Australian National Championships 2025, Brisbane - Day 2
From Hugh Grosvenor
Previous posts: day 1
Match 5 against Northern Territory. Hugh & Tania against Chris Depasquale and Dimitri Hnaris, John and Mardi against Alexandra Wilson and Luke Black. These guys all play a rubber bridge inspired form of Goren – 4 card majors.
Board 1 was a lead decision for me.
I opened 2D showing a weak 2 in one of the majors. Dimitri bid 2H which showed any hand of 11-13 points. Tania chose to double asking me to pass with a weak 2 in hearts or bid 2S with spades. I think I would prefer 3H, pass or correct. Chris jumped to 6C, ending the auction. From my perspective any lead could be right. I unerringly chose the one that didn’t work – a low heart. This allowed Chris to finesse the HQ providing 2 discards for diamonds. A club to the ace at trick two exposed the bad break. Now a low diamond which I won. He won the D return, cashed the HA pitching a diamond, took the marked club finesse and came home with 2 hearts, 2 diamonds, 1 spade and 7 clubs. Nicely played by Chris.
Notice that even a D lead by me would still beat the contract.
Match 6 against ACT. Tania and I played George Kozakos, my partner from the Australian Seniors Team, and Stephen Fischer. Andrew and Sandra played David Appleton and Brad Coles, my recent teammates from the Victor Champion Cup. They play a strange artificial system where they pass with good hands and open with weak hands!
Sandra and Andrew had an accident on board 20 where an insufficient bid resulted in missing game. This falls in the general category of an unforced error, which are obviously best avoided, but it also reflects the strange actions that often occur when unusual systems are used.
On board 28 I bid too much and George got to penalise me.
Tania passed and Stephen opened 1H. Our general style is to be aggressive when overcalling so 2C was not completely out of bounds. Partner was a passed hand so that was a minus. I only had a 5-card suit and it was not very good – another minus. Any overcall that consumes some space makes it harder for the opponents – a plus. They were vulnerable and we were not – another plus. Anyway, bridge is a bidder’s game, so I tried 2C. This was passed around to Stephen who reopened with a double. George passed this for penalties.
Would you have considered bidding with Tania’s hand? This looks a little strange, but experience suggests to me that in these particular circumstances bidding is often right. 2CX is unlikely to be a good contract and anything else may be better! Tania thought for some time then passed. I think XX was probably best – certainly was on this hand!
2CX was lucky to escape for 2 down, while 2D would have made. If we had run, I expect they would have found their spade fit and would probably have ended up in 4S one down (as happened at the other table).
On board 32 David and Brad got a little carried away and bid a hopeless slam on a hand where game looked a little problematic. This went 3 down for a bonus 14 IMPs to us but still a disappointing loss by 21 IMPs.
The last match of the first round robin was against Queensland who were running last having lost all their matches. John and Mardi played Kim Morrison and Rachel Langdon, while Sandra and Andrew took on Paul Hooykaas and Pele Rankin. All experienced players who would be disappointed with the results to date.
This was a fairly flat match with only 2 double digit swings.
John played in 4H and got the lead of the SJ. The third spade provided a discard for one of the losing clubs, so he made 10 tricks despite the bad trump break, losing 2 hearts and one club. Tania’s comment was ‘God didn’t deal you an AK so that you could lead some other suit!’. Andrew led the CA and Sandra encouraged looking at 2 trump tricks. 10 IMPs to us.
On board 9, John and Mardi had 25 points combined with a 5-5 club fit. Either 3NT or 5C was makeable but John whimped out they settled in 4C. At IMP scoring, vulnerable games are very important. This is not the time for subtlety – you only need to make about a third of the time to show a profit so if in doubt bid game.
The rest of the match went a little in our favour so a 14 IMP win maintained Queensland’s (im)perfect record.
At the end of the first round robin we lie a disappointing sixth. Now we play everyone again starting with the better placed teams. The first match is against NSW.
Tania and I play Michael Courtney and Joan Butts, Sandra and Andrew play Lavy and Tomer Libman. Michael is a self-confessed genius – very talented and dangerous. Lavy and Tomer are a father and son pair who have been steady improvers over the last few years.
I opened 2NT, 20-21 BAL, Tania bid 3NT. Joan chose to lead her better suit rather than her longer one i.e. a heart. I had 8 top tricks so needed to develop one in diamonds. The good news was that the lead of the H5 looked like a 4 card suit. When I led the DJ Joan played low. I had little to go on but tried the K. That lost to the Ace and they cashed 3 hearts and the DQ for one down. I was pleased to see that both diamond honours were with North. This meant that I couldn’t guess right but also that at the other table they did not have to lead a heart to beat the contract – a spade lead followed by a H switch when in with the first diamond would be enough. Sandra led a spade but when Andrew won the first diamond, he continued a spade, so the contract made. Having only 2 spades this was probably an error. 12 IMPs away.
This was a tricky hand in the slam zone. Tania and I bid 1S – 2D – 2H – 3D – 3S – 4S – P. 2D was natural and forcing to game. The rest was natural. Since the spades are 3-3 and a heart lead is away from the K, there were a fairly easy, if somewhat lucky, 12 tricks.
At the other table the Libmans bid to 6D. Not a bad slam but doomed to failure on either the HJ or a diamond lead. Unfortunately, Andrew led the CQ and the contract rolled home. 12 IMPs away.
The next board was another tricky slam hand.
Tania opened 1S and I responded 2NT showing 10+ with 4+ spades. She bid 3C showing any minimum. I bid 3D asking for further description and she bid 3NT showing a singleton or void in diamonds. 4C from me showed first or second round control in clubs and Tania bid 4S denying first round control in diamonds and second round control in hearts. It now seemed like my second diamond winner was wasted unless partner had only two hearts. I chose to pass and 12 tricks were simple when partner did in fact have only two hearts. The Libmans did well to bid this and win another 11 IMPs. They were one of only two pairs in the field to bid this excellent slam.
A 24 IMP loss was not a great start to the second round robin. Ah well, tomorrow is another day!
Full results for all the divisions are available here.