Right from the first World Bridge Olympiad, the women's teams enthusiastically entered into this international bridge competition along with men's teams. Gradually the women's teams from the Eastern hemisphere are displaying marked improvement in skills of the game and now getting better of the teams from Western hemisphere. This year an unfancied women's team from Russia emerged victorious to deserve a gold medal by beating a hot favourite team from the USA.
The Russian women's team came well prepared to put up a consistent performance through the gruelling contest by beating all the challengers in their group to reach the final to win against a favourite women's team from the USA. And finally sprang a surprise by winning the women's Olympiad Championship.
The Chinese women's team, which is improving year-by-year, finished third. The Pakistani women's team, which has a long record of participation in the international bridge competitions and yet to make an impression on world bridge scene, finished at the 17th position.
The women's bridge teams competition was also marked for tough sessions. One of the interesting deals played between the American and Russian women's teams, is reproduced below which the American team scored a slam in hearts in the open room and made the contract while the Russian team in the close room contended with game bid in hearts, thus losing on points on this deal. Despite that setback the Russian team did not lose heart and vigorously came back into the game subsequently by taking big swings against USA to reach to the top with a small margin.
(1) Roman Key-Card Blackwood showing zero or three Key-Cards.
West led the diamond queen
The West led the queen of diamonds despite her partner's double of two clubs showing long suit in clubs plus some values in other suit. When the dummy was spread the declarer at once came to know that the East held missing honour cards in club and heart suit. However the slam appeared dicey which KJ87 of hearts is missing, so she carefully planned her line of play.
Sokolow won the lead of diamond queen with the king of diamonds in the dummy and she played back a small heart from dummy, seven of heart came from East, she finessed the ten of hearts. At that point it was clear to Sokolow that the East held KJ of heart, so she had to lose one trick anyway. Therefore, she played back small heart from hand to the queen of hearts in dummy West discarded a small diamond and the queen of hearts was won by Gromova with the king and she exited with the six of spades which was won by the king of spades in dummy. At this stage the declarer played back another heart and finessed the nine of hearts and played also the ace of heart dropping the jack of hearts from East. Next she won the queen of spades following with the jack of spades, which was overtaken, with the ace of spades in the dummy and she discarded a losing diamond and two clubs from hand to successfully make the contract.
DEALER SOUTH
East West Vulnerable
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North West East South
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S AK832 S 1074 S 65 S QJ9
H Q542 H 6 H KJ87 H A1093
D K52 D QJ10763 D 9 D A84
C 6 C K74 C QJ10985 C A32
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THE BIDDING
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West North East South
Ponomareva Molson Gromova Sokolow
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1NT
Pass 2C Dbl 2H
Pass 3S Pass 3NT
Pass 4C Pass 4D
Pass 4NT Pass 5C(1)
Pass 6H Pass Pass
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GOLDEN TIPS:
A combination of better judgement and good table play holds the key to superior performance.