Riga Round 14: Israel vs Norway

While this matchup featured its fair share of quiet, mundane boards, a handful of fascinating hands kept things highly entertaining. Despite some stubborn resistance, the Norwegians ultimately took care of business, locking up the match 30–9.

East-West had very fitting hands; likely enough values for either side to make a slam try in either hearts or clubs. However, the only problem was that they were missing two bullets in diamonds and spades. Therefore, there wasn't a viable sacrifice that could be made by North-South despite being favorable.

Helgemo	Toledano	Heiberg-Evenstad	Zamir
			1♠
2♥	3♠	4♥	4♠
P	P	X	AP

Despite playing a Precision system where 1♠ is limited, Zamir aggressively chose to open with only 9 HCP. After his partner's preemptive 3♠ raise and the opponents competed in hearts, he opted to sacrifice in 4♠, which got doubled and hammered for minus 800. On a good day, the opponents might compete to the 5 level, which could occasionally go down given that South holds two aces for defense. Furthermore, even with a preemptive raise, partner could still hold key assets like the king of spades, making 4♠ a reasonable tactical sacrifice against a vulnerable game.

Sliwowicz	Bakke	Sabbah	Brogeland
			2♠ (1)
X	4♠	5♣	AP

1. Intermediate strength

Here, Bakke raised his partner's constructive 2♠ opening bid to 4, where East competed to 5♣, where the auction ended. Despite dropping a trick to allow Ofek Sabbah to make an overtrick, Norway was guaranteed to gain 5 IMPs even if they went minus 600 here.

This hand produced relatively simple auctions that landed both tables in the same contract. With the unfavorable splits in both major suits, neither game contract by either side was projected to make.

Helgemo	Toledano	Heiberg-Evenstad	Zamir
1♥	2♥	P	2♠
4♥	AP

Sliwowicz	Bakke	Sabbah	Brogeland
1♥	2♥	P	2NT
4♥	P	P	X
AP

While defeating the contract required North to shift to a club after winning the spade ace at trick one, neither table found this defense. Instead, both defenders continued with a second spade. This gave declarer the opportunity to make the contract via a trump reducing play, despite having to shorten dummy's trumps by ruffing clubs.

After ruffing the second heart, Helgemo played a club, which was won by South. When Zamir returned a trump, Helgemo ducked the heart to dummy's ten, discovering the hostile four zero trump break. Declarer then ruffed a spade, cashed the ace of diamonds and queen of clubs, ruffed a third club, ruffed another spade, and claimed ten tricks. His line scored seven hearts, one club, one diamond, and one club ruff for plus 620.

Meanwhile, the play proceeded identically for the first two tricks at the other table. However, Sliwowicz went down after inserting the jack of hearts when Brogeland led a trump. This mistake completely shattered any chance of a trump reducing play, as the ten of hearts in dummy was vital as an entry to ruff a spade and manage his remaining trumps. Finding the correct line should have been clearer at this table, given that South had doubled the game, strongly marking him with the queen of hearts even if the suit did not break four zero.

There were some small swings along the way in this set, but ultimately the scoring between the rest of the boards did not significantly change the outcome of the match after these two favorable swings for Norway.