Day - 2 Please Read Your Conditions of Contest

Day 2 is now in the books with mostly positive but mixed results for the Open Team.

The Open Team was to face China Macau, Romania, and Brazil.

The team continued their winning ways with a 43-6 win for 24 VPs over China Macau with Lebi/Jacobs and Fergani/L'Ecuyer in the mix.

Match 2 was against the Romanians who sat in a qualifying spot. After a hard fought match Lebi/Jacob and Demuy/Fourcaudot ended with a losing tie 30-31 and 15VPs. Unfortunately at one table the pairs were overtime by 3.5 minutes and with no director having been called both teams were penalized 0.5 VPs each for the delay, taking the result for this match to 14.5 VPs. Lesson 1 from the Conditons of Contest for the Day.

Match 3 was against the Brazilians expected to contend for one of the 4 qualifying spots but at this point in the middle of the pack. The Brazilian team contains a number of previous World Champions with long experience in these events. Jet lag, fatigue and other factors seemed to kick in for this set with Demuy/Fourcaudot and Fergani/L'Ecuyer going down to a sizable 47-6 defeat and only 6VPs.

At the end of Day 2 the Open Team remains in a qualifying spot with 106.5 VPs tied for fourth with Romania.

Canada Open gained an additional VP from the match against the Irish on Day 1 with the score being corrected to 55-30 (21-9 VPs) based on a wrongly agreed score on the table that was identified (thanks Nick) and flagged to the Director's prior to the end of the score correction period. When flagged to the Irish the next morning the 1990 Canada-Germany ruling was identified as potentially disallowing the correction. In this case the correction was allowed due to its identification within the score correction window (30 minutes post the end of play). Lesson 2 from the Conditions of Contest.

Additional Observations from Day 2:

• All teams can be dangerous and there are no easy matches... In Group A the top of the table Italians were beaten by the bottom of the table Albanians in the second match of the Day.


• You must call the director if you are behind at half time and your opponents are slow with the VP penalties due to slow play. The Bowman brothers picked up 2 slow play penalties in the first 2 days... anyone who has played against them knows that it wasn't likely their slow play...


• Round 5 would have been a good time to end the qualification for the Open and Senior teams with Canada leading their groups - a number of team members captured the moment on film...


• Team rules on no vugraph watching and not seeing the scores seem to be sticking although the closer the match and the deeper the event the tougher it is not to check the scores if you are out first...


• We improved our scoring prowess on Day 2 with score corrections only being required on 2 of 3 rounds. The director's are getting a little too used to my after match visits... Maybe tomorrow we can it down to one round...


• Once again success favored the bold given the discussions of the numerous hands on which IMPs were lost and discussed at the dinner table...


• 12 card spade fits were the flavor of the day...


• On one hand you hold AKQTxxx xx xxx K and hear your partner Open 1S, 2D overcall and you bid 3D, partner leaps to 4S and when you pass you make 420 into your opponents game. You had just enough support...


• On another you hold AQxxxxxx xxxx x - and hear 1H-X(partner)-2C (clubs NF)... Again 5S is the limit and the opponents have a cheap sacrifice in 6C or make in 6H with a non-club lead (see below)...

Now for more on the second of the 12 card spade fits but for East-West in which multiple Challenge the Champs type situations arose based on the auction at the table that drove the most interesting discussion:

West was the Dealer with E/W vulnerable.

At many tables the auction started with 1H-X and now the fun begins:
- What do you bid with the East hand? do you play transfers? is 2C forcing or non-forcing? can you afford to pass with only 1 spade and limited values but good distribution?
- Assuming that E passes (not everyone's choice) the most problem presenting bid by S for the E-W hands is to continue with 2H... A 4S bid leaves W an easy takeout double and could miss an easy N/S slam...
- Now over to E/W does your partnership know the difference between X, 2NT, 3H in this situation (1H-X-P-2H-...) and what hand types to expect? Opinions varied all over the map at the dinner and breakfast tables...
- W continued with 3H. 3S by North and the spotlight again falls on E. Are any of 3N, 4C, 4H, pass appropriate - all received votes...
- E continued with pass. S bid only 4S and the auction ended there. Should either E or W take another call?

Note that the results at the Canadian Open and Women's 4 tables on this board included the following results EW: 6C*-1 for -200, 4S+1 for -450, 5H*-1(post committee) for -200, 5S*= for +650 so there was lots of action on this board - the final board of Day 2.