A call from Ed Hoogenkamp.
'Sjoert, we have a great plan.'
When Ed says 'we', he probably means Peter van der Linden.
'Fire away Ed, I am interested.'
Ed explains he wants to set up a bridge site and since he heard I recently turned professional, he thought it a good idea for me to help by writing columns.
'Ed, you do know the combination of writing and Sjoert is not a good one?'

But first let me introduce myself:
The name is Sjoert Brink, I have a son (4 years old) and a daughter (6 months) and according to my partner (in life!) my third child is bridge. I play with Bas Drijver. With him I hope to become the strongest pair in the world. Hoping, dreaming, these things are close. In order to take the last step towards the international top, I have decided to quit my job and focus completely on bridge.

That is why I started Brink Bridge Promotions (BBP). BBP organises clinics for bridge clubs, helps bridge players to surface in their struggle with their systems and organises practice matches on the internet against the Dutch national team. Furthermore I write articles in IMP (Dutch bridge magazine for the advanced) and hire myself out as a partner on Stepbridge (Dutch internet bridge club). All this is BBP.
But most of my time I spend on our bidding system and how to improve ourselves further (the first months this mostly meant better learning of our agreements because that's were things went wrong).

Our first foreign trip this year was to Australia, to participate in the Yeh Cup with our 't Onstein 1 team (Bakkeren - Bertens, Brink - Drijver). The world top is present in this tournament. From day one things went very well and five days later we played Sweden in the final.

Soon it turned out to be our tournament, partly because of this agreement between Bas and myself: 'Every double of a transfer bid is a take-out double in the promised suit.' In most partnerships such a double of a transfer promises the bid suit.

W/EW		♠	Q 8 7
		♥	K 8 6
		♦	6 3
		♣	K J 6 5 2
♠	A 6 5			♠	K J 10 9 4 3 2
♥	A 3			♥	Q J 2
♦	Q J 10 8 4			♦	5 2
♣	A 10 9			♣	7
		♠	-
		♥	10 9 7 5 4
		♦	A K 9 7
		♣	Q 8 4 3

As you can see, 4♦ promised a spade suit (Texas transfer). Fortunately I could now 'double for take out on 4♠', showing I was willing to sacrifice. Thus Bas and I found the save of 5♣.
That contract would have gone one down (-100) but things got even better when the Swedes pressed on with 5♠. In that contract they lost two diamond tricks and ♥K: one down, so we scored an even better +200.

On the other tabel the bidding went:

I am glad this Swedish pair had not (yet?) agreed a double on 2♥ would have been for take out on 2♠.
The board presented us with 200 + 650 = 850 points for a profit of 13 IMP.

To be continued.