U.S. Teams for the World Youth Teams Chosen at Atlanta Trials This year's World Youth Teams Championships will be in Istanbul from Aug. 13 to 23. The United States Bridge Federation is sending five teams, and it recently organized trials in Atlanta to select them. There were three days of training from Dec. 28, organized by Debbie and Michael Rosenberg, with assistance from Martin Fleisher, Barry Goren, Jan and Chip Martel, Karen McCallum, Patty Tucker, Joe Stokes and Howard Weinstein. Then there was play over three more days to select two under-26 open teams, two under-21 open teams, and one under-26 women's team. The tournament director was Jay Bates. Eight teams entered the under-26 open event. A round robin was followed by 48-board semifinals and a 48-board final to select the USA-1 team. The final was between Adam Kaplan, Zach Brescoll, Marius Agica, Owen Lien, and the brothers Adam and Zach Grossack; and Jimmy Wang, Erli Zhou, Edmund Wu and William Zhu. The match was close through 36 boards, but the Kaplan team moved ahead in the fourth quarter, taking that by 22 international match points to 6 to win by 97 imps to 74. (The Wang team then played the winners of the match between the two losing semifinalists to determine the USA-2 team. I'll have more on that in Thursday's column.) If there are a lot of slam deals, you want the Grossacks bidding them. They just love slams. And they gained a swing in the diagramed deal from Atlanta. At the other table, after West passed, North opened one no-trump, showing 10 to 12 points; East passed; and South raised to three no-trump. Declarer cashed his winners, and when the spade queen dropped doubleton, he took all 13 tricks. In the given auction, Zach Grossack (South) added value for his nice diamond suit, opening two no-trump to promise a good 19 to a so-so 21. This type of bid tends to work well when your side does not belong in that long suit, but makes life almost impossible when you do. After Adam Grossack (North) transferred with three hearts, South rebid three no-trump to show a hand suitable for spades with exactly three-card support. When North control-bid (cue-bid) four clubs to indicate slam interest, South used Roman Key Card Blackwood and settled into six spades. Five hearts showed one ace and the spade king, or two aces, and denied the spade queen. East should have taken the opportunity to make a lead-directing double of five hearts. After a heart start, declarer would have had to guess trumps to make his slam. Unaided, West led his singleton diamond. South, aware of the danger of a diamond ruff, wanted to clear the trumps as quickly as possible. And happy to lose one trump trick, declarer won the first trick in his hand, played a spade to dummy's king and returned a spade to his ace. When the queen appeared, South had 14 tricks: five spades, one heart, six diamonds and two clubs. Note that if declarer had cashed his spade ace and played a spade to dummy's jack, East would have won with his queen and given his partner the lethal diamond ruff. Minus 520 and plus 1,010 gave the Kaplan team 10 imps on the board.