Opatija 2014: Italy – Netherlands

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, Italy faced Netherlands. The match ended with the victory of Netherlands 21-18. Italy had ended the first day of play in the last place, in Round 8 theye were 4th, afterwards descended to the 9nth position.

 This is an interesting board of the match:

 Board 4

Angelini opened 1 (strong or…) and East showed his club suit. Sementa passed and Verhees supported his partners suit to the third level. Angelini showed he played at least game and Van Prooijen showed he had the same intentions. Sementa passed…Angelini showed his second suit at the 5th level. Sementa chose the hearts and Verhees defended to 5…now  Angelini doubled…

 As you can see 5 is one down, declarer has to lose two aces and a diamond. But how could you know it…Declarer was two down for 500.

At the other table Versace pondered the situation differently helping to add more than 10 IMPs to his team …

De Wijs also opened 1 (strong or…) and Lauria also showed his club suit, after Muller pass, Versace looking at his cards and knowing North should had a very strong hand, and that he surely would defend to the fifth level he decided to be proactive and said 5. De Wijs chose to show his diamonds and Versace doubled…The declarer was one down…

That’s how the Netherland played in the same board, at the fifth level in both tables, went down in both of them….and Italy collected 12 IMPs.

 After reading this article this is what Versace wrote to Fernando Lema:

Ty Fernando..I knew Lorenzo had at least 6 clubs cards and that he did not have a 6322 because he overcalled 2 vulnerable so I decided to put in pressure on the 1 strong opener, I thought in that moment that 4 was very reasonable because of my hand…so I jumped to 5. My later double was because I hoped that Lorenzo with xxxx or something like that would find the heart lead (a lightner dbl).