Bridge by Frank Stewart
The Spingold Knockout Teams, the main event at the ACBL Summer Championships in Atlanta, saw a thrilling, unexpected victory for four unknowns from Poland, playing as "BRIDGE 24." Wojciech Gawel, Rafal Jagniewski, Jacek Kalita, and Michal Nowosadzki, seeded in the bottom half of the draw, plowed their way to the final, where they met a multinational team: GRUE (Les Amoils, Peter Bertheau, Thomas Bessis, Joe Grue, Jacob Morgan, Brad Moss).
The Spingold Knockout Teams, the main event at the ACBL Summer Championships in Atlanta, saw a thrilling, unexpected victory for four unknowns from Poland, playing as "BRIDGE 24." Wojciech Gawel, Rafal Jagniewski, Jacek Kalita, and Michal Nowosadzki, seeded in the bottom half of the draw, plowed their way to the final, where they met a multinational team: GRUE (Les Amoils, Peter Bertheau, Thomas Bessis, Joe Grue, Jacob Morgan, Brad Moss).
The Poles trailed by 29 IMPs with seven deals left but recovered exactly that much, including a 10-IMP swing on the final deal, to force an eight-deal playoff that they won 22 to 1.
Some of the winners' dummy play was extraordinary. In today's deal from the well-played final, Kalita landed at 3NT as South, and West led a passive nine of clubs. Dummy's queen won.
Declarer's chances did not look good, but at Trick Two he led the ten of hearts: king, ace. Kalita led a spade to the nine, jack, and three. On the next spade, he finessed with his eight, placing West with a highly distributional hand for the vulnerable-against-not preempt.
Kalita then ran the spades and took the ace of clubs. He exited with a heart, and West had to give dummy a heart trick or give declarer his king of diamonds. Making three!
That result was worth an 11-IMP gain. At the other table, West for BRIDGE 24 opened one diamond and East responded one spade. South for GRUE chose to overcall 1NT. West jumped boldly to three diamonds, passed out, and he made it for plus 110.