All News

APBF Day6  A Brighter Day.

In what has been a difficult few days at the APBF, yesterday offered some more hopeful signs for our teams. Although our Open Team were well beaten by the table-topping Australians at the start (1.83), two excellent results followed their bye, China Macau 16.03 and Korea 16.55. The latter match seemed to be heading for a draw when the Kiwis picked up 30 imps off the last three boards, including a double game swing at the 5-level, to win comfortably. Though still 10^th, they are 17vps behind the Koreans in 5^th place. Australia are in the overall lead, 3.76vps ahead of China.

Our Mixed Team stayed 6^th throughout the day though started off by getting the full 20 off Singapore. Losses to China (3.97) and Hong Kong China (5.36) followed but they scored 13.23 off Japan in the final match of the day and would aim to overhaul Indonesia who are 13 vps ahead.

There was no change for our Ladies Team who have been 5^th for three days. Losses to Hong Kong China (9.34) and Chinese Taipei (7.29) were followed by a bye and a 11.58 win over Thailand. They cannot finish higher than 5^th but would want to retain that position with Japan just 1 vp behind.

It was not a great day for our Seniors beaten by Japan (9.03) and Indonesia (5.81) while beating Australia in perhaps a record low-scoring imp total of 9-8 (10.33). Australia are still in 1^st place by 7.64vps while New Zealand are a rather distant 6^th.

 

This was a real “good news/ bad news” deal for our Seniors in their match against Japan. After getting a positive response to his 2 opening, GeO seemed to get the news he wanted from his Key Card ask. Michael Cornell showed 2 key cards and the Q and the chances of disposing his losing diamonds on dummy’s clubs seemed excellent. Alas, South spoilt the party by leading a diamond. A spade lead would also have beaten the grand, taking away a vital entry to dummy at trick 1.

Meanwhile, at the other table, Malcolm Mayer managed to escape for – 800 in 6x. 3 rounds of hearts saw West discard 2 clubs.  Malcolm was thus able to to ruff a club and rather fortuitously enjoy two long club winners .Thus 14 imps were lost whereas 15 would have been gained had the grand slam made. Ironically, 7 would have been played by West had the Japanese reached that contract where only a spade lead is successful for the defence. 
      Our Seniors' Team

 
Michael Cornell  (playing captain), Malcolm Mayer, Brian Mace, Murat Genc, 
Anne Somerville and the unlucky GeO Tislevoll

The following board in the Open and Ladies competitions produced a rarity. Can you spot it?

 

Not a good deal to be East-West! The only swings were between those in 7 and those in 7NT. I have seen a few 39 hcps between the two hands but never the full 40.

Today is the final day of the main competitions though the two Zone 7 countries will then play off against each other, with just pride at stake.

Richard Solomon

Go Back View All News Items