On November 22 Agustin Madala informed us about the changes that were to occur in the Lavazza team for the remainder of 2013 and 2014. Antonio Sementa was moving to the Angelini team and intead of him Alejandro Bianchedi was going to be incorporated. [ilink url=”http://csbnews.org/new/alejandro-bianchedi-interview/?lang=en”]Click here[/ilink] to read the whole article.
This is an article posted 2 years ago, where Alexander Bianchedi told to csbnews.org what happened in the match in which he played against Helgemo-Helness in the 2011 Spingold.
In the 2011 Spingold, Southamerica was represented by two teams, one of them was the Ventin tem with players from Argentina and Brazil: 
Juan Carlos Ventin – Pablo Lambardi, 
Joaopaulo Campos – Miguel Villas-Boas; Alejandro Bianchedi – Ernesto Muzzio.
The Spingold is one of the most prestigious events in the World Wide Bridge Calendar, and its played by the best teams of the world. Its a KO tournament, live or die…On a daily basis the top teams face the lowest seeded teams. For example in the Round of 64: Seed #1 vs. #64….Seed #2 vs. #63 etc…When a team beats a team of a lowest seeding than him, he assumes that# as his seeding for the next rounds.
Ventin team was seed #25, but what does this mean? It means that as the team progresses through the rounds, he would very soon have to face one of the strongest teams. And that happened in the Round of 32, their opponents were Seed #8 … This team, newly formed and named Monaco, has among its players several world champions: Pierre Zimmermann – Franck Multon – Fulvio Fantoni – Claudio Nunes – Tor Helness – Geir Helgemo.
Note: One of this cup’s security measures is: until the Q-final the hands are given at the table … because of the crowd.
Spingold 2011: Ventin-Zimmerman Round of 32
Hand 1: Bianchedi doubled for take out, 2
…Muzzio passed to penalize…Final Contract: 2 doubled, Helgemo went 4 down…vulnerable… 1100.
Hand2: Bianchedi became declarer of a 4
contract, a bad trump distribution…3 down.Hand 3: Helgemo plays 1NT…4 down.
Hand 4: Bianchedi once again becomes declarer, now in 4
, trumps are 5-1…1 down.
Hand 5: Muzzio is now declarer of a 4 contract, he finds out, he has 3 inevitable losers (AKA) and Q x x is OFF…1 down.
At this point the whole table started laughing … 5 hands … 13 penalties … the only hope was Helness…he was still undefeated … just because he had not even touched the cards … but the story did not ended here …
Hand 6: 3NT by Helness…2 down…Welcome to the club… salute him; Bianchedi…
Hand 7: Bianchedi, received a balanced 18 PH, opened 1NT (very cautious…indeed). Helgemo end up playing: 3…3 down…
Geir was improving his average…11 penalties in 4 hands…
Hand 8: Muzzio, ended the spell with a 2 contract…Opponents and partner congratulate him: Well Done!! A water toast!
The match continued, again Bianchedi went down in 4, but in the next hand the Monaco pair arrived to an excellent contract… How do you play 7
by South? eith this lead: 3?
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A, continued with Q, J, A and a little heart, but Muzzio ruffed with the 8, declarer played the 10… a diamond won in hand (diamond was 4-1), one down…The four hands were:
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To win the hand, Helgemo would have to play a little diamond from dummy at trick 1, winning with the 5… or the 7 from dummy… Bad luck…NO?
In the other room, Ventin – Lambardi in a complicated contested bidding, played 6 scoring 1370, 16 IMPs for the southamericans who won the set by 23…they won 16 more in the second set, but they lost 25 in the third and 26 en the fourth set…a total of 12 IMPs difference for Monaco…Definitely a close match…