Finals Day 1
Parting Gift started the finals with some solid bridge to end the day 8 imps ahead. While Samadhan did well in the first session, Dhampur Sugar Mills cracked the whip to end the day 13.5 imps ahead.
Parting Gift drew first blood on board 7 when Samir and Biswajit bid an aggressive 4 Hearts. This can be beaten either by a trump lead (and play trumps at every opportunity) or by a club shift by Srini (he was nice enough to point this out himself) when he was in with the diamond queen or ace. However, the pair, a scratch combination for this round, missed the defence and allowed 4H to make.
In the other room, after a precision opening by Animesh with the North hand, the pair subsided quietly in 2 Hearts. The defence opened with a trump to restrict declarer to nine tricks.
Parting Gift continued to increase their lead by bits and bobs and, by the end of the first session, were two imps ahead.
There was really nothing much to report in this match till board 18 when RV and Arvind bid this slam. Rana Roy gave Arvind a huge gift when he lead away from the diamond king. Even after this lead though, the hand needs to be played carefully.
After cashing all his side suit winners, Arvind played a spade from dummy with the spade ace and then scored the tenth trick en passant, as it were.
Well played Arvind!
This board returned the lead back to Rampage. Unfortunately, they gave 13 imps in the last two boards.
RV missed an opportunity to execute a brilliant control shifting squeeze on this board. After receiving a club lead, he needed to clear the diamond ace. East West cashed their second trick in clubs and returned a heart to produce the position on the right.
If declarer now plays the Spade queen from hand, the threat gets passed to the East hand with the spade 8 in declarer's hand becoming a menace. Now the run of the diamonds inexorably squeezes him.
Declarer needs to play East for precisely J9x of spades.
Thanks Srini once again for pointing this out. As another member of the BFH team said, "I am unlikely to find this line at the table except by sheer accident".
There is a lot of juice still left in the game. Do come and watch the last two sessions today on the kibitzing server.
Program for the day
The finals start at 600 pm. Kibitzing will start at 630 pm
Pairs Event
This is a gentle reminder to all of you that entries for pairs close very soon. We request those of you who are interested to sign up using the links below.