Australia vs. Turkey at 3rd World Youth Open Championships ATLANTA - After the pair events at the 3rd World Youth Open Championships came the junior (under 26) and youngsters (under 21) knockout teams. (There were too few entries for a separate women's competition. They competed in the appropriate age brackets.) Each flight played a Swiss of seven 10-board matches. Eight teams out of 15 qualified in the youngsters for three 32-board knockout rounds to determine the winner. Four junior teams out of 12 moved into 48-board semifinals and final. Before getting to the finals, we must look at the diagramed deal, the last of the junior semifinal between Australia and Turkey. At this point, Turkey enjoyed a lead of 10 international match points. South was in six clubs at both tables. And each West led the diamond ace. Then the paths diverged. The Australian West, Justin Howard, continued with the diamond king. The declarer, Berk Gokce, ruffed and cashed his club ace to learn about the bad split. He took his top hearts and trumped a heart with dummy's club queen. Then he played the club eight from the dummy. When East, Peter Hollands, covered with his nine, South won with his ten, played a spade to dummy's king and ran the club seven, but now he was stranded in the dummy with only one trump in each hand while East still had his club jack. Declarer cashed the spade ace (East carefully discarding) but then had to concede down two. Did you notice South's error? When he cashed the club ace, he had to unblock dummy's seven or eight. Then, after one trump finesse, when back in the dummy with the spade king, declarer could have led the club deuce to his six, cashed the king and claimed. At the other table, the Turkish West, Sarper Uslupehlivan, found the stronger defense of shifting to a spade at Trick 2, cutting declarer's side-suit communication with the dummy. Now it seemed as if the Australian declarer, Ellena Moskovsky, would go down by leading a club to her ace. But when she called for a trump, East, Muhammet Osgur, shocked everyone by playing his nine. South won, took her top hearts, ruffed a heart with the club queen, picked up trumps and claimed. Plus 100 and plus 920 gave Australia 14 imps on the board and the match by 4. Why did East play his club nine? He pictured a deal in which declarer had solid hearts and her only problem was drawing trumps safely with a holding of ace-king-ten-fourth in her hand. Then he had a textbook falsecard, playing the nine on the first round to leave South thinking that West had started with jack-fourth. Here, of course, the play was a disaster, and would also have been bad if his partner had had a singleton club ten. It was the right medicine, but not for this deal.