«We need to think differently!» «bridge needs some fresh ideas!» «We have got to be more creative around here!». These are messages popping up more and more in bridge, something is sure…ongoing innovation is critical to stay ahead of the competition so we must begin to break thought patterns.
The Junior United States Bridge Championships (JUSBC), which selected the USBF teams for the 2014 World Junior Championships, to be held in August, 2014 in Istanbul Turkey, took place Dec 31-Jan 2 at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta. In the under-26 category, Kaplan (Adam Kaplan – Zach Brescoll, Adam Grossack – Zach Grossack, Marius Agica – Owen Lien) won a close, hard-fought match against Wang (Zhou “Jimmy” Wang – Erli Zhou, Edmund Wu – William Zhu) to become USA1 for the Patino Cup. In the playoff for USA2 online casino U26, Wang overcame a first-quarter deficit to defeat Herman (Greg Herman – Anam Tebha, Alex Hudson – Drew Cavalier). Wang is USA2 after the playoffs. (Source: USBF)
In the third set of the playoffs, in board 28, Erli Zhou, show how to:
Think outside of the box… Imagine beyond what we know … follow our dreams
Board 28
In one of the tables Cavalierin North opened his hand with a 1
bid and the N/S partnership ended in a conventional 3 contract…made…4 = 130.
For every situation, we have a set of key assumptions. Challenging these assumptions can give us a whole new spin on possibilities and that was what happened in the other room where Erli Zhou, in North decided to open his hand with a strong 1NT call.
His partner with a 9 points and 4-3-3-3 hand closed the game in 3NT.
As you can see the three aces in the non diamond suits were all the stoppers he needed to make the contract and score 660 = 11 IMPs.
These were the BBO comments:
medwards: amazing to get to 3NT
meargent: North treated his hand as a strong NT as did south
kit: Well, it is hard to argue with 10 IMPs on the decision. It isn»t just the 6-card suit. It is those side ACES. They don»t take time to set up.
medwards: My partners do not usually lay down AQxx for me
kit: you just need better partners