Gullberg (front) Mikael Gronkvist, Ola Rimstedt
Thursday December 12, 2013
After the second day of the Reisinger one of the most important news of the day was a Junior team from Sweden. This is what you could read in the NABC Phoenix 2013, ACBL N 7 Bulletin:
Members of Sweden’s Junior and Youth teams traveled to Phoenix for a training session — and to go up against the world’s best in NABC events. Clearly the training is taking: The young Swedes qualified for the second day of the Reisinger.
Coach Jill Mellstrom leads an entourage of five: Ida Gronkvist, Mikael Gronkvist, Daniel Gullberg, Ola Rimstedt and Johan Safsten.
The juniors finished 4th the first session of the finals, and their first match in the second final session was against the Fleisher team who was tied in the second position with the Gromov team. We could watch the table where Zia-Martel played against Gullberg-Groenkvist.
The first board was a tie, these are the next two boards where experience beat the youth.
Board 2
In both tables West became declarer of a 3
contract.
In one of the tables as his parter opened with 1
, Rosenberg lead the 4. Willenken won with the K and switch to the 
K winning the trick. Rimsted won the club continuation, played a heart to the A and returned a heart to South K.
Willenken won the next two tricks with the A and J and declarer claimed 8 tricks for down one.
In the other room Gullberg, as his partner was the opener, decided a very agressive lead: the 
K, and as he didn’t found his partner with the A, he made declarer’s life too easy.
Zia won the lead with the A, played A and another heart. Groenkvist won with the K, played the K and switched to the J. Zia covered with A, and played the spades pitching a diamond loser in the 4th spade round. 9 tricks one point for Fleisher team.
The vugraph operator wrote: Perhaps a lead of K from Kx is a bit unilateral in a BAM event?
Board 3
After a 1NT opening bid Rimstedt-Saefsten decided to play 3NT.
Rosenberg lead the 4. Declarer won with dummy’s K and played a heart to the K, North won the trick with his A to continue with another spade. Declarer hold up for a round and won the next spade round and decided to play clubs. Now the contract depended to guess the clubs right. But he didnt, he begun playing the 3 to the A watching South’s J, he continued with another club to his K…run the hearts…and as he lost the last three tricks he was down one. 
In the other room:
Groenkvist opened with a not very classic 3preempt, Zia mentioned his hearts and Martel in East became declarer of a 3NT contract, Groenkvist lead his third spade 9.
Martel won with dummy’s K and played a heart to the K, Gullberg played a little one. Declarer played a second and a third heart round, Gullberg played his A and exit his hand with the 6. South played the Q, Martel won with dummy’s A to continue with two heart rounds… In the meantime he learned some things about South distribution: three hearts, three spades because of the lead and his 3 opening bid he couldnt have 4 spade cards, so he only could have one club or a void in clubs.
So now it was easy to play dummy’s K first, and as he watched South playing the J, he continued with a to the 10, and claimed 12 tricks. Another point for Fleisher.
The experienced Zia-Martel won the point, the sweden juniors won the experience. Finally the young team ended 6th in the Reisinger BAM and 8th Mitchell Open BAM an enviable performance.