Bridge - U.S. Final for World Mind Sports Games - NYTimes.com The final of the trial to select the United States open team for the World Mind Sports Games looked, on Friday afternoon, as though it would be a battle between the top seed, Nick Nickell-Ralph Katz, Bob Hamman-Zia Mahmood and Jeff Meckstroth-Eric Rodwell; and the second seed, John Diamond-Brian Platnick, Fred Gitelman-Brad Moss and Eric Greco-Geoff Hampson. After 90 of the 120 boards in the semifinals, the Nickell team led Reese Milner-Hemant Lall, Kevin Bathurst-Justin Lall and John Kranyak-Gavin Wolpert by 249 international match points to 173. And Roger Lee-Nikolay Demirev and Steve Garner-Howard Weinstein had conceded to the Diamond team, losing by 282 imps to 113. In the quarterfinals, Nickell was trailing Warren Spector-Gary Cohler, Curtis Cheek-Joe Grue and John Hurd-Joel Wooldridge by 58 imps at halftime. But the Nickell team staged another of its famous recoveries, gaining points in each of the last four sessions to win by 35 imps. The diagramed deal, Board 84, featured the biggest swing of this match. In the other room, Zia (East) opened one no-trump, showing 15 to 17 points, despite having a maximum 17 high-card points, a five-card suit and two tens. He presumably downgraded for the two-honors-doubleton in spades. Hurd (South) overcalled three spades, Hamman (West) responded three no-trump, and all passed. South started with the spade nine, a Rusinow lead promising the ten and perhaps including a higher honor. Note that a surprise attack in hearts would have defeated the contract if North had won with his ace and returned a heart. Zia won with his king, played a diamond to the ace and called for the club jack, which was covered by the king and ace. And when declarer knocked out the spade ace, South shifted to a heart. So East ended with two spades, one heart, five diamonds and two clubs. There was no way to stop the overtrick if declarer read the endgame correctly. In the given auction, Cohler (East) did upgrade his hand, opening one diamond and planning to jump in no-trump on the second round. But Meckstroth (South) overcalled one spade, then after East rebid three no-trump, South competed with four hearts, hoping to find something useful in the dummy. And useful the dummy was, four hearts being unbeatable. Spector (West) led the diamond ace, on which South discarded his club loser. West now shifted to a trump. Declarer won with dummy's ace, played a spade to his ace, ruffed a spade in the dummy, trumped a diamond in his hand and ruffed another spade, losing one diamond and two hearts. Plus 630 and plus 620 gave the Nickell team 15 imps. It would have been a stronger defense against four hearts for West to lead a second diamond. But declarer can survive with an interesting line of play. He ruffs in his hand, cashes the spade ace and ruffs a spade. Then he must continue with a low heart toward his hand. East wins with his king and plays another diamond, but South ruffs, trumps a spade with dummy's heart ace, leads the last trump to his queen and plays winning spades, still having one trump left in his hand. No doubt Meckstroth, one of the world's greatest declarers, would have found this line - and it would have been an even better story. The match scores are at usbf.org and play can be watched starting at 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time at bridgebase.com.