Day 2 from the World Youth Teams Championships in Veldhoven, the Netherlands. Under 26 Coach Michael Byrne has written the below update following the team's progress:
Day two of our World Championship campaign saw us face many of the top teams.
Our first match against Israel was disappointing as after we had taken two penalties on the same board we took an early lead. The interesting thing was that the opponents played in the same suit in both rooms:
The Israel East player passed and then overcalled 3C after 1S P 1NT. South doubled for take out (easily the best bid with mediocre spades) and North had no trouble passing!
3C went only one off when declarer managed to ruff himself in twice and come to 5 club tricks, the AS, KH and AD.
At the other table our East player (made of sterner stuff) opened 1C and South overcalled 1S, passed back around to East, who doubled, wanting to protect his partner's penalty pass! West passed and North ran to 2C, which East felt was going down, a firm penalty double ending the auction. After the AS lead and diamond switch the defence came to the same 8 tricks for +500 to England and 12 imps.
However the Israelis struck back with a well timed overbid.
Partner shows 12-14 balanced with 3 spades. What do you do with this hand?
Our East player cue bid 4D and signed off in 4S after 4H from partner. The Israeli player just bid Blackwood!) and bid a slam.
Fortune very much favoured the bold as partner had perfect cards, JS, AH, KD and AC, and slam was lay down.
The result was a loss by 9 imps.
Match two we faced Singapore who played reasonable well, but the damage was self inflicted. We broke the old adage "The five level belongs to the opponents with this hand"
KQxxx
x
AKxx
Axx
1S (2S) 3S (4H)
4S (5C) P P
?
It seems completely clear to double but we forged on to the 5 level and went an extra one off for -200 and 11 imps to Singapore, when the save went for +300 at the other table.
In Match 3 we recovered well by beating Croatia, who had been the early leaders on day 1. They played the cards well but their bidding was completely unstable.
The victory would have been better but for this particularly painful hand, which was nearly very pretty.
The Croatian NS played in hearts and score 140, but with England NS they forged onto game, after West had overcalled 1S, on a suit that doesn't appear to satisfy any suit quality requirements (or sanity checks).
The defence led the AD and switched to a spade to the ten, Jack and King. Declarer now cashes the AKH and finesse the 8S. If this holds then you play the 3rd spade. If East ruffs you throw a club and then discard your other club on the 4th spade, and your tenth trick is from ruffing a diamond in dummy. If East discards on the 3rd spade then you throw a diamond, and throw a 4th diamond on the 4th spade, and now your tenth trick comes from building up a second club trick.
Alas the spade finesse lost and we went two down, 8 imps out instead of ten imps in.
Never the less a win by 11 imps was a solid result.
In Match 4 we faced Italy and again the points were flying thick and fast. Although we ultimately lost by 5 imps it was a great fightback as we had started the match 23-0 down.
This was the most exciting hand of the match
How do you play 7S on a trump lead? No opposition bidding.
It looks right to try and ruff out Kxx hearts, and then fall back on the diamond finesse. The sequence of plays will be win the trump, club ruff, AH, heart ruff, club ruff, heart ruff, and then you will know. If the KH appears you have 3 hearts, 3 club ruffs, 6 spades and the AD. If it doesn't you need to take the diamond finesse.
Since England bid 7S (with a carefully controlled Exclusion Blackwood sequence) and Italy played in 6S (with a careless "Blackwood with a void" auction) I was pleased to see Kxx hearts in the east hand, and the diamond finesse was right in reserve.
The last match of the day was a tired affair against Turkey, and both teams were clearly exhausted if the standard of play was anything to go by. Although a loss of 3 imps was not fatal it was a missed chance, and we are going to need to step up our game tomorrow in order to try and get back into contention.