eye:

In the Closed Room Jack made our normal weak 2D opening. The German North doubled. Lydia could have come in with 3D here (showing a few Diamonds), but passed. The German south bid 2S, and played there.

With the trumps and Clubs both behaving declarer has nine top tricks - in fact ten with the Heart Ace onside. Jack led the Seven of Clubs, solving that suit for declarer, and he cashed out for nine tricks.

On the other table the German West had a natural 2D available, but went for 3D. North (Donald) also doubled this, and South (Michael) bid and played 3S. 

This time the lead was a small Diamond, giving declarer no clues. Since only eight tricks were made I presume we got Clubs wrong. Hard to say without the play record. It certainly looks easy seeing all four hands, but then it usually does. Sadly for us the German declarer in 2S made nine tricks, and the Scottish declarer in 3S made only eight. 

But that was only 5 IMPs away, we got them back and more doubling the Germans in 7C, to finish with our closest result yet.

Round 12 Victory Points: 5.81

Total VPS so far: 32.58 (17th place)

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European Youth Teams Championship - Match 10 vs Italy

I'm no longer at the tournament, having said my goodbyes and gone back to Schiphol. I've got here a comfortable 3 hours before my family arrive so have plenty of time to see what happened with the Italy match, then make them a big sign.

I can see that we lost 25-65, collecting a further 2.19 VPs. Not a bad result, against the number one team here. 

Board 1 was a fairly typical 7 IMP loss, where we guessed to go low and everyone else bid 3NT. Four times in this match the opponents gained a swing on 3NT boards, and only once did their 3NT fail and we gained a few back. Bidding, declaring, and defending 3NT well should be our goal!

However, Scotland did fight back. Bravo Donald and Michael bidding this one to 4♠ for a six IMP gain (only 2♠+3) on the other table:

After South (Michael) opened 1♠, West doubled and North (Donald) made a 2♠ raise. Strictly we play four card majors but I like his raise. East bid 4♥ and Michael bid 4♠. Even if you finesse trumps (which I think you should after the takeout double) that's 10 tricks.

On the other table our West (Jack) chose not to make that takeout double, having only three Hearts, and Italy settled in only 2♠. Well played guys.

After a couple more good results we went into reverse, removing a good 3NT into 5♦, doubled and off three.

Perhaps some slam deals could save us?

Jack and Lydia bid this one to 6♥, played by East. They got a Heart lead. With the Diamond Queen dropping declarer can throw a losing Spade from the West hand, and just needs to guess Clubs right. Presumably we guessed wrong, as it sadly went one off, for a big swing out (other table 4♥+2, so could have been a big swing in).

One final 3NT woe: how did the Italian declarer (North) steal 3NT here on a Diamond lead?
  

I'm guessing he won the Ace first round (no point ducking, just tells the defence they've found your weak suit), then stole an immediate Spade trick to get up to nine.

I've been impressed with the fortitude of the team in putting aside bad results and continuing to bid up / pre-empt / interfere with strong Club openings. Jack and Lydia duly bounced back here.

All 18 East-West pairs bid to 6♠ here (or doubled 6♦), and that included Scotland. We did it in four bids (East opens 1♠, West bids Blackwood...), the Italians took 14 bids.

It does take some care to play it well. The only thing that can go wrong is in the Heart suit, so you focus on that. Do you lead up to KQ twice, or finesse the Jack? Can you still make it if there is AJx offside? You'd like to eliminate the other suits first (so you might get a ruff and discard) but that won't work when trumps are 4-0.

I think the best you can do after drawing trumps is lead up to your KQ. Assuming no honours appear you lead the Ten on the second round, having a decision to make what to do next. Here it's no problem as the Ace appears on the second round. 

Well done Lydia making the contract, and gaining another slam bonus. 

That's our last match today, with a lighter weekend schedule. Tomorrow it's Bulgaria then Germany.

Round 10 Victory Points: 2.19

Total VPS so far: 22.61 (17th place, still just above Ireland and a long way behind everyone else)

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European Youth Teams Championship - Match 9 vs Netherlands

At the not-quite-halfway stage we are sitting just above Ireland. Here is the full table:

The top eight teams (in bold) qualify for the upcoming world-championship in Italy, maybe top nine if Italy qualify as looks likely. It will be interesting to see if England can claw themselves back into the mix. However, it's clear at this stage the real battle shaping up is between the bottom two. We meet head-to-head on Monday.

Both teams have been inching along. Today Ireland took five VPs from Israel, a great result.

As we (they) are half way through the tournament the teams have started to mix a bit more socially.  Game of badminton anyone? 

This morning we face Netherlands and then Italy. 

Being the only pair who plays a weak NT I was hoping this might give us an edge. I was speaking to the Dutch pair who weren't playing and they weren't too concerned about it. "12-14, many pairs play 9-12!" 

On the very first board their methods were tested, and the Dutch East-West were forced into a shaky game:

Our South (Michael) opened the weak NT and West doubled for penalties. We play that all two level bids are natural escapes so North (Donald) tried 2♠. East made a takeout double and West had a punt at 4♥. Luckily for him (we were robbed) 4♥ has good play and made exactly.

On the other table they opened the Dutch North-South played 2♠. Our East (Tamsin) found the best lead of the Jack of Diamonds, which ought to lead to six losers for declarer, but somehow he made it. Two good results gave the Dutch an 11-0 lead.

I was watching this with the incoming NPC Alisdair MacLeod (who takes over from me today) and from watching another match we assumed this board would be flat, before the result popped up and we saw the game swing for Netherlands. Not surprisingly, they were the only pair to bid 4♥ here.

The Dutch followed that up by making a delicate 3NT that we failed at - these sorts of hands are so important but very difficult to discuss afterwards as it takes a good memory and a lot of effort to work through the defence and declarer play, so I guess we'll never know why we lost another 10 here.

However, after Italy overbid and Jamie made a 3NT that went down on the other table (good lead Donald), we were briefly ahead.

I was watching the featured match of Italy-Israel, as we are playing Italy later and their team features the great Giovanni Donati, a young bridge professional who has partnered all the Italian greats. The Italians weren't messing around and were close to finishing when we were just over half way. This was some good defence:

The Italian East opened 1♣. Your bid as South?

The Israeli South bid 3NT, my choice too. This has eight tricks, with the chance of a ninth in Spades.

At the table the Ten of Clubs was led. This means East could safely play a low Club and preserve his King. Declarer crossed to dummy to lead a Spade up. This looked promising, as East grabbed his Ace. Declarer now has nine tricks (1 Spade, 7 Diamonds, 1 Club). The problem is the defence have five tricks (1 Spade, 2 Hearts, 2 Clubs). It's not always easy to cash all these tricks but the Italians did it no problem, leading to 3NT-1.

What about when our teams played the hand?

Well done Michael for also getting to 3NT as South. This got the Four of Clubs lead from West (not the Ten). There's no record of the play but I imagine this low Club lead caused East to waste his King of Clubs, and now the contract is cold. Still needs some good play.

Unfortunately on the other table we also led a low Club, and conceded 3NT. Not quite defending at the level of Donati yet.

Still, I'll take a flat board.

Overall we lost by 59-26.

Round 9 Victory Points: 3.1

Total VPS so far: 20.42 (17th place)

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European Youth Teams Championship - Match 8 vs Croatia

For our last match of the day we had the excellent Croatia team. I watched them in the first round and was impressed by their composure. Halfway through a hand the declarer paused, put down the screen separating the players, and asked a few questions of his screen-mate. He then lead out trumps in just the right way to pick up a singleton Jack and made the contract exactly. That shows some experience; identifying the crunch point of the hand, stopping to confirm the opponent's bidding and carding agreements, then deducing the winning line.

This looked like it was going to be another 20-0, up until we briefly rallied near the end. This was a tough board:

On one table our South (Michael) opened 1♣ and West overcalled 1♠. North (Donald) wasn't messing around and bid 5♣. East had a think "for about five minutes" before doubling. 5♣x has good trumps but not much else going for it and went three off for minus 800.

Afterwards Donald blamed himself for the bad result and said he spent a while regretting it. Of course 5♣ is a terrible bid, vulnerable and with no shape. However, East was surely very close to bidding 5♥, and certainly that's what I might have done. That would have been a much nicer result for us.

On the other table Jack and Lydia stopped in 3♥. This seems conservative but is actually the limit of the hand; South cashed one Club then switched to a trump and declarer is stuck with just nine tricks.

My last featured hand is a good example of a well-judged pre-empt, unfortunately by Croatia:

After South (Michael) opened 1♦ West weighed in with an immediate 4♠. This hits a very unfavourable East hand, with nothing in your suits and lots of defence in the other suits. However, when North doubles the 4♠ South bid on with 5♥, corrected to 6♦ by North. This is doomed, but note the careful pass by East - doubling 6♦ could give away the trump position.

Afterwards Michael asked me if the double of 4♠ was takeout or penalties. I don't think he wanted my vague answer, that at that high level it just shows a good hand, and it should normally be passed out unless you have a very distributional hand. 

On the other table our West (Jack) overcalled 2♠ and North had an easy 3NT bid, making.

This was indeed a heavy loss, 77-20 IMPs. We do not leave empty-handed though.

Round 8 Victory Points: 0.5

Total VPS so far: 17.32 (17th place)

Although the team have not been playing a huge amount of bridge, I sense there has been some fatigue, and the mental effort is perhaps taking it's toll. Even though some of our pairs are more experienced than others I have been roughly rotating our three pairs. Today I experimented giving Jamie and Tamsin a longer rest, and they were clearly rejuvenated as in the evening they were keen to practice some slam bidding. I look forward to seeing what they produce tomorrow morning against Netherlands!

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European Youth Teams Championship - Match 7 vs England

Before the match, and after the 90-2 drubbing by Norway, I took the team for a walk around the hotel. There is a cycle path that appears to stretch forever alongside the road in both directions, and a nice little lake. After five minutes we were deep in the woods and decided to turn back.

Now we were refreshed for the big match against England. This was an exciting encounter. I watched alongside the Scotland pair who weren't playing (Tamsin and Jamie), and the very friendly England pair  (Ollie Powell and Aaron Hutton), plus the England U21 coach Michael Byrne.

It was quite an intense atmosphere with three laptops and a lot of jargon. The England players were very quick with their analysis, and also knew their team-mates well and what they would bid. I confess I had very little idea what our team were going to bid.

The match was featured on Vugraph, and we were lucky enough to have expert commentary with Liz McGowan and Paul Gipson. I think the team did well overall.

On Board 1 Scotland raced into an assailable lead:

In the Open Room was our Strong NT pair. Here Lydia (East) opened 1♣ and the English South bid an immediate 4♠. Jack (West) doubled, and it was passed out. The 4♠ bid could have propelled us overboard, but Scotland did well to stand firm and defend with two flat hands. Declarer had to lose five tricks for -300.

In the Closed Room our South (Michael) went for just 1♠, and England duly got to 4♥. The England team to not miss many games. With no support from partner, and a likely four tricks in his hand Michael passed 4♥. There were indeed four losers, so 8 IMPs to Scotland.

On the very next board England got it back by making 3NT (we went off in 3♠), then came this challenging deal:

Here's how England handled it:

KRIP	Donald	CLARK	Michael
W	N	E	S
1♦	-	1♥	-
2♥	-	3♣*	-
3♦	-	5NT*	-
7♦	-

After West reversed showing a good hand East bid 3♣ forcing. West rebid his Diamonds, and East chose 5NT, as 'pick a slam'. This was not a popular choice amongst the viewing gallery of England fans, but West did not hesitate to bid 7♦ and was soon claiming all 13 tricks.

The Scotland auction started the same, but East didn't know what to do over 2♥. As the commentator said "It seems Scotland have not discussed how to show a strong hand after a reverse." East bid 3NT, passed out, and quickly claimed with four overtricks.

My normal advice when teaching bridge is "opening hand plus opening hand = game". I will now extend that to "big opening hand plus big opening hand = slam". I think the best our East could have done is 6NT on the second round. Playing the more delicate fourth suit forcing maybe we get to the grand too, but let's not get carried away.

At this point England were about 20 IMPs up, with more to come when a rogue 1♦ overcall was punished. "Scotland have obviously been told to interfere with the 1♣ opening whenever possible" was the comment. This overcall was on a flat hand, with only four Diamonds, and cost 800. I blame the coach.

When England overbid to 3NT and we took it down we clawed a few back. Then an overambitious 6♥ gave Scotland a few more:

After West opened 1♠ East identified the 5-2 Heart fit and then there was no stopping him. Our South (Michael) led a Spade and declarer had no choice but to take the losing finesse. Donald returned a Diamond for two down.

On the other table Jack and Lydia safely reached 3NT and Lydia (East) received a Diamond lead to the King. Sometimes I like to see declarer stop and think before playing, on this one I was pleased to see Lydia play it quickly, as the contract is secure from the start. She unblocked the Clubs, took four of them, five more Hearts then declined the Spade finesse for 3NT+2, and 11 IMPs back.

With only a few boards to go we were about 30 IMPs behind, a very acceptable margin. 

England gained a swing bidding 3NT without a stopper (putting us off the winning lead), then we got plenty back with this unusual board:

When West opens 1♦ North has a problem. You can't double without Spades, you can't bid 1NT without a stop, and you can't pass with such a good hand.  

Jack	WIECZOREK	Lydia	BUCKNELL
W	N	E	S
1♦	x	1♥	1♠
2♦	2NT	-	-
x	-	-	-

The English North chose double, then bid NT. Our West doubled this. Although you have six tricks in your hand, it's not clear to double, as you are maybe only turning +50 into +100, and if they run to 3♣ (for example) you're going to wish you'd passed.

However, double hits the jackpot if you take them several off, as happened here. Lydia had no problem leading her partner's suit, and I was pleased that Jack kept careful watch of his partner's discard so could return a Heart (easy to be too excited about banging down all your winners you forget you need to lead a card afterwards). On the Heart return declarer was in trouble, and actually ended up just taking three tricks. 

I'm dwelling on this hand as the +1100 we collected has so often been the sort of score we conceded.

On the other table Donald made a simple 1NT overcall as North, and went one off for a big gain on the board. 

The last two boards were flat, as England surprisingly didn't bid either thin slam. The match finished with a 66-43 IMP loss, comfortably the highest scoring match in the round. As a commentator said "that will feel like a win for Scotland", and I'm sure we were much happier with our 4 Victory points than England were with their 16.

Round 7 Victory Points: 4.68

Total VPS so far: 16.82 (17th place)

♣ ♦ ♥ ♠

European Youth Teams Championship - Match 6 vs Norway

Last night we were treated to a Pub Quiz, with 36 teams from across the bridge teams and coaches. I was curious how the questions would be fair for a European audience, but in fact the bearded quizmaster did a good job. There was a whole round naming the 10 post downloaded Apps last year, of which I'd heard of all of them except Capcut, which the kids apparently use for editing videos on Tik-Tok.

To prevent our team having an illegal seven members I ditched the Thistly Unicorns (Scotland U26) and joined Valentine's Day (Scotland U31). I was right about what country Malala Yousafzai is from, but wrong about the first city to host the Winter and Summer Olympics.

After a challenging music round neither team troubled the podium, with Unicorns 14th and Valentine's 6th. Most of the top teams were Dutch and I think some Latvians won.

At one point the plan was that I come to Eindhoven along with my children, or at least the older one. Zoe is 6 and understands playing cards and games with tricks, but it might have been a struggle keeping her entertained all week.

What both children would definitely have enjoyed is the breakfast. As well as all the pastries and hot food next to the cereals are six little jars of things to sprinkle on top - banana chips, cranberries, toasted cranberries and three types of seed. I also appreciate this and plan to be at breakfast for the full 7am-10am window today. Today following the lead of an Italian child I tried a latte macchiato from the coffee machine - not bad but the lack of fresh milk ruins the taste.

Today we have Norway up first, then a big match against England, and finally Croatia. Three nonzero scores would be most welcome!

As an appetiser for today's action here are two slam hands from our remarkable turnaround last night against Estonia

First Michael (West) and Donald (East) bid 6♥ here. This was a usual result in that 15 out of 18 East-West pairs got to 6♥, although they didn't all have to cope with a 3♠ opening from North.

Then, as if they could telepathically hear me writing that we don't bid enough slams Jack (North) and Lydia (South) found themselves in 6♠ here, after South opened 2NT and North drove to slam.

You can see that it depends on the Diamond finesse, which fails, and the Estonian declarer in 6♠ duly went one off. He had a chance to make it though - after the Jack of Hearts lead won by the Ace Donald switched to a Club (the nine). Although this in theory gives declarer a chance to make it Donald was correct in thinking declarer will always go up with the Ace. One off.

When Lydia's declared 6♠ the defence started the same way; a Heart to the Ace and Club return. She also went up with the Ace of Clubs, and after drawing trumps discarded two Diamonds from hand on dummy's Hearts. She then lead the Nine of Diamonds, which West failed to cover so she could throw a Club. 6♠= and a 17 IMP swing to Scotland! 

Now on to the Norway match. Every morning at breakfast I go over our defence to Multi 2D. I'll be doing it again tomorrow after this one. 

The Norwegian North opened 2♦, showing a weak two in either major. South duly bid 2♥, pass or correct. At this point it's West's turn and you can see that 2♠ works rather well - in fact on a lucky layout you can take 11 tricks just losing a Heart and a Club. Although West might not expect to make game it's a good hand with a good five card Spade suit so has to bid.

However, we passed out 2♥ and that was a swing to Norway who made 2♥= and 3♠+1 at the other table.

Scoring in bridge is not straightforward. First of all the number of tricks is converted to points. Then the points get converted to IMPs, and finally the IMPs to Victory Points. Because of the way the IMP table works it's efficient to have two disasters on the same board - that way you lose about 15 IMPs in one go rather than 10 IMPs and another 10 IMPs. That is the only comfort I can find from this expensive board below:
 

At favourable vulnerability South opened 4♠. This overbid would be fine if partner had already passed, but here led to North getting carried away. He expected much better Spades (in fact he probably needs South to have ♠AKQ which is quite a big ask), and pushed on to 6♠.

Here North bid on and you can see our trump suit is rather weak. Declarer played trumps the right way (low to the King) so on this layout lost an impressive four trump tricks for 6♠-3. 

I told the team to experiment and here we have paid for two lessons: don't pre-empt with a bad suit when partner is unpassed, and don't expect a miracle hand from partner's pre-empts.

The good news is that, with four trump losers, the more normal contract of 4♠ ought to also fail, for just a small loss on the board. 

However, the Norwegian South took a different view and only opened 2♠ which worked out well as it tempted us into the auction. Our West doubled, and North was all over it. He redoubled, and East escaped to 3♣, also doubled. This went six off for 1700. 

I don't think either of East-West did anything wrong, although perhaps they weren't fully aware that South's 2♠ opening showed a decent weak two. I still think West's double is OK, and East's rescue to 3♣ is OK.

So two bad scores but we 'only' lose 18 IMPs on the board.

Combined with many other losses this was a 20-0.

Round 6 Victory Points: 0
Total so far: 12.14 VPs (? place)

Next up - England on Vugraph (watch it on Bridge Base!)

♣ ♦ ♥ ♠

European Youth Teams Championship - Match 5 vs Estonia

Outside the playing area are a couple of rooms where people congregate around laptops looking at the current matches. Just now a friendly Norwegian man showed me how to get the running scores, so I can include some early highlights of our match against Estonia. There are already lots of big swings coming in

What contract would you like to be in here for North-South?

Estonia chose 3NT, along with most of the teams. This has 7 top tricks but with the Hearts blocked you
are struggling to make any more. Our East (Donald) led a fourth highest ♠8. This gives declarer his eighth trick, but as long as the defence is careful he is stuck on eight. 3NT-1 was a good score for Scotland.

On the other table Lydia and Jack for Scotland got to 4♥. This makes even if the defence get a Diamond ruff, as Hearts are 3-3.

At this point we were flying high (losing 11-10), but a run of bad boards were to follow:

6♠ makes a long as you don't get a Club lead. Estonia were in it, and got a very reasonable Diamond lead from North. Declarer was able to ruff, draw trumps (losing one) then discard all three of West's losing Clubs on the Hearts. 

On the other table after a competitive auction Donald and Michael settled for 5♠.

Then our other pair had chances to bid a slam. South (Lydia) opened 1♠, and West made a weak jump overcall of 3♦. North (Jack) bid a forcing 3♥, raised to 4♥. 

This made 12 tricks as the Heart finesse worked (as expected after West's pre-empt). The opposition bidding has made life difficult; North has useful cards in Spades and Clubs but has shown his hand, South has a good hand but is void in partner's suits.

On the other table the Estonians didn't reach slam either. North made a trap pass of the 3♦ bid and when South re-opened he passed, scoring 1400 for 5♦x-4.

How about this one? 

West opened 1♥ and our North (Jack) overcalled 1♠ and East a weak 3♥. South (Lydia) bid Blackwood and got a response showing only one keycard, so signed off. On the one hand you can't expect (or particularly want) partner to have the Ace of Hearts, so if you bid Blackwood you should probably go to 6♠ on finding one keycard. On the other hand North has a very nice doubleton Diamond and King of Clubs which fit perfectly, so maybe stopping in 5♠ is right.

Estonia of course sailed into 6♠ in an unopposed auction, after North opened 2♠ showing 5.

In the goody bag we got there were two vouchers for 5 Euros each to spend at the bookstore on site. I've offered mine as a prize for any pair that bids and makes a slam. Doesn't anyone want them? After five matches we have had five slams bid against us, of which four made. We are yet to bid any!

Update: after storming back and winning the second half comfortably we lost 68-40. I had originally recorded it as a 20-0 loss but actually we get a few well-earned VPs. And both of our pairs bid and made slams!
 

Round 5 Victory Points: 3.84
Total so far: 12.14 VPs (17th place)

The leaders are France and Sweden on about 80 VPs out of 100.

European Youth Teams Championship - Match 4 vs Greece

So far we are staving off Ireland at the bottom of the pack. Can we gain anything against Greece? At the start of each match it's 10-10 in Victory Points, then as the results start coming in we drop down towards 20-0. If we still have any victory points at the end of the match that's a win.

All the players are coping well with the formalities of playing high-level bridge. One asked me "what do you do if you can't remember which hand you're in?" You're not allowed to turn over your previous card to have a look. I asked a tournament director and was advised "It's no big deal, just ask the table." I recommended that you ask in a checking way, as in "I'm in dummy aren't I?".

We had one funny situation where a director came to one of our tables to ask for play to be speeded up. What was happening was at the end of each trick everyone was keeping their cards face-up on display for a really long time, thinking that the other players still wanted to see them. No one wanted to be rude and turn their card over first. That's now resolved (you turn your card over straight away, if anyone wants to see your card they will ask, as long as they've not turned theirs over yet).

Our players are currently two rooms away half-way through the match and it's 15-5 to Greece. How will we cope with this board?

On most tables North opened 2NT and South bid 3NT. Assuming East leads a Spade, you have two Spade tricks, four Hearts (maybe), two Diamonds and a Club. That makes nine, but you have to get them in the right order. If you lose the lead too often and they play Spades enough you will be defeated. 

On the Jack of Spades lead the winning play is a low Spade from dummy. This looks odd, as it means you have to lose an un-necessary trick to the King, but means you can duck one more round of Spades. Then you have to knock out the King of Diamonds while you still have Spades stopped - if you play on Hearts first West will win, clear Spades, then when East gets in later you are defeated.

I don't know if there's any reason to play on Diamonds before Hearts, it's just what works here as East's entry is in Diamonds not Hearts. 

In our match the Greek declarer was in 3NT. Donald as East tried a Diamond, which didn't work well and declarer wrapped up 10 tricks.

On the other table we found the 4H fit with an unusual auction, and the defence found the ruffs to beat it by four.

Here is another challenging hand:

When we had the cards East (Donald) opened 1H. West (Michael) replied 2S, which for us is strong and forcing. Donald rebid 3H, Michael 3S, then Donald showed his Club stop with 3NT. This was passed out and sadly we played game with 36 points.

On the other table after a similar start the Greek West did not pass 3NT, he bid 7C! I like this for the boldness. You know your partner has a Club stop for his 3NT bid, which must be the King, plus he is big favourite to have the other two Aces. 7C makes on a 4-3 fit, though in fact with 13 top tricks (at least) 7NT is fine too.

After losing a couple more game swings we played well in the second half, losing by 55-19 IMPs 

Round 4 Victory Points: 2.71
Total so far: 8.32 VPs (17th place)

Whereas Donald & Michael were our top pair yesterday, and Lydia & Jack did really well this morning, this was a great match for Jamie and Tamsin. Highlight Tamsin making 3Sx, but better than that unusual result is generally solid pair. When will it be my time to shine? (Answer: pub quiz tonight).

European Youth Teams Championship - Match 3 vs France

Yesterday we only had our two matches in the morning, so in the afternoon I went to the SportCenter. I like to exercise and eat a lot in hotels. Some of the England Juniors were playing darts, the Italians were at the swimming pool, Czechs in the gym and Swedes on yoga mats. I went on a broken rowing machine, which I reported to someone who looked like they were definitely not going to do anything about it.

In the evening we played cards. Every time I need to go somewhere in this hotel I often end up walking around most of the corridors to find it, and on my way I saw numerous groups playing numerous card games. I suppose that's how bridge players like to relax. The Spanish and Norwegians juniors had a big game of something with the cards in the middle. The Dutch and English seniors were playing board games, the French were at the bar. Lots watched a Bond Film in the auditorium (No Time to Die, good start but unconvincing romance, see my review here).

We Scots played a variety of (non-bridge) games, including American Joker, Rummy, Spoons, Hearts, Contract Whist and an unusual game of poker played with no chips. Bets were announced out loud then recorded by Jamie on a paper grid, before he got tired of doing that and Donald and Tamsin took over on a variety of calculators and spreadsheets. Some called the move to digital technology progress, some were anxious about things going wrong and preferred the old ways.

I spoke to the Scotland U31 team. They have made a good start and are currently sitting 9th out of 18, with the top 8 qualifying for the World Championship. Their pairs are Gints Freimanis & Glen Falconer, Jun Nakamaru-Pinder & Jake Milne, Liam O'Brien & Ronan Valentine. Today they are up against it with a tough day of France, Poland, Netherlands and Bulgaria.

Here is a deal from yesterday (Round 1 vs Spain) that foxed Gints and Glen:

North had a balanced 22 count so opened 2NT. South bid 3♣ Stayman, and when North gave a 3♦ negative signed off in 3NT. This has 3+2+3+5=13 top tricks, but you have to lose the Ace of Diamonds so accept 12 tricks. What you want is to find the Club fit, but that's never easy.

The result of 3NT= was duplicated in the other room (even though South opened a natural 1♣). 

---------------

In our first match of the day against France we got off to a worrying start when on the first board both Easts played in Spades. Our declarer made 7 tricks, theirs 10. However, I think the Scotland team are slow starters ad before long we were winning a few boards. And by winning, I mean the boards were flat, which I count as a win.

As I've told the team, if you play a strong side and get a flat board that means you are matching them in the bidding, play and defence, so that's a good result.

On this one the French North-South had no trouble getting to the best contract of 4S, presumably after a 2NT opening and transfer.

Our North Jack chose to open this 1♦, which is risky as partner might pass. But luckily Lydia as South evaluated her hand well and scraped up a 1♠ response. Jack reversed with 2♥, and Lydia rebid her Spades. At this point Jack jumped to 4♠, so we got there in the end, albeit played by South.

West led a Heart and Lydia was pleased to see a bumper dummy and wrap up 11 tricks. Note that if you don't get a Heart lead the best line is to play to cash a top trump or two then play set up the Diamonds.

This board was flat, but at the half way stage we were still 37-3 IMPs down. This was in large part due to a dubious 6♣ the French bid. We wisely stayed out of slam, but also stayed out of games so lost tricks when everyone made 12 tricks.

In the second half our side made some reasonable decisions that didn't work out. This was the most unlucky I thought:

Jack as North opened 1♥. Lydia as South saw her weak and flat ten-point hand and thought it only worth a 2♥ raise. Jack decided not to bid on so we stayed in the part score. 

This could easily have four losers (a spade, a trump, two clubs), but in fact the good controls and trumps splitting 2-2 meant everyone made 10 tricks. In fact Jack made 11, for 2♥+3, which looks bad on the scorecard but I think is very reasonable.

France of course bid the game and romped home 88-5, leaving us with 0 Victory Points.  

Round 3 Victory Points: 0
Total so far: 5.6 VPs (17th place)

 

European Youth Teams Championship - Match 2 vs Hungary

I'm pleased to say our team is up to maximum strength after Lydia arrived this afternoon, 20 minutes before her first round match. She was greeted with this board, which produced a few different outcomes:

The full auction is lost in time, but we know that at some point West bid 2♣ and East ended up bidding 3♣. South greedily doubled this and it went off three. 

On the other table Donald and Michael got to a difficult 4 Spades, which went narrowly one off. So overall the board cost us 11 IMPs.

After this things settled down, and I dared to look at the scores for this match half-way through and we were nearly drawing, mostly thanks to picking up a tremendous 13 IMPs on this board.

3NT fails as West can lead a Heart, setting up the suit for when East gets back in, or even a Spade, setting up 5 tricks for the defence. 5♣ is unbeatable though. 

In our earlier match against Sweden we were guilty of playing a hand in 5♦ with two balanced hands where 3NT was clearly better, and afterwards talked about when you would ever want to play in 5 of a minor. "Only with very distributional hands", I said. So I'd like to take credit for the team's decision to play this one in 5♣, except for the pair who bid it (well done Donald and Michael) weren't at that discussion.

This was the auction for Donald and Michael:

SOGOR	Donald	SZABO	Michael
W	N	E	S
-	3♣	3♥	3NT
4♥	4♠	-	5♣
-	-	-

North (Donald) opened 3♣, East bid 3♥, South (Michael) bid 3NT, West 4♥, North 4♠, South 5♣, making!

I like Donald's 3♣ opening even with the four Spades, though it is very much a maximum hand (two Aces and a void). Michael's 3NT bid is excellent - if partner has the ♣AK as he might well at this vulnerability then he can count 9 tricks, and expects a safe Spade lead. Once they get to 4♥ it would be nice to penalise it (at least two off), but I can understand Donald bidding 4♠, then it's obvious for Michael to correct back to 5♣.

Donald got a lead of Ace of Hearts, which meant he only needed to ruff one Spade and the play was easy.

After this excitement we slipped a bit and lost the match 40-22, translating to a 15-5 VP loss. Which I'm counting as a win. 

That's all the bridge for today, three more matches tomorrow.

Round 2 Victory Points: 5.6
Total so far: 5.6 VPs (17th place)

Table here.