Crete Congress blog: Day 6

Another bright sunny day with the sea perfect for bathing. The morning was ideal for relaxing and enjoying the hotel’s facilities, including massages and crazy golf. If he can negotiate these obstacles with such skill, is David Wing (above) the next Rory McIlroy?

In the afternoon, back to the serious matter of bridge. Three eight-board matches in the first session of the Swiss Teams began to sort out the field, with Gary Hyett, Raymond Semp, Andrew Urbanski and Colin Jones having a comfortable lead with 56 VPs.  

It’s interesting when almost all the players arrive at the same contract but have hugely different outcomes, usually in NT contracts, and there were several examples of this in the first session. Board 8 of match 1 had most Wests playing in 3NT on a club lead, and making anywhere between eight and twelve tricks, while later, in match 2 board 17 had East playing in 3NT on a heart or spade lead and making anywhere between five and nine tricks. Later, on board 22 in match 3, East again played in 3NT, making between eight and twelve tricks.

By the end of session 2, the lead had changed, with Lesley Bridson, Catherine Thompson, Nichola Cockerill-Smith on 82VPs taking a 1 VP lead over Hyett.

Board 15 was huge for EW: the fortunate position of the QC means that 13 tricks are available in clubs, hearts and no-trumps, but wisely, everyone eschewed the 50% grand slam. However, only nine pairs out of the twenty playing reached 6H, others playing in 4H or the vastly inferior 3NT, where after a spade lead, you can’t risk the club finesse.

So we go into the final day with lots of teams in contention. It looks as though there’s an exciting afternoon in store.

Chris Benneworth