Buenos Aires, January 23, 2017
Yesterday was played the Australian National Open teams Championship, Canberra Bridge Festival (AUS), with a field of 126 teams.
The two most powerful teams were the Lavazza team: Agustin Madala, Alejandro Bianchedi, Giorgio Duboin, Dennis Bilde, Norberto Bocchi and Antonio Sementa, who clashed with the Milner team: Reese Milner, Hemant Lall, Justin Lall, Jacek Pszczola, Jacek Kalita , Michael Nowosadzki.
The trump coup is a bridge coup used when the hand on lead (typically the dummy) has no trumps remaining, while the next hand in rotation has only trumps, including a high one that would have been onside for a direct finesse if a trump could have been led. The play involves forcing that hand to ruff, only to be overruffed.
The hand that follows is board 6 played in the first set of the final.
Dealer East, E/W Vul
 Q 4 Q 7 A J 6 5 2 A Q J 3 |
||
| K J 8 7 3 2 J 6 10 8 7 3 K |
A 6 10 8 5 4 2 9 4 7 5 4 2 |
|
| 10 9 5 A K 9 3 K Q 10 9 8 6 |
In one of the rooms Agustin Madala and Alejandro Bianchedi (Lavazza) played 5. The defense cashed the two major spade honors and West repeated a third spade, dummy ruffed with a small trump and East over-ruffed with the 9: one down 50 points for East / West.
In the other room things were very different, let’s see: With an auction that undoubtedly produced some kind of problem in the pair, Kalita ended up being the declarer of a 4 hearts contract, played in 4-2 fit.
The auction:
| West | North | East | South |
| Sementa | Nowosadzki | Bocchi | Kalita |
| Pass | 1 |
||
| 1 |
2 |
Pass | 2 |
| Pass | 2 |
Doblo | Pass |
| Pass | 3 |
Pass | 4 |
| Pass | Pass | Pass |
Lead: 3
Sementa led the 3 to Bocchi’s A. The continuation was a spade to the K and another spade. Dummy ruffed with the 7 and Bocchi overruffed with the 8. The defense had claimed the first three tricks.
Bocchi made the best return: a trump…South won with dummy’s queen, came to his hand with a diamond and cashed the A, West played the J and things began to be clearer for the declarer.
At trick number seven, South cashed the Q and played a club, West played his K And Kalita had no doubts about the initial distributions, West was originally 6-2-4-1 and East 2-5-2-4.
With this information the end was easy, Kalita cashed the A. Bocchi discarded a club and Kalita claimed all the tricks. 420 points for North and South, that added to the 50 of the other table gave 10 IMPs to the Milner team.
The final was very even until the last set where the Lavazza team managed to impose by 27 IMPS to win the tournament by only 4 IMPs.