Continuing on our review of the exciting 5th World University Bridge Championship, round two offered opportunities for the college teams to leverage their Bridge acumen. See here for round 1 play. Right away on the first board, the bidding tested the mettle of our youth.

After North opens in a minor and East overcalls 1 Heart, some South players will bid 1 Spade (counting master Spade suit distribution points) while others may preempt up to 3 Spades.  Preempting when holding a 4 card side suit major with honors is usually a no-no when partner is not a passed hand.  But after RHO overalls 1 Heart, a Spade preempt will tempt some younger players exuding their fair share of flair.  Incidentally, when preempting with length in opponents suit you’re almost guaranteed partner will be short in opponents suit so expect a bump from pard.   With ideal cards (two Aces and stiff Spade), West will upgrade the hand and bid 4 Hearts.  And indeed, with 13 HCP and a Heart singleton North will easily bid 4 Spades with no wasted values (all primary honors).    Some East/West players  figured it was double time while others rightly pushed to 5 Hearts, enticing a phantom 5 Spade sacrifice, down 1 (always doubled).   And so when the dust cleared, those in 4 Spades made game with a few earning an overtrick with North’s Kings behind West’s Aces and South’s minor suit singleton cards in the closed declarer hand.  Interestingly, playing double dummy N/S can make 10 tricks in Spades with E/W able to make 10 tricks in the three remaining suits.

On board 2, it turns out the “minors” (school youth) should avoid playing in the MINORS.

South probably admires this shapely holding before opening 1 Diamond (regardless of 6-5-2-0 shape, no strong 2C openers here please).  Now its West’s turn to preempt, either 2 Hearts with a six bagger or maybe 3 Hearts with favorable vulnerability and pard’s passed hand.  Regardless, North will overcall in Spades.  But for those frisky West’s who shoot in a 3 Heart call to North’s 3 Spades, South has an real problem with no Spades and no Heart stopper.  Those in 3 Notrump made an easy game, some with overtricks while those in 5 or 6 Diamonds suffered their plight.  Mom said life wasn’t always fair.

Okay, one more hand. This time its dealer North to shoot high in first seat, but how high is right?

Well, if we preempt 2 Hearts with six, 3 Hearts with seven, and 4 Hearts with an eight bagger, do we risk 5 Hearts with nine?  And if so, do the college youth have a conventional agreement asking partner to respond at 6 with wither the trump Ace or King, and 7 with both?  Probably not likely.  For those who sanely start with 1 Heart (adverse vulnerability) will find opponents quickly bidding a Diamond game that easily makes book.  If so, North will persist to 5 Hearts, not quite “walking the dog” (rebidding slowly) as expected.  Either side can make 11 tricks in their red suit, so with Heart being boss the 5 Heart contract gets top points for those North’s who pushed onward.  Yet the college teammates didn’t travel that far just to toss cards without putting some skin in the game.  And so some E/W erroneously doubled 5 Hearts while others pressed on to 6 Diamonds, also doubled but it turned out to be a great sacrifice saving 10 IMPs or more.  And so it goes, playing computer dealt random hands with seemingly wild distributions – probably shuffled far more often and thus more random than most of us humans could/would/should do.

After the second round, the field results of 14 teams began to spread out with the top 4 teams contesting the lead:

China B = 41 VP,  Israel = 40 VP,  Polan = 38 VP,  Chinese Taipei B = 37 VP

We welcome you to check out more results from the remaining boards on the second round.  Stay tuned for more…