European Championships 2018, Ostend, Women's Teams, Day 6

All to Play For

Having defeated both Scotland and Finland, we faced Sweden in our final match on day 6 of the championships.  The Swedes had slipped back into second place and we were hopeful of an emphatic victory to move us firmly into contention.   The match started well and we held the lead for most of it.   When dummy was placed on the table on the final board, however, Nevena Senior would need to make 12 tricks to avoid a sizeable defeat.

Board 32. Dealer West. E-W Vulnerable.
	♠ K 2 ♥ A K Q 8 7 6 4 2 ♦ 4 ♣ A K
♠ Q 5 3 ♥ J 5 ♦ K J 7 ♣ 9 6 5 3 2		♠ A 9 8 6 4 ♥ 3 ♦ Q 9 5 2 ♣ 8 7 4
	♠ J T 7 ♥ T 9 ♦ A T 8 6 3 ♣ Q J T

Nevena received a diamond lead in her contract of 6H.   Without this, 12 tricks would have been very easy  - draw trumps, unblock the ace and king of clubs and then cross to dummy to cash  the queen of clubs (8 heart tricks, 3 clubs and a diamond).   The problem was that the lead had removed the entry to the dummy before the clubs had been unblocked so the queen of clubs could never be reached.   Therefore, at trick 2, Nevena led a spade and had to guess which honour West held.

She led the jack and West played low.  Would Nevena rise with the king or would she let the jack run?  We watched with bated breath.  She played low from hand, forcing the ace from east and promoting the king for her twelfth trick, thereby landing the slam and restricting our loss in the match to just 2 IMPs - phew!

This could turn out to be extremely important because we are within touching distance of a bronze medal.   With time running out, to win gold or silver will require some fairly dramatic collapses from the leading teams but they will face tough opponents and so anything is still possible.

With three rounds to go, here are the standings:

1	POLAND	269.48
2	SWEDEN	259.57
3	NORWAY	241.50
4	DENMARK	232.60
5	ENGLAND	232.25
6	RUSSIA	224.04
7	FRANCE	218.48
8	SCOTLAND	215.44
9	NETHERLANDS	215.08
10	ITALY	212.19
11	ESTONIA	211.59
12	PORTUGAL	205.01
13	TURKEY	199.16
14	BELGIUM	196.93
15	ISRAEL	187.97
16	SPAIN	187.04
17	HUNGARY	179.18
18	GERMANY	176.28
19	SERBIA	169.20
20	ICELAND	166.00
21	GREECE	162.47
22	FINLAND	143.60
23	IRELAND	133.94

If we manage to secure handsome victories against Portugal, Israel and Turkey, our chances of a medal are pretty good and if either Sweden or Poland slip up, who knows what can be achieved?

Tomorrow promises to be an exciting day !

Derek :)