Tuning Up for Lille

As the opening day of the 14^th World Bridge Games fast approaches, the members of Canada’s Open Team are taking advantage of every opportunity to tune up. The games (formerly called the World Team Olympiad) will take place in Lille France beginning August 9^th, as part of the World Mind Games, which also includes chess, go and draughts (aka checkers). 

The Canada Open Team, Les Amoils, Vincent Demuy, Daniel Korbel, Nicolas L’Ecuyer, Daniel Miles and Darren Wolpert, earned the right to represent Canada with a convincing victory at the 2012 CNTC. Gartaganis² are the NPC and Coach.

The Canadian Bridge Federation is the primary provider of funding for the team, but others like Master Point Press have also made generous contributions.

Speak Softly and Carry a Big “Club”

There are many strategies  a team can employ in its quest for  success. One of those is to establish a sound system base and then hope to apply good judgement to reach the best contract.

Here is a bidding challenge from a recent sectional. How would you and your favourite partner fare?

West deals:

This is how two of our intrepid team, Daniel Miles (West) and Daniel Korbel (East) coped:

The duo of Daniels located one of their 4-4 minor suit fits and quickly arrived in the grand slam. Thirteen tricks at suit play proved to be trivial while 7NT needed a piece of luck which did not materialize. That the two hands were not mirrored in distribution was good news, but only a 5-0 trump break would make 7♣ a worse contract than 7NT.

Good bidding translated into a 19-IMP pick-up and helped propel their team to victory.

Watch for future blog entries … less than four weeks to go!