DINOSAURS ROAM IN JUNIOR BRIDGE

Kees Tammens from the Netherlands was in Taicang, China, for the

2012 World Youth Team Championships. He was primarily the Dutch coach, but he also contributed interesting articles to the daily bulletins, which I edited. He introduced us to dinosaurs. What do you think they are, in a bridge sense?

One occurred in this deal from the final session of the youngsters (under

21) team event between Poland and the United States.

In the given auction, it was hard for the American East-West pair to sacrifice in seven diamonds, but perhaps at international match point scoring they should have taken out insurance.

When West led his singleton spade, declarer immediately claimed all 13 tricks.

At the other table, the auction was identical up to five hearts. But then Michal Gulczynski (East) doubled. Michal Klukowski (West) wasn't having any of that, competing to six diamonds. Now, though, North-South ran into a psychological barrier. North doubled six diamonds, thinking that having been doubled in five hearts, surely six doubled would be expensive.

To make matters 4 IMPs worse, South led his singleton club, so that contract also came home with an overtrick.

Plus 1460 and plus 1190 gave Poland 21 IMPs -- the biggest dinosaur ever seen in Taicang. To qualify as a dinosaur deal, the swing must be at least 15 IMPs.

The largest sauropod dinosaur was the argentosaurus, thought to have reached 100 tons in weight. It sounds inappropriate, with "argent" suggesting silver and this result cementing the gold medal for Poland, but the first remains of this dinosaur were found in Argentina -- hence the name.