Hey New Yorkers … help youth bridge

November 1st, 2011  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I recently received an email from Mila Antonova.  She is trying to promote youth bridge in New York but she has a problem.  The ACBL Educational Foundation provided a grant of $2000 but she still is $5000 short of the money needed for their plans.

There is a wonderful video of Mila teaching on utube.  She describes the video with this quote.  “Good sex is like good Bridge: if you don’t have a good partner, you’d better have a good hand.” – Mae West. I want share my passion and explain why do I think that bridge is awesome game.

Mila teaches

Please go to their fundraising  webpage and make a contribution.  You don’t have to be from New York.  You just need to love bridge and New York bagels.

According to their website the money is for

– Supplies, rent, transportation, and food for an October 2011 youth program.

– Expenses for twice annual Manhattan youth tournament

– Marketing and promotion of bridge to young people

– The creation of an online bridge tutorial

Unfortunately at the moment the donations are not tax deductible but they are looking into that.

There is a host of material including posters and detailed lesson plans available for download on her site.  How generous is that?

Want to set up your own youth bridge classes?  She has a document which helps you to “sell” the idea of the course at your local school.  Here is an example of some of that material.

Barrier: Inaccurate perceptions of bridge as

ª      Too complicated for the average user

ª      An “old peoples” game

ª      Related to, or consisting of, gambling

Solution: Brand bridge as both a fun and educational activity

Here are some strengths for chosing bridge as an extracurricular activity

Strengths:

• Bridge has been proven to improve multiple standardized test scores.
• Bridge is a competitive game that students can play with their peers.
• Bridge prepares children for real life challenges: Students learn discipline, work in a team, work with a partner, plan, create a strategy, deal with failure, etc.
• Bridge has the possibility to teach many teachers from several schools in one place, which reduces cost and will help achieve a minimum number of players.
• There is the possibility of creating networks of bridge clubs at schools.
• Many retired people could be Bridge Coach Assistant volunteers in exchange for free lessons.

Who is Doing The Swinging?

October 29th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

The Transnational Teams is hardly a world event in the same way as the Bermuda Bowl.  Nevertheless there are quite a few top players in the event and it is pretty hard to win.  The two teams playing in the final did give a hint of their nationality in the names they chose:

Australia Open and Israel Junior.

The all Australia team included:

George BILSKI

Nabil EDGTTON

John Paul GOSNEY

Hugh GROSVENOR

Sartaj HANS

Tony NUNN

All but Bilski were part of the Australian Bermuda Bowl team which finished eleventh and out of the playoffs.

Israel Juniors was an all Israel team and included

Alon BIRMAN

Lotan FISHER

Gal GERSTNER

Moshe MEYUCHAS

Dror PADON

Ron SCHWARTZ

The team from Israel did include any members of the Bermuda Bowl team who had a fine fourth place finish but lost to USA 1 in the quarterfinals.  If you click on the names of the Israeli team players you will find that they indeed are juniors and it is a pleasure to see their young faces as winners of a major international event open to all.

At the end of the second of two segments the Israel Juniors were leading by 48 imps and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see some swinging by the Australian team.    Teams from down under are known to have a few tricks up their sleeve.  85 imps were exchanged in the last 16 boards but not enough of them belonged to Australia.

The biggest swing was 15 imps won by Australia on Board 25.  Parts of this deal are rated XXX and are not suited for new players or anybody who has recently eaten.

Dealer: Vul:	Schwartz ♠ K93 ♥ KQ106 ♦ AK9 ♣ J105
Hans ♠ 8 ♥ 532 ♦ QJ10864 ♣ 983		Nunn ♠ 5 ♥ A874 ♦ 532 ♣ AQ642
	Fisher ♠ AQJ107642 ♥ J9 ♦ 7 ♣ K7

In the Closed Room the Israel Juniors North. Schwartz  opened 1NT.  East, Nunn doubled showing a four card major and a five card minor.  South, Fisher bid 4♥ transfer and when Schwartz bid 4♠ he made an aggressive decision.  He took a chance his partner had a heart control and a control rich hand and bid keycard.  However he next made one of the most aggressive decisions I have seen in a while.  He decided to bid a spade slam knowing they were off two keycards.  He did this knowing they had a big lead playing the last of 16 boards in a major championship.  Perhaps he did this for tactical reasons assuming that Australia would do the same.

He could only hope that one of them was the onside ♠ K (and as mentioned before partner had a heart control).   Alas Nunn had two aces.  The Israel Juniors could expect this board to be a loss.  In the Open Room the Israel Juniors lost the board in a more spectacular way.

1♣ showed 2 or more clubs and 13 or more points if balanced and 1♥ showed 4 plus spades and 1S normally showed three card spade support.  2♦ was artificial and game forcing.  DBL showed diamonds which should be for the lead in my opinion (he didn’t overcall 1♥ and he was unlikely to be suggesting a save at this vulnerability) and 2♥ was natural.  Birman had a decent hand with some diamonds although vulnerable against not into a game forcing auction one might argue that 3♦ was aggressive.  3♠ sets the suit and asks for a cuebid.  4♠ was a signoff if Edgtton didn’t have a lot extra.  Gosney didn’t like his top diamonds in view of the east-west bidding.  At this crucial moment when Edgtton was probably thinking about whether it was worth one more try for slam Birman doubled.  I assume he expected more from his partner but I still find the double inexplicable.  Now a lot of time when you make these type of “exploratory” penalty doubles you can more or less get away with it.  Even if they make game it isn’t terrible.  However Edgtton who had a very good hand for the auction and needed some imps, sent it back.  Vulnerable against not there was no place to go.  The score for 4♠ redoubled with an overtrick, not vulnerable is 1080, worth more than the slam.

But the boys from down under didn’t disappoint.  They could bid aggressively too as shown in the final board of the match.  Hans and Nunn bid to a heart slam in 3 bids.  Not only that but it was a good slam and it was missed at the other table.  Ready, aim …. shot

Dealer: Vul:	Schwartz ♠ A42 ♥ J ♦ K8654 ♣ Q9663
Hans ♠ K87 ♥ K632 ♦ 3 ♣ KJ874		Nunn ♠ QJ96 ♥ A109875 ♦ AJ9 ♣ –
	Fisher ♠ 1053 ♥ Q4 ♦ Q1072 ♣ A1052

West and North passed and then Nunn opened 1♥ .  Hans bid 4♦ and Nunn’s closed proceedings with 6♥ .  Well done or maybe he was just ready for a Foster’s.

Well done to the young men from Israel and congratulations to the Australian team who won a silver ribbon.

The Results of the Master Point Press pick the winners contest will be announced Tuesday.

Almost Done … Segment 6 (Double Dutch)

October 28th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

It seems sad that after tomorrow I won’t be able to get up and watch some really great bridge in the morning.  In the Bermuda Bowl USA 2 will try to catch the Netherlands.  The score is 244 for Netherlands to 189 for USA 2 after 6 of 8 segments.  With two segments to go 55 imps is not enough to feel safe.

In the Venice Cup France defeated Indonesia and France defeated USA 2 in the Seniors Bowl.

But on Saturday you can still watch the Bermuda Bowl and I will be doing just that.   It is a thrill to watch these two teams play.  In the last stanza of the day a lot of doubling was going on.  One double worked spectacularly well for USA 2 and a few others produced imps for Netherlands.  Here is an example of one that cost a few imps.  Really I wouldn’t say anybody did anything very wrong.  It just didn’t work out.

Dealer: East Vul: None	Bathurst ♠ K96 ♥ A3 ♦ K10632 ♣ 862
Wijs ♠ AQ10832 ♥ 109842 ♦ J ♣ K		Muller ♠ 75 ♥ KQ75 ♦ 987 ♣ A943
	Zagorin ♠ J4 ♥ J6 ♦ AQ54 ♣ QJ1075

2♦ showed majors.  Now I don’t know what methods Bathurst-Zagorin play but it seems to me that you should have a way of saying partner I have decent high cards and am interesting in a possible penalty.  A lot of pairs play a direct double to have that meaning.   If that is true does a delayed double say I couldn’t double two of a major but I think they are too high now?   Would it have been better for Bathurst to bid diamonds in the first place.  3♦ ought to be a moderate hand with diamonds since one of the cuebids ought to mean a forcing hand with diamonds.

Anyway Wijs had his bid and on the lie of the cards the defense cant take more than a spade, heart and diamond.  When Zagorin lead a top club and Bathurst ducked when a heart was led towards hand WIjs was able to throw his diamond on the ♣ A.  4♥ doubled plus 1 was 690 and 7 imps.

The most spectacular doubled contract was Board 26.

Dealer: East Vul: All	Prooijen ♠ J ♥ KJ743 ♦ AQ103 ♣ Q74
Wooldridge ♠ Q53 ♥ 1098652 ♦ KJ86 ♣ –		Hurd ♠ A964 ♥ – ♦ 752 ♣ AK10832
	Verhees Jr. ♠ K10872 ♥ AQ ♦ 94 ♣ J965

Can you tell looking at the cards that something very “big” is about to happen? Hurd stated things off with 1♣ .  Verhees bid 1♠ .  Wooldridge made a negative double which you might think was a teeny bit aggressive but so far things looked pretty ordinary.  At this point you can see that East-West in the other room has played 2♠ down 2 for minus 200.  Somebody thought that was good for USA 2.  But they had no idea how good it would turn out to be.

2♣ by Prooijen showed hearts. Verhees said that he thought that 2♥ would show a doubleton heart and a minimum.  Obviously Prooijen wasn’t on the same page of the notes alhtough there were warning signs from the East-West bidding that hearts were stacked.  This would have been a bad contract if East-West had flatish hands but since the trump suit split to a void etc.  it was a nightmare for the Dutch and Christmas for Wooldridge.  Wooldrdige led a trump so Verhees playing the contract from the short side new what was happening to him at trick one.  If Verhees had guessed exactly what to do he could have held it to 800 but since the Netherlands was -200 in the other room the total would be 1000 or 1300 which is only a difference of 2 imps (14 or 16).

No match with this many boards is played perfectly.  There are misunderstandings and mistakes.  So while I have pointed out something that went wrong I also appreciate how very well both teams are playing.  Don’t miss watching the finale tomorrow.

Finally, I know when I put up these blogs I make mistakes … hands arrive with twelve cards, I mess up an auction and so on.  I want to thank those who take the time be email or as a comment to let me know about errors so I can fix them.  I wish I was a bit neater with these things.  But I am not.  I do proof read a bit (believe it or not) but it is hard to catch your own mistakes.  By the way the ?!* beside the double expresses the feeling one gets when one knows that a big number is coming their way.

Bronze Sucks Less

October 27th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

A lot of people, me included (and Katie Thorpe) agree that both teams should get a bronze medal instead of having to play a third place playoff after losing the semifinal.  Anyway I did commentary on a very close and interesting Venice Cup playoff match between England and the Netherlands.  One had the feeling that this game was important to both teams.  In the end Netherlands prevailed 109 to 91.  I am sure this will make the host country happy but I know a lot of people from England were watching online and they were quite disappointed.  After all England had an excellent round robin finished a strong third while the Netherlands had finished seventh 32 victory points behind.

Going into the third last board, Board 14 the score was within one imp but then disaster!  You would think that in a fairly simple auction that the players would know what their bids means when they have worked hard and practice long and discussed endlessly.  And yet it happens to all top players sometimes.  It is happened to me too many times.  Here is the sequence.  I remember reading a book by Marshall Miles with this saying as the title for his chapter; “There but for the grace of God go I”.

What do you think this sequence means?

You would think that 3♥ would be a splinter.  So is 4♥ a void.  It is hard to imagine what else it could be.  Now let us look at West’s (Dhondy’s hand).

Suppose that you now bid Blackwood and find out that partner has 3 keycards.  What now?  It seems to me that partner is quite likely to have three or four clubs.  Where is the fourth club going?

Give partner

The grand slam needs some work.  It isn’t that terrible.  You might be able to set up a second diamond winner and if that fails you can finesse clubs.  So should you bid the grand slam or not (you are not vulnerable).   You stand to win 500 for 11 if they bid 6 and you bid 7 and it makes.  If it fails you lose 1030 which is 14 imps.  So the grand slam needs to be a fair bit more than 50-50.  Of course partner could have the ♦ K instead of the ♦ J.  Now the hand is pretty well laydown.

But this all assumes the opponents do bid the small slam.  I have seen a lot of slams missed throughout this championship.  This is not really a power slam.  There is some chance the opponents will play game.  Still I think it is not unreasonable to bid the grand slam.

As it turned out Senior had either made a mistake or come up with a different meaning for the 4♥ bid.  She actually had the East hand shown but she had a heart instead of the fifth diamond and she has the ♦ K instead of the ♦ J.  She should have bid 3♥ .   The result was a 14 imp swing.  The only good news about this is that England lost by 18 imps 109 to 91 so in the end the slam alone was not enough to make a difference.  Her actual hand was

East

♠ KQ86

♥ 3

♦ AK73

♣ A985

This was definitely not the only slam in the knockout round which was bid by a great team and off too many controls.

Congratulations to the winning team from the Netherlands who played very well throughout and my commiserations to the English team who didn’t quite make it to the podium.

Bizarro Deal

October 27th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Segment two of the final/playoffs in the Netherlands had it’s share of Bizarro hands.

Here is one of them.  Board 30

Dealer: E Vul: None	North ♠ 96 ♥ 865 ♦ K96 ♣ A10753
West ♠ AKQJ752 ♥ – ♦ AQJ2 ♣ K6		East ♠ – ♥ AKJ10943 ♦ 10874 ♣ QJ
	South ♠ 10843 ♥ Q72 ♦ 53 ♣ 9842

What should East do?  At a lot of tables East opened 4H which seems pretty reasonable.  Some East’s opened 1H which seems okay too.  Your choice.   But what should West do?   Some West’s bid 4S.  East could pass (some did) or bid 5H (some did).  In any case over bidding 4S led to East-West playing a major suit game at the four or five level.  On occasion West bid 6S.  Simons (Indonesia) in the Venice Cup made a bid that I really don’t like.  She bid 6NT hoping for a dummy entry I suppose.  I think the play and defense best be shrouded in mystery but Simons did make it.  In the other room Stockdale passed 4H which generally seems like a better action than 6NT but losts imps.

In the Bermuda Bowl final I noticed that Wooldridge for  USA 2 bid 6S while Verhees for the Netherlands passed 4S.  Let’s look at the play at Wooldridge’s table.  North WIjs led a spade, a very good lead and Wooldridge led a small club from his hand.  WIJS won the CA as Muller played the C9.  It appears that Wijs took the C9 as a count signal while Muller meant it as suit preference.  So he thought Muller had an even number of clubs.  In any case he found the only return to let Wooldridge make the hand a small diamond.  I am trying to think of why he did this.  did he think Wooldridge had Kx of clubs and that on a passive (spade) return he would have enough tricks?  The only hope was to find Muller with the DA?  I don’t quite understand the thought process.  In any case this decision was a 22 imp swing!

Okay Justin … You Were Right

October 26th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Justin Lall

Before the World Championships started I picked USA 1 and USA 2 to play each other in the semifinal. This isn’t all that brilliant because if two USA teams survive to the semis they play each other. But I picked USA 1 to win. It wasn’t that USA 2 wasn’t talented. It was just that I thought that in their first outing in the bigs they might be just a bit nervous, perhaps a bit timid, perhaps a bit overwhelmed. Ha!

They went in and beat the more experienced USA 1. Justin Lall thought they would. He was right and I was wrong and I enjoyed every minute of watching the two teams battle it out.  At the end of the fourth segment the match was very close.  USA 2 led USA 1 by 12 imps.  It was in the fifth segment that the younger team blew it open.  USA 2 outscored USA 1, 63 to 13.  The final segment was an almost tie with USA 1 picking up 2 imps.  Congratulations and good luck tomorrow.  I will enjoy watching you take on the hometown favorites the Netherlands.  Sometimes it is just fine to be wrong.

The match between the Netherlands and Italy was a squeaker.  It is the kind of matches that people will write about, a lot.  It was close from the beginning.  It was close throughout the final but in the end the Netherlands turned on the gas to beat the fine Italy team by 29 and a bit imps.  It must have been a wonderful feeling to win like that at home.  But they have more to do.   Italy’s problems in the last segment started off with two slams bid and made by the Netherlands and missed by Italy.

Instead of looking at how Italy missed the slam on Board 23 let’s look at how the Dutch pair Brink and Drijver got there.  You can decide if your system would get you thre too.  I am going to rotate the board to make them North South

Brink ♠ QJ943 ♥ K742 ♦ 93 ♣ Q9

Drijver ♠ K872 ♥ A9 ♦ AK87 ♣ AK2

2NT showed 21-23 balanced.  3H was a transfer to spades. This was great for Drijvers so he superaccepted with 4♣ .  4♣ was likely a relay asking about Brink’s hand.  I don’t what the 4♦ response was; I could guess but I won’t.  If anybody knows I would be happy to hear from you.  After that Drijvers found out about the trump queen and but the spade slam.

I think that the South hand is worth more than 21 HCP.  The 21-23 range suits it.  But playing 20-21 I would upgrade it. AK, AK, A, K is worth more than other combinations with queens and jacks that add up to 21.

No other pair in the Bermuda Bowl, no pair in the Venus Cup got to slam.  However in the Senior Bowl both France and Poland did get there, Poland using a forcing club style auction.

So congratulations to the Netherlands.  The final is bound to be a great battle.

USA 2 Pours It On … Segment 5

October 26th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

As I watch the fifth segment match USA 2 has taken a big lead over USA 1.  We have looked at how Lall and Grue can be tough opponents.  Board 16 is an example of how Woolridge-Hurd can create a   imp swing.

Look at the South hand held by Wooldridge.

Nobody is vulnerable.

A diamond is a kind of long suit game try.  So what do you lead?  A trump is out.  A diamond seems possible.  Stansby is suggesting that he can help in diamonds with the jump to game.  You could lead a diamond hoping to find some weakness.  With a less informative auction you probably would lead a diamond all the time.  If you pick one of the other two suits which one do you chose?  Do you lead the ace or a small one?  All these thoughts must have been circling in Joel’s head.  I think if you are planning a round suit lead you should think about it during the auction and not take forever to make the lead.  Joel put the ♣ 5 on the table and it was devasting.  Here is the whole hand.

Dealer: Vul:	Hurd ♠ 106 ♥ J8 ♦ J976 ♣ Q10872
Stansby ♠ 754 ♥ Q97432 ♦ 8 ♣ K64		Martel ♠ AKJ83 ♥ K6 ♦ AK52 ♣ J3
	Wooldridge ♠ Q92 ♥ A105 ♦ Q1043 ♣ A95

Luck?  Instinct? Skill?  You decide.  Once that small club was on the table Martel was doomed.  Just like you and I he played low and had to lose two clubs, a diamond and a trump.  Grue and Lall played in 4H from the West hand.  Levin lead a club from the queen and Grue had no problem.

WMD’s and USA 1 and USA 2

October 25th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

Many of the matches today in the semifinals for the various world championships are very close as we come close to the halfway mark.  In the Bermuda where USA2 is playing USA 1  Going into the third segment with 32 boards played the score was USA 2 63 and USA 1 57.  USA 1 managed to score 1 imp and then 3 imps and on the first two boards but after that it was all USA 1 and they ended up with a 51 imp lead.  The final score of the segment was 49-4 and now USA 2 leads 112 to 61.  Board 12 is one of the boards that resulted in a 12 imp lose for USA 1.  It was set up by some very aggressive bidding by Lall and Grue.

Let’s look at it from various points of view.  Here is the whole deal.

Dealer: W Vul: N-S	Fleisher ♠ J1072 ♥ J83 ♦ AKJ864 ♣ –
Grue ♠ 4 ♥ AK102 ♦ Q753 ♣ 8762		Lall ♠ 983 ♥ 654 ♦ 109 ♣ AK1094
	Kamil ♠ AKQ65 ♥ Q97 ♦ 2 ♣ QJ53

Grue passed and Fleisher made a normal opening bid of 1♦ .  Even if you like a weak 2♦ on these high cards with four spades it seems the wrong time in second choice.  I suppose the alternative is pass.  I think most red blooded bridge players would open as Fleisher did.  Now look at Lall’s hand.  You are white on red and your partner has passed.   Most of my partner’s would be very unhappy if I overcalled 2♣ here but I like it.  You probably want a club lead and if there is a save clubs seem like a likely possibility.  Besides that 2♣ takes away a 1♥ , 1♠ and 1NT bid from Kamil.  If you hate this bid I don’t blame you but as we will see this turned into a WMD (weapon of mass destruction).  Now Kamil bid a normal 2♠ and it was Grue’s turn to add some dynamite.  He bid 4♠ a splinter.  From Grue’s point of view if Lall has a good 2♣ bid then the hand might be belong to East-West and if North-South keeps bidding he has some defensive tricks in his pocket.  I like this bid a lot.  I like it better than 5♣ .  It is a bit of a warning to Lall not to get carried away.  Grue has defense.

Now put yourself in Fleisher’s chair.  Here is the auction so far

So far you have’t even shown spade support.  You have this nice six card diamond suit which is a source of tricks and you have four card spade support with some honors.  Finally you have their suit controlled.  On the other hand you do have a minimum number of high cards for your opening bid.  There seem to me to be a few choices.  You could bid pass, double, bid 5♣ or bid 5♠ .  Does double show spades?  What else does it show?  What does pass mean here?  If you pass and then bid 5♠ over Lall’s 5♣ what does that mean?  These are questions for the partnership.  My personal pick is 5♠ but I wouldn’t argue with Fleisher’s choice of 5♣.

Lall passed 5♣ and now it was up to Kamil.  Fleisher could have a lot of hands, many of them make 6♠ .  Kamil knows Fleisher has none of the spade top honors.  He must have very good diamonds and quite likely no clubs.  The only remaining outside cards are the AKJ of hearts.  At the table in situations like this I usually try to picture my partner’s possible hands that make sense of the auction and then decide which one or ones are most likely.

If I am not certain than I would vote for bidding 5♠.  Even if Fleisher has the right hand on an auction like this something could go wrong.  For example you may be off a spade trick since West could easily have a void.  If East has J9xx or something like that spades could be a problem.  But it is so hard to decide.  Ray walked into my office as I was writing the blog and sniffed and said he thought Kamil should not bid slam since he really had nothing useful outside of spades.  He suggested that if you could bid 5♦ to show shortness than that was a possible choice but that wouldn’t make sense on this auction.  And that is the story of this deal perhaps.  Kamil can’t cuebid diamonds because he has a singleton in partner’s suit.  It is not a plus.  He has a few quacks outside spades.  Partner will find the way to slam if all he needs is the AKQxx of spades and the HQ on the side.  Say partner had a hand like:

♠ J10xx ♥ Kxx ♦ AKQxxx ♣ –

Will he pass out 5♠ if you bid it?  What do you think?

The final auction

Now none of this is easy and none of it is clearcut but look what happened at the other table where everyone made the “textbook” bid.

The defense passed throughout.  North Hurd bid 1♦ , Wooldridge bid 1♠ , Hurd raised to two and Wooldridge bid the spade game.  They all probably thought that this was a quiet board.

The auction in the Open Room

WMD’s create swings where you don’t expect them.  Italy and the Netherlands had a third segment score of 8-12.  There were a total of 20 imps exchanged and probably no WMD’s.

The Rodwell Files Wins!

October 25th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Sometimes it seems like I have too many blogs I want to write.  Today is one of those days.  I am busy watching the World Championships, one of my favorite pastimes and we have just had word about the winners of the various IBPA awards.  I will speak more about each of these topics but in this blog I just want to talk about the Rodwell Files.

Eric Rodwell with co-author Mark Horton have won the IPBA Book of the Year Award for the Rodwell Files.  The IBPA, International Bridge Press Association, gives out an award each year to a book that they deem to be the best bridge book published that year.  Here is what they said in the press release.

The Master Point Press Book of the Year Award

Winner: The Rodwell Files

Authors: Eric Rodwell and Mark Horton

This year’s candidates were of unusually-high quality in terms of originality of material. Nevertheless, one book was adjudged by the jury of Patrick Huang (Taiwan), Fernando Lema (Argentina), David Morgan (Australia), PO Sundelin (Sweden), Ron Tacchi (France) and Paul Thurston (Canada) to be superior to the others.

They go on to quote the following (from the book description)

The original ‘Rodwell File’, the collection of notes on which this book is based, has been in existence for more than twenty years, but it is only now that the author is prepared to allow his ‘secrets’ to become public knowledge.

First, he describes and explains the process for deciding on a line of play — using concepts such as +L positions, tightropes, trick packages and Control Units as well as exploring more standard themes such as counting winners, losers, and distribution. Included here too is a checklist of ‘defogging questions’ to get you back on track when your analysis gets bogged down. Then he moves on to a host of innovative ideas in card play, strategies and tactics that can be used by declarer or defenders, each one illustrated with real-life examples from top-level play.

There are several other fine books on this year’s shortlist.

Wladyslaw Izdebski, Roman Krzemien and Ron Klinger, Deadly Defence

Krzsyztof Martens, Guide Dog, Part I & II

Victor Moillo, The Hog Takes to Precision

Barry Rigal, Breaking the Bridge Rules, First Hand Play

Eric Rodwell and Mark Horton, The Rodwell Files

Peter Winkler, Bridge at the Enigma Club

Beside’s The Rodwell Files Master Point Press has 4 of the 6 books selected this year. That makes us feel very proud.  More about the many other interesting words in a future blog.

Italy defeats China after a precarious start

October 24th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Coming into the final 16 boards of the 96 board quarterfinal Italy led China by a mere 6 imps, 171 to 165.  The first board Board 17 was a declarer play challenge.

Dealer: North Vul: None
Duboin/Lian ♠ 102 ♥ 532 ♦ A1043 ♣ KQJ7		Dummy ♠ AQJ86 ♥ KJ86 ♦ 75 ♣ A2

Auction in the Open Room

Duboin got the lead of the ♥ Q.  He played the ♥ K which held the trick as South Hou play the ♥ 4. This gave him a fairly easy road to nine tricks. At trick two Duboin led a spade to the ♠ 10 which held the trick and he was well on his way.  He played another spade and South won the♠ K and declarer now has enough tricks.

Dealer: North Vul: None North ♠ 973 ♥ AQ1097 ♦ J92 ♣ 54 West ♠ 102 ♥ 532 ♦ A1043 ♣ KQJ7 East ♠ AQJ86 ♥ KJ86 ♦ 75 ♣ A2 South ♠ K54 ♥ 4 ♦ KQ86 ♣ 109863

Auction in Closed Room

In the Closed Room Bocchi hearing Shi bid both majors decided to try a minor and pick his shorter one clubs.  This was an awkward lead for declarer because it was a start on disrupting communications.  Lian made the reasonable decision of winning the ♣ A and needed to attack spades.  It is true that if North has three spades to the king then crossing to dummy on a club allows declarer to make ten easy tricks: 4 clubs, 1 diamond and 5 spades.  But declarer can afford a spade loser.  It seems right to me to try to play spades for one loser and to keep communications going.  Declarer could try a spade to the ♠ 10.  If both follow to the spade and either player wins the trick then declarer can make nine tricks as long as spades are 4-2 (or 5-1 with a singleton 9.  In fact 5-0 is okay too if North has the five.  I can’t think of a lie of the cards where declarer has an easier time of making nine tricks by crossing to dummy and leading the ♠ 10 from dummy.  Maybe I am missing something.  Anyway Lian crossed on a club which “seemed” safe enough and ran the ♠ 10 which held.  He played another spade to the ♠ J but this time South Madala took the ♠K.  This was the end position:

Dealer: North Vul: None Bocchi ♠ 3 ♥ AQ1097 ♦ J92 ♣ – Lian ♠ ♥ 532 ♦ A1043 ♣ QJ Shi ♠ AQ8 ♥ KJ86 ♦ 75 ♣ – Madala ♠ 5 ♥ 4 ♦ KQ86 ♣ 986

Do you see what happens when Madala found the great shift of a small diamond?  Lian now sort of has nine tricks, 4 spades, 4 clubs and a diamond.  But he has no quick entry to dummy.  He ducked the first diamond and Bocchi persisted with the ♦ J.  Lian cannot duck the thrid diamond since he will be locked in dummy on a spade return.  He must win the second diamond.  Now Lian can take one or two clubs but eventually has to play a heart.  Bocchi wins and still has a diamond to return to Madala who can cash the setting tricks.

There are other ways to make the hand double dummy.  Playing on hearts earlier for example.  But by playing a club early declarer destroyed communications to dummy.  He could therefore only duck diamonds twice and in the end that proved to be the problem.  So the combination of finding a disruptive lead and a choice made by declarer, perhaps an inferior one, led to an 11 imp lose.  Italy never looked back.