Buenos Aires, January 29th 2017
At the headquarters of the Federaçao Paulistana de Bridge, between January 23 and 28, were played the trials to nominate the teams that will represent Brazil in the next South American Zonal Championship, Santiago 2017.
In the Open category the final between the teams Leao and Beto was played in six sets of 15 boards each. After the first 5 sets, the Beto team: Miguel Villas Boas, Diego Brenner, Roberto Barbosa and Adriano Rodrigues were in charge by 40 IMPs, 176 to 136.
In the last set the team Leao: Marcos Thoma, Pablo Ravenna, Ricardo Sabbag, Rafael Duque, Leao Carvalho & Joao Dib deployed an aggressive play and managed to prevail by 41 to 1 leaving the match tied at 177 IMPs and adding a share of drama.
According to the rules, an 8-board tiebreak was played where the drama lasted until the last hand, both teams were tied for 19 IMPs and in both tables the contract was the same: 4 hearts By East.
Let’s see the last hand:
The lead at both tables was a a club honor and at both tables the declarer played the club queen from their hands. On both tables South switched to a heart. At the table where the declarer was Miguel Villas Boas, after winning the second trick, he played a big trump, cashed both spade honors and ruffed in dummy another spade, declarer returned to his hand with a diamond, draw lastr trump and claimed 10 tricks as he had to lose one more spade and one club.
At the other table, the declarer was Pablo Ravenna, knowing that the match was really close, he decided to make a more ambitious card play. After winning trick number two in his hand, he cashed both spade honors and ruffed a third round of spade with the trump queen, he returned to his hand playing a diamond to the ace and ruffed his fourth spade with ace of trumps.
Then he returned to his hand playing a diamond, played trumps and lose only a club for a total of 11 tricks, thus earning 1 IMP and the ticket for his team to Santiago 2017.
The 8 boards tie-break finished 20 to 19 for Leao Team.
In the Ladies category, «Paulinha» team: Sylvia Mello, Paula David, Heloisa Nogueira, Agota Mandelot, Isabella Vargas & Leda Pain, imposed its highest category against the team «Laurita»: Irene Gomes, Laura Marchioni, Lucila Pereira & Lia Casabona, winning by a wide margin.
Today begins the senior trials.
Congratulations to all, winners and finalists.