2001 Generali European Championships OPEN TEAMS

Tony Gordon

The 45th European Championships, held in Tenerife, were not without their fair share of problems. Mention has already been made of the behind-the-scenes financial and logistical problems, but the EBL worked wonders to overcome these difficulties. More visible were the noisy demonstrations (firecrackers and blaring klaxons) outside the resort complex by disputant hotel workers, but they soon came to be regarded as a bit of local colour. The Vu-Graph theatre was also far from ideal, but when one is blessed with a fortnight of perfect weather most problems pale into insignificance, and there is no doubt that for the majority of the participants this was a thoroughly enjoyable tournament.

Despite the appearance of England, Scotland and Wales in place of Great Britain, there were only thirty-five countries represented in the Open Teams, two less than two years ago in Malta. The Maastricht finalists, Italy and Poland, headed everyone's list of title contenders, with Bulgaria, France, Norway and Russia also likely to be in contention. If England (Burn-Fawcett, Liggins-Callaghan, and Hallberg-Simpson) could reproduce their Maastricht form, they could also expect to be in contention for a qualifying place, but they started very badly and although they recovered to reach tenth place with six rounds to go, a 24-6 VPs loss to Israel extinguished any lingering hopes of qualification. They eventually finished fourteenth, two VPs and one place ahead of Scotland. Although Italy took a while to make their mark, Lorenzo Lauria showed his class with the following fine piece of declarer play from their second round match against Spain:

Dealer: East. Game All. (Rotated) 

(a) 18-20 balanced; (b) Take-out

Spain's Andres Knap made the obvious lead of J against Lauria's 3NT, and declarer won with the king and ducked a diamond taken by Knap with the nine.

A heart switch will cut declarer off from Q and defeat the contract, and a diamond continuation will also lead to a successful defence as long as East makes a timely switch to a heart. However, Knap played a second spade to declarer's ace, and when Lauria, judging that he was unlikely to find the doubleton K onside, cashed A dropping the king, the stage was set for a neat endplay. He now ducked another diamond, this time won by Arturo Wasik, who continued the suit. Declarer ducked that as well, but won the next round with the Ace and crossed to dummy's A. This was the end position: 

When Lauria cashed Q, Wasik was in trouble and could only postpone the inevitable by discarding his heart. Lauria now led 8 from dummy and Wasik had to cover, but Lauria won in hand and his diamond exit endplayed Wasik into leading into the split club tenace. Good plays are not the sole province of the top teams as demonstrated by Hungary's Gyorgy Szalay in their ninth round match against Liechtenstein:

Dealer West. Game All. (Rotated) 

As at most tables, South became declarer in 4 having shown a balanced hand with 21-22 HCP. Szalay, West, led 7 and his partner, Laszlo Szilagyi, dropped the Queen under dummy's King. Declarer's next move was to finesse J, but that lost to the Queen and Szalay played a second spade to declarer's Ace. Declarer continued by cashing his top diamonds, discarding dummy's remaining spade, and then played A; however, Szalay did not make the unthinking play of 2. From the bidding and play so far he knew that his partner held two or three points in hearts and clubs combined, and declarer's failure to take a trump finesse strongly suggested that East held Q. If that was case, declarer had to hold K-Q and Szalay could see that he would be endplayed if he withheld K. He consequently un-blocked K under the Ace, thereby allowing Szilagyi to win the next round with the Queen and play a club. When Szalay ducked K, declarer had to lose two club tricks for one down. 

At the halfway stage, the qualifying positions were occupied by Russia, Poland, Greece, Norway and Italy, respectively, and it would be some time before Russia would be displaced from first place. Here is the Russian team in action in their Round 17 match against Austria: 

Dealer: East. E/W Vul. (Rotated)

*Forcing

This hand was also featured in last month's article on the Ladies' teams, where we saw West, aided by a lead-directing double of a cue-bid, find the killing Q lead against 4. However, at this table Austria reached the better 4 contract, and Russia's Dmitri Zlotov, sitting West, did very well to find the Q lead unaided. That was not sufficient to defeat the contract, but when Andreas Gloyer ruffed the third diamond with 9 and continued with J, he had a problem when Vadim Kholomeev won A and played a fourth round of diamonds. Since Zlotov's remaining trump was the six, the winning play was to ruff with the seven, but if Zlotov's trump had been the eight or ten, the winning play was to discard (or ruff with the two). When Gloyer misguessed by discarding a spade, Zlotov's 6 forced the Queen and Kholomeev's 10-8 were promoted into a second trump trick.

In the other room Russia also reached 4 and Bernd Saurer's lead-directing double of the fourth-suit, 3, helped Arno Lindermann to find the Q lead. Three rounds of diamonds were played, and after considerable thought Andrei Gromov ruffed the third round with 7. If he had then followed Gloyer's line, he would still have had some guessing to do, but he thoughtfully tackled trumps by crossing to A and leading a low one from dummy. East took his ace on the second round but could no longer do any damage, and Russia deservedly gained 10 IMPs.It wasn't until Round 31 that Italy overtook Russia at the top of the table, but once there they stayed there. With one round to go, Italy, Norway, Poland and Russia were well clear of the rest and the last qualifying place became a battle between France, Israel and Denmark. In a fluctuating final session, Israel came from behind to defeat Romania by 21-9 VPs and grab the crucial fifth place ahead of Denmark and France. Congratulations to Norberto Bocchi and Giorgio Duboin, Lorenzo Lauria and Alfredo Versace, and Dano De Falco and Guido Ferraro, who brought Italy their fourth successive European Open Teams championship, and good luck to all five qualifiers in the 2001 World Championships.

Leading Positions:1. Italy 647 VPs2. Norway 638 VPs3. Poland 624 VPs4. Russia 616.5 VPs5. Israel 594.5 VPs

(Parts of this report are based on material that first appeared in the tournament bulletins.)