Karel and Anna on Tour

Dear Readers,

The European Open Bridge Championships are on in Sanremo at the moment and the Mixed events have just been completed.

Irelands top Irish mixed partnership Karel DeRaeymaeker and Anna Onishuk finished 9th (out of 300+ pairs) – A very fine achievement and their best to date abroad. I want to congratulate them (and commiserate on what could have been).

This is on the back of a good performance in the teams with Lucy and John Phelan.
They qualified for the last 32 teams and were knocked out by one of the favorites.

I’m sure many of my Irish readers want to know how K & A do it…

1) They have very good card play technique – the have studied books and have the intellectual grunt put it into practice. There are 2 aspects to this offensive and defensive. I would say that defense is what separates them form any other Irish mixed partnership.

2) Aggressive system and implementation of it. 2 level openings:

– 2C shows the majors (4-4)
– 2S shows the minors (5-4)

These bids really roll the dice but to a lesser extent for the offense. Particularly over the 2s opening, the defenders are on the back foot.
Not everyone can or should play this because success in the resulting contracts are predicated on 1) above.

3) Overcalls are very aggressive, frequently on 4 card suits. The partner of the overcaller must be light footed as the overcaller can be very light.
Weak jump overcalls can be based on 5 or 6 cards suits.

All of the above make them formidable to play against.

We wish them more success in the future.

Have a good game,
Rueful