2013 Spingold: Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

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Joe Grue & John Kranyak
Joe Grue & John Kranyak

The Round of 16 of the 2013 Spingold faced Cayne and Grue teams, seeding 8 and 9 repectively.

Cayne (8): James Cayne, New York NY; Michael Seamon, Dania FL; Alfredo Versace – Lorenzo Lauria, Rome Italy; Ron Pachtmann, Kfar Saba Israel; Eldad Ginossar, Moshav Zofit Israel

Grue (9): Joe Grue, Las Vegas NV; Leslie Amoils, Toronto ON; Brad Moss, Denver CO; Thomas Bessis, Paris France; Peter Bertheau, Taby Sweden; Jacob Morgan, Madison WI

After the first 32 boards (played in two 16 boards sets) the match was:

    1/16 17/32    
8 Cayne 7 12    
9 Grue 17 67    

Today we bring you board 30 where an excellent intervention by Grue helped his team score 10 IMPs.

At his table Bessis made a minimum upgrade to his hand… AKQJ97 deserves some extra points and opened 2NT, Bertheau his partner, answered 3NT: Bessis made 4, +430. Surely they must have felt they had done nothing special …

At the other table was lurking Grue and with his intervention he complicated enough the bidding to convert a routine sequence into something special.

Lauria opened his hand with a 1 bid and Versace answered 1NT.  This gave Grue the opportunity to show his spade suit: 2.

Lauria doubled showing extras and Moss added pressure with his 3

Now Versace could have chosen to pass, looking for a penalty double, (Grue would have been two down:-300) but he decided to double showing good values. Lauria could not know that the spades were blocked and that 3NT were cold, so the pair landed in 5…impossible to make…A, K y A signed the death certificate…

PD: Moss lead a little club… he was lucky, declarer had two clubs and no place to pitch the second one…