[nikos59]

The Vugraph Project team is proudly announcing
yet another major offering from the past,
the 1974 Bermuda Bowl final. You can find all
96 deals of the final between USA and Italy,
at:
http://www.sarantako...74/1974-bb.html

The 1974 BB final was held in Venice between Italy (the holders) and North
America. Both teams had qualified via a double round robin of 32-board
matches and a semi final of 64 boards. The round robin was topped by Italy
with North America coming second followed by Brazil, Indonesia, France and
New Zealand. The semifinals were easy wins for Italy against Indonesia and
North America against Brazil.

In the Final, Italy used only their big four of Garozzo/Belladonna and
Forquet/Bianchi; these four had routed the Aces in the 1973 final. North
America were strengthed from the previous year's Aces team by the addition
of the strong Canadian pair EricMurray/ SammyKehela. In the final
Murray/Kehela played five out of six segments as did Hamman/Wolff. The third
pair Goldman/Blumenthal just played two segments.

The first 64 boards were dominated by Italy who built up a lead of 48 IMPs
with just 32 boards to go. However in the 5th segment North America fought
back strongly and with 22 boards left had reduced the deficit to only 5
Imps. Italy then recovered a little and by the end of the 5th segment had
increased their lead to 17 IMPs.

The killer for North America came early in the last Segment - at board 83
Hamman/Wolff bid to a game in 4 spades making 11 tricks; in the other room
Forquet/Bianchi found the double fit and bid the small slam in clubs to gain
a further 12 IMPS. After a hard fought final segment Italy were the winners
by 29 IMPs (195 - 166).


Kudos for this offering goes (again!) to Denis O'Kane who
did all the work and also offers several alternative formats
(pbn, dup files, pf files).

What are pf files, you may ask. It is a very interesting new twist.
Using the so-called pf command, these lin files allow the user to
depart at any time from the line of play followed at the table, to play
out the hand all by himself and explore alternative lines of play.
However, once you have departed from the original line, you cannot
reliably revert to it unless you go back at Trick 1.

Nikos Sarantakos
www.sarantakos.com/bridge.html