by Karthik Srinivasan
Semi Finals
The first two quarters of the 2021 national masters were played Tuesday 11/23/2021. The two matches were as different as chalk and cheese.
While Parting Gift hammered Dhampur Sugar Mills, Samadhan continued their impressive run, squaring the first 2 sessions to have a very good chance of winning.
The scores after two sessions are posted above for ready reference.
Rampage started with a carryover of 12 imps, which is essentially one game swing. Samadhan took a bite out of it, when Arvind started off with a 1 N opening with a 5 card spade suit, and played 2 N. It could have produced a swing for Rampage, as 10 tricks are available once declarer gets in. No freebies against Marianne. She led a club honor, then accurately switched to heart to pick up the first 7 tricks for 4 IMPs, when the other table NS settled in 3 club after a traditional 1S opening.
The same board produced action in the other Semifinal between Parting Gift and DSM as well, where Shamboo's 2NT call, which was intended as Lebensohl, was misinterpreted by Bhabesh as natural. 5 IMPs to Parting Gift. Or maybe it was a starting gift.
Board 2 doubled the lead for Parting Gift, where Biswajit showed his majors to find 2 Spade while his team mates were allowed to play in 1NT.
The other match stayed quiet until board 5, when Pramod Joshi overcalled a chunky AKQ6 4 card suit, to find a distributional 4H.
At other table, RV bid 2 Spades with the explanation shown. The heart suit was totally lost in the auction and though they made 10 tricks, they lost 7 imps
The same board saw Parting Gift stretch their lead by a further 8 IMPs, when Ashok Goel cashed all his winners in the East hand and handed NS 10 tricks in an otherwise unmakeable 4 Clubs contract.
The other Semifinal turned on it's head after board 5. Board 6 saw RV and Arvind defeat 4H after an accurate trump lead. While it technically gave declarer the advantage of not having to find the heart queen, she squandered it by mis-guessing the diamond position.
At the other table, Animesh received a club lead and cashed the club king pitching a diamond. When he now led a small diamond from dummy, Pramod hopped up with the Ace, eliminating the diamond guess. Animesh won the diamond return and embarked on a cross ruff. This was interrupted when Pramod over ruffed the third spade and returned a 4th diamond for partner to ruff.
CP Deshpande now backed the spade king which Animesh ruffed with the Heart Ace and then finessed the queen successfully to score game.
Board 7 furthered the damage for Samadhan, when Animesh and Uttam found a profitable vulnerable H sacrifice.
This board was very expensive for DSM, when NS managed to land in 5H Doubled with the extreme distribution completely hidden. KRV elected to make an aggressive club lead, which turned out to be devastating for the defense. 5HX made, for 15 IMP to Parting Gift.
DSM recovered some ground in the last 2 boards, to go into Session 2 down 26.
The bleeding for Samadhan got worse on board 10, when Animesh, in hot form, pushed to 3 H in competition, which cannot be defeated to pick up 7 imps more. When one is in good form, one needs to cash in. Mark Waugh said this during his playing days , and Animesh was there to cash in, on board 11, with a small game bonus swing of 6 IMP:
At the end of the first quartet, Rampage was up 35, Parting Gift up 26.
The fireworks in the Rampage - Samadhan match started with the first board of the second set itself when Uttam went in for a slam without bothering to check aces in a highly competitive auction. His opponent calmly cashed the Ace and King of Spades to take the contract down. In the other room Maneesh and Srini did not even compete above 4 hearts and, when Maneesh failed to continue spades after leading the Spade Ace, conceded 12 tricks.
It was probably the fact that Priya chose to conceal his long spade suit that propelled Uttam into an, at best, ambitious slam. He had no guarantee that partner did not have two spade losers.
The other bit of action took place on the adjacent board. Essentially, the trick to the contract is to avoid two spade losers. At the table shown, Mini played East for the spade Jack by leading towards the 9. Once that held, it was a simple matter to claim 10 tricks.
At the other table, Srini led a spade to the King and then had to give two spades.
All in all, Samadhan won the session handsomely to effectively square the match.
(The team at BridgeFromHome has been ribbing Srini about the number of times Rampage has won on the basis of carry over - Eds)
The other match was essentially a nightmare for Dhampur Sugar Mills. Board 15 saw Sapan and Subhash bulldoze themselves into a slam which Abhijit Chakraborty, holding two aces, was only too happy to double. Then came this board.
This hand was beautifully played by Abhijit. Rather than attempt to describe it, we shall simply share the link here.
At the other table, the precision system really put a spanner into the works. The forcing 3 Diamond bid from Rajesh Dalal made Anal bid 3NT. After a diamond lead, Anal tried a heart finesse which lost. He won the diamond return and then played for the Club Queen Jack with North. When that didn't work, the roof fell in.
While this always makes double dummy, we are of the opinion that Anal misplayed the hand after a diamond lead. If he ducks the first diamond, South can do little better than back another diamond. After winning this, he should lead a spade to the king. If East wins and backs a diamond, he now cashes Ace and King of hearts. With this line of play, he is always home as long as South doesn't hold the heart queen 3 times. If South wins the Spade Ace, then the heart finesse will always work (with 11 HCP South would over call 1 Diamond rather than 2).
To add insult to injury, Parting Gift hammered a parting nail into the DSM coffin by making a fortuitous 4 spades on the last board on a 5-1 fit! The more logical 5 diamond contract has no chance of making.
Program for the day
Today, the semifinals start at 600 pm as well. Arrangements have been made for kibitzers to see a delayed broadcast of the same.
Pairs Event
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