I Miss Sydney but Love well…

Friends and family will be happy to know that I have just finished my first pass at Chapter 8.  Chapter 8 is on trump squeezes and it happens to be the last chapter in Bridge Squeezes Complete.  We decided to add some extra squeezes to the book so I had to learn what a backwash squeeze and a knockout squeeze actually were.  I had never even heard of a knockout squeeze before.  I did once fondle a copy of Adventures in Card Play but once they got on that boat I just couldn’t stay awake.  I did look Geza Ottlik up on Wikipedia.  He sounds like an interesting fellow:

I still have to work through a final section which is about 20 or so general practice problems and of course work with Ray on corrections.  But hey I am mostly finished.  I will be able to do other things like carve a pumpkin and maybe I will be able to watch and play bridge a bit more. 

Actually I think the compound squeeze chapter was the most complex.  Many trump squeezes are pretty straightforward and even the backwash squeeze (with or without the count) isn’t too hard to follow.  I still don’t know if I would find it at the table.  Maybe if they played postal bridge where I could take a day or two for my next play.

I got to do commentary on the Sydney Spring tournament.  It makes me sad to think that it has now been a whole year since I was there, attending that tournament myself.  Ray and I had such a great time.  Today I watched the Seniors.  It was interesting to see that bold preempting can both give and take away.

Klinger and Hoffman were seating North-South at my table and the “takest away” happened on this auction.

Klinger held: S 63 H KJ109653 D 9 C A64.

With everyone Vulnerable partner passed and RHO opened 1D.  Klinger bid 4H and this went for –1100 about 530 too much.  The junior who was the BBO operator said that he would have bid 2H.  I might have bid 3H myself.  But 4H does seem a bit rich.

Later Hoffman held

S 2 H 74 D QJ10752 C K1063

Everyone was vulnerable, once again and he heard his RHO opened 1H in first chair.  He bid 3D.  Now East-West had 14 top tricks and couldn’t get to slam.  In the other room with no interference they got to 6H.  Here are the two hands.  Could you have bid your way to slam after 3D.

Maybe but its not easy and at my table they didn’t find it.

Other good things are happening too.  We have had some serious illness in our extended family but all seems to be much better now.  All of which means that I should have more time for blogging.

And thank me for sparing you my descriptions of esoteric squeezes.  I will be posting about Love again in a while.  I want to let you know what we decided to change and how we updated it.  It was like working on a historic building.  We needed to modernize it but we still wanted it to be Love.