Rosenblum Adventures

So, I don't think anyone on our 6 person junior team playing for free and for fun thought we had any significant chance of qualifying for the knockout stage of the Rosenblum. I think I was the most optimistic, but that kind of changed after day 1 of the group stage when we were last in our group of 9 with 26 victory points on a 45 average. Today was a much better day - we probably wouldn't have thought it would be since we were playing the #1 and 2 seeds in our group of 9 and had a bye for the third match. As it turns out, we are still last in our group, but we are now at 81 VPs on a 90 average after a small win over the #2 seed and a big 28 imps win over the top seed, the Zambonini team from Poland. That 16 board match was the slowest bridge I have ever been involved in. With no breaks, we played the first 14 boards in 131 minutes, then the directors started hovering and the last 2 finished in another 10 minutes. Needless to say, it wasn't Sean and I that were slow - we were slower than our usual 5 min/board pace but nowhere near the 9.4 min/board pace the table was at.

That was perhaps one of the most fun sets of bridge I have played, but it started poorly. They made 4HX on board 2, which I think can be defeated but I'm still not sure. I'll have to look at a hand record later. Lose 11 to 170 at the other table. Board 3 our teammates failed to get to a good grand slam for another lose 11. On board 4, we had a system failure that caused us to sell out to 2C making instead of competing to 2S, which also makes. From there it was 56-2 in favor of us. I'll look at the hands more closely later, but I think this world class Polish pair kind of self-destructed, having some difficulty handling our canape system.

One auction that I am kind of amused by is when I opened 2C showing 11-16 either with 6+ clubs or 4 clubs and a 5 card major. LHO bid 4D and my rho held Qxxx, QJxxxxx, x, x, and elected to pass. They went down, losing 3 diamonds and the ace of clubs, when 5S is cold, but should 4D be leaping michaels there? Sean's screen-mate (the 4D bidder) thought it was 90% leaping michaels and my screenmate gave no explanation. I guess I am on the side that thinks it is leaping michaels, but looking at rho's hand, it sure seems like he may just have a reasonably big hand with long diamonds, and clearly this hand is worth virtually nothing in a diamond contract.

Anyway, with 3 matches left, against the #3, 5, and 8 seeds in our bracket, including the French under 26-team, we are only 26 VPs behind first and should have a decent chance to maybe Q to the round of 64, but this bracket is really bunched up as in most brackets the spread between first and last is between 60 and 70 VPs.