One week after the start of the World Bridge Games in Buenos Aires all our national teams, open, women, senior and mixed, have reached the eighth finals. An expected result, although far from trivial, which confirms the never-failing competitiveness of Italian bridge almost eighty years after the historic feats of the great Blue Team.
We are at the 26th episode of the column "Play with champions” for all Bridge enthusiasts, the result of the collaboration between FIRST online , Italian Bridge Game Federation. Every Saturday will be the occasion to test yourself with the highest level Bridge with the publication of a particularly interesting hand, which will be played at an international level or highly spectacular. Competitive bridge is fun for everyone. You can see the previous hands by clicking on the banner on the front page, or here.
Deal number 26: protagonist Leonardo Cima
Among the many decisive plays of our standard-bearers, I present to you a hand that saw the mixed national team as protagonist and in particular Leonardo Cima against the Croatian national team. After opening last of the hand with two clubs forcing generically and declaring spades, Leonardo found himself at the wheel of the small spade slam with the diamond lead. The 10♦ of dummy was overcome by the J♦ of East for the A♦ of declarer. The situation was not the rosiest as dummy had come with the worst possible distribution. The slam could not ignore the good distribution of the trumps, after which the twelfth trick would still be subject to either the favorable division of the hearts or the success of an endgame. How would you have continued in Cima's place to have the best chance of taking home your slam? The solution next Saturday.
The solution to hand number 25 on Saturday 26 October
Detected in hand by Rodwell, who was not seeing the cards, he cashed the diamond winners and then turned over the Q♣ in dummy. The cards were not positioned as the Americans would have liked, so the slam fell by one trick. At some tables, however, South followed a different line of play. He immediately played clubs to dummy, but then inserted the 9♣. The successful overtake at 10♣ thus ensured the twelve necessary tricks. Was it a clever play or was it really the best move? Even if the overtake had gone against declarer, he would still have had a chance to win if East had started with clubs with K10 thirds. But it is difficult even for the greatest champions to accept falling on the first card.
