Tenerife hands

Tenerife hands (14) - The icing on the cake

Greece is for the moment (Saturday morning) the surprise team at Tenerife, occupying 3rd place for the moment after having beaten both Russia and Norway. Today's matches could make or break Greece since it has three risky matches against teams that are not among the leaders but could well do a lot of damage (Iceland, Hungary, Netherlands).

Well, in 15th round we beat Norway by 17 to 13. The biggest swing was in this board:

Board 3, South dealer, EW vul.

                        K Q J
                        K Q 9
                        10 8 6 2
                        J 5 2

7                             A 10 865432
10 8 2                      6 4
A K Q J 9 7 4           ---
Q 9                         8 6 3

                      9
                      A J 7 5 3
                      5 3
                      A K 10 7 4

Yes, East has eight spades. Many Easts bid 4S sooner or later but they were rudely punished. Imagine, holding an 8-card suit headed by the ace, finding partner with seven tricks in his hand... and making 6 tricks in all.

This cruel sort befell to Terje Aa in the Closed Room for Norway and the Greeks collected 1100. In the Open Room A.Kapayannides for Greece was more discreet in the East seat, so Brogeland became declarer at 4H by South. Four hearts is a make, but the Greeks were poised to gain a hefty swing regardless.

However, Brogeland went down two! I don't have the play records but perhaps after ace-king of diamonds, a a spade to the ace and a spade back South didn't ruff (or ruffed low). A later club finesse accounts for the second undertrick. Brogeland had company, as many Souths across the field, including some top names, went also down.

Finally, a couple of Souths (who shall remain nameless) went to 5H over 4S. Exchanging 1100 for -50 or -100 was no bargain.

Nikos Sarantakos

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