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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