October 12th, 2010 ~ linda ~
3 Comments 
This story is about a hand played by the winners of the McConnell Cup, Team China. They were playing a steady if unspectacular team from the Netherlands. The Chinese ladies were not overly aggressive, they played their version of Precision which they clearly knew very well, nothing spectacular but they played well. They made few errors in bidding or card play; and once in a while they did something above and beyond. On Board 6 in the first of four sets they took a page from Zia’s book.
| Dealer:E
Vul: EW
|
Arnolds
♠ A1032
♥ AK76
♦ A9
♣ 632 |
|
| Lu
♠ Q7654
♥ J2
♦ 5
♣ KQ1085 |
 |
Gu
♠ –
♥ Q85
♦ J10876432
♣ 94 |
|
Vrend
♠ KJ98
♥ 10943
♦ KQ
♣ AJ7 |
|
Fu had an eight card diamond suit but it was missing all the top honors and at this vulnerability she decided to keep quiet. This was typical of the Chinese style, they weren’t trying to be active in every auction. As a result Arnolds arrived in 4♥ with no opposition bidding and no clues about their distribution.
| West |
North |
East |
South |
|
|
pass |
1♣ |
| pass |
1♥ |
pass |
2♥ |
| pass |
2♠ |
pass |
3NT |
| pass |
4♥ |
all pass |
|
Gu led the ♦J, dummy’s ♦Q winning. One likely line was that declarer would draw two rounds of trump and then cash the ♦A and then assuming both followed try a club to the ♣J. West would win and then Arnolds could play ace and another club endplaying West into breaking spades. But on this deal when declarer cashed the ♦A East would show out and even without the endplay Arnolds was pretty sure to guess spades.
Arnolds started off with the ♥3 from dummy and Lu did something simple but remarkable. She flew with the ♥J. Arnolds won and reconsidered here plan. She did not draw another trump but made with seemed like a safe play. She laid down the ♦A. Now Lu ruffed it and played the ♣K. Arnolds ducked. When Lu switched to a spade, Chu ruffed and returned a club. Declarer took the ace but still had a club loser for one down.
The combination of the play of the ♥J and the quietness of the auction led to a defeat of the heart game. In the Zimmermann Diamond match Helness and Helgemo defended this board against Gitelman and Moss. Here too Helness did not bid but when Gitelman (North) laid down the ♥A Helgemo played the ♥2. Here he played the top two hearts cashed the ♦A and threw Helness (East) in on a heart. East returned a club and Fred followed the line suggested above putting in the ♣J and so on. Had Helgemo played the ♥J at trick one would Gitelman have got the hand right? We will never know because he was never tested.
Well done China, well earned.
October 10th, 2010 ~ linda ~
1 Comment
In the first of four sets in the Round of 16 Board 4 provided a bidding test and created a few swing. Try this yourself and think about your auction. Where would you end?
Dealer West All Vul
| West
♠ KQ6
♥ 8432
♦ K9
♣ KQ43 |
|
East
♠ AJ109
♥ KQJ6
♦ AJ4
♣ A9 |
The best contract is 6NT which has twelve tricks any time the hearts break (4 spades, 3 hearts, 2 diamonds and 3 clubs) but chances when they don’t. (if you only have two heart tricks there is still the diamond finesse or maybe a squeeze of some sort). Of the 16 pairs playing this deal in the Open Teams one got to 6NT and the rest played in 6♥ . Sometimes it wouldn’t matter but this time there was a club ruff and all but three of the pairs playing 6♥ went down. And which pair found 6NT? Kurka and Kopecky of the Martens team. It isn’t totally clear to me whether this was skill or good fortune. Here is there auction.
| West |
North |
East |
South |
| 1NT |
pass |
2♦ |
pass |
| 2NT |
pass |
3♣ |
pass |
| 3NT |
pass |
6NT |
all pass |
2♦ was alerted on BBO as game forcing showing four hearts but with a small caveat (the words I think). If it did indeed show hearts then it is not clear how hearts got lost. In any case once Kurka did not show hearts the pair ended in 6NT. Maybe there was more to this auction but in case it worked out well for them.
The Lavazza-Diamond match had a number of big swings. Ray came in to my office to show me one of them. On Board 13 the Italians did very well to bid and make 6♦ with Hampson and Greco playing 3NT in the Closed Room. (Both Vulnerable Dealer North)
| Bocchi
♠ 93
♥ AKQ109
♦ KQ92
♣ 65 |
|
| Ferraro
♠ AJ108
♥ –
♦ AJ76
♣ A9732 |
| West |
North |
East |
South |
|
1H |
pass |
2C |
| pass |
3D |
pass |
4D |
| pass |
4H |
pass |
4S |
| pass |
5H |
pass |
6D |
| all pass |
|
|
|
After North-South found the diamond fit they pressed onto the slam. The opening lead is the ♣ Q. How would you proceed? There are a few approaches that will in fact work but Bocchi found a very nice line. He won the club and returned a club Gitelman winning. He won the diamond returned in dummy (The ♦10 forced the ♦J) and proceed with his plan to set up clubs. At this stage if diamonds were 3-2 he was in pretty good shape. He ruffed a club high and cashed the ♦Q. Now he entered dummy with a spade and ruffed the last club with the nine of diamonds. With one diamond still out he had to get three rounds of hearts through. He cashed the top hearts and when nobody could ruff in he was able to ruff a spade and draw the last trump claiming with the winning clubs.
Since Ray had a live feed on he was able to hear all three other players congratulated Bocchi who had won 12 imps.
October 10th, 2010 ~ linda ~
No Comments
Click this URL
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bridgeunion
For a live feed of a table with audio
October 9th, 2010 ~ linda ~
No Comments
So now there are 32 and I am observing an interesting match between Nickell and Alfrey to very good teams. The nature of this event means that good teams are more likely to meet early which at least gives us matches to enjoy at this point. I decide to stay in the Closed Room because I can see the results from teh Open Room. I am not doing commentary so I can do this blog live. I am also watching on Swan Game Live Scoring Site which allows me to track all the teams and see how each are doing on each board.
We are coming up to Board 6. In the other room they bid 7♦ which is a laydown but I see for the online scoring that so far a few pairs have faltered with Cayne in 7♠ and Martens in 6♠ on the 5-0. (Not working out to well). I am not expecting that to happen here but it just shows you that even at this level really weird bad accidents can happen. I also see Allfrey has +800 in 7CX on Board 7. We have reached Board 6 in a dull match so far (6-3 for Nickell).
| Board 6
Dealer: E
Vul: EW
|
Allfrey
♠ 87652
♥ K103
♦ 82
♣ 972 |
|
| Nickell
♠ –
♥ AQJ94
♦ J1093
♣ AJ106 |
|
Katz
♠ AKQJ3
♥ 75
♦ AKQ654
♣ |
|
Robinson
♠ 1094
♥ 862
♦ 7
♣ KQ8543 |
|
The auction started out with Katz opening 2♣ which seems reaonsable enough. But then Robson stuck in 4♣ making this auction much tougher. This is passed round to Katz who bid 4♠ . Nickell has a tough bid bt he forces with 5♣ . Katz shows his second suit. Nickell’s 5H must be a cuebid now (I think) and Katz 6♦ is an acceptance and here we areL
| Nickell |
Allfrey |
Katz |
Robinson |
|
|
2♣ |
4♣ |
| pass |
pass |
4♠ |
pass |
| 5♣ |
pass |
5♦ |
pass |
| 5♥ |
pass |
6♦ |
pass |
| ? |
|
|
|
Nickell has a great hand opposite a spade-diamond strong two bid and he does bid the grand. Good for him. This lowscoring match is at 16-4 after 10 boards. Board 11 is interesting. Both tables missed a great slam which most of the field got to. How would you bid these hands?
| West
♠ AKQ975
♥ AK963
♦ A6
♣ |
|
East
♠ 62
♥ J852
♦ KJ87
♣ J105 |
South passes and you open 2♣ . North bids 3♣ and your partner doubles. This certainly should show values (I play it to suggest a balanced hand with cards). South bids 4C What is your plan? One option might be to bid 5♣ . It has a certain symmetry and I think it should show majors here and a really big hand. I would bid on to the six-level whatever partner’s response. This might get you to seven when partner has the right cards. Or you could just start 6♣ with the idea of correcting 6♦ to 6♥ if there is any confusion on partner’s part. I think the first auction shows some interest in a grand slam while the second is content to play at the six-level. Nickell made the “practical” bid of 4♠ and played it there. Interference over a strong 2♣ bid can certainly be effective.
Let’s see what happened at the other table. Kendrick, West opened a strong 2S bid (as described by the players at the table). My guess is that it is in the nature of an ACOL 2-bid, here showing a strong two-suiter. When East, Senior, bid 2NT Kendrick bid 4H showing the 6-5 and played there. This hand as two losers and I think it is too good for this auction. In any case a rather weird push Not much else happened and yawn the final score for the segment was 18-10.
October 8th, 2010 ~ linda ~
1 Comment
The women have the day off but schedule for the Open Event is:
| 2010-10-08 |
13th World Bridge Series 2010
Philadelphia, USA |
|
| 10:30 |
Rosenblum Teams, R64-1 |
|
| 13:30 |
Rosenblum Teams, R64-2 |
|
| 17:00 |
Rosenblum Teams, R64-3 |
|
| 18:30 |
Rosenblum Teams, R64-4 |
I will no doubt be doing some commentary. I will watch for sure. Yesterday I thought I was getting carpal tunnel syndrome I had been at the keyboard so much.
First let’s look at some of the winners who are going to be continuing on today. For the full list read Friday’s Bullein
In the Open Event
GROUP A
The leader Zimmermann is not surprise with
But I wasn’t too familiar with second place:
In this division most of the battle was for that last spot and fifth place Payen was only 2.25 VP behind. They lost their last match to Zimmermann narrowly after Bramley had lost to Coldea giving them an opening.
The winner of Division B is one of the pre-tournament favorites:
Second place went to Berg
Lagoudinoi and Rossard were tied after eight rounds. Rossard had a bye in the last round which nets you 18 VP so Lagoudinoi knew what they had to do. But they lost their last round match to Sher.
Division C had two strong teams who finished one two and it was a real dogfight for the remaining qualifying spots.
Third place went to a Canadian team
I have some friends on this team and I do wish them well.
In Division D Rayner (well done guys) and China Open finished one two. Perhaps the surprise is that Lavazza finished third quite a bit back.
In Division E the bloggers! (well one of them) The British Lions finished a clear first. But then it was an amazing battle of 4 teams for 3 spots. Poor Bernardes missed out by .04 of a VP. (I am not sure how that happened did somebody sneeze too many times). Koneru has a lot of my firends on it too so I am glad they made it. And it is a surprise to see Mahaffey who was likely the number one seed in such a battle. Go Lions!
Two teams owned Division F was owned by two teams who battled it out for the number one slot. Fredin who was expected to qualify made it in third with a battle for fourth spot won by Dipak Poddar by one VP.
In Division G once again the decision fourth the fourth spot was made on .24 VP. Schwartz let out a sigh of relief no doubt when they made it despite a narrow loss to the OZ Juniors in the last round. Hungary had a bye so they knew what they had to do. I wonder if they check their calculators twice when they added up the imp scores and converted the result to VP.
Three teams dominated Division H and it seemed like one of the others just had to be awarded a qualifying spot. 134 was I believe the lowest qualifying score in the event and oddly it was well above fifth place. Probably the more interesting race in this Division was who would finish 1 or 2 or 3. Team Pharmaservice blitzed their last round match against Strasser. With the other two top teams playing each other a narrow win by Joseph and the Cards (16-14) was not enough to remove Strul from the top spot.
In Division H Deutsch dominated. Canada who had been office to such a good start was struggling. Their last round match against fifth place Wang Dade would be decisive. Fortunately they could afford a small loss (13-17) and still qualify. The third place South African team with my friend Glen Holman included has done well previously in world champioships.
In Division J the Diamond team would be expected to dominate and they did. FOur teams fought it out for the remaining three spots with Indonesia Garial UI losing out.
The Brits continued to do well in this competition with Rosen handling winning Division L. The top four all won easily (yawn).
Going into the last round Zambonini was clearly in the lead but the other three spots were in doubt. JapCan who were in fourth place at the time by 1VP over Hauge had what was likely an easy match against last place Ecuador while Hauge and Kamras played each other and Nadar played the leaders. When Hauge lost big to Kamras they were the odd man out. Nadar Hanna, CBF President was on the fourth place team playing with Canadian Robert Lebi.
In Division N (will this never end) the top two teams dominated. Meltzer lost their last match to the leader but had a good enough lead not to be troubled. Hughes had a near blitz against Derrico to hang onto fourth place against a surging Delmonte who blitzed Argentina U26. The last place team did not play (Noname) did not exist and represented a second bye for the teams. Allfrey includes MPP author (and Bulletin editor) Brian Senior. MPP author (and friend) Alan Sontag is on Meltzer. The four man Hughes team are all friends and include MPP author Roy Hughes.
Group O (oh no there are still more groups) was in but in the last round four other teams fought it out for the remaining three spots. Chateau Rossenovo had a big win over Harris to move up into fourth while Agsar who had been in third place in Round 8 had to battle the leader and lost big to lose their chance.
In Group P Kranyak had a good ninth round win against Japan Youth but it wasn’t quite enough to beat out De Bottom who was blitzed by the leaders.
Division Q (for finally done) pretty well had the top four spots locked up after the eight round and the battle was amongst the top three for finishing order. Gordon and Green Machine were playing and a 17-13 win by Green Machine was a fraction (.09!) too little to take over second spot. With some friends on the Carmichael team I am glad to see they qualified.
In the Women’s in Division R the finishers were:
Woolsey was ninth and missed out by a disappointing .15 VP. Well done to all the winners. I have listed all of them. Special congratulations to my friends on all of the team. And good luck … go get em.
In Division S it was a battle going into the final round of 15. After 14 rounds the top 10 teams had a shot at the top 8 positions. The top 4 were a lock and the fifth place team at the time China Ladies Team was very likely to make it. 6th and 7th were in a virtual tie at 225 with the next three teams between 213 and 215. So lots was at stake. So who would lose out. Mercosul played Canada and managed 13 VP against a team that had been struggling. That was not enough and they dropped from sixth to ninth place missing out by .34 VP. Bloom who had been in tenth spot tied the China Ladies Team which was not enough to move up.
October 7th, 2010 ~ linda ~
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With one match to go and four to qualify each division has its battles. In Division J in the previous match, Round 8, Canada played Deutsch and I did commentary. This was a match that most Canadian spectators would prefer to forget. I know I would. So now here are the standings after the Deutsch match:
Canada is now going to play the fifth place team. the good news is that if they beat Wang Dade then they will qualify. If Wang Dade picks up at least 7 VP more than they do say 16-9 then they still have a chance if Apetker doesn’t get more than 13. There is the mathematics. The easy way to qualify is to win. I truly don’t want to relive the Deutsch match by writing about it. I give you one small offering which cost a lot of imps but isn’t as painful to relate, partly because it is only a bidding problem.
So assign the blame:
With everybody vulnerable Campbell held
| Campbell
♠ –
♥ K9743
♦ A1075
♣ AK84 |
|
East
♠
♥
♦
♣ |
South, Townsend, opened 1♣ and Campbell overcalled 1♥ seems okay so far. North, Gold bids 4♠ . And Klimowicz passed which seems pretty straightforward.
|
|
Klimowicz
♠ 1075
♥ J1082
♦ 64
♣ 10965 |
This came back to Campbell. What do you do? Is double a terrible call? How bad a bid is double? Is 4NT an option? Ray and I discussed the merits of each bid. He liked 4NT because he really didn’t want to defend . I am fine with double. Campbell doubled.
| Campbell
♠ –
♥ K9743
♦ A1075
♣ AK84 |
|
Klimowicz
♠ 1075
♥ J1082
♦ 64
♣ 10965 |
Should Klimowicz pull it? I think so He knows that Campbell has a lot of shape and any heart winners are quite likely not to be cashing. Klimowicz decided to tough it out. 4♠ X making with two overtricks was 1190 and 11 imps. 5♥ X likely goes for about 800. 800 into 680 is 3 imps (although 1100 is certainly possible). Of course if you bid again then maybe, just maybe North South will find the slam for 1430, even worse. Maybe it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Maybe this disaster just happened. Sometimes there are no answers.
The whole hand
| Dealer:
Vul:
|
Gold
♠ QJ986432
♥ Q
♦ Q832
♣ – |
|
| Campbell
♠ –
♥ K9743
♦ A1075
♣ AK84 |
|
Klimowicz
♠ 1075
♥ J1082
♦ 64
♣ 10965 |
|
Townsend
♠ AK
♥ A65
♦ KJ9
♣ QJ732 |
|
I was joking with the English fans during the match. So pip pip to all of you but go Canada.
……………….
It’s later on. I have finished a walk to raise money for blood cancer research (the walk raised $700,000) and I have come back to find that Canada did qualify. Well done.
October 7th, 2010 ~ linda ~
No Comments
The best thing about watching great players is that you can learn something.
In the Round 5 match in the Round Robin Lavazza versus Rayner, Sementa demonstrated a critical defensive play which defeated 3NT and won 10 imps for his team.
Let us look at the deal from his perspective.
| Duboin |
Hargreaves |
Sementa |
McAvoy |
|
|
1♣ |
pass |
| 1♥ |
1NT |
2♥ |
3♥ |
| pass |
3NT |
|
|
His opponents likely had near 25 high card points which suggested that Duboin had responded “on air”. McAvoy’s 3♥ bid was alerted as Stayman without a stopper.
In any case a heart lead was the obvious choice and Sementa lead his fourth best. This is what he saw (I have rotated this deal to put declarer South).
|
|
McAvoy
♠ AQ64
♥ 842
♦ Q10762
♣ 2 |
|
| Sementa
♠ KJ85
♥ Q1076
♦ 9
♣ AQ83 |
|
|
Duboin produced the ♥K and Hargreaves won the ♥A. By this point a lot is known about the deal. First, Duboin probably doesn’t have more than another jack or so. Second declarer has two hearts left exactly. Declarer certainly has all five diamond tricks, two spade tricks (with the finesse) and the heart trick already in, a total of eight tricks. Now Duboin worked out the five tricks his side needed to beat the contract – three hearts and two clubs.
It is pretty clear what declarer’s plan will be. He will run his tricks and try to put pressure on Sementa. What will Sementa keep? He has to keep three spades and the ♣AQ and he has to make four pitches. He can afford one spade and two clubs so he is going to have to pitch a heart. But he KNOWS that Duboin has a heart higher than his ♥7. Since Hargreaves only has two hearts Duboin must have the ♥J or the ♥9. So Sementa has to keep his ♥7 to get to Duboin’s hand for a club through (or to cash the defenses last heart winner).
Really, this is all pretty apparent at trick one. Let’s see what happened.
Hargreaves took the spade finesse and then ran his diamonds as expected. Sementa’s discards were planned so the only issue was helping his partner. He used his first two discards to alert partner to his strong club holding (the ♣ 3 followed by the ♣ 7 in their methods showed strength.) Then he pitched the ♥10. This let partner know that he was expected to hold all of his hearts. Duboin had been following in diamonds. Duboin now pitched his spade and his last club. Duboin held all his hearts as he was expected to do.
Now Hargraeves exited with the ♠ A and another, hoping that he had endplayed Sementa. Here was the ending
| Dealer:
Vul:
|
McAvoy
♠ 64
♥ 84
♦ –
♣ 2 |
|
| Sementa
♠ K
♥ Q7
♦ –
♣ AQ |
|
Duboin
♠ –
♥ 953
♦ –
♣ 109 |
|
Hargreaves
♠ 10
♥ J
♦ –
♣ KJ6 |
|
Exactly as foreseen Sementa is in on the ♠ K. He cashed the ♥Q and then exited the ♥7 to Duboin and his side could take all the tricks.
As happened at some tables, if Sementa did not unblock the ♥10 he would have been endplayed. I think the interesting thing is that this could be worked out at trick one. I don’t know if Sementa did all his thinking before playing to trick two or not.
Here is the whole deal
| Dealer:
Vul:
|
North
♠ AQ64
♥ 842
♦ Q10762
♣ 2 |
|
| West
♠ KJ85
♥ Q1076
♦ 9
♣ AQ83 |
|
East
♠ 93
♥ K953
♦ 543
♣ 10975 |
|
South
♠ 1072
♥ AJ
♦ AKJ8
♣ KJ64 |
|
October 6th, 2010 ~ linda ~
3 Comments
At the 2/3 mark in the Round Robin with half the field to qualify almost no team is out of contention. So tomorrow should be very exciting. Still it is interesting to see who is doing well and not so well. You can see all the results in a couple of places.
The Swan Bridge site has many interesting things. The Butlers, every match, every board and all the results, even the lineups for each match. It also has running scores you can check all through the playing game. As a result at times it is so busy the server is overloaded. we have put a big button on the front page to make it easy for everyone to get to the site. Sadly the WBF seems to have abandoned the attempt to keep their website up to date with results. The other choice is the Bulletin, Thursday’s Bulletin.
In the McConnell there are two divisions with 8 qualifiers each. They are playing a round Robin with 15 10 board matches. In Group R there is one bye since they have only 15 teams.
GROUP R
1 Netherlands 186
2 Fireman 184
3 Westheimer 178
4 Joel 161
5 Indonesia Djarum 159
6 Fairy Tale 155
7 McGarry 154
8 Venezuela 151
9 Woolsey 149
10 Sombra e agua fresca 148
11 CanUSA 147
12 Stewart 139
13 Goodman 131
14 Reunion Island 122
15 Tunisia 117
16 Balkin 102
McCONNELL CUP
(Standings after Round Robin 10 — subject to confirmation)
GROUP S
1 Hampton 196
2 Glasson 178
Moss 178
4 Full Spectrum Auctions 171
5 Eisenberg 164
Italia 164
Mercosul 164
8 China Ladies Team 153
9 Sweden 151
10 Egypt 140
Singapore 140
12 Bloom 132
13 Canada 124
14 Angus 114
15 Veladies 86
The top 3 teams have pulled away from the field a bit. Here are the rosters for the those teams (Lots of red white and blue but not all of it American).
There are eight teams tightly bunched fighting for the remaining five positions although some teams further down have chances. The Fairy Tale team name caught my eye. They are four ladies playing under a Japanese flag.
In the S Division the Hampton team has a good lead on the rest and teams 2-7 are completely bunched up. Some good teams are near the bottom and perhaps they will be able to make up the needed ground in the final one third of the matches.
I was a bit curious about the name Full Spectrum Auctions so I did a bit of goggling and found that somebody called Sam Dinkin was:
Auction Design and Implementation Expert at Full Spectrum Auctions
Thus it was no surprise when he turned out to be the NPC.
There are too many open divisions to list but let me highlight a few. Division C includes
Some of the BBO kibiitzers are keen to watch Cayne who plays many team games on BBO with many kibbitzers.
Auken is leading the group and includes an MPP author Barnet Shenkin along with a friend Jan van Cleeff.
The four man San3PDx1 squad has played very well whenever I have watched them.
At the end of play today Rayner was still leading Divison D and I couldn’t be happier.
| Rank |
| 1 |
114 |
 Rayner |
| 2 |
109 |
 Alizee |
| 3 |
108 |
 China Open |
| 4 |
103 |
 D’Orsi |
| 5 |
102 |
 Lavazza |
| 6 |
96 |
 Kahn |
| 7 |
84 |
 Cortex |
| 8 |
64 |
 St Clair |
| 9 |
62 |
 Himani |
| 10 |
47 |
 Itaven |
Rayner consists of some fine and experienced players (and friends)
And of course Division E with a tight group bunched at the top
The British Lions include fellow blogger Paul Gipson. Glad to see you are doing so well Paul
I am doing a charity walk tomorrow but I hope I will be able to watch all of the action first.
October 6th, 2010 ~ linda ~
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I was lucky enough to be doing commentary when the Rayner team played the Lavazza team, Italian World Champions. The Italians were not having a good match but the Canadians shone. I mean they glowed and twinkled! In the end Rayner won 71-19 imps to take all the victory points and send the Italians minus with the final victory points 25 for Rayner and 4 for Lavazza. This win was enough to vault Rayner into first place in their division with 97 victory points and a 1 VP lead over China Open. Here are all the standings in Group D after the fifth round.
So now I do have to talk about this wonderful match. Here goes:
Board 3 was the first big swing hand
| Dealer: South
Vul: EW
|
North
♠ AQ864
♥ AKQJ83
♦ 7
♣ 6 |
|
| West
♠ KJ3
♥ 94
♦ J108432
♣ Q4 |
|
East
♠ 10752
♥ 5
♦ Q6
♣ K109872 |
|
South
♠ 9
♥ 10762
♦ AK95
♣ AJ53 |
|
The quest here is to get to the grand slam. It is quite a good one although it is definitely not a claim at trick one. Both pairs started out the same
| West |
North |
East |
South |
|
|
|
1D |
| pass |
1H |
pass |
2H |
| pass |
? |
|
|
Bocchi (North) simply bid keycard Blackwood and when he found out his partner had AK of diamonds and the CA he was certain from the bidding he could not also hold the SK. He thought that the grand would be risky without that keycard and gave up in 6H. But Hargreaves found another solution to the bidding problem. He started with 2S a help suit game try. When McAvoy jumped to 4H he knew he had help in spades. When he found out they had all the keycards he jumped to 7H. Bridge if an easy game. Rayner started off with 11 imps.
On Board 6 both pairs reached 4H on the same auction. Here it was about play and defense.
| Dealer:East
Vul: EW
|
North
♠ KJ87
♥ A86
♦ J852
♣ A3 |
|
| West
♠ AQ10643
♥ Q
♦ Q10
♣ Q762 |
|
East
♠ 5
♥ 7543
♦ 7643
♣ K1098 |
|
South
♠ 92
♥ KJ1092
♦ AK9
♣ J54 |
|
The bidding
| West |
North |
East |
South |
|
|
pass |
1H |
| 1S |
2S |
pass |
3H |
| pass |
4H |
all pass |
|
The opening lead was a small club at both tables and both declarers ducked the club, the CK winning. In the CR Sementa returned a spade and Duboin won the SA. Duboin continued a spade ruffed by Sementa. When Sementa returned a small diamond McAvoy rose on the DA. He played a heart to dummy and cashed the CA. If he could score the SK and a club ruff then he was home. He played a diamond to the DK and when the DQ dropped he could ruff a club and claim. The play started off the same way in the OR but here Baxter returned a club when in on the CA. Without the club from the diamond play Ferraro decided to play for the double diamond finesse. When the DJ lost to the DQ he was down.
The Rayner team made few errors and played aggressively and it was thus that they top home all the VP.
October 5th, 2010 ~ linda ~
3 Comments
Here it is 11:20 EST and Wednesday‘s Bulletin is already online for me to read. The official count is 145 teams in the open 31 in the women’s (I guess they didn’t need to do anything to come down to 32 teams!).
On the cover of the Bulletin I see that the ACBL hosted a party for Jose Damiani, president of the WBF who is retiring. Looking back over the years he has done a great job and will be a hard act to follow.
Four teams in each of the 16 brackets of the Rosenblum advance to the round of 64 on Friday. Meanwhile I have had a lot of fun watching and doing commentary on Round Robin matches.
With only 31 teams in the McConell the women are divided into two groups with a bit more than half the field advancing to the KO phase, round of 16.
Brent Manley wrote up Board 18 from the second Round Robin session in the Rosenblum. Here is the deal
| Dealer: East
Vul: NS
|
Pottenger
♠ 7
♥ K107542
♦ AKQ752
♣ – |
|
| Zmud…
♠ K8
♥ J93
♦ 4
♣ KQJ10875 |
|
Balicki
♠ AQJ953
♥ A86
♦ 93
♣ A5 |
|
Rimer
♠ 10642
♥ Q
♦ J1086
♣ 9632 |
|
In the match I was watching Zmudzinski and Balicki were sitting West and East respectively playing for the Cayne team while Pottenger was North and Rimer was South. This team was from San Francisco and their team name was based on their zip code or something like that: SAN3PDX1. The match was very well played and this board was no exception. Here was the bidding at my table:
| Zmudzinski |
Pottenger |
Rimer |
Balicki |
|
|
1♠ |
pass |
| 2♣ |
2♥ |
2♠ |
pass |
| 3♣ |
4♦ |
4♥ |
5♦ |
| 5♠ |
pass |
6♣ |
pass |
| pass |
6♦ |
pass |
pass |
| 6♠ |
DBL |
pass |
pass |
| 7♣ |
all pass |
|
|
1♠ was limited to about 16 points so Balicki had a maximum. 2♣ was basically a game force. North could have bid 2NT to show two suits but chose to show his extreme shape by bidding the suits one after another after Zmudzinski rebid his high quality clubs. East could play in either black suit and the 4♥ cue bid was a slam try. Rimer didn’t have much but what he had was going to be very useful to a parnter who had bid so aggressively vulnerable and so ventured 6♦.
When Zmudzinski supported spades it was enough for Balicki to bid the slam. At the time we were speculating on whether East-West could get to the club slam which is the only one that makes since Pottenger can double for a club lead against 6♠. And 6♣ was exactly what East-West bid. But Pottenger spoiled their party by continuing to 6♦ despite being vulnerable. Partner was quite likely to be short in hearts with decent diamonds for the raise to 5♦. This will normally go one down (although temporaily at least the score showed from the other room showed up as 6♦ doubled and making, later changed to 6♦ down 1.)
When North doubled 6♠ it was pretty clear he had a club void so Zmudzunski thought he might as well try 7♣. Had East been on play South might have a tough decision about which red suit to lead. A heart lead being fatal since the diamond loser can be discarded on spades. But with North on lead the only real choice was the right one the ♦A. Still it isn’t often that you get to a power grand slam (not a save) and go one down and win imps on the board even if it is a measly 4 imps. Brent has a list of score with frequencies on them but somehow the results I watched was missed since nobody else played 7♣. Some pairs did tough it out in 6♠ X and it appears that both of them actually made it when South did not find the club lead. One pair redoubled and went down. Maybe the redoubled provides a hint. For the rest of the results have a look at the daily Bulletin. (Thank you Brent, for … the rest of the story.)
In the Rosenblum I couldn’t help but notice that the Pinor Noir team was leading group one. I had to know who they were. It turns out that they do include some great wine countries, France, Brazil and Argentina
My postal code team, San3PDX1. from the second match who played so well
is tied first with Auken
I was also intrigued by the name Joseph and the Cards who led one of the divisions. Here Sabine Auken and Daniela von Armin chose to play Open and not Women’s this year.
The McCONNELL CUP is divided into two groups of about 16 and has played 5 rounds so far.
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