In 2018/2019 the first division of the MP championship in Budapest was played on tablets. 32 pairs every Tuesday for eight weeks were competing using LoveBridge. For the first time, it gave the players from lower divisions the opportunity to watch the best Hungarian players playing.
People could really see the advantages of being able to replay the boards. Directors had no problem deciding if there was a break in tempo, they could just check the time data on their tablets, everybody followed suit, the cards were never put back incorrectly to the board. There were no arguments between the players about what happened in a board, they could see exactly how other players have played a contract, and how they bid to reach it. It also made writing articles about the tournament much easier.
Congratulations to the winners of the championship Géza Homonnay and Gábor Winkler, Brigitta Fischer and Gábor Macskásy finished on the second place, and just a little bit behind them, with a really good result on the last day Péter Gál and György Kemény.
Let’s see some interesting boards from the tournament.
Here you can see a brilliant defense from the victorious Winkler – Homonnay pair. Opponents played 3H, and with an unusual technic, Winkler chose not to overruff the declarer, but to discard spades instead, thus making the contract going down twice.
This board was at the end of the last day, North-South (Sándor Jakab and László Sztrapkovics) really needed a good result, to stay in the first division. This is why South accepted the slam invitation despite having a bad distribution, and chose the no trump instead of playing in the 5-3 fit in hearts. The contract is not the most promising, but it’s not impossible. They can have five heart tricks, four diamonds and the ace of clubs. One of the spade honors can take a trick as well, and the twelfth trick can be the queen of clubs with and endplay.
After a heart lead Sztrapkovics took the trick with the jack, played 3 high hearts, and finessed the queen of spades and won the trick. Crossed to the dummy, took the rest of the hearts, and came back to his hand with the ace of diamonds. Now, the ten of diamonds is played, and east doesn’t have anything to discard. Either he discards a club, so the king wouldn’t take a trick, or a spade, and then after taking the king of spades, he must lead from the KJ of clubs.
Here you can see another interesting slam. After the precision bidding Magdolna Topolyi and Jácint Welker were the only pair playing 6C in this board. North was on lead, and unlucky for them, she couldn’t find the ace of spades lead, which was the only one, that could beat the slam. On the diamond lead, west found the winning play. Took the clubs, finessed the K of diamonds, and discarded a spade on the last one. Now she played the spade to North who found herself endplayed.
