South African Bridge Federation 2020 Congress – Cape Town
BULLETIN #6 Sun 15 March 2020
Compiled by: Neil Hayward
Neville Eber Praises the Stabell Brothers for a Well-Defended Hand
Neville Eber along with Chris Bosenberg, Tim Cope, Glen Holman, Alon Apteker and Craig Gower, was a member of the South African team in Shanghai, China which reached the semi-finals of the 2007 Bermuda Bowl by beating the powerful Italian team, before losing to the USA by a mere 8 IMPs in the semi-finals.
Although bridge does not receive as much recognition as it deserves in this country, that was an achievement which filled the bridge-playing community in South Africa with tremendous pride.
Neville also plays poker and backgammon at a high level. Some people just love stress!
Board: 5 Vul: NS Dealer: S
AKT973 6 QJ75 West North East South . 85 1 654 QJ8 Pass 1 Pass 2. J983 KT7 Pass 3 Pass 3NT AT3 9642 Pass Pass Pass
. Q62 . 974 2 AQ542 K8 . AKJT3
This board has, again, been orientated to put declarer in the South seat to produce a familiar perspective.
Leif Stabell found a brilliant lead: the 5. This lead breaks the communications in spades between dummy and declarer right away. A suit bid and re-bid with a jump: not many would even consider that lead, let alone actually choose it.
Winning with the A, Eber led a club to the .J, losing to the .Q. The T was exited – another good card – covered by the J. Had the A popped up, Eber was ready to unblock 1 the K to create an entry to dummy. As you see, this did not happen. The K was cashed, followed by four clubs, and then the K, won by Leif Stabell. A spade was now led to the Q, and, the 7 was led back (the T would have been better, especially if the K and J been interchanged). Stabell had to overtake the 7, playing the 8. Eber now had a “free” finesse at trick 12.
There are not many bridge hands which are quite as mundane as they might seem. This one, for example, is more complex than a casual look might suggest. Benito Garozzo once said that, if playing at the top of his form, he made around seven mistakes per session. Yet you hear players talk about how they played flawlessly throughout a session. Bridge is so complex that we cannot see over its horizons to fully appreciate its depth and beauty.
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Bridge Humour
Overheard at the bridge club:
We had a 75-percent game last night!
Three out of four opponents thought we were idiots.
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Uncharacteristic Modesty – Plus Two Great Punch Lines
Terence Reese writes about a hand in which a player made the contract, missing a difficult, but still better line. “Despite that,” writes Reese, “nothing was going to prevent him from telling every bridge player he met for the next few months about his wonderful play. There are many qualities you need to reach the top at bridge. Modesty is not one of them.”
Reese might have been surprised by this modesty in another player, who wrote: “In a college dormitory game (at Vanderbilt University) I picked up:
♠ Void ♥ AKQJ109xxx ♦ Void ♣ AKQx.
The player writes: “A manipulated hand, one might think, but I saw the cards being shuffled. I remember the thirteenth card I picked up: it was the ♥A. I decided the 4th club would be taken care of one way or another and risked an opening bid of 7♥. Fortunately, Partner held ♣Jx. We were all rotten players, of course, but this deal somehow established my reputation, because who but an expert would open 7♥?
“Unfortunately, the rest is not exactly history.”
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Great Play by a Great Player
Oswald Jacoby gave us transfers over a 1NT opening and he also invented the 2NT game-forcing raise over a major suit opening. He played the hand below in 1950, declaring a contract of 6 after North’s 1 opening and East’s overcall of 1, which West raised to a pre-emptive 4. The lead is the 10. Can you match Ozzie’s line of play?
Ozzie drew trumps, and led a diamond across. Five diamond tricks appear to be in the bag, until you realise that the fourth round will be have to be won in your hand. When you spot a problem, you are closer to solving West North East South it. Here, the solution is simple and 652 – 1 1 1 elegant. Give them a “free” heart Q3 Pass 2 Pass 4(a) trick, throwing a diamond. Should AKQ42 Pass 4NT(b) Pass 6(c) a defender hold Jxx, you have . J54 Pass 6 [end] cleared the blockage. When it (a) Shortage comes to declarer play, the stars of yesteryear had plenty of class. AKQJ83 (b) Keycard Blackwood - (c) Odd no. of keycards plus a void They probably burnt less of their T986 brain power on remembering . AT3 intricate systemic bids. The sequence on the right is too modern to have been seen in 1950.
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Don’t Give an Inch
A long time ago, Brian Keable, playing with Joe Amsbury, an English international, said (after something went seriously wrong with their defence): “Joe, I was probably 95 percent to blame.”
Amsbury, with raised eyebrow: “And where exactly do you propose to apportion the other 5 percent?”
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Knot a Good Result
South, writing in the score : “5 Diamonds doubled, played by East, four down vulnerable. That’s minus 1100.”
North, to East : “You got yourselves in a knot there.”
East : “We certainly did. Our path was paved with nothing but good conventions.”
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Did You Know?
The greatest age at which a contestant has won a world championship in any code is 89. This was the age at which Boris Schapiro won a world championship. Okay, so it was the world Seniors Pairs Championship, but it made him a world champion nevertheless.
Schapiro’s first major success was in the Gold Cup in 1945. He went on to win this trophy eleven times, his last victory coming at the age of 88 in 1998.
Partnering Terence Reese, he was a member of the British team that won the Bermuda Bowl in 1955.
Boris Schapiro played in our national congress in the year 2000.
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A Catastrophic Omission
Richard Fleet, an English international, and his wife, Marijke van Beesten, owned seven cats, named Blackwood, Stayman, Terence, Boris, Rixi, Branco and Fritzi. If Blackwood or Stayman jumped up onto the table during the auction, Fleet and his wife had a house rule: they had to use the convention after which the cat was named during the current auction. On one occasion, two of their opponents bid to a slam without using Blackwood, missing two aces. The result was predictably disastrous for them.
Blackwood was soon up on the table, rolling about ecstatically, as if making the point that they should not have insulted him by breaking the house rule.
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A Peep is Worth Two Finesses
In rubber bridge, which can be a rather coarse game, there is the story about a player who loved a good peep. He would sway back and forth in his chair, keen to take full advantage of any evidence that came to light. One of his opponents, sitting on his right, decided to get his revenge by placing his queen of diamonds in his heart suit. Having completed his swaying routine, the dodgy operator finessed the heart jack and immediately placed his hand on the table, claiming 3NT. Unfortunately for him, his left hand opponent produced the heart queen, completely unexpectedly, defeating the contract. Peeping Tom just about fell off his chair. He immediately picked up his glasses and gave them a good clean.
After that incident, he would sway both ways, peeping into each opponent’s hand just to be sure.
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When in Rome .....
At a regional championship in Canada, a local player opened 1, and the partner of the visiting expert overcalled 2. The third player doubled.
The expert waited for some clarification of the double, but none was forthcoming. After a while, he turned to the opener and complained, sharp-edged: “At the clubs where I play, we alert our negative doubles.”
The opener turned to the expert and replied: “At the clubs where I play, we don't play negative doubles.”
The contract of 2 doubled cost the expert and his partner an unpalatable minus 800.
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The Annual Bridge Club Party
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” called the director at the duplicate bridge club’s annual Christmas party, “order please. We have a new record. Someone has just scored minus 3400.”
As the triumphant declarer took his bow, a tipsy voice came from the back: “Could he have made his contract on a different line of play?”
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And the Teams Championship Winners for 2020 are…
… the STABELL team (Leif-Erik Stabell, Tolle Stabell, Jan Mikkelsen and Sverre Johnsen) who finished victorious in the head-to-head finale verses the EBER team (Neville Eber, Hennie Fick, Anders Morath, Sven-Ake Bjerregaard, Val Bloom and Tas Nestoridis). HEAD-TO-HEAD NATIONAL Score for Round Cumulative Scores TEAMS CHAMPIONSHIPS 2020 STABELL EBER STABELL EBER Carry Over (from Round Robin) 3 0 3 0 Round 1 (12 Boards) 29 8 32 8 Round 2 (12 Boards) 23 43 55 51 Round 3 (12 Boards) 47 11 102 62 Round 4 (12 Boards) 21 14 123 76
After agreeing to play a 48-board match, the Stabell team took a convincing early lead winning the first round 29:8. Not deterred, the Eber team fought back valiantly taking the second round 43:23 and virtually levelling the match at 55:51 overnight. Anxious to return to colder climes, the Norwegians stormed ahead in the third round (47:11) increasing their lead to 102:62. Making up 40 IMPS on 12 boards against the Vikings was never going to be easy and so it proved to be. Well done to both teams for an enjoyable match played in excellent spirits and no need for TD rulings.
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FINAL RESULTS OF PAIRS QUALIFIERS (Page 1 of 3)
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FINAL RESULTS OF PAIRS QUALIFIERS (Page 2 of 3)
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FINAL RESULTS OF PAIRS QUALIFIERS (Page 3 of 3)
“NO FEAR PAIRS” FINAL RESULTS Position Partnership Round 1 Round 2 Combined 1 Marilyn Markus & Bernice Kaye x x 59.75%
2 Pamela Murinik & Marcia Randell x x 57.26%
3 Geraldine Jacobs & Maureen Lander x x 57.16%
4= Colleen Frost & Mary Smith x x 52.99%
4= Twiggi Curitz & Andrea Reidy x x 52.99%
No fewer than twenty “fearless” pairs participated in the inaugural NO FEAR PAIRS contest in this year’s SABF National Congress. Many congratulations to the winners Marilyn and Bernice and to the runners-up Pamela and Marcia. Commiserations to the third placed partnership of Geraldine and Maureen who finished a hair’s breadth (0.1%) behind second.
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