The leading pair of this team are of course Fantoni-Nunes. I write now about the next pair of the team: Helness and Helgemo. Wikipedia provides us the highlights on the life of Tor Helnes:
“Tor Helness (born 25 July 1957 or 1958) is a Norwegian professional bridge player. He was a stalwart on Norway junior and open teams for thirty years before moving to Monaco. Through 2012 he was won four world championships in teams-of-four competition. As of June 2013 he ranks tenth among Open World Grand Masters and his regular partner Geir Helgemo ranks ninth.”
In the final match of the Zimmerman team against Soulet the pair Helness and Helgemo provided us an insight on how they reached their slam of six diamonds.
This was Board 5. North
Lebel
♠J652
♥A543
♦K6
♣863
West East
Helgemo Helness
♠K1093 ♠A8
♥K982 ♥QJ6
♦Q852 ♦AJ974
♣7 ♣AQ10
South
Payou
♠ Q74
♥107
♦103
♣KJ9542
In previous columns I had written about the difficulty to reach in a slam in the minors. The bidding by the East-West pair of Soulet went this way to a final contract of three notrump:
West North East South
Pass 1♦ Pass
1♥ Pass 2NT Pass
3NT Pass Pass Pass
The bidding by Helness and Helgemo had a system where their three heart bid by Helgemo and then continued by him with bidding four diamonds. He by passed three notrump selected Helness to bid six diamonds.
West North East South
Pass 1♦ Pass
1♥ Pass 2NT Pass
3♥* Pass 3NT Pass
4♦ Pass 6♦
Results of the Alejandro Duplicate Game on January 20, 2015.
Margaret Kwok-Joli Kansil
Sylvia Alejandro-Cherly Keay
Justo Manlongat-Winston Arpon
Manila Peninsula
on January 21, 2015
Justo Manlongat-Susan Kwee
Sylvia Alejandro-Margaret Kwok
Paul Potassy-Joli Kansil
Cambridge Club
on January 22, 2015
Susan Kwee-Barry Randle
Cora Rodriguez-Elie Esteban
Cheryl Keay-Sylvia Alejandro
Comments to: sylvia.alejandro@yahoo.com