THE 19th NEC BRIDGE FESTIVAL:
February 11 -16, 2014; Yokohama City, Japan
February 14, 2013: Meteorite Slams into Russia!
Hundreds were injured yesterday when what is estimated to be a ten-ton meteorite exploded over Chelyabinsk, a city in central Russia. People as far as 125 miles away reported seeing the meteorite’s long white tail as it hurtled toward Earth. The meteorite exploded before hitting the ground, shattered windows, triggered car alarms and sending chunks of flaming rock shooting across the sky.
February 12, 2014: A Russian Slam Slams into Yokohama
In the 5th Round of the 19th NEC CUP Qualifying stage (14 boards matchs) the Russia team played against the SARA Japan team. The Russia team is the 2013 NEC Cup defending champion.
Russia: Andrey Gromov, Evgeny Gladysh, Alexander Dubinin, Mikhail Krasnoselskii, Sebastiaan Drijver, Sjoert Brink
SARA: Tadashi Teramoto, Kumiko Sasahira, Masaaki Takayama, Shugo Tanaka, Takeshi Niekawa, Ari Greenberg
The match was Russia 53-SARA: 49, when the board 14, the last board of the match hit the table.
Board 14, Dealer East, None Vulnerable
Open Room:
Greenberg opened his hand with a 1
bid, and his partner showed his spades. East declared the spade game and Tanaka passed.
Drijver led the 
J.
Declarer won the trick with his Q, played 
A and K and claimed 12 tricks.
Close Room:
Mikhail Krasnoselskii opened his hand with a 1
bid = balanced 11-14 or strong. Evgeny Gladysh showed his spades and Mikhail ‘s 2 rebid showed 17+ plus 3+ spades.
After Eugeny confirmed the spades as trumps, showing extra length the partnership begun a showing control sequence.
When East’s 3 bid denied a diamond control West’s 4 informed his partner that he could stop diamonds.
That was all Mikhail need to ask keycards and the partnership softly landed in the spade slam. Same lead and same play ended in the same 12 tricks and 11 IMPs for Russia.
The whole match: