Crime and Punishment in Istanbul 2014

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Thursday, August 14, 2014

In the fourth round of the 15th World  Youth Bridge Teams Championships, Junior Category,  India faced  Argentina. The match ended with the victory of Argentina for 14.64 to 5.36.

In the first board of the match one of the India defenders committed a capital mistake and his crime received an immediate punishment: 13 IMPs for the Argentina team. Let’s see what happened:

 Board 15

Kabra (IND) opened a strong 1NT, and his partner answered 2 (Stayman) asking for a four card major suit. Sengiali (ARG) doubled showing a club suit and a possible lead. After South pass, the partnership ended in a heart game.

 Lead: 2

 The declarer won the lead with dummy’s K, and after a defective play, claimed 10 tricks.

At the other table the contract was much higher and ambitious.

As in the other table South opened 1NT, this time Mitra in West doubled showing a one colored hand and Rueda correctly chose to make a spade transfer. Santa Ana jumped to 3, showing a maximum hand with spade support.

North continued with a club cuebid, East doubled showing clubs and Matias chose to say 4; Mitra doubled showing diamonds.

Rueda passed (denying diamond first round control) and Santa Ana knowing that a diamond lead would have catched his K, closed the spade game. Now Rueda with the A, previously denied, decided that he wanted to play slam and jumped to 6.

Lead: 3

West chose to lead the 3, this helped declarer to pitch dummy’s diamond loser in his A. Santa Ana continued drawing trumps, playing in spades in this order: A, K & Q ending in dummy.

At trick 5 South left the dummy playing the J and East committed the crime to cover with his Q and immediately received his punishment. Declarer won the trick with his A to continue with another heart. West’s K won the sixth trick, but declarer already had 12 tricks. 

If East had not covered the J he would have stayed with the Q 9 tenace behind dummy’s 10 8, and would have secured two heart tricks for his side.

Board 15: