Team Funbridge at the Cyprus Festival
🤫 Psst! This article will be updated regularly throughout the competition so that you can follow Team Funbridge’s progress from day to day. So make sure you check back from time to time!
Two deals from the tournament analyzed by the Team
Day 1 – The pairs with Ella and Julie
Days 2 & 3 – End of the pairs with Ronald
Day 4 – Zoom in on Nachiketa’s walks
Who’s going to Cyprus?
After the Winter Games in Prague, Team Funbridge is now heading for Cyprus, where a bridge festival will be held from 4 to 8 April.
This will be an opportunity for them to discover an island at the crossroads of Europe and the Middle East, with its contrasting landscapes between Mediterranean beaches and mountains.
Between two games of bridge, let’s hope that they have time to taste the local food – especially grilled halloumi cheese and mezze – or get lost in the narrow streets of Old Nicosia and Old Limassol.
Image by LaraKoptseva from Pixabay
As for the competition, the festival will start with a 3-day pairs event followed by a 2-day teams event.
This will be the first tournament for three new members of Team Funbridge: Ella, Ronald and Nachiketa will join Andrea to defend our colours.
Andrea Nilsson aka
ANDREW
Ella Rosthøj aka
MOUSE
Nachiketa Muthuswamy aka
NACHOS
Ronald Goor aka
RONNIE
Two deals from the tournament analyzed by the Team
Special Cyprus Festival tournament on Funbridge
The members of Team Funbridge participated to the special BP100 Cyprus Festival tournament from Sunday 30 March to Tuesday 1 April.
This is MKB! I’m going to tell you about my second-best deal, which helped me finish 15th out of 1,120 players with a 71.39% score.
In 6♠, I received the lead of the queen of hearts. Unfortunately, I didn’t have another heart in my hand to finesse the jack. I started by drawing the opponents’ spades with the queen onside. Now I had to play the clubs: I started small towards the jack, I saw the 5 in West and the 9 appeared in East.
To make four club tricks, I have two options: cash the Ace or return to my hand and play the queen. Which information do we have to decide? East’s 9 is either singleton or doubleton with the 10 or the 6. So East must have one or two cards. So there is no point in drawing the Ace since the only good scenario would have been the king falling in West.
But what are the good scenarios for exiting with the queen? K1065 in West because the queen will push out the king and I will only give away the 10. And K65 since the 10 will fall (we call it a pinning play), allowing me to lose no tricks. And if K105 are onside, the card-play technique doesn’t matter.
So I exited with the queen and was rewarded as the 10 fell in East!
6♠ +1 for 94%!
The four hands:
And I’m Nachiketa! I scored 65.16% in this tournament. I’m new to Team Funbridge, and the Cyprus Festival will be my very first competition with the team.
I have 11 HCPs and a 5-card suit in diamonds. However, it is an 8-loser hand with poor suit quality. So I decided to pass. When my partner (Argine) opened 1♣ in the fourth seat, my RHO overcalled with 1♠.
Finally, considering that my partner could have opened lightly in the fourth seat and that I should not consider very optimistic games in a matchpoint tournament, I chose to simply bid 2♦ to end the auction.
In 2♦ I got the lead of the ♠K. My opponents immediately cashed 3 spade tricks. Since West had 3 diamonds, including the queen, I lost a diamond trick. Unfortunately, the heart finesse failed.
Final score on the board: 2♦= . That’s nearly 65%!
Day1 – Arrival and Start of the Pairs with Ella and Julie
Everybody arrived safely yesterday and we played a lot of games before going to bed.
Today we had a chill day as we started playing at 6pm. So we had breakfast, went to the beach for a swim and played some bridge there as well.
The weather was great, 20 degrees and lots of sun.
Then of course we had some very serious system talks among the pairs, so we were ready to play in the afternoon.
After this first day, Ronald and Ella are in 10th place with a 60% session, while Nachiketa and Andrea had a slower start with a 46% session. There are still two days left to reach the top of the leaderboard!
In Cyprus we also met Julie Sigsgaard, Ella’s regular partner on the Danish junior team. She told us about a nice board from the afternoon:
East leads the ♥2 to dummy’s 10, the Jack, and the Queen.
I then play four rounds of clubs, and East discards two small spades.
Next comes the ♦A, followed by a successful finesse, giving me four tricks in the suit. At this point, East is squeezed and has to discard either the ♠Q or another heart, both of which give me a chance at an extra trick in the other suit.
He chooses to discard a heart, so I play the ♥A. East should have unblocked the King to avoid an endplay, but he plays a small card. I then lead a small heart toward the King, allowing me to score an extra trick with the ♠K.
11 tricks = 92%. After this first session, their pair is already sitting in 4th place with 63%.
Days 2 & 3 – End of the Pairs with Ronald
So for the second day we played some tennis, hung out by the pool and enjoyed the great weather here in Cyprus. As the sun was about to set, it was time for the second day of the pairs.
Ella and I had a rough day, but thanks to an amazing last round, we finished just above 55%, having averaged 58% over the first 2 days. Andrea and Nachiketa also improved and had a 54% session, bringing their average to 50%. We all really liked this day because of the fun activities before the bridge session and the very friendly opponents at the bridge table. We are looking forward to tomorrow and hope to do even better 💪
Day 3: Today was another day with lots of sun and good vibes ☀. We played some tennis again and got a bit of a tan before the match. It was the last day of the pairs event, so we were all hoping to finish with a good result.
Ella and I had an amazing start and ended the tournament with a 62% session, placing us 11th overall. Andrea and Nachiketa were less lucky, finishing with a 49% session and 48th overall.
Julie Sigsgaard and Louis Bonin, who shared the week with us, also did very well in the tournament, finishing 8th overall 😊.
We all had fun with our opponents during the pairs and felt very welcome during this tournament. We are lookin forward to playing the teams over the next 2 days and hope to do well.
Ella: We also had another fun board. The bidding went:
3♥ was a good raise in spades.
6♥ was a grand slam try.
Ace of spades, a club to the ace and a spade which he ruffed in hand. Jack of hearts from hand and a diamond to the king and the ace. Now a club to ruff in dummy.
Another heart from dummy to the king, and he returned another club to ruff in dummy.
Now he was in an uncomfortable situation. But of course not a problem for Ronald 😉
He drew the last trump and played the 9 of diamonds, which held! Now it was an easy claim for -1100 and another good score.
Day 4 – Zoom in on Nachiketa’s walks
I went to the Amathus archaeological site, the old port and the Paradox Museum. In the latter, I saw a piano that played by itself when you spoke to it!
After three days of pairs competition, Team Funbridge entered a new phase today: the teams event.
Spread over two days, it is played in the form of 8-deal matches. With six players on the team, everyone takes part in two matches every day. Just what you need to keep up the pace and stay in shape.
We lost the first two matches by around 20 IMPs, with a few unlucky moves and minor inaccuracies. So the team was all psyched up for the final match. The line-up was Ronald-Nachiketa and Andrea-her partner.
The match started off strong: the opponents missed a slam, then went down in 5♥, pushed by the opponents’ bidding. A great start!
A little later, Andrea bid a 1NT contract after the 1♣-1♦-Pass-Pass-1NT (17-19) sequence.
The lead was the ♥4, the jack took the trick. She played a small spade to the 10, caught by the queen. The defence returned a diamond to dummy’s 10, which held, then another heart. She ducked, cut the communications, then played a spade to draw the ace. She returned a diamond again, rose with the ace, cashed her two master spades and, observing the discards (a heart and a club on the left), deduced a 1-4-5-3 distribution. She could then give the lead in diamonds, discard a losing small club on the master diamond and finish with ace-queen of clubs to make her contract.
The deals remained favourable and here was the auction at Andrea’s table on the last one:
Two rounds of trumps, two spades discarded on diamonds, and the contract was fulfilled.
At the other table, 5♣ was doubled and went four down for +800. A 12-IMP swing concluded the match with a clear victory: +21.
Day 5 – Conclusion by Andrea
Today was the last day of the teams tournament and the last day of the festival for Team Funbridge.
I played the first match with Ella and Nacho. Unfortunately we lost.
In the second match there was an interesting board, I was sitting West and the bidding went:
I know I might have been a little too aggressive but the ace or queen will often be onside and Partner can have two spades. I received a heart lead, won with the ace and played a diamond. Now my opponent raised with the ace and returned a heart. I ruffed the ace and queen of clubs and caught the diamonds. Luckily both opponents followed after I drew the last trump, ending up in dummy to play the big diamond to discard a spade loser for 11 tricks.
It has been a pleasure to be here in Cyprus with amazing team-mates and we have had a great time.
I’m very happy for Ella and Ronald who did very well in the pairs tournament.
Let’s go Team Funbridge!
Show them your support in the Comments section below.
instead of a 2D bid, would a 1 NT bid be another alternative?
Hello, yes of course! X is also possible. But the NT would be better played by North