This year’s final was between a strong Polish team and the Swedish stalwarts Bjerregaard/Morath and Ostberg/Bjaring. The Swedes were down 45 IMPs with 16 boards to play. All over? Of course not! Sweden outscored their opponents by 74-1 in those last boards to win by 38!

Here is the final big swing. At the first table the Swedish E/W had missed game, playing in 3♠ and making the obvious overtrick. They couldn’t have imagined it would bring in 13 IMPs!

Somewhat wet bidding by the opponents allowed Bjaring to reach 3 NT. West led a spade to the jack and king which South won and ran six rounds of diamonds. As we can see, declarer has no entry back to hand, and if the defence holds on to all their clubs, they can make three tricks in that suit plus their two aces. Either West did not know that his partner had no more spades, or he was under too much pressure to read his signals, but he elected to discard two hearts and two clubs. When Christer Bjaring eventually led a heart from dummy, East won and tried a small club, but now dummy’s club pips were good enough to produce the ninth trick.

Thirteen more IMPs, for +600 to go with +170 from the other table, was the final nail in the coffin. Very exciting to watch but I still wish I’d been there!