Sanya 2014: The Lebron Team

Sunday October 18, 2014

14th Red Bull World Bridge Series: Teams

One of the youngest and talented teams playing the 14th Red Bull World Series teams Bridge: Open teams is the Lebron team:

 In july 2014 Gavin Wolpert posted in Bridgewinners: Sponsor for Sanya? where he wote:

For the upcoming world championships in China, our regular playing sponsor, Paul Fireman has chosen not to attend.   The 5 of us: Myself, John Kranyak, Vincent Demuy, Joel Wooldridge and John Hurd want to try to win a world championship, however the time off work and considerable expense are prohibitive.

I’m writing this post to find out if there is a person or company out there that would be interested in either hiring us (contact me for rates) or sponsoring us. If its a corporate sponsor, we intend to get a 6th player to fill out the team and would need our expenses (coach airfare, hotel, entry fees) covered.  

I’ve toyed with the idea of a crowdfunding thing to send us but first I wanted to see if there was any interest at all.

We do not know how the story ended, what we do know is that 4 of this young players  are playing the World Teams Championship and qualified for the final in sixth place.

These are some of the boards that helped them:

Board 14 SF 6/8

Woolridge opened 1, Saurer overcalled 1 and y Hurd doubled showing the majors. Fischer redoubled, strength, Woolridge chose spades, Hurd moved very little…but Woolridge didn’t accepted and passed…

Saurer led the 3. Declarer won with the A, played a spade to the A, watching the J. Continued with a heart to the K and another spade to the K…watching the Q…Wooldridge draw trumps, run the hearts and claimed 10 tricks.

A small diamond or a club limits declarer to 8 tricks.

At the other table, E/W played the spade game, two down:

Jokisch opened 1NT weak and  Kasimir after finding the spade fit didn’t stop till game. 

 Lead: A

Demuy led his A and continue with a second diamond, and pitched a big club over a high diamond from partner. Kranyac played the A and another diamond promoting a trump trick in his partners hand…two down.

Board 5 SF 5/8

 In both tables East opened with 3 and West closed the game.

Nowosadzki decided to lead a trump, and Demuy played…the A!!! catching the K, singleton…Who would lead a spade with Kxx o Kx with this bidding?

At the other table the lead was a club, and declarer didn’t guess the trump position.

Board 10 SF 6/8

Kranyac opened 1NT and his partner closed the game, only 10 points but a possible source of tricks if hands combine…and always the possibility that without information…opps err.

 Obviously a heart lead defeats the contract in the act…but in real life Kranyac received a 6 lead. Declarer won the J with the K and played the 8…

 West won with his A and played the Q, Kranyac played the 4…and East decided that his partner wanted a spade return, so he played his A and a spade…

 The declarer won with the A and claimed 9 tricks.

At the other table N/S played 3 = +110…

Tab 20 SF 3/8

Hurd opened 1 and Wooldridge showed an inviting hand with long clubs saying 2.  They chose to play 3NT. Again the lack of accuracy in the defense was a plus for the Lebron team…

The perfect defense, needs a diamond lead and if declarer hold up twice, instead of playing a third diamond North has to switch to the K!!!!…Needless to say that the defense was different, they played a third round of diamonds.

Declarer won the third diamond with the A and played a spade when the defender that had the A, didn’t have a diamond, declarer claimed 9 tricks: two spades, one heart, one diamond and 5 clubs.

At the other table E/W played 1NT, made three.

I watched one of the matches in which, among others, Justin Lall commented hands this is what he wrote before the match begun about Demuy-Kranyak:

Demuy-Kranyak play a homegrown strong club with very aggressive NV preempting and light openers.

We do not know if they’ve gotten help for Sanya 2014, what we do know is that they are playing to win ….