Dateline: Penticton

The Internet in the hotel has been terrible, up and down every few minutes.  I keep starting posts and losing them.  I will save every few minutes and hope for the best.  Penticton is a lovely resort town, a great place for a tournament and the local committee has done a terrific job on the hospitality with a limited budget.

With great weather, good facilities it’s hard to find something to complain about.  So I won’t.

Here is one hand that I made the wrong choice..

I held

S KJ1073 H 3 D AJ9764 C A

We were red against white and in first chair I chose to open 1D, for better or worse (decision 1) Sylvia bid 1NT and righy doubled.  I bid 2S (decision 2 – I still like this one).  This should show a good hand with 6-5 I think since Sylvia has denied spades and with 5-4 I might redouble or do something else.  Sylvia bid Lebensohl 2NT.  Perhaps I should bid 3S but this seemed a bit rich to me and I think I have already suggested my shape.  Sylvia bid 3D and I passed but lefty balanced 3H.  This came back to me.  I decided not to bid again.  From my point of view the opponents had at least nine hearts since Sylvia had denied four of them and Sylvia had a bad hand.  I didn’t have all that much defense myself.  So I passed them out.  As it turned out Sylvia had S Qxx H xxx D xx C K10765.   Anyway, we passed them out in 3H which makes exactly when we can make about 3S.    We actually won imps on the board since at the other table when my hand opened 1S our side got to 4S which went down two at other the table.  (Now that I look at it 3S is trickier than I thought at the time.) 

One very interesting deal was this one which you knew was going to be a big one at the time.  With nobody vulnerable both Easts opened 3C.  At my table I bid 4D which shows both majors.  Sylvia held

S 3 H AQ2 D KJ108432 C J9

Now some of you might just have bid 4H but Sylvia loves slams and she decided to take a shot at the heart slam.  She bid 5H to ask about a club control and I bid 6H.  Here is my hand.  You get the lead of the CA.  You bid it aggressively so now you have to make it.  The match will be decided by this hand.

S AKJ1075 H KJ973 D 97 C void

Sylvia reasonably decided that from the club lead the preempter was likely to be 7-2-2-2 since she had not lead her singleton.  (But perhaps the CA from the AK or AKQ was just too attractive?)  If you believe that this is the distribution than playing diamonds is reasonable but the problem is that you have to do it right away since if righty ducks the DA you have no way back to your hand for the diamond winners.  You should probably just play a diamond at trick two, planning to play the DK if righty follows low and the another diamond.  You will need trumps 3-2 but you can now win the return, draw trumps ending in your hand and claim.  Sylvia took a similar line playing two rounds of trump first and then leading a diamond.  Righty hoped ace and returned a trump as quick as a bunny.  What do you think now?  Sylvia now lead a spade to dummy and played a diamond and was unhappy when righty followed low.  Do you finesse or not?  I think it is a very close call but Sylvia decided to go with her convictions and did not finesse.  She is weighing a number of things.  Righty would likely have ducked the diamond with Ax (at least I would have).  Also the CA is a mighty attractive lead even with a singleton because it seems unlikely we are off two aces and the singleton is only right if partner has the ace in that suit.  The preemptor is quite a bit less likely to have too much on the side. Blah blah blah.  You have to finesse because the diamonds are 3-1. 

But I think there is a better line.  What about playing on spades, cashing the SA and running the SJ at trick three.  This requires a 4-2 spade break (or 3-3) with the Queen onside, and a 3-2 heart break and the DA onside (you will still need a diamond trick later). 

Both lines need the 3-2 heart break and the diamond ace onside.  So we are comparing a 2-2 diamond break with a 4-2 or 3-3 spade break with the Q onside. 

Maybe I am wrong.  However, no matter how you look at it, this is not a slam we really wanted to be in most of the time.

The Open Team’s have reached the halfway mark and I have done a terrible job of picking teams if the event were to end now.  I am not going to list the results since I have done so twince before and by the time you read this the CBF website should be up to date.  Still things can change a lot and some of my choices may move up.  I am particularly hoping that the Carruthers team which is one of the favourites will gain a qualifying spot.  I expect them to do so.  John has been ill recently and Katie is here for support.  It was good to see her.  So I confess that I am rooting for them to make the round of 8 at least.

At the third, the women’s event is very bunched.  We are in second place but it doesn’t mean much.  Personally I am pretty happy with my game so far.  Not that I haven’t made mistakes or had decisions I would like to take back