Retrospective: First Hellenic Game on IntoBridge
IntoBridge hosted its first Hellenic tournament on the 3rd of January. 38 pairs joined the event with a special guest, the world-famous Zia Mahmood. Some of the top Greek players also joined along with less experienced but fiercely competitive players from all over Greece.
18 boards were played with Swiss movement and Matchpoints scoring. The top 3 finishers are:
To see the scores and the full rankings, go to IntoBridge, then Pairs -> Completed and Search for 1o Ελληνικό Τουρνουά Ζευγών.
In the survey that was circulated after the event, most of the players gave very positive feedback and many expressed interest in having a weekly game on IntoBridge. Starting from the 17th of January, a weekly pairs tournament will be held every Tuesday at 17:00, open to all Greek players. If you have no partner, just pick a partner from the Partnership Desk or register yourself, hosts are available, and everyone is guaranteed a game. You can find the game in the Upcoming Pairs game section:
Petros Roussos, partnering Thanos Darkadakis, is sharing a few hands from the First Hellenic Game on IntoBridge…
On board No. 8, our opponents reached 3♠ by East. I led the ♥A, and my partner played the 2 showing an even number of cards. So I decided to try and set up a diamond trick before the declarer establishes the ♥Q. I returned the ♦Q. The dummy and partner played low, and the declarer won with the K. Declarer then cashed two rounds of trumps. Having seen a singleton spade and knowing I have only one or two diamonds, the declarer decided to play me for the ♣Q. Good logic, but unfortunate, because when my partner won the ♣Q and returned a heart to my K, I was able to play a diamond back, finessing dummy’s Jack for 3♠-2 and 94% in our bag.
Board No. 9 had quite an aggressive auction, with both partner and East holding a 6-5.
Partner opened 2♠, East bid 3♥, and I pushed to 4♠. After pass, pass, East bid 5♣ and West corrected back to 5♥. At that point, my partner estimated that with a 10-card fit, it’s possible that we could even make 5♠, however, West didn’t agree and doubled. So partner ended up declaring 5♠X.
East led the A and K of clubs which declarer ruffed. Now declarer played a spade, and East put the J. At this point, all declarer needs to do is put the A up and cross-ruff the hand. The only way to go down is if East has played the Jack with KJ9, which would be an impressive falsecard and as I tend to say, if someone makes such a good play, they deserve to get a good score. One might argue that since the scoring is Matchpoints, if the K is with East, finessing the spade might produce an overtrick. However, since the contract is doubled, logic says that 5♠X= will be a good score, whatever happens at the other tables. On the table, my partner finessed with the ♠Q, West won with the ♠K and correctly continued with a second spade. As a result, we couldn’t ruff all the diamonds and ended up down one, -100 and 11% to us.
On board No. 10 partner overcalled 1♥, and after East’s 1♠, I raised to 4♥, which was quite aggressive considering I had a balanced hand. West then bid 4♠, and that was the final contract.
I led the ♥K, intending to see the dummy and decide what to play next, as long as it holds. It was a pleasant surprise when the dummy came down with a singleton ♥Q and the declarer won my ♥K with the ♥A. Declarer then played a spade to the 10, which my partner won. We took ♣AK, and then partner played the ♥J which declarer had to ruff in dummy. The last spade was played from dummy, my partner won with the ♠A and continued with the ♦9, locking declarer in dummy and providing himself a ruff as dummy only had diamonds left. The final result was 4♠-3 and 78% to us.
