Gulf News

Dinosaurs roam in junior bridge

- — Phillip Alder

Kees Tammens from Netherland­s was in Taicang , 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? One occurred in this deal from the final session of the youngsters (under 21) team event between Poland and US. 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. To qualify as a dinosaur deal, the swing must be at least 15 IMPs.

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