On the 4th day of the bridge competition the 8 best teams which qualified to the next phase after three days of qualifications played their quarter-final matches. The results are as follows:
ITALY 1 – CHINA 5 74-33 (28-7, 46-26)
CHINA 3 – FRANCE 52-76 (21-63, 31-13)
CHINA 1 – POLAND 1 57-33 (33-3, 24-30)
POLAND 3 – CHINA 4
Team China 4 was disqualified due to the usage of a forbidden electronic device by one of their players and team Poland 3 advanced to the semi-finals. The results of the semi-finals are the following:
ITALY 1 – FRANCE 43-42 (20-34, 23-8)
POLAND 3 – CHINA 1 24-59 (12-40, 12-19)
Here is the most interesting board of the day: ITALY 1 vs FRANCE
Usually partscore boards can be the time to relax and to recover resources before some more swingy hands. But when you are forced to gain some imps, sometimes partscore battle is a good opportunity to find them. In the semifinal of ITALY 1 and FRANCE first half was +14 imps for France, and ITALY 1 – the winners of qualifications – had to look for the points everywhere. Let’s look for the board 5 of the second half of the match:
French East/West did not want to sell the board cheaply:
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- 4+ spades;
- 10+ HCP;
- 3-card fit;
- in Italian style double in direct position is not penalty.
Italian pair penalized them with no mercy. It was only one down, but anyway, 100 for Italy. At replay also French pair declared:
- 4+ spades;
- 3-card fit in spades.
West decision to penalize fi t-double was brave with 4 low trumps, but had sense ‒ if partner has a balanced hands, then they have maximum 7 trumps, if partner is unbalanced ‒ there is probable mifit, as West has singleton in his main suit!
West followed partner’s good decision leading according to a textbook rule ‒ “against doubled partscore lead a trump” and declarer could make only 6 tricks ‒ 500 for ITALY 1. Together it was 12 imps and it was a first step of ITALY 1 to recover. In the next board they got next swing +10 imps and won all the semifinal by one single imp, advancing to the final. On the 5th and last day of the competition Italy 1 and China 1 will compete for the title of 2020 FISU World University Mind Sports online Champion while Poland 3 and France will contend for the 3rd place.
