The finals - 4 boards - part I

This is the first of four posts about swing hands in the second set of England-Italy. The first set Italy won by 16 IMPs (60-44), the third set Italy lost by 13 IMPs (17-30), and it was the second set (46-4) that gave them most of their 45 IMPs lead (123-78). We will look at four boards that delivered a total of 41 IMPs to Italy.

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On board 18, the Italian West opened 1H in third seat, and played there for +110. In the other room a system flaw bites Sandqvist Malinowski. Click on this link to see their cc:

http://tinyurl.com/4y8nqn

The pair plays a version of the Polish Club. Just looking at their cc you can see that it is not as complete as it needs to be. Their one level D/H/S openings and their 2C opening cover 11-16 it says, and but 1C is 12-14 balanced or 18+ any. Thus they provided a cc that does leaves out 17s if unbalanced and without clubs. In addition the cc makes no mention on how they handle 4-4-1-4 (exactly) 12-17 hands.

An incomplete or vague cc can be symptomatic of system flaws - they have may not thought everything out.

On Board 18, West, Sandqvist, opened 1C (12-14 balanced, or 18+), this time with the big hand type. East, Malinowski, responded 1D, showing any 0-7 or 6-10 no major, or 16+ balanced. West rebid 1H, which, in Polish club styles, is either 12-14 balanced with 3 or 4 hearts, or 18 to a near game force with 4+ hearts, unbalanced often (a 1NT rebid over 1D would be 18-20 balanced).

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Now East bid 1NT on 4 high card points. What range is this 1NT rebid? They play the immediate 1C-1NT as 8-11, so presumably this 1NT will be less than 8. However West, with 18 high card points, now jumped to 3NT, which makes it look like West thought that 1NT is still 6-10. Either way East-West need to sort out what 1NT is: 4-7 in which case West should, at most, invite, or 6-10. As it was South led a spade against 3NT and the contract failed by 3 tricks, for 6 IMPs to Italy.