NEC CUP: SECOND DAY STANDINGS The rankings after six rounds of the NEC Cup are:   TEAM    VPs 1.   GREAT BRITAIN    129 2.   JAPAN - PABF OPEN    116 3.   JAPAN - YAMADA    101 4.   USA    94 5.   JAPAN - TATAI    89 6.   CHINA    88 7.   JAPAN - TAKAYAMA    79 8.   JAPAN - PABF WOMEN    69 9.   JAPAN - YOUTH    63 10.   JAPAN - NAITO    60 GREAT BRITAIN, with 129 VPs, scored two solid wins and its first loss to retain its lead going into the third and final day of round-robin play. JAPAN - PABF OPEN remained in second place with 116 VPs. JAPAN YAMADA with 101 VPs took over third place from CHINA with three wins in yesterday's play while USA remained in fourth place with 94 VPs, just 5 small VPs ahead of JAPAN TATAI and CHINA, in a virtual tie for fifth. JAPAN TAKAYAMA, lead PABF WOMEN by 10 VPs with JAPAN YOUTH and JAPAN NAITO bringing up the rear. Today's final three matches figure to be a thriller, with all ten teams retaining at least a chance to qualify. Once again the overall standard of play was high. In our match against PABF OPEN, Dawei Chen and Masayuki Ino played a near-flawless set. As Sundance Kid said to Butch Cassidy in the movie of the same name, "Who are those guys, anyway?" Well, we all know who these guys are. Again we include for your interest in this and the next issue the datums for each match. As long as you remember the direction you played in, you will be able to see how you fared compared to your counterparts in that session. A table containing all of the head-to-head match results as well as the teams' VP totals and rankings can be found immediately before the datums.

RE-ALERT! Last year's NEC Bridge Festival's poster child, nicknamed "England's Revenge," is back again this year to defend his title. Good seats are still available at popular prices. In an exclusive interview with your DB editor's, Jason denied any truth to the rumor that he is planning to take up sumo wrestling at the conclusion of the tournament. Watch these pages for further developments.

AN INTERVIEW WITH MARK "THE MAN" ITABASHI
Mark Itabashi is an ACBL Gold Life Master with over 10,000 masterpoints and scores of regional victories as well as a recent National Championship to his credit. We met with Mark, prime candidate for our "Courage of His Convictions" Award at this year's tournament, over breakfast.
Bd: 15 Dlr: South Vul: N/S North AQ1064 - KQ9752 43 West KJ AKJ7 AJ1083 86 East 97 103 64 AKQJ1097 South 8532 Q986542 - 52 West North East South Mark Gene 1 1 2 4 Pass Pass 5 Pass Pass Dbl. Pass Pass Rdbl 5 Pass Pass Dbl. All Pass OL: High club; Result: minus 200	Eds: So Mark, tell us about that hand from the first session of the NEC Cup on Monday. You know, Board 15, the one where you played in 5 doubled. How did you manage to go down only one? Our analysis suggests that North can legitimately come to only nine tricks. Is there some sort of obscure end position that we missed? Mark: Not really. East began by cashing two high clubs and then shifted to a diamond. I pitched a heart from dummy and West won his ace. From there the rest of the tricks were easy. I ruffed the K, ruffed a diamond, played a spade to the jack and queen, cashed the A drawing the remaining trump, and eventually ruffed another diamond to set up the suit. Eds: Your partner, Gene Simpson, alluded to us that something else amusing happened on that board. Can you enlighten us on just what he was referring to. Mark: Oh, he must have meant the auction. Eds: Well, yes. How did you get to 5 doubled? Mark: Can you believe Gene bid 4 on that South hand? 3 seems sane with only four small trumps.
Eds: Gee whiz, we might have bid 4 too. Besides, was it the 4 bid that did your side in? Mark: When they bid 5 I doubled, thinking that I could get a heart ruff, the A, and possibly a diamond trick or that Gene might produce a trick. I like to double, you know. It's like my signature on my business card: "Have Double, Will Travel." After the redouble I began to have doubts. If Gene were something like 6-5-1-1 we might have trouble scoring a diamond trick, or perhaps spades were three-zero. And I didn't really want to stake the whole match on one deal by opening up the possibility of a huge adverse swing. I'm aggressive, but, hey, I'm not a masochist. Eds: You soon discovered that the defense against 5 doubled would have been brutal. On the 2 lead you would ruff, return a diamond (treating the 2 as suit-preference) for Gene to ruff, and after two more ruffs a spade through dummy would produce two additional tricks. That's down four, plus 1600, instead of minus 200. We'd have won 16 imps on the board instead of losing 9. That's a 25-imp swing. Let us not speak of how we went minus 200 with the East/West cards at the other table. Mark: Yes, I certainly would have liked to have taken my 5 bid back once I saw the dummy. Eds: That's okay. Your insight might help others to avoid such disasters in the future. And who knows, perhaps it might inspire us as well to create a new award: maybe something like the "20-20 Hindsight" Award. In any case, we wish you and Gene well in your (and our) future NEC Cup matches. Oh, and by the way, you two might try some sushi and wine after the evening session. We hear it cleanses the soul and fortifies the psyche. Mark: Thanks, guys. This isn't, um, going to appear in on CNN or anything, is it? Eds: (polite giggling) Nah, just the Daily Bulletin.

NEC CUP: ROUND THREE (continued)
To refresh your memory, these were the scores in ROUND THREE:   VPs IMPs CHINA over NAITO 22-8 (56-23) GREAT BRITAIN over TATAI 20-10 (46-21) USA over PABF WOMEN 19-11 (45-24) YAMADA over YOUTH 19-11 (57-38) TAKAYAMA over PABF OPEN 16-14 (39-36)
Bd: 7 Dlr: South Vul: Both North 32 108 AJ1092 AJ107 West AJ8754 J654 K K8 East KQ9 A97 Q87543 Q South 106 KQ32 6 965432	If West guesses correctly, he can always make 4, even on the challenging lead of the 10. Kaz Yamada was the only declarer to fail in game, so YOUTH gained 12 imps to take the lead over YAMADA, 20-13. Declarer must duck the heart and later discard a heart from dummy on the K. He will either be able to ruff two hearts, or (if the defense leads trumps) discard one heart on the Q and ruff the other. GREAT BRITAIN gained 13 imps against TATAI (22-9 now in the match) when Hirata-Shimizu overbid to 6, two down.

If this doesn't strike you as a North/South game, we commend you on your perception. Three pairs tried 3NT, however, two of them in the same match. Declarer has no ninth trick and the efense seems to have access to five winners, but Fu-Ju scored plus 400 against Sekizawa-Ohta of NAITO, 28-2. At all the other tables, East/West played a partial in diamonds or spades, usually with little success. If West has a weak 2 bid available, he might silence everyone with it and make his contract. Perhaps that's how Gene Simpson achieved his plus score against PABF WOMEN.

Bd: 8 Dlr: West Vul: None North K7 J543 632 KQJ7 West A6 76 KQ10854 864 East 98543 AKQ92 9 92 South QJ102 108 AJ7 A1053

Bd: 9 Dlr: North Vul: E/W North Q862 J5 AQ10852 5 West KJ94 Q87 K963 43 East 53 A10964 7 Q10982 South A107 K32 J4 AKJ76

Nine of ten North/South pairs tried 3NT (the other was Fu-Ju,down in 5) and only two of them failed. The unlucky declarers were GREAT BRITAIN's John Armstrong, who seems to have received the imaginative lead of the J from TATAI's Shimizu, and NAITO's Moriyama. Other leads against 3NT were the 3, the 7 (from PABF OPEN's Imakura, which looks best for the defense), the 4, the 4, and the 9 (from Natsuko Nishida; perhaps a conventional third best from an even number).

If East and South both pass, what would you open with the West hand, both sides vulnerable? 1, 4, 5, and even 3 each have some merit. As the final contract was often 2 or 3, it would seem that the popular choice was 1. The two big results came in GREAT BRITAIN vs TATAI, where the twins conceded 500 to Tatai-Hara in 5 doubled but emerged magically with a 4-imp gain when their teammates made an overtrick in 3NT at the other table for plus 630. Perhaps the bidding proceeded: Pass-Pass-3-3NT;All Pass, and East led a club. With the A singleton in West, the diamonds onside, and the K in front of the queen, try to beat it. Ino-Chen, for PABF OPEN, finished in 4, presumably pushed there. This fared much worse than 3NT, going three down; minus 300, but the loss was only 5 imps because Imakura-Miyakuni came back with plus 110 in 3.

Bd: 10 Dlr: East Vul: Both North 963 A1097 AJ7 AQ6 West A J5 KQ1086542 53 East Q542 K832 - KJ1074 South KJ1087 Q64 93 982

Bd: 11 Dlr: South Vul: None North K54 QJ9652 Q74 6 West 92 K84 K9532 932 East AQJ10873 3 A6 K108 South 6 A107 J108 AQJ754

This one was played in 4, 4, or 5 (doubled), with spades the more popular strain. To defeat 4, South must lead ace and another club, get in with the A, and give North a second ruff. If he does not do this, declarer can lead a heart up to build a club discard while dummy has a diamond entry to cash it. The contract was defeated at both tables in USA vs PABF WOMEN, but at no other table. As usual, the big action was in GREAT BRITAIN vs TATAI, where the twins made 4 doubled (plus 590) while Hackett-Armstrong saved at 5 (down 500). Just 3 imps to the Brits.

Atypically, this was a quiet deal in GREAT BRITAIN vs TATAI, both North/South pairs going plus in the humble contract of 1NT. CHINA picked up 8 imps vs NAITO by collecting five undertricks (two of them vulnerable) against 2 and 2. In PABF OPEN vs TAKAYAMA, Mizuta-Tanaka went one down in 2 with the East/West cards, but their counterparts (Miyakuni-Imakura) bid and made 3. 5 imps to PABF OPEN. In USA vs PABF WOMEN, it was East/West who played in notrump. Nishida-Ohno made an overtrick in 2NT, while Simpson-Itabashi got all the way to game and went down. Both Souths found the interesting opening lead of the 8. Kaz Yamada went one down in the quiet contract of 1NT from the West side (we wonder if all these teams played the same deal) but his teammates did considerably worse; Hirata-Shimizu conceded an 800-point penalty in 2 doubled. 13 imps to YOUTH, ahead now 33-15.

Bd: 12 Dlr: West Vul: N/S North AJ1095 J52 Q972 6 West 874 A6 A10863 A97 East KQ32 K10743 - J432 South 6 Q98 KJ54 KQ1085