Bridge - Open Series at European Championships in Dublin The European Championships are taking place in Dublin and will end on Saturday. In the open series 34 teams were divided into two sections and played a full round robin. The top nine in each group qualified for a second round robin, in which each team plays the nine from the other section, with the scores being added to those obtained in the first round robin. With seven matches to be played, Monaco led England by 13 victory points, with Germany trailing by another 2.5 victory points in third. The maximum a team can score in one match is 25 victory points. The women's and senior events are single round robins of 19 matches. In the women's, with four rounds to be played, England led Turkey by 15 victory points, with France third another 5 victory points behind. In the seniors, after 11 rounds, France led Germany by 6 victory points, with Denmark third 1.5 victory points behind second. In Round 11 France crushed Denmark by 25 victory points to 2. Two of the pretournament favorites in the open series were the Netherlands, the reigning Bermuda Bowl world team champions, and Monaco. These teams met in Round 4. The diagramed deal from this match caught my eye as one that is elementary for an expert pair but would cause trouble for the less experienced. At one table Simon de Wijs (South for the Netherlands) opened one no-trump, showing a good 12 to 15 high-card points; Bauke Muller (North) passed; and the contract made exactly. In the other room Geir Helgemo (South for Monaco) opened one no-trump, promising 15 to 17 points. So Tor Helness (North) drove to three no-trump. Bas Drijver (West) led the spade three. This was "attitude," meaning in principle that the lower the card led, the stronger the suit. How should the defenders have carded? South correctly played dummy's queen. Now, since Sjoert Brink (East) could not beat that card, he gave count, indicating whether he had an even or odd number of spades. Then, when declarer called for the club jack, East discarded another spade, giving "remaining count" (how many cards he still had). A pair using standard signals would have played the eight or nine at Trick 1. I typically play the second-highest from four low cards, but some prefer the highest card when the top two are touching. Then East would have discarded the deuce at Trick 2. The Dutch pair were using upside-down signals, so East played first the deuce (lowest from an even number), then pitched the nine (high from a remaining odd number). Here it was easy for West to win with his club king and to cash the spade ace, knowing South's king would drop. East had to have four spades, not two, because he would never have discarded his last spade. Plus 90 and plus 100 gave the Netherlands 5 international match points on the board. Now, to be honest, North actually used Stayman over one no-trump and South denied a four-card major. So it was even easier for West to know that South had begun with king-doubleton of spades. But for the reasons given Brink and Drijver would have still got it right if North had eschewed Stayman.