Usa2 Bowls Them Over
Newcastle Herald
Friday November 9, 2001
USA2 (Rose Meltzer, Kyle Larson, Lew Stansby, Chip Martel, Peter Weichsel and Alan Sontag) has won the Bermuda Bowl (Open Teams) in the recent World Championships in Paris.
They defeated Norway in the 128-board final by 286 to 265 imps, after Norway led all the way until the final set of 16 boards.
In the Venice Cup (Women's Teams), Germany pipped France by 218 to 215.5 imps. Coincidentally, again the loser (France) led all the way until the last 16 of their 96 boards.
Australia's performance was below what might have been hoped for. Unfortunately, neither the Open team nor the Women's team qualified for the quarterfinals.
In the Bermuda Bowl, the Australian Open team finished in 12th position and in the Venice Cup the Women's team finished in 15th position. There were 18 teams in each field.
Even though Australia's performance was disappointing there were some high points.
Take the inspired declarer play by Barbara Travis on the deal shown. Travis became declarer in 5D from the West seat. North led the heart 10. If you were playing this contract at the table do you think you would make it?
Of course, playing double dummy it is no problem to drop the singleton trump king but Travis did this at the table. She won the heart lead in hand and immediately took the spade finesse.
South won, cashed a heart winner and exited with a club. Travis won with the ace, crossed to dummy via the spade ace and led a trump.
North would have thought that the contract was about to go down. But no, Travis went up with the ace and claimed the contract when the king dropped.
The club loser can be discarded on the fourth round of spades, dummy being entered via the trump eight.
NORTH ; 863 k KT965 l K ' K872 WEST ; QJT k A8 l AQT976 ' A5 EAST ; A972 k 43 l 8432 ' Q94 SOUTH ; K54 k QJ72 l J5 ' JT63
© 2001 Newcastle Herald