The 5th Bonus Asia Cup is being held in Goa, India, from Sunday 21 June to Saturday 27 June.
My initial impressions of Goa are green, raucous, hot and wet.
Sunday saw a captain's meeting followed by the opening ceremony and a welcome dinner. Fortunnately I was spared the captain's meeting but joined the festivities in the opening ceremony. This followed a tried and true formula of many speeches from various levels of bridge administration including the President of the World Bridge Federation, Franck Riehm from France, the President of the Asia Pacific Bridge Federation, Esther Sophonpanich from Thailand and the President of the South Pacific Bridge Federation, Ben Thompson from Australia. The various national teams were introduced and representatives of the players and directing staff gave an oath of fair play.
The ceremony concluded with a display of local culture in the form of dancers accompanied by some strenuous and loud drumming.
Dinner was a delicious selection of local delicacies marred only by the curious fact that there was only seating provided for about half the people attending!
The main bridge event is a teams competition in 4 categories: Mens, Women, Mixed and Seniors. I am representing Australia in the Mens division with my partner George Kozakos and teammates Fraser Rew (captain) and Joe Haffer. We will play a complete round robin of 15 fourteen board matches from Monday to Thursday. The leading 4 teams will then qualify for semi-finals and finals on Friday and Saturday. Those not qualifying will play 2 days of pairs competition.
Results can be found here
Our first match was against a team rated by many as dangerous in Kuwait. The pair that we played used an unusual system where the meaning of their bids changed according to the vulnerability of their opponents. I do not think I have ever encountered such a method. They also played a very unusual overcalling structure.
George found himself in 2DX on this hand early in the match:
Ibrahim cashed the club A then switched to S3. George won this and played a low diamond. Ibrahim erred by playing low allowing the ten to win in the dummy. George now thought long and hard about taking the heart finesse. As the cards lie this would allow the contract to make, however if it lost it looked like he might lose control so he played a heart to the A and settled for one down. This was a flat board and a lost opportunity to pick up 8 IMPs and an early lead.
I made a poor lead on Board 6 when I led a trump. This allowed the declarer to pick up the doubleton Q offside and make an unlikely game. 11 IMPs away.
Board 7 they had a long relay auction ending in 5D. One of our aces got away so they made 12. Fraser and Joe played in 3NT which had no play on a heart lead.
Board 13 we bought the contract in 1S and made for +80. Fraser and Joe doubled 2S and the defence slipped up resulting in 8 tricks, -670 and 11 IMPs away.
42 to 5, for 1.96 VPs. Not the way we wanted to start!
Match 2 was against a young team from Thailand.
Board 15 was the first out of the slot. Our opponents bid to a hopeless 6H in an uncontested auction and went 3 down when the trumps broke badly. Teammates played 3NT making a little fortuitously for +14 IMPs.
Board 18 saw us give most of this back when George and I misdefended 3NT.
Given Georges failure to raise my suit, it did not seem attractive to lead a spade. I tried the CA instead. Our general approach here is to lead the Ace against NT when we want an attitude card from partner. The lead of the K shows a strong holding and asks partner to give count or unblock. George liked the fact that he had four of them so played his lowest one. This spurred me to continue the suit and give away the contract. If I had switched, a club return from him when he was in with the SA would have set the contract. We had a short discussion on the subject of how much he liked clubs after the match! 11 IMPs away.
Board 19 saw more action.
With this shapely hand and partner supporting my 6 card suit we look like a very good chance to make 4H even if partner has very little. The HQ might be enough. The only problem is that at the vulnerability there is a good chance that the opponents will bid 4S and it will not be clear what to do. In cases like this it is often best to try to slow down the auction. On this basis I tried the effect of 3C. The next hand passed, George bid 3H and I raised to 4.
On the lead of the SA and a spade continuation the contract made easily. At the other table Fraser and Joe pushed the opponents to 5H and beat that two tricks for 13 IMPs in.
If you are following along on the scoresheet you will see that Board 23 was a flat board. Both EW pairs managed to play 5HX for -1100. I am still trying to think of a way to blame George for this result but even many hours later I simply can't. The devil made me do it! Joe enquired about this hand at dinner. Falling on my sword was the only viable option.
As too often happens this result had an effect on the following board. Or maybe George was just getting his own back.
The more pedestrian amongst us might try raising hearts to whatever level you fancy. George decided on the deeper game and psyched a bid of 1S. The next hand doubled and I bid 4C showing short clubs with 4 card spade support. When the next hand passed George had a problem. If he bid again the auction would necessarily get out of control. So he passed. I played my 3-0 club fit for 2 tricks, 8 down for -400 when we could make 4H. Teammates limited the damage by pushing them to 5H doubling them and beating it one trick. 7 IMPs away. Check the online results for the full hand
The action was still not over. I hesitate to suggest that our opponents suffered from youthful over-exuberance after the previous two hands but on Board 26 holding two balanced hands with 22 opposite 6 they managed to bid 6NT. This was pretty hopeless and went one down for 13 IMPs to the good guys.
The final result was 42-26 in our favour for 14.42 VPs. And it was only lunchtime!
It's getting late here so I will be brief with the afternoon matches.
Match 3 was against a strong and experienced team from Chinese Taipei.
This was the scorecard
Board 6 we had a difficult auction and played 3D instead of 4H. George had a tough rebid after the bidding started 1D-1H. He chose 3D and I saw no reason to bid on. 11 away.
Board 7 I was on lead against 4S after my LHO had opened 4S. A red suit lead would have resulted in us taking the first 4 tricks. My lead of the singleton K of C led to 11 tricks and 10 IMPs away.
Board 8 we bid a light game in 4H while Fraser and Joe managed to buy the contract in 2S making - 11 in.
Board 11 our opponents were a little passive and played 1N with a combined 25 HCP. 6 IMPs in.
Lost by an IMP, 26-25 for 9.67 VPs.
Last match of the day was against the leaders and favourites China.
The scorecard.
A tight match.
Board 17 I went down in 3NT on a good defence and poor guessing on my part. There were a number of ways to make the contract but I managed to avoid all of them! Fraser and Joe defended 5C. They felt that they could have done better but I lost interest in the discussion after they were not able to find the killing defence after several minutes after the fact. 10 away.
Board 26 we mis-defended 1NT to allow it to make 8 tricks. 6 away.
A loss by 8 IMPs, 21-13, for 7.56 VPs.
End of day 1, 12th out of 15. A lot of work to do.
It was not a great day for any of the Australian teams.
In the Womens event out of 10 teams, Australia A are 6th and Australia B are 9th.
In the Mixed out of 13 teams, Australia A are 7th and Australia B are 10th.
In the Seniors out of 8 teams, Australia are 4th.