Dear Inge-Lise, Sandra, Øystein and Marcello,
Last Wednesday’s result was a great relief. In spite of facing a team with famous, strong players, you managed to obliterate Saarbrücken. Once again, nicely done!!!! I have already sent you by email the deals that were played in this match.
I will not waste time, analyzing that we could have won by even a higher margin. Next Wednesday, we are facing the team of Vienna. These folks are very strong. Their captain is Franz Terraneo (saurus53 on BBO, his WBF profile is here) and on their team is his wife, Ms Sylvia Terraneo (sterraneo on BBO, her WBF profile is here), who’s won a WBF Women’s World Championship.
The composition of their team against the team of Samsun, which they eliminated in the KO round of 32, was saurus53 – ennser and sterraneo – dr_crazy. The Saurus53 – ennser pair employed a natural bidding system, while sterraneo – dr_crazy employed a strong club approach. You may download the 24 played hands as a .lin and as a .pdf file here.
Please let me know, if you are able and willing to play on Wednesday. We will be hosting, the event, so also please let me know if you are happy with the playing arrangement as in the previous match.
P.S. As an Annex, I have appended the text that Marcello sent me, on board 15 of the match with Saarbrucken
A sexy adventure at 6th floor, by Marcello di Eusanio.
Board 15 closed room: 5D+1
Open room: the real drama happened here; the bidding quickly escalated to the 4-level, after a questionable first seat 3H opening, raised to 4. Sandra, in the 4th seat, holding QJ976 – A – KJT765 – 6 was faced with a very uncomfortable decision. She felt she had to do something, and so she closed her eyes and put down the 4S card, hoping for the best, fearing the worst. I agree with her decision; I believe that in the long run it isn’t a winning tactic to sit down quietly in such situations. And if she wanted to do something, 4S was the only reasonable choice, the tiny five cards bagger notwithstanding. When the bidding came back to my side, I knew I got a hand with plenty of slam potential, holding KT – Qx – A9842 -AJ75. In fact, even a grand-slam could be not completely out of question opposite some “normal”4S calls.But how to proceed? I thought for a moment about a 5S call, hoping my pard would get the message to bid slam with hearts control. While this could be the technical way, I wasn’t sure at all that Sandra would read the message correctly. So, I took the odds that opponents were bidding with at least a combined 10 cards in the hearts suit, and decided to simplify the action asking for KC. After the check, we quickly bid 6S. Then, suddenly, something unexpected happened: the last seat doubled, holding 5432 – K43 – == QT9842. He thought his best chance was to convince his partner to lead something else than hearts, hitting his diamond void for the ruff (lightner). You can imagine for yourself how Sandra could feel about the whole damned thing; she probably wanted to cry. Back to the dealer, who had opened a 1st seat 3H with A8 – JT98762 – Q3 – K3;he of course couldn’t figure out the position (how could he?), and lead a normal JH. After winning the trump ace, he got a second chance to divine the position, but it was still very hard to find at the table, and he played a second heart. Sandra claimed, maybe with an evil grin stamped on her sweet face. An exciting deal, indeed. When playing actively in the bridge circuit, after a brilliant play of my pard, i used to say: “sexy line of play, chery” (well, only when playing in the mixed, of course); and I meant it. Really! Only bridge addicts can understand what I’m talking about.
UPDATE !!
According to the last minute message from the captain of the team of Vienna, their lineup is: N/S: steinhof – arno11 and E/W: wuzi5 – hrgruemm.
Wuzi5 is, seemingly, Heinrich Berger, a long-time member of the Austrian teams, playing at World, European and other events, and having won several torunaments. Hrgruemm is, seemingly, Hans-Richard Grümm, a former mathematician and a, aficionado bridge player. They employed a natural system, when they faced the team of Salda on 12 of October (and won). Arno11 is, seemingly, Arno Lindermann, an Austrian skilled bridge player, his details on the WBF are here. I did not find any details on the user steinhof, so far. This pair played against the team of Geneva on 19 of October (losing by a high margin) and employed a strong club system, then.
I have uploaded the lin files of these matches here. I will also upload a descriptive version in pdf, later on.
The Kampala Team's School of Bridge 