Thursday February 12, 2015
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During the February 6th weekend I had the pleasure to play the VI International Barcelona Bridge Open 2015 with Massimiliano Di Franco as my partner.
In a dreamed city, a great event with lots of bridge players, this time the field was 173 pairs with a strong presence of international players: Alfredo Versace, Norberto Bocchi, Jacek Pszezola, Juan Carlos Ventín, Diego Brenner, Dragan Markovic, Luc Soudan, Amadeo Llopart, Federico y Gonzalo Goded, Bernard Cabanes, among others.
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Not only I had the pleasure of playing against many of the best players in Europe I also had the luck to win the event after being among the three leading partnerships throughout the whole event. Today I want to comment about some of the hands that helped us to win, plus I hope that you can find some of our ideas useful …
In a pairs event, playing a slam is always an important opportunity to score points. This is because there are less pairs that arrive to them. That’s why if you can declare and win a slam you always will score a good result.
Throughout the whole competition my partner and me were very accurate and we declare all the slams that were presented to us, especially those which did not have a very high chance of success, but that fortunately we were able to accomplish.
Board 30, Session 1
We play 1NT 12-14 NV, 1NT 15-17 Vul.
| West |
  K Q x x J x x x x K J 10 x |
| East |
| J x x x A x x x A Q x A 9 |
| East | West |
| Manno | Di Franco |
| 1 |
1 |
| 1 |
1 |
| 2 |
3 |
| 4 |
4 |
| 6 |
The End |
1 = 15-17 balanced or 15+ natural or Forcing Game
1 = 4+ hearts
1 = 3 15-17 Balanced or not or 4 with balanced hand 15-16
1 = a hand with 4
2 = 4 balanced 15-16
3 : void
4 = Cue bid, a serious slam try
Lead: 2, ruffed in dummy and a diamond to the Q continuation.
South won the trick with his K and returned a heart, declarer played the K, continued with the Q, a club to the A, a spade ruff, a diamond to the ace. Declarer pitched his two club losers in dummy’s two good diamonds. Score 90,4 %
The four hands were: 
Board 19, Session 1
| West |
| Q x x x K x A Q x A x x |
| East |
| A K 10 x A J 10 9 x x K x x |
| East | West |
| Manno | Di Franco |
| 1NT | |
| 2 |
2 |
| 3 |
4 |
| 4 |
4 |
| 4NT | 5 |
| 7 |
The End |
1NT = 15-17 balanced
3 = Forcing
4 = cue bid, serious slam try
5 = 2 Key cards + the Trump Queen
Lead: J
The spades were 3-2 and the hearts 3-2. Score 90%
The four hands were: 
Board 14, Session 2
| West |
| J 10 9 x A K x x x x K x x |
| East |
| A Q 10 x x x K Q x x x A x x |
| East | West |
| Manno | Di Franco |
| 1 |
3 |
| 3 |
4 |
| 4 |
4 |
| 4NT | 5 |
| 6 |
The End |
1NT = 15-17 balanced
3 = 4 cards fit, 8-12 HP
3 = Game try or Slam Try
4 = Cue bid, a serious slam try
5 = 2 Key cards, without the trump queen
Lead: J
The K won the lead, with a diamond to the K, A and a club return. A and a heart to the K. The hearts were 2-2 and the diamonds 3-3. Only one of these distributions were needed. Score 94%
The four hands were: 