6th World Youth Open Championships: An End Play in Opatija by Giovanni Donati

August 22, 2019

Today will finish the Pairs Event Qualification Stage: Running Scores: U26 Open – U21 – U26 Women – U16.

The Qualification stage is being played during Wednesday 21 and Thursday 22, at the end of this second day will be defined the pairs who will qualify to play the final this Thursday. The first 26 Pairs of the U26 Open – U21– U16 and the first 14 pairs of the U26 Women will be able to play the finals.

Without BBO vugraph we were able to find a young player who agreed to tell us this nice end play.

Session 6, Board 3

Dealer South/E-W Vul

	10 7 K 10 9 4 2 8 6 4 Q J 9
K J 8 3 8 6 K J 7 3 2 6 3		A Q 6 4 2 J 7 5 10 5 5 4 2
	9 5 A Q 3 A Q 9 A K 10 8 7

West	North	East	South
	SCATA		DONATI
			2NT
Pass	3 (1)	Pass	3
Pass	3 (2)	Pass	4 (3)
Pass	4	Pass	Pass
Pass

1: transfer to H

2: denies 4 spade cards and ask to chose between 3NT and 4

3: good fit in hearts

Lead: 6

Declarer won the first trick with dummy’sJ and drew three rounds of trumps, watching West discard a diamond. Cashed the Q, and saw West play the3, realizing that he only had two clubs and probably 5 diamond cards because of his discard in the last trump. Possible distribution 4-2-5-2

Declarer played another trump watching West discard a spade and afterwards run the clubs. West discarded two spades and a diamond. At that moment Donati knew West only had one spade and diamonds, so he ruffed a spade to take West’s last spade (scape card).

Now declarer was able to play the8 from dummy, East played the 10, Donati the Q, and poor West won with the K (endplay), and he had to return a diamond giving declarer the rest of the tricks.