52nd European Team Championships
Opatija, Croatia • 21 June – 1 July 2014
Results, On-line Scores & Bulletins LiveBridge.net
Wednesday June 25, 2014
In the tenth Round of the 52nd European Bridge Teams Championships Qualifier RR, Opatija 2014, board number 9 produced double-digit swings in almost all the Open tables, proving that the distributional hands are complicated even for the world champions … This is what happened in the Monaco-Germany match:
Board 9
After North’s 2
opening bid, (multi, showing a weak hand with a long major), Fantoni showed his heart suit, South’s double asked his partner to pass if his suit was hearts and to bid if he had something else. Nunes quickly informed his partner that it was best for them to look for another suit and offered diamonds. Fritsche and Fantoni passed, but Rohowsky we dont know why decided to say… 3
… nobody doubled… nobody wanted them to escape their final fate…that was four down …
At the other table the situation was even worse …
Helness also opened with 2 multi, Piekarek used the Leaping Michaels convention and said 4
showing Clubs and an undisclosed major. Helgemo passed and Smirnov with a heart void, should have imagined that his partner had spades, so he asked for the major with a 4 bid. Great must have been his surprise when he saw over the table 4 … confirming the heart suit…
But Helgemo, reasoned as Smirnov and believed that Helness weak major was spades and came to the rescue with 4
… he was doubled … Final Result 5 down 14 IMPs to Germany who won the match by 26-18.
All the boards: