CNTC Montreal Qualifier

The turnout at the Montreal Airport Hilton was a real surprise. 21 teams showed up to contest for the six qualifying places at the CNTC Flight A with a good sized group there for the Flight B as well. This was exciting because it showed how vibrant bridge was in the Ottawa and Quebec area. But it seemed to take the organizers by surprise. There was only one director to run both games (which had completely different schedules). Because of the large number of teams playing it was completely impossible to have a round robin which is the usual preferred choice. The format of play was a Swiss with random pairings in round one. The decision to play 16 matches of eight boards each, meant that this was going to be a gruelling weekend for four man teams like ours.

Play got underway finally at about 1:30 on Saturday and with a 1 hour dinner break we didn’t finish until about midnight. On Sunday we started at 10:30 and we finished our final match about 12 hours later with a one hour break after match 3 for lunch. This meant that we kind of skipped dinner. I learned something. I don’t play as well when my blood sugar is that low and sweetened coffee does help to get you by.

One thing that surprised me a little was that some of the players were not happy that Isabelle and I were playing. They knew we planned to play in the CWTC and they thought it was unfair that our team could still get a qualifying position. There were other players there who had no intention of going on to the CNTC, not just us. What do you think?

Isabelle and I had been reading the system notes over the last few days and had spotted quite a number of inconsistencies and problems. So much so that we decided to spend this week working on notes rather than practicing. The Swiss was also helpful in bringing out some of the good points and bad points of our system as well.

From the outset our team, Jeff Smith, David Sabourin, Isabelle and I did very well. We were in a qualifying position throughout the event and finished 4^th well ahead of 6^th place. To be honest, I am a little sad that Isabelle and I can’t play in both the CNTC and the CWTC.

Unfortunately the deals were not duplicated so there are no hand records and there is no chance I will remember the hands correctly. There always was action at our table and at the other table too. No match was boring. We did get a new number for me +1350. Do you know what that is? It was 3NT doubled +3. I had made a fit jump in diamonds so I guess my LHO wanted a diamond lead but this just seemed to help Isabelle with the suit.

One interesting system issue came up. Suppose your partner opens 1NT and LHO interferes with a two level bid. At the moment we can make a forcing bid or a “for play” bid in the minors but not an invitational one. You just have to decide – game or partscore. There is no other choice. Jonathan Steinberg mentioned that the way he played it was to use Lebensohl for the weak hand, the direct bid for the invitational hand and just bid game with the strong hand. That might be a problem when you are looking for a minor suit slam, I suppose but does seem like a good practical solution for most hands.

This all led to a lucky result. Here was the hand.

North

S 10xx

H Qx

D x

C KQJxxxx

South

S J9xx

H AKJ

D A10xx

C 109

The auction started 1NT (12-14), 2D by West which showed hearts according to his card. 3C forcing, 3NT , double, all pass. West started with the DK. Dummy was a bit of a surprise but from North’s point of view if South has the club ace, 3NT might well be a winner. South won and played clubs, West winning. West cashed 2 diamonds but the defence could do no better than hold it tight. Here was West’s hand.

S A

H xxxxxx

D KQJxx

C Ax

I am sure that West thought he had us in 3NT. Little did he know that he was missing one critical card – a small spade.

One interesting thing was the style of the systems being played. Very few people played multi or 10-12 notrump but some form of strong club or two-way (Polish-style) club was popular as was transfer responses.

I have one message for my partner. Isabelle, you played very well in all aspects of the game including dummy play. Well done. And of course it was fun to play with David and Jeff who almost always brought back some action on their cards. I was quite confident we wouldn’t have to worry too much about flat boards. I am sure that they will do well on the CNTC.

Isabelle also had to put up with me. As Ray always tells everyone, I lose my convention card, spill coffee, am not crisp enough in my explanations of system and get lost on the way to the table.

Oh, and the best thing. We had a disaster on the first board of a match. We doubled the opponents out in 2 spades and couldn’t beat it. Declarer played it very well and made it on an endplay. We had about 25 HCP and the spades split badly but the position of our high cards and the lie of the cards just worked perfectly for him. The only good point was that if we played the hand anywhere we would go down and possibly for a number. But you know what, it didn’t bother me at all. I just thought, oh well and buckled down to the next board. Can it be possible that I will be able to keep doing that – moving on from bad results? God, I hope so.