Bulletin

Pärnu - Sindi (in English) author mihkela, 24.10.2006 at 20.26.
Summary: Sindi victorious in SW-Estonian derby

Sindi victorious in SW-Estonian derby

After smashing Latvian youth team in opening match, team Sindi earned another decent victory in group B, beating local rivals Pärnu 19-11 (37-19), Sunday evening.
Pärnu and Sindi are twin cities from South-Western part of Estonia. As they are also the only Estonian squads in group B, one could easily prepare for hard fight and no easy hands in their match. And indeed, a lot of kibitzers who watched the show, were not disappointed.
"Smaller brothers" from Sindi started off strongly from the very beginning and took a 15 - 3 lead at break. But it was not meant to be the one-way-traffic in the second half. With three boards to go, Pärnu had bounced back to take a 19 - 17 lead in the match. "Big brothers" showed some great decision-making and defensive skills during that strech.
Still – the match was definitely not over yet. Sindi kept their heads cool not to push too much in the next 2 boards and defended accurately to take their opponents down from a few part-score contracts. With the help of that reasonable approach, Sindi had regained their double-digit lead before the final board appeared:

West ♠ 6
none ♥ AK
     ♦ AJ5
     ♣ AJT9764 
♠ A87       ♠ KT954
♥ J953      ♥ Q82
♦ KT987     ♦ Q64
♣ 5         ♣ Q2
     ♠ QJ32
     ♥ T764
     ♦ 32
     ♣ K83

In open room, Sindi West found an excellent opening in 2♦ (5+♦, 0-10 HCP), after which opponents failed to find their way to game. The final contract was 3♦ down 2. That meant well earned -100 for Sindi.
In closed room, after W passed, it was N who could open strong 1 ♣ and despite both opponents bid spades, Sindi NS managed to reach 3 NT, making +1. So – Sindi added 8 imps from the penultimate board to increase their total victory margin to 18 imps and 19 VPs. It is easy to see that after learning about some values and club support from partner, North may be eager to try a slam in clubs. Sindi was happy to avoid that trap, as a modest view in bidding, worked well for them one more time.
Team Sindi is composed of the members of Estonian A-B league team Õed Tihedad. Although most of the team lives and plays nowadays in Tallinn, they promise to never forget little Sindi town and especially team captain Veerand's hospitable pool in the center of it. With this victory, Sindi stayed on the top of group B – so do not make a mistake to underestimate these tiny soldiers.
(Published with a kind permission form Mihkel Allik a.k.a. mihkela.)