Bridge TV

There is nothing better than watching a wonderful event like the Vanderbilt from my home.  We may never interest television in broadcasting it but just having the event live on BBO is awesome.  I can also get caught up with the last quarter the next morning if it happens late at night my time.  And thanks to the wonders of the Internet I can even print out the Daily Bulletin and read it over my morning coffee if I choose.   What a privilege.

So this morning I opened up the 4th quarter match in the final of the Vanderbilt.  Starting this quarter Fleisher had a 24 imp lead in a very low scoring match, 78 to 54.  The first board was interesting.  Do you want to be if 4 or not if you look at the north-south hands?

Nobody vulnerable; North Dealer

	North Q98 A10 K42 KQJ93
	South AJ762 J8 9 107642

I have been in worse.  Most of the time you are going to need to play spades for no losers.  That already puts the contract at worse than 50%.  The king must be onside and you have to avoid losing a trick to the 10.  There is a very high probability of a club ruff as well.  So in balance it is not worth being there not vulnerable.  If the opponents are silent you probably won’t get there and that is what happened in the Open Room after North opened 1NT.  But in the Closed Room things were a bit different.  Here Martel was playing weak notrump so he opened the North hand with 1.  Let’s look at the whole deal

	Martel Q98 A10 K42 KQJ93
T. Bessis K1054 KQ95 QJ53 8		M. Bessis 3 76432 A10876 A5
	Stansby AJ762 J8 9 107642

I know that many will find Michel Bessis’ 1 overcall offensive but there is an argument for entering an auction with a 5-5 hand.  So what if it is not the lead you want?  I leave this to the theorists.   Stansby bid 1.  I do like Thomas Bessis’ bid now. (For the rest of this blog they will be Thomas and Michel.   Michel is the father and Thomas is the son.  I am sure they will forgive me even though we have never been introduced.)  With great defense against spades,  4 is a good pressure bid.   Its one of those Silver Certainty Principle bids… if he bid 3 then Martel would have bid 3 and when he bid 4 Martel bid … 4.  So in the room where things were least likely to split you wind up in with most aggressive contract.  9 imps to Zimmerman to whittle the Fleischer lead to 13.

On the next hand the weak 2 (Ray calls it the nuclear weapon) struck.  South held

South

96

K76

KJ10987

J2

In the Closed Room where Martel and Stansby play Flannery, Thomas was able to open 1NT and East-West subsided in 2 making.  In the Open Room Helgemo opened a weak 2 which in the end had the effect of pushing the opponents up a level.  3 went down 1 and the score showed now only a 9 imps deficit.

On the next board 5 came back when Helgemo overcalled 1 with 1NT, not vulnerable on

South

Q8

AK6

AQ53

10973

and found partner with a three count, 4-4 in the blacks.  There was no better place to play it and with the cards unfriendly this was –300.

Board 25 was another big swing.  Here is your first chance to win the Vanderbilt.  You are vulnerable against not in fourth chair.  Helness opens 1 and Helgemo bids 1 and it is your turn.

Weinstein

AJ3

74

A3

AKQ862

3 in your system is ‘intemediate’ — it shows a decent hand and a good suit, it is not preemptive.  So you bid a) pass b) 2 c) 3 d) 1NT e) other.

Those who chose (e) other, with the idea of bidding 3NT, are the winners.  It is going to be hard for partner to bid 3NT over your bid.  You have the stoppers after all.  I think there is a reasonable argument for just bidding it.  But certainly 3 is descriptive.  Levin held

Levin

Q84

QJ652

Q102

54

He could hardly move and so Weinstein played in 3.  Tomas just bid 3NT on the same auction in the Closed Room so he was the winner.  This is a good vulnerable game and seeing both hands you know you want to be there and indeed making that decision is worth 11 imps.  Zimmerman had taken the lead by 4 imps 92-88.

I like this next deal very much.  It shows an interesting principle.  You can often make bad games.  Defense is the hardest part of the game and it is very easy to get it wrong.  That is partly why bidding a lot works out so well, especially if you are great declarers like Meckwell.  This was the last swing hand of the match and sealed the victory for Zimmerman.

Both Vulnerable Dealer North

Tomas	Martel	Michel	Stansby
		1	pass
1	1	pass	2
DBL	pass	3	pass
3NT	all pass

	Michel Bessis Q72 A986 J92 AK2
		Stansby K95 J532 43 Q1043

Martel leads the 3, you put in the 9 and Tomas wins the 10.   Declarer plays three rounds of clubs.  Martel follows to the first round but then high-lows in diamonds.  Your card is marked as Smith Echo.

Martel and Stansby

SMITH SIGNAL vs NT (but S/P if attitude already clear)

You are on lead with the Q.

What is going on in the spade suit?  Could partner have five to the jack?   Would declarer bid 3NT on 10x?  Partner hasn’t thrown away any spades.   Would he really overcall vulnerable on spades as bad as that and maybe a couple of diamond cards?  He doesn’t even have the nine or ten.  So maybe he has red cards.  Maybe he has Jxxxx Kxx AQxx x.  So what do you do?

……………………………………………………

Stansby played a small spade from his king and the hand was over.  3NT made.  On BBO the operater was asked if that was really the play.  “Yes”,  he said.  Here is the whole deal.  (It has been rotated).

	Michel Bessis Q72 A986 J92 AK2
Martel AJ643 107 KQ1086 6		Stansby K95 J532 43 Q1043
	Tomas Bessis 108 KQ4 A74 J9875

In the end did Stansby trust Tomas Bessis and assume he had a spade stopper, or was there some signaling problem?  Somehow I think it was the latter because when the hand was over it was Martel who said “Sorry partner.”

We don’t know how this all went wrong.  But if the defense cashes the spades for one down the board is a push instead of a loss of 12.  The Fleisher team would have won (assuming no changes in the remaining boards!).  The final deficit was 10 imps.

Whatever happened I have walked down the same path (and probably you have too).  And so today in this hard fought match with both teams playing beautiful bridge most of the time, in the end it turned out that an unusual error cost Fleisher the match.