Chennai 2015: The Furca Coup

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Chennai 2015 cuadrado

42nd World Bridge Teams Championships

Chennai, India • 26 September – 10 October 2015

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The 42nd World Bridge Teams Championships and the 10th World Transnational Open Teams Championship will be held at the ITC Grand Chola Hotel, Chennai (former Madras), India.

October 5th, 2015

A few days ago in the csbnews.org  Bridge & Humor section we published an article written by Paul Huggins. In the story Paul told us about his misadventures with a hand of bridge: we managed to produce a defensive coup (The Biltcliffe Coup) that required all of our natural talent, timing and technique in the field of poor bridge!

Paul explained that a Biltcliffe Coup has four main requirements:

  • Opponents must be about to play in a part-score, but you protect in the pass-out seat
  • Opponents must now bid to game.
  • You must double this game.
  • They make the doubled game.

Today mid-morning of Argentina USA2 ( 7th in the RR) was playing the final set of the BB quarterfinals against China (2nd in the RR). Only two boards to end the match, when I began to watch, and China had a 11 IMPs advantage. On the other table the game was over and the last two contracts favored China, so the majority was convinced that barring a miracle, China would finish as the winner.

Chennai 2015 tab 31

The BBO VG showed that in the other room N/S chose to play 4, and scored +450.

As soon the board appeared the commentators wrote:

BroLucius (David Bird): Excellent spade slam, played by South. Very unlucky, of course, with spades 4-0.
kit (Kit Woolsey) : USA can’t pick up anything here, so will need a miracle on the last board.

And the bidding start:

Joel Wooldridge
Joel Wooldridge

South opened 2NT and after West’s pass, North chose to say 4 = long spades and no slam interest. East doubled, lead directing or looking for a sacrifice. South said 4. West with a 4-3-3-3 hand with lots of quacks and J 10 7 6 paso passed. North passed and East perhaps believing that they were losing the match and that inaction was equal to defeat, chose to say 4NT, looking a NV sacrifice against V.

West chose 5 and he was doubled.

Kit Woolsey now wrote: This might be the miracle, depending on how badly 5 does.

Chennai 2015  tab 31 USA2

Linlin Hu
Linlin Hu

Commentators speculations continued as Hurd was leading his Diamante5:

BroLucius: Very risky effort by East, particularly as bad spade break may have endangered 4 (so far as he knew).
BroLucius: It could be a huge number off. Possibly a phantom from what East could see.
BroLucius: Much better in hearts…
kit: big difference between 1100 and 1400, considering match score
BroLucius: East should expect his partner to have some number of spades and that means that he cannot expect a big fit for one of his suits.
kit: so if last board is flat …..
Declarer played low from dummy and Wooldridge won the first trick with his DiamanteQ. South continued with the 6 , 2, K, 4. Hurd returned the Diamante4, Li played the Diamante8 and South played the Diamante10…declarer won the trick with the DiamanteJ.
Kit Woolsey wrote: That was at least one big trick for declarer.
Li continued with a small heart to the heart poor bridge10, South won with the valet, played the A and declarer couldnt pay less than 1400…13 IMPs for USA2 now winning by only 2 IMPs. The next hand was a push and USA2 got the ticket to the semifinals.golpe de furca
Everyone will agree that what happened at the table was not an authentic Biltcliffe Coup but it has it’s similarities, so I decided to name it: The Furca Coup. In the Argentine Lunfardo, The Furca Coup means taking a person by the neck, arm and rear, to immobilize and steal.

These are the Furca Coup main requirements:

  • Opponents should be winning the match by little
  • Few boards to end the match
  • You arrive to a sound game
  • They reopen, a no hope sacrifice
  • You double
  • You collect what you need to win your match

These were the results of the boards in all the BB tables.

Chennai 2015 tab 31 res en todas las mesas