The Trial to Select USA-1 Bermuda Team The 120-board final of the open trial to select the USA-1 Bermuda Bowl team will finish on Saturday. The match is John Kranyak, Gavin Wolpert, Kevin Bathurst and Kevin Dwyer versus Martin Fleisher, Michael Kamil, Zia Mahmood, Chip Martel, Michael Rosenberg and Chris Willenken. In the semifinals the Kranyak team comfortably defeated Nick Nickell, Ralph Katz, Bobby Levin, Steve Weinstein, Jeff Meckstroth and Eric Rodwell by 45 international match points. After 68 boards, the lead was 98 imps. The Fleisher team began the last 15 boards down by 30 imps against Warren Spector, Michael Becker, Curtis Cheek, Joe Grue, Fred Gitelman and Brad Moss, but took that session by 66 imps to 14, to win by 22. Of the once-defeated teams, the Nickell group plays against Mark Gordon, Pratap Rajadhyaksha, David Berkowitz, Alan Sontag, Jacek Pszczola and Michael Seamon. The Spector team faces John Diamond, Brian Platnick, Eric Greco and Geoff Hampson. These are 60-board matches. The winners will compete over 90 boards, and that victor then plays 90 boards against the loser of the Kranyak-Fleisher match on Sunday and Monday to select USA-2. Play can be watched live at bridgebase.com. When things are going well, you make winning decisions on boards like the diagramed deal, No. 49 in the Kranyak-Nickell match. At both tables, West opened three diamonds in the second position, North doubled, and East passed. Kranyak (South) passed, turning his partner's takeout double into a penalty double. Wolpert (North) cashed his top clubs and continued with the club jack, a suit-preference signal for spades. So South, after ruffing, shifted to a spade, and North's nine lost to dummy's (East's) king. Weinstein (West) played a trump from the board, South following with his three. Here, declarer had to play an honor to save a trick, but he finessed his eight, perhaps thinking that North had a singleton ace. If South had started with A-10-9-3-2, he surely would have played the nine or ten. North won with the nine and cashed his two top spades and heart ace. South still had the diamond ace to come for down four. At the other table, Rodwell (South) advanced with three spades. And when Meckstroth (North) raised to four spades, Dwyer (East) made a well-timed penalty double. Bathurst (West) led his singleton heart. As the cards lay, declarer would have done best to win with dummy's ace, cash the top clubs, ruff a club in his hand and take a spade finesse. Then he could have escaped for down one. But after taking the club ace, South, not expecting spades to be 3-3, played a diamond to his ace and a club to dummy's king, ruffed a club and exited with a heart. East won with his king and continued with the heart eight. Getting the message (not that it mattered here), West ruffed, cashed a high diamond and continued with another diamond. Whatever declarer did now, he had to lose two more trump tricks for down two. Plus 800 and plus 300 gave the Kranyak team 15 imps on the board. If an opponent opens with a pre-empt, and you enter the auction, you should assume that partner has 6 or 7 high-card points.