The city of Poznan in Poland became heaven on earth last month, swarming as it was with hundreds of fellow bridge addicts and most of the world’s top players. It was the 11th European Transnational Championships, and I went to play in the Mixed Teams with a wonderful group: Sebastian Atisen, Andrew McIntosh, Sara Moran, Paula Leslie and Gunn and Fredrik Helness (wife and son of the legendary Tor). We named our team Contract Killers, which we thought was great until we suddenly realised it might sound like we butchered our contracts rather than nailed them. In any case, we did well to get to the round of 32 before being knocked out.
I wasn’t there for the second week, but I was glued to the action from home. As ever, the Open teams were predominantly made up of men, but I’m glad to say there was a healthy sprinkling of super-talented women. One of them, the Italian champion Irene Baroni, made a spectacular play to land 3NT on this deal – the only player to do so:
North led the ♥️9 and Irene, seeing at once that the defenders would switch to spades as soon as they gained the lead in clubs, made a brilliant deceptive play without a moment’s hesitation: she won South’s ♥️6 with the ♥️A! When she played the ♣️10, North won with the ♣️A, and he could hardly be blamed for thinking his partner held the ♥️Q: back came a heart. Irene won with the ♥️Q and claimed nine tricks.
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