Daily Bulletin

----- Sunday, February 9, 1997 -----
Bulletin Number 1

The 1997 NEC Bridge Festival began yesterday with the OUCHI CUP, a two-day qualifying Swiss Team Event with 65 teams entered. The field was divided into seven sections, with the top three finishers in each group qualifying for today's A Final. The Group B Final is made up of the teams finishing fourth through sixth yesterday and the remaining teams from yesterday's qualifying round are eligible to compete in the C Final.

Qualifiers for Today's Group A OUCHI CUP Section A: 1st 178 K. Kawakami, T. Kamiyo, M. Tan, H. Sekiyama 2nd 165 P. Hackett, J. Armstrong, Jason Hackett, Justin Hackett 3rd 164 S. Hanai, R. Kawakatsu, Mr. & Mrs. K. Murata Section B: 1st 165 H. Enomoto, A. Kuwabara, K. Saeki, J. Kobayashi 2nd 160 X. Wang, Z. Fu, C. Liu, S. Sun 3rd 154 K. Ueda, S. Ando, T. Ozawa, K. Akita Section C: 1st 169 T. Hara, K. Tatai, K. Ito, T. Jomura 2nd 139 S. Isiguro, H. Daimon, M. Ohsaki, N. Iwai 3rd 137 M. Kumano, K. Asakoshi, S. Morinaga, Y. Fukuyama Section D: 1st 172 H. Liu, Z. Shi, E. Naito, N. Nishida 2nd 162 T. Inaba, T. Hotta, R. Fukumaru, H. Noda 3rd 152 R. Geller, S. Ogihara, K. Yamada, K. Takahashi, H. Narita, Y. Ito Section E: 1st 166 S. Fukuda, Y. Shimizu, H. Kaku, M. Mizuta 2nd 153 A. Yamada, K. Ohno, M. Ino, T. Imakura, M. Hirata, T. Hanayama 3rd 150 K. Wakatsuki, N. Abe, S. Kazama, Y. Eto 4th 139 M. Hirota, Y. Masuda, K. Nishimura, S. Suzuki Section F: 1st 188 H. Hisatomi, T. Teramoto, H. Abe, D. Chen 2nd 174 S. Naito, S. Moriyama, M. Sekizawa, A. Amano 3rd 134 M. Kanazawa, K. Kawahara, R. Illingworth, A. Yanagisawa Section G: 1st 170 Y. Nakamura, K. Miyakuni, R. Tanaka, S. Morimura 2nd 148 J. Kobayashi-H Enomoto, H Morimoto-A Kwabara-K Saeki 3rd 141 Y. Sakamoto - T. Miyashiro, K. Uwatoko - K. Aoyagi

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WHO WAS THAT MASKED MAN?

Bd: O-I-3 NORTH DLR: S K 6 VUL: E/W 10 2 8 4 K 10 9 8 7 4 3 WEST EAST A 9 7 5 4 2 3 8 7 6 K J 4 J 6 3 A K Q 9 7 5 2 6 Q 2 SOUTH Q J 10 8 A Q 9 5 3 10 A J 5

WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH Kokish Kimura Colker Cai Jian Ping 1 Pass 1NT 2 2 2 3 3NT DBL All Pass

First session of the OUCHI CUP. Just two guys out for a stroll. Says West to East, "Can you figure out what I've got for my Pass-then-2 sequence?" "Hmm," thinks East, "sounds like long bad spades and a moderate hand, or short good spades and a diamond fit. On the auction, West figures to be short in hearts, and therefore will have a few diamonds and clubs. If I don't bid three notrump with this hand, I will surely be labeled a mouse. THREE NOTRUMP. DOUBLE from South, with no apparent concern. Pan to West. "I really don't have much, but East will know that. I have a fast spade trick and a nice fit in diamonds. The only truly worrisome thing about my hand for notrump is that singleton club. More so, I guess, because South must have some reason for doubling three notrump. Perhaps I should redouble, showing doubt. But we never discussed that in our thirteen-hour plane trip from Canada. Well, I'm not going to run from three notrump doubled in front of my partner when I think he's going to make it on the expected heart lead. I have some misgivings, but I'm going to PASS, and just about in tempo, too. East gives it more than a few moments, but he finally passes too. Faster than you can say the word OUCHI, South has his opening lead on the table. It's .... the ace of clubs! North has a variety of cards with which to signal encouragement but he chooses the eight. South does not appear to look at this card in any case. He has already continued with the jack of clubs to North's king, declarer's queen. North takes his clubs and switches to a heart and declarer loses two of those for five down; minus 1400. "That's a relief," volunteers West cheerily, "I was afraid they would take all thirteen tricks after the club lead." East is not particularly relieved. Or amused, for that matter. The protagonists leave the table. Says West to East, "Did you notice that our North never said a word to his partner? I would have been kissing South's feet and sucking each toe in reverent supplication for his leadsmanship. Do you think that South would give me his autograph if I were to ask him nicely?"

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NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK

Bd: O-I-15 NORTH DLR: S A K 8 7 3 2 VUL: E/W A Q 4 2 --- Q J 8 WEST EAST 10 9 5 4 J 9 7 3 8 6 5 Q J 10 9 6 A K 8 2 10 6 3 9 7 5 SOUTH Q J 6 K 10 7 5 4 3 A K 4 2

TABLE ONE WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH Ando Asbi Nomura Sacul 1(1) Pass 1(2) Pass 1NT(3) Pass 2(4) Pass 2 Pass 4(5) Pass 5(6) Pass 5(7) Pass 5NT (8) Pass 7 All Pass (1) Polish club; most often a weak notrump (2) 8+ HCP, natural;(3) 12-14 HCP, balanced (4) Checkback; (5) Splinter; (6) Cue-bid; (7) Void or singleton ace; (8) Grand Slam Force TABLE TWO WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH Kokish Watanabe Colker Kawaguchi 1 2 2 5 DBL Pass 5 Pass 5 Pass 6(7) All Pass

After winning the silver medal at the Rhodes Olympiad, the Indonesian team has rearranged two of its partnerships. One of the two new pairs is Denny Sacul and young Taufik Absi, who has been added to the Big Six. Denny's partner, Franky Karwur, will be playing with Santje Panelewen, who played with Giovani Watulingas in Rhodes. Denny and Taufik, playing a variation of the Polish Club system, made short work of this laydown grand slam in the first qualifying session of the OUCHI CUP yesterday. When Taufik showed slam interest and no diamond losers, Denny knew that all his cards were working overtime and checked on trumps for seven. It looks almost easy after the fact, but many pairs missed this grand slam, among them Messrs Watanabe and Kawaguchi at the other table. It would be nice to report that the busy E/W bidding made it almost impossible for N/S to reach their par contract, but that would be a lie. In truth, South really should have done more on the auction. He had good reason to believe that North was void in diamonds before he pulled his penalty double, and North's 5 should have extracted more than a strained 5 from him. But even after that, South had enough information available to him to raise 6 to seven. I'm afraid to say that we really did too much obstructing for our own good.

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NO X-RAY EYES

Bd: O-II-1 NORTH DLR: N A K J 10 VUL: None K 9 5 A K Q 5 9 8 WEST EAST 3 9 8 4 Q 8 2 A 10 7 J 4 2 9 8 6 A K 10 5 4 2 Q J 6 3 SOUTH Q 7 6 5 2 J 6 4 3 10 7 3 7

TABLE ONE WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH Tada Justin Kikuchi Jason 1 Pass 2 Pass 4 All Pass TABLE TWO WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH Kokish Watanabe Colker Kawaguchi 2NT Pass 3(1) Pass 4(2) Pass 4(3) Pass 4 All Pass (1) Transfer; (2) Advanced cue-bid (3) Retransfer

Board 1 from the second qualifying session of the OUCHI CUP was one of the most interesting of the day. Both N/S pairs in our bidding diagram reached 4 from the North side, using two rather different auctions to get there. At TABLE ONE, Paul Hackett led the Q against Ryohey Orihara, who had revealed nothing in the bidding. John Armstrong overtook with the king and switched to the 2, a play that was not without risk with the ten in dummy. Declarer won the ace, drew trumps ending in hand, and erred by ruffing a club before testing diamonds. He recovered, however, by cashing the diamonds before leading the 5 from hand. When East followed low, declarer called for dummy's three. West overtook with the eight and returned the 2, as he had to do to give the defense a chance. Whether declarer read anything into West's failure to bid 5 over 4 we do not know, but he did follow low to second heart and so made his game; plus 420. At TABLE TWO, where the Hackett twins employed a transfer sequence to reach 4, E/W knew that North (Justin) had values in diamonds and a prime fit for spades, but that didn't make it much easier for E/W to find the most effective defense. Atsushi Kikuchi led the Q and Takehiko Tada overtook with the king to play...a second club. Justin ruffed in dummy, cashed one high diamond, then played three rounds of trumps, ending in dummy. A low heart to the nine lost to the ten, but East had a safe exit in diamonds. Justin ruffed his fourth diamond (which was high) to reach dummy for a second heart play, but on this layout, he had to lose two more heart tricks for one down. Despite this setback, the British team qualified handily for the A Final. Justin could have made 4 even after the defense had killed the ruffing entry to dummy prematurely, but it would have taken an inspired view to get the job done. Ruff the club, cash two rounds of trumps, then three rounds of diamonds, and only then a third trump to dummy's queen. With the elimination complete and one trump left in each hand, a heart to the nine would endplay East, forcing him to concede a ruff-and-discard or yield a trick to the K.

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KOOL KEN

O-II-28 NORTH DLR: W K 10 8 6 2 VUL: N-S A 9 8 J 9 7 A 3 WEST EAST 7 4 3 Q J J 4 3 Q 10 5 K 4 A Q 10 8 5 3 J 10 9 5 2 7 6 SOUTH A 9 5 K 7 6 2 6 2 K Q 8 4

TABLE ONE WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH Mizutani Atsushi Pass 1 2 3 Pass 3 Pass 4 All Pass

On Board 28 of the second qualifying session of the OUCHI CUP, Ken Mizutani refused to panic in a touch-and-go game contract and by staying calm, landed his contract. When East led the 6 (low from two) against 4, it occurred to Ken (North) that he might run into some ruffs and overruffs if he delayed drawing trumps. Nonetheless, if he had a trump loser (which seemed likely), he had to do something with his third diamond, so he decided to take his chances on the trumps, won the A, and led the 9. East went in with the ten to play a second club and Ken won the king to play a second diamond. West won the king and returned a club, which Ken ruffed with the 10. East overruffed with the queen and should have led a third diamond now, leaving Ken with a guess that he would surely have mispicked (as they say in Australia). But East switched to a heart and it was clear sailing after that. Ken won the A, and led a low trump. When the jack came up, he won the ace, crossed to the 8, crossed to the K, cashed the Q to discard his heart loser, ruffed a club, ruffed his diamond with the 9, and was down to trumps. West did not score the 7.