Some “Love”ly help from a reader

August 5th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

My attention was drawn to a rather nice problem in the  Bridge Squeezes Complete when I received an email from reader Dave Dunstan.  He immediately grabbed my attention because he obviously enjoyed the book and was working through it problem by problem.  I hope he doesn’t mind if I quote him; ” I never knew squeezes could be so much fun to read about, hope to spot a few at the table. The more I read, the better I get at guessing the best way to go.”

Anyway Dave reported a mistake and I had a look at the deal.  It is fairly complex and only read on if you are well versed in squeeze theory as Dave now is. The problem is presented double dummy in the book but here it is single dummy for you to try.

Dealer: Vul:	North ♠ 4 ♥ AJ4 ♦ AJ97 ♣ AQ983
West ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣		East ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣
	South ♠ AKQJ1095 ♥ 6 ♦ K62 ♣ J4

You have arrived in 7NT after East opened the bidding with 1♦ and are two tricks short.  The opening lead is ♦3.  You have eleven top tricks and it seems certain on the auction that the club finesse will fail.  This is one of those hands were you must think things through before playing to trick one.

………………………………………………..

If as seems likely East guards all the other suits then you can make the hand with a repeating squeeze.  Your plan is to run all the spades.  East will have to unguard one of the suits. Then when you cash winners in that suit East will be squeezed again.  There is one issue however you must be careful to keep communication to the South hand after the first squeeze has operated.  So although it seems natural to win the diamond in hand you must win the ♦A in dummy at trick one.  (More about that later).  Now you run all of the spades.  After playing six rounds of spades this is the position.

Dealer: Vul:	North ♠ – ♥ AJ ♦ J9 ♣ AQ
West ♠ irrelevant ♥ ♦ ♣		East ♠ – ♥ KQ ♦ Q10 ♣ K10
	South ♠ 5 ♥ 6 ♦ K6 ♣ J4

When you lead the last spade East will be squeezed in three suits.  The question is what card to throw from dummy.  Obviously you must hold onto the hearts.  Let’s suppose you discard the ♣Q as suggested in the book.  Your idea is to use the ♣J in hand as the threat against East’s ♣K.  If East discards a heart you cash dummy’s hearts and the ♣A.  Now you have a diamond-club squeeze against East who has to pitch before South.  If East discards a club  then you cash the ♣A.  You cross back to hand with the ♦K and cash the ♣J throwing the last diamond from dummy.  East is squeezed in hearts and diamonds.  But suppose East discards a diamond.

A funny thing happens on your way to 7NT, as Dave noticed.  To operate the squeeze you have to cash out diamonds.  When you cash your second diamond you will be in dummy with no way back to your hand.  If South had a diamond spot higher than North’s the squeeze would work.  Suppose we reverse the ♦6 and the ♦7.  Now if you make sure to unblock the ♦9 at trick one the squeeze will again operate! If South throws a diamond you cash the ♣A and then play diamonds.  You are in hand on the last diamond to cash the ♣J if East has unguarded it or win the last two tricks in dummy with hearts.  But since your highest diamond spot the ♦6 is lower than North’s lowest diamond spot the ♦7, the squeeze will not operate if you throw the ♣Q on the last spade.  You have to throw a diamond instead.  Assuming East has at least four diamonds then the squeeze operates (otherwise West can guard diamonds with 8xx).  Now the squeeze works no matter what East throws because in effect you have unblocked diamonds.  You do need to make sure to cash the ♣A ( a kind of Vienna Coup) if East throws a diamond since you will have to discard the ♣Q on the second diamond.

Here is the actual hand:

Dealer: Vul:	North ♠ 4 ♥ AJ4 ♦ AJ97 ♣ AQ983
West ♠ 8732 ♥ 1098532 ♦ 3 ♣ 65		East ♠ 6 ♥ KQ7 ♦ Q10854 ♣ K1072
	South ♠ AKQJ1095 ♥ 6 ♦ K62 ♣ J4

I think this is a very pretty hand with lots of interesting components.  But then again, I love squeezes.  Thanks Dave.  Other readers are invited to send in comments or corrections on the book too.  I do appreciate it.

A lovely criss cross squeeze in the third quarter of the Spingold Final

August 2nd, 2010  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

♦ I love this interesting hand which occurred in the third quarter of the Spingold final when everything seemed to be going Meltzer’s way.  As Board 34 started Meltzer was losing 46imps to 70 imps and this deal was part of the turnaround that left Meltzer ahead as the quarter ended.  This deal is interesting because it provides a wonderful opportunity for Sontag to execute a rare squeeze and it shows the great difficulty for even top players like Moss and Gitelman to defend against it.  Since I have been using music to help me along I think this intellectual hands needs a Mozart concerto and because it is Sontag it has to be the allegro movement.  This is Board 34 of the final and I have rotated the hand to make it easier to read.

Dealer: North Vul:  E-W	Berkowitz  ♠ Q83  ♥ Q6  ♦ AQ5  ♣ AKJ106
Moss     ♠ 762  ♥ AKJ5  ♦ 8642  ♣ 53		Gitelman ♠ KJ954 ♥ 2  ♦ KJ109 ♣ Q72
	Sontag ♠A10  ♥ 1098743  ♦ 73  ♣ 984

1♣ was strong and artifical and Sontag’s double showed less than 5 points.  After the Gitelman and Moss bid spades Sontag introduced his six-card hearts suit with 3♥ and there he played.  Moss led the ♠7 and Gitelman ducked (putting up an honor would have allowed Sontag to set up a second spade trick anyway for a pitch anyway).  At this point on the lie of the cards it seems that Sontag has three heart losers and a loser in each minor as long as Moss plays a diamond at some point, down one.  But the play took an interesting turn.  Sontag led a heart, Mostt won the ♥K and switch to a diamond.  Sontag lost the diamond finesse and Gitelman returned the ♦J won in dummy with the ♦A.  Sontag played the ♥Q and Moss was on lead again as Gitelman threw a small spade.  Moss continued spades ruffed by Sontag who played anorther heart GItelman throwing a spade again.  This was the position:

Dealer: Vul:	Berkowitz  ♠ Q8  ♥ ♦ –  ♣ AKJ10
Moss     ♠ 62  ♥ 5  ♦ 4  ♣ 53		Gitelman ♠ KJ ♥   ♦ 9 ♣ Q72
	Sontag ♠ A  ♥ 98  ♦ –  ♣ 984

Moss in on lead now.  He has to place Gitelman with the ♣Q and ♠K or else the hand is over.  It looks safe enough to return a diamond since no simple squeeze will work on East who lies over both of the threats the ♠Q and ♣J which are in dummy.  There is one problem.  Sontag has an alternate threat in the club suit, the ♣9.  As long as he retains the ♠A as an entry to his hand he has a rare criss-cross squeeze.  At this point a black suit return will defeat the hand.  A spade return immediately removes Sontag’s entry to his hand after he has played trump.  He can win the ♠A and play two trump but Gitelman simple keeps the same black cards as dummy.  If Moss returns a club Sontag can win but has to squander the ♠A to get back to his hand to play trump.  But when Moss returned a diamond Sontag ruffed throwing a club from dummy and played the last trump discarding another club from dummy.  Now this is what Gitelman is confronting as he has to play last to this trick (the bold bracketed cards in the North South hands have been played).

Dealer: Vul:	Berkowitz  ♠ Q8 ♥  –  ♦  – ♣  AK(J)
Moss  irrelavant		Gitelman ♠ KJ ♥ – ♦ – ♣ Q72
	Sontag ♠  A ♥  (9) ♦  – ♣   984

if he throws a spade Sontag cashes the ♠A and then dummy is high.  If he throw a club Sontag cashes the top clubs in dummy and returns to his hand with the important ♠A to take the ♣9 as his game going trick.  A beautifully executed criss-cross squeeze to make his contract and win 5 imps for the Meltzer team.

In the Closed Room in the same contract and with the same lead Nunes with the East hand put up the ♠J.  Hampson had to play another spade to get his discard.  South won and returned a third spade as Hampson threw a diamond.  In the end there was no chance of a squeeze on this defence and he eventually went down one.

The Winner Takes It All … Abba sounds in the background

August 1st, 2010  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

I had no intention of watching the fourth quarter of the Spingold final. I had already written a blog about the third quarter which had lots of interesting deals but I couldn’t help myself. The bridge kept me glued to the screen for several hours early this morning. And it was worth it. I know I won’t be able to write about the match in one blog but I can get a start.

And to help me along I am playing ABBA: “The Winner Takes It All”. I do this because I am thinking about how very small the difference is between winning and not winning. You play a week of bridge, long tough matches against great opposition. You win a tough semifinal and then in the final you play to almost a draw. But in the end there is a winner and a loser. And so it was early this morning New York time that Diamond snuck out a victory against Meltzer on the second last board in a toughly fought match and so it is Diamond smiling on the front page of the NABC Daily Bulletin and it is they who will have their names on the wonderful trophy.

Winning in any sport is about being mentally tough and that is certainly a requirement in a tough top class bridge event.  The third quarter had been a bit of a nightmare for the Diamond team but they were not far behind and they had to put that all behind them.  The fourth quarter was a roller coaster and although the players do not see the running score they must have felt it too.  The Diamond team started the quarter down 18 imps and they came out like tigers winning 22 unanswered imps so that by Board 54 they had regained the lead.  Then came this deal where a bit of luck swung Meltzer’s way (deal rotated).

North ♠ AQ8  ♥ 9832  ♦ K107  ♣ K63

South ♠ KJ976 ♥ AQJ5  ♦ J  ♣ AQ4

 Do you want to be in 6♥  on these cards?  Well yes if it makes.  If the defense starts a diamond (as will likely be suggested by the bidding) you need trumps 3-2 with the queen onside.  Keycard Blackwood is designed to keep us out of these slams and it worked for Gitelman-Moss.  But in the other table Fantoni-Nunes had a long complex auction which ended with a leap to the heart slam (without a check for the♥K).  But today the Kxx of hearts was in the pocket and it seemed the momentum had shifted back as Meltzer took the lead again. 

A few more small swings brings us to Board 63 with the score 115-103 for Meltzer.  The boards had been played in the Open Room and they appeared to be two flat partscores as one of the commentators, I believe Larry Cohen, pointed out and said that he was probably cursing the Meltzer team by saying so and perhaps he was because here is Board 63.

Dealer: South Vul: NS	Berkowitz ♠ 43 ♥ 74  ♦ QJ86  ♣ Q7652
Moss ♠ K1065   ♥ K62 ♦ K105  ♣ J93		Gitelman ♠ Q9  ♥ 953  ♦ 432  ♣ AK1084
	Sontag ♠ AJ872  ♥ AQJ108  ♦ A97  ♣ –

There were a series of small decisions that in the end led to a disaster. 

 Sontag had to decide whether or not to open his hand a strong club.  I confess I would have and it must have been very close to make the decision that he did.  He opened 1♠.  Moss passed and now Berkowitz seemed to get the partnership out of trouble when he passed.  Gitelman doesn’t have that great a hand but Sontag is limited so he knows Moss has some cards.  He might have balanced 2♣ since he hardly has much of a spade stopper but he chose 1NT and this was a necessary part of the drama. 

Sontag must have reasoned now that he could hardly have a better hand than he did and not open 1♣ and that 3♥ would show this hand.  But then again it seems a bit much opposite a partner that didn’t squeak over 1♠.  Of course partner can pass slightly better hands over a limited opening and if Berkiwitz just had some hearts you could envision a hand that could make game.  The mistake in this reasoning, in my opinion, is that with nothing much but heart support Berkowitz would still likely raise 2♥.  But there is no certainty.  Had Berkowitz passed out 3♥ the story would likely have ended with a Meltzer win but he did the normal thing and bid 3♠.  Now it came back to Moss who huddled for a long time.

If he knew the score in the match it would have been obvious to double but he didn’t.  Doubling a partscore on the second last board of this match was a risk.  Was his side winning or losing?  He knew Sontag was 5-5.  Fred had to have a couple of spades for the 1NT call including almost certainly the ♠Q or ♠A.  In fact he could almost figure out the whole hand from the auction since he knew that Berkowitz was likely 2-2 in the majors.  Gitelman had promised some high cards so he made the call he knew he had to make and doubled.

Moss led a diamond which was a fairly good lead for declarer who won in dummy with the ♦ Q.  Sontag finessed the ♥Q losing to the ♥K and Moss found the shift to the ♣Q ruffed by declarer.  Sontag ducked a spade.   Gitelman won and returned a top club.  Sontag knew by now pretty much the lay of the land and had an almost complete picture of Brad’s hand.   This is an extremely complex hand and there is no obvious way to play it.  One down is possible on the lie of the cards if you read them perfectly but there are some distributions which might let Sontag make the hand.  If Brad held a doubleton club then 3♠ doubled can be made.  The end position might have been something like this.

Dealer: Vul:	Berkowitz ♠ 4 ♥ 7  ♦ J86  ♣ Q76
Moss ♠ Q106   ♥ 652 ♦ K10  ♣  –		Gitelman ♠ K  ♥ 9  ♦ 43  ♣ K1098
	Sontag ♠ AJ  ♥ AJ108  ♦ A9  ♣ –

Now Sontag lays down the ♠A and plays off heart winners keeing two diamonds in dummy (and therefore throwing clubs).  Moss can ruff in at some point and draw Sontag’s trump but in the end he wil be endplayed in diamonds.  This would mean that Gitelman balanced 1NT on a fragile spade stopper and six clubs though.  And the problem with this line is at the table it led to three down when Moss did have a third club.   (Two down would have ended in a 1 imp loss for Meltzer though.)   Congratulations to the winners:

John Diamond, Biran Platnick, Erico Greco, Geoff Hampson, Brad Moss and Fred Gitelman.

Check out today’s bulletin for more about this match and other interesting events.

A place of dreams? The Spingold Semifinal

July 31st, 2010  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

Perhaps every serious bridge player dreams of having a chance to play in the last round or two of the Spingold and then of course, well, winning it all.  The players in this years semifinals are experienced veterans in this arena of tough team games.  These days the final rounds are populated by professional teams with players from all over the world.  In one Semifinal match Diamond versus Cayne, the US met Italy with Geoff Hampson and Eric Greco playing Italy’s Lauria and Versace with Brad Moss and Fred Gitelman playing Sementa and Duboin.  This could easily have been a final round in a world championship.

When the players sat down to play Board 49 in the last quarter of the semifinal the score was tied at 76-76. This was the turning point of the match.   In the Open Room Lauria and Versace had a rare accident to end in 7♥  which had no play.    In the Closed Room Fred Gitelman ended in 6♥  and it was all on the play in the trump suit.  Here is the deal (rotated) Sementa-Duboin are vulnerable.

	Moss ♠ AQ3  ♥ AJ97  ♦ K53 ♣ KJ9
Sementa ♠   ♥   ♦   ♣		Duboin ♠   ♥   ♦   ♣
	Gitelman ♠  74 ♥  K10842 ♦  A108 ♣  AQ2

The opening lead was the ♠J and Fred put in the ♠Q which held the trick.  He laid down the ♥A and saw the ♥3 from Duboin and the ♥6 from Sementa.  He led a heart from dummy and saw the  ♥4. To make the hand he now has to decide whether to finesse or play to drop the queen.  I was pretty sure he would finesse and he did. 

I would be interested in his reasoning but here are some thoughts that Ray and I had.  Let’s start with vacant spaces.  At the beinning of the hand Sementa is known to have at least five spades and therefore Duboin can’t have more than three.  Sementa has two more vacant spaces.  But when Duboin followed with a heart the known vacant space difference had fallen to one (aassuming Sementa had five spades).  According to Bob MacKinnon in Bridge Probability and Information  with four cards missing to the queen you should finesse if the imbalance of vacant spades is two or more but with only a difference of one vacant space it is a tossup, finessing and playing for the drop are about equal.  But given the vulnerability there was a good chance that Sementa actually had six spades.  With spades 6-2 the vacant space count is 3 counting all the hearts that have been played and the spade difference.  This makes the finesse much better.  So overall vacant spaces suggests the finesse.  It is not that I think Fred went through this exact thought process but he did what all good bridge players do.  He recognized that if Sementa had five and quite likely six spades he was more likely to be short in hearts.  Are there any other clues?  Sementa had bid 1♠ vulnerable and he couldn’t have any high cards other than the ♠K and ♠J and possibly the ♦Q and ♦J.  He would not give much value to the ♥Qx.  So for his vulnerable overcall he was likely to have a bit of shape.  This is not enough to suggest the finesse but it adds weight to the vacant spaces argument.

There is one small extra chance which almost works on the hand and perhaps Fred considered.  If you play for the drop and it does not work then if Duboin holds the Q9x(xx) of diamonds or the J9x(xx) of diamonds and at least three clubs there is an endplay.  You would eliminate clubs and then spades and throw Duboin in on a trump.  He would be forced to lead a diamond and you can now pick up the suit for no losers.  (This works as well in the impossible case where Duboin has both diamond honors).

The whole story made the finesse more likely.  Fred actually didn’t think very long before ducking.  The finesse was on and he made the contract for a 14 imp lead in the match.  (Although I had the sense that he was rather relieved to see Sementa show out).  Here is the whole hand.

Dealer: Vul:	Moss/Multon ♠ AQ3  ♥ AJ97  ♦ K53 ♣ KJ9
Sementa/Berkowitz ♠ KJ10985 ♥ 6 ♦ Q94 ♣ 1063		Duboin/Sontag ♠ 62  ♥ Q53  ♦ J762  ♣ 8754
	Gitelman/Quantin ♠  74 ♥  K10842 ♦  A108 ♣  AQ2

This board was a swing in the other semifinal as well with Zaleski winning 14 imps from Meltzer for making the slam in the Open Room when Berkowitz made the same 1♠  overcall and Quantin guessed hearts correctly as well.  The play was slightly different.  Berkowitz (holding the long spade hand) led the ♦4 and Sontag’s ♦J forced the ♦A.  It turns out that this lead allowed Quantin to come up with rather a nice line of play.

Quantin finessed the ♠Q cashed the ♥A and then played ace and another spade.  This is a pretty safe play as Berkowitz is unlikely to hold seven spades.  Sontag showed out on the third round of spades as Quantin ruffed it (which of course makes the finesse odds on).  Now Quantin did something very interesting.  He cashed two top clubs ending in dummy.  Wasn’t this risky? Not really. 

Quantin planned to finesse hearts.  If Berkowitz won the ♥Q with a doubleton he would surely be endplayed in diamonds.  He was now known to have six spades, “two” hearts, two clubs and three diamonds.  That made the finesse pretty near 100% (unless something funny was happening in diamond suit).  But what if Berkowitz ruffed the second club with a small heart.  As long as he held only two hearts he would still be endplayed and Quantin could then catch the ♥Q with his remaining high trump. 

In the Closed Room in this match the defense had no real chance to bid because the level got too high too quickly and with no bidding to guide him Fantoni went wrong.  Perhaps a lesson in keeping ones mouth shut.  (Okay, okay maybe you want a spade lead).  This brought the score in the Meltzer-Zaleski (USA and Italy versus France) match to within 10 imps but after that Meltzer quickly won back 13 on the next two boards and really never looked back.

New Orleans NABC: The Wagar

July 30th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Normally I would have written a lot more about the New Orleans NABC but between traveling and just being very tired I have been quite negligent.  The coverage on the ACBL website is quite decent and I do love reading the bulletin each day.  Isn’t it great to look at that magazine each morning over breakfast!  So getting caught up a little I was happy to see that Lynn Baker’s team had won the Wagar Knockout.

Lynn Baker, Austin TX; Karen McCallum, Exeter NH; Kerri Sanborn, Stony Point NY; Irina Levitina, Hackensack NJ; Beth Palmer, Silver Spring MD; Lynn Deas, Schenectady NY

I had talked to Karen at the NABC as she was setting up her booth selling quite lovely jewelry she crafted.  She told me that she and Lynn had been working very hard and that it took a lot of effort to analyze thoroughly even one session.  It is nice to see that hard work can pay off.  The seeding had held up very well since the original top two seeds met in the final Baker (1) and Valerie Westheimer (2).  And to make it even more exciting the last quarter of the final was shown on BBO and it was very exciting.  Coming into Board 62 Westheimer led 118-114 (according to BBO’s unofficial score.)  Board 62 swung that around and decided the match.  Here are the East-West hands with nobody vulnerable and West the dealer:

West ♠ 94   ♥ AKQ8 ♦ QJ9843  ♣ 10

East ♠  AJ7 ♥  53 ♦  K6 ♣  AJ8764

Looking at both hands what is the best game 3NT or 5♦?  In 5♦ there is a risk of a very bad diamond break and you do still have to find an eleventh trick, possibly by setting up clubs or a spade trick.  3NT on a spade lead will make as long as declarer can take three diamond tricks having Given up the DA and the defense can only take three spade tricks.  Of course declarer might not get a spade lead and that would make chances even better.  Without having worked out all the probabilities I think 3NT is the better contract.  Well yesterday it was WAY better because bidding 3NT meant winning the match.

In the Closed Room Deas was East.  She was playing a strong club system so she opened 2♣ showing 11-15 and six or more clubs with no four-card major.  Palmer bid 2♦ an enquiry and Deas responded with 2NT showing a maximum with two outside suits stopped, which from Palmers hand showed spades and diamonds since she couldn`t have a heart stopper.  Palmer simply bid 3NT and they had reached the best contract in four bids.  In the Open Room there was a more complex auction.

Letizia showed some length clubs and denied a four-card major when she bid 2♣   Breed continued with a natural 2h bid describing her hand and the 2NT response did suggest stoppers in the other two suits.  So to some degree Breed had similar information to Palmer at that juncture although Letizia`s hand was not quite as limited and she didn`t know about the sixth club.  Maybe it was those to factors that gave her the incentive to suggest a diamond contract.  For one thing slam might even be possible if Letizia had the right hand say something like:

S AKx H xx D Kxx C Axxxx

So now she continued to show her 6-4 shape with 3♦.  Letizia had a great hand in a way with controls and a diamond honor so it was certainly reasonable to raise diamonds but Breed didn`t have enough extra to try for slam on her own and she simply bid the diamond game.  Either player could have decided to play 3NT instead of 5♦ and neither did anything eggregious.  on a good day 5♦ would have made.  Once Levitina(North) led the ♠K Breed knew she had a home for her fourth heart.  All she needed to do was bring diamonds home for one loser but that was not possible as the cards lay:

Dealer: Vul:	North ♠ KQ62 ♥  J974 ♦  – ♣  Q9532
West ♠ 94 ♥ AKQ8 ♦ QJ9843 ♣ 10		East ♠ AJ7 ♥ 53 ♦ K6 ♣ AJ8764
	South ♠ 10753 ♥ 1062 ♦ A10752 ♣ K

 Well done in the Closed Room and unlucky for Letizia-Breed and the Westheimer team who lost the event by 2 imps!

ABTA in New Orleans and our travels.

July 28th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Ray and I had a terrific time in New Orleans and our journey there and back.  While the ABTA meeting was the highlight there were many other great times.  First the ABTA: we really enjoyed the portion of the ABTA meetings we attended.  The teacher of the year was of course a real highlight.  Just before that Ray discussed some of our new books and also all about ebooks in his presentation.  It was one of his best presentations and it was interesting to see that a small smattering of teachers currently had ebook readers.  We speculated that a lot more hands would be raised next year if Ray asked them again if they owned a reader.

I heard a bit of a talk by Fred Gitelman.  He had a lot of interesting things to say but as part of it he tried to convince the teachers that the online interface was the best.  I am not convinced.  I still like the old one a lot better.  It also has a chat room (on in the old interface) where a student or a partner and I can both look at a deal together and discuss it.

Larry Cohen had an interesting talk which started out suggesting (strongly) that teachers should teach beginners 2 over 1.  In some later discussions I couldn’t find a single convert.  Larry’s argument was that although it made the auctions over 1NT (forcing) very difficult it simplified the auctions over a 2/1 since you now know that you are forced to game.  Well that may be true but you still have to discuss the meaning of 2/1 auctions and how to know if either partner has a minimum or more than a minimum and many of the forcing notrump auctions only work well with relays.  And the teachers were concerned that their friends and partners wouldn’t have a clue what they were doing.  Larry says that in 10 years everybody will be taught 2/1 just like today they are taught invitational raises and not forcing raises.  I guess we will see.

He also had a lot to say about how to handle high level major preempts.  The issue he discussed was the meaning of a double of four of a major.  Was a double of 4♥ takeout and a double of 4♠ penalty?  He didn’t think that made any sense and he doesn’t know why people would teach that.  You pretty well never have a penalty double of 4♠ (well at least not a trump stack).  I agree with him but the way I think of it is that the higher the contract you are doubling the more the double shows cards and is not specifically takeout.  Nor does it promise the unbid major.  I think this is true of 4♥ as well as 4♠ .  But you even have to think about the double of 3♠ (although here with a balanced good hand you may be able to bid 3NT).  But what would you do with ♠A2 ♥KJ2 ♦AKJ5 ♣K982?  If you double 4♥ I suppose you have to sit for 4♠ (and of course doubling 4♠ is just as bad especially if you reverse the spades and hearts).  I guess I would want to defend doubled a lot of the time and maybe play 4NT some of the time and then again opposite an unpassed partner lots of contracts might be possible.    I didn’t hear the whole talk so maybe he had some solutions.  If I ask Ray he will just say “you can’t be perfect over preempts.”

Some of our authors gave talks at the tournament or at the ABTA conference including Julian Laderman who gave me an incredible hug (figuratively) when he said that if we had published the revised Love Bridge Squeezes Complete before he wrote A Bridge To Simple Squeezes then he wouldn’t have bothered.  That was a great compliment coming from such an interesting bridge writer and top-class mathematician.

Then there was the ABTA boat cruise.  It was a lot of fun with a terrific jazz trio and the food was surprisingly good.  In fact this was pretty true of New Orleans generally, lots of music and the food was good.  On the boat cruise our big moment was when they announced the winner of the Beginner Book of the Year: Barabara Seagram and David Bird, Planning the Play of A Bridge Hand and the Intermediate Book of the year: Eddie Kantar’s Take All Your Chances.  Ray got to accept for Eddie who couldn’t travel to the tournament.  So there we were, winner of both book awards!

We had fun talking to all three of the book sellers who were there at New Orleans.  These days there are a lot of vendors and we had dinner with one of them, David Poriss, who refuses to retire after many attempts.  David had some interesting and some sad stories to tell.

One of the best parts of our New Orleans stay was my birthday dinner.  We went to a restaurant that had Zydeco music.  Zydeco music is Cajun folk/country music.  The music has a fast and strong beat.  The lyrics seem very country to me.  There was a singer or two or three, an accordion, guitar, fiddle and various other instruments.  The place had a large dance floor and as soon as the music started it was full.  Many of the dancers were obviously regulars.  The food was great and we celebrated with a dessert of bread pudding and key lime pie .. quite Southern.

As I had hoped, the US was shopper’s paradise and we visited a few malls around New Orleans where I did load up with clothes.  But Ray thought it was just fine because everything was incredibly inexpensive, I mean huge discounts.  All the stores and malls we visited were pretty empty with quite a few boarded up stores.  That part was a bit discouraging.

Still, all in all the ABTA was a hoot and it just shows you can have a great time at a bridge tournament and never play a card.  On the way home we visited the ACBL headquarters, but more about that in another blog.

A remarkable story about a remarkable woman

July 22nd, 2010  ~  linda  ~  10 Comments 

Yesterday we announced the ABTA MPP Teacher of the Year. It was an incredible afternoon. Many of the teacher finalists attended the American Bridge Teacher Association Convention and for the award announcement many brought students who sat in rows with special name tags ready to provide encouragement for their teacher. Barbara Seagram had each finalist stand up and she read their story. Then she asked for the “envelope please!” (She told me that she had always wanted to say that.) The winner was announced and it was Tina Radding. Tina couldn’t believe it. She was speechless and in tears and shaking. She came up to the stage and could hardly hold the envelope with the prize money and her beautiful trophy while many people took pictures of her. When asked to say a few words after a few minutes to compose herself she told us that she didn’t even know she had been nominated for a long time. Her students just did it. She couldn’t believe that she had won. Let me tell you about Tina first and then come back to her speech.

Tina teaches in Charleston, South Carolina and I admit I will never drive by there again without thinking of her. She is a tiny wisp of a woman with enormous energy and as her students put it she has an enormous passion for the game and for all of them. She volunteered to teach classes to raise money to fix up the local Bridge Center so they now have bridge pads, a new sound system and so on. As a result of all of her efforts the games at the bridge center have really grown.

She is a great motivator because her students know she cares about them. She gets to know everyone personally. She is interested in their lives as well as their bridge game. She is an innovative teacher. She dresses up in all sorts of costumes to illustrate her lessons. My favorite is the princess costume she uses to illustrate that you should “wait on the princess who has the big 2 club bid”.

She gets the players going to tournaments, forms teams (and even makes dinner reservations), she organizes pro-am games and other events. At the tournament the students are in and out of her room as she helps them in every way they need and then they all eat together since they all want to be with Tina.

She will come in early to help a student out if they miss a lesson or otherwise need help and in every way she has transformed the bridge community.

Tina’s husband died recently in a plane crash. He volunteered to fly mercy air ambulance trips and also taught young people to fly.

Now back to Tina’s speech.

She told us that her husband was always interested in what she did even though he didn’t play bridge. He wanted to know everything that happened that day. When he died she knew that she should continue to teach and that would be alright. She didn’t want to let her students down. Bridge is everything to Tina and the bridge world is glad that she feels so very passionately about the game.

Then her students came on stage to congratulate her and people took pictures of all of them. And I know that I was not the only one in that room who was overcome with emotion.

I talked to some of the other finalists and their students. They were understandably disappointed although one of them had said it had been a wonderful ride. But everyone thought Tina was a wonderful winner.

Tina in the yellow blouse with some of her students

Heading Down South to N’Orleans

July 16th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Ray and I are leaving bright and early tomorrow to journey slowly to New Orleans.  We are going slowly because we love to visit places along the way.  We will tour Civil War battlefield sites and go to a baseball game.  I also plan to shop.  Like all Canadians I find the US to be shopping heaven, especially with the Canadian dollar is near par.  I read a study about the price differential and overall things in Canada still tend to cost about 15-20% more on average, not to mention the much better selection in parts South.

When we arrive it will be just in time to attend the American Bridge Teachers Convention and I am really excited because I will be the one to make the actual presentation to the winner of the ABTA Mpp Bridge Teacher of the Year award.  Cameras, action!  Many of the nominees are traveling with lots of students to the event.  I hope the finalists who don’t win are not too disappointed because in my mind making it to the final group is a victory.  Besides meeting and talking to all the teachers, its always fun to see everybody at a Nationals.  Gavin and Jenny Wolpert are visiting Toronto and they stopped by yesterday.  They tell me that they will be having a booth at the nationals to help interest people in their new website www.bridgewinners.com  and to print convention cards for people, free.  They are going to be very busy with the booth, playing and a baby.  Although Jenny says the nationals are very child friendly.

I am feeling better than I have in a while although I am worried about asthma and hot humid New Orleans so I may act like a vampire and only come out when the sun sets and Cafe Du Monde is open 24 hours a day.  Ray has booked us in for a birthday dinner at Emeril’s.  We had fun reading the menu online.

For the first time in as long as I can remember I will not be taking an books to read.  I have put a number of ebooks on my iPAD including some of our bridge books.  I am going to see how much I like the ebook experience.  The great news is I have taken rather a lot of ebooks with me and it is not occupying space in my suitcase.

I won’t be blogging for a while.  I may have a chance to write a blog or two once I am in the hotel in New Orleans, we will see.  I am not taking my computer just my iPAD – I am in love, but Ray will have a portable with him.  I expect when I get home I will have a chance to blog about the later stages of the Spingold and I may just have to blog about Teacher of the Year even before I return home.

Some times it seems like 24 hours a day is just not enough!  Bye for a while.  And keep sending comments about bridgeblogging.  We do need your help.  (Check my previous post).

Linda

Nows Your Time To Tell Us About Bridgeblogging

July 13th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  12 Comments 

We made some changes to the bridgeblogging website a while ago.  It was intended to be Phase 1.  Phase 2 will fix anything that didn’t quite work in Phase 1 and also add some new features, like pictures of bloggers and better titles on feeds.   It also will resolves some technical challenges that should make the feeds more stable.  Before we start on Phase 2 we asked our bloggers for input and we are asking you for the same. 

If you don’t want to post here but have some ideas please send me an email at [email protected] or [email protected].  The more you help us the better the site will be for everybody. 

This is what we did in Phase 1:

We separated feeds from our own bloggers and blogs we pick up.  You will see two sets of blogs on the home page and two sets of links to blogs.  We did this because people were confused about why they couldn’t write comments on some blogs and why they looked different than others. 

We created a place for news and put in a new graphic every week or so.  This can be anything from a major bridge event to The Teacher of the Year.  We think it helps the page to look more interesting and it also allows us to have a chance to focus on topics we think will be interesting to bridge players.

We changed the design to make it more vibrant with new colors and mor graphical elements.

We created the idea of featured bloggers.  Featured bloggers were those we wanted to give a bit more prominence to from time to time.  It could be because they were commenting on a major event or because they were new or just to give you a chance to see a new face every some often.  We did run into a problem with this concept for two reasons:

a) we can only have one blog from a featured blogger on the home page at a time (without a lot of programming)

b) Some people felt that it was harder for them to easily find blogs they had read and those they hadn’t

Things we are considering for Phase 2:

1. Fix featured blogger to solve problems with it or drop or change the concept
2. When clicking on a home page takes you to a particular blog  either see the most recent other blogs of that blogger or make it very easy and clear how to do so.
3. Add pictures of bloggers whenever we can
4. Fix up the feeds from other bloggers to provide a better labels and to prevent problems (we have had a few). 
5. Look at providing links to other sites (but not blogs) in a better way.

I am sure we will come up with some others too! 

So now, it’s your turn … tell us what you think.  If you liked it better before then tell us why and maybe we can combine the best of the old and the best of the new.

Women? Bridge?

July 8th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Very little of the women’s side of the European Championship was shown on Vugraph.  That is not unusual and seems to happen at a lot of events.  Is that because it is too scary?  I thought I would have a look at the England-Netherlands 25th round match in the European Team Championship.  The first three boards produced double digit swings which I am going to review.

On the first board Netherlands was on the wrong side of the swing.  Consider how you would bid these two hands.  North is dealer with nobody vulnerable

Pasman ♠ AJ   ♥ KQ  ♦ AKQ5  ♣ Q7632

Simons  ♠ K2  ♥ AJ762  ♦ 10872  ♣ A9

Most methods will get you to slam.  It seems to me that 6NT from the north hand is the best since you still have some chances if diamonds don’t break evenly.  The logical contracts are 6♦, 6♥ and 6NT.  But you might get to a grand.   In th Open Room the auction did propel North-South to the no-play grand in diamonds.  This was their auction:

Apparently over the 5♥ enquiry 6♦ showed the ♦Q but no extras and denies the ♣K.  It is possible (although unlikely) that they have 13 tricks but I have no idea how you can work it out from the information available.   This is too wild a leap for me. Senior and Dhondy in the other room subsided sensibly in 6♦ to win 14 imps.  Of course frequent readers will know that I am not a big fan of bidding grand slams unless you are certain that you have an excellent play for it (80% plus) because just getting to the right small slam will often win a lot of imps. 

Dealer:  East Vul: N-S	North ♠ 987 ♥ 72  ♦ 842  ♣ K10754
West ♠ QJ10632  ♥ –  ♦ J973  ♣ QJ6		East ♠ K54  ♥ K93  ♦ AKQ105  ♣ 32
	South ♠ A  ♥ AQJ108654  ♦ 6  ♣ A98

East opened 1♦ and Simons doubled.  Maybe she has a hand too good for 4♥ but this approach never seems to work out for me.  I am not going to argue with anybody who wants to double though.   West bid 3♦ preemptive and this was passed back to South who now bid 4♥.  West loved this vulnerability and bid 4♠  and South doubled.  North removed the double to 5♣  which South corrected to 5♥.   Brown took insurance by bidding 5♠  which went down one doubled.  Here was the auction in the Closed Room.  You decide if you like Dhondy’s bidding or not.

I think there is an argument for doubling now.  The point is to tell partner that you have a 4♥ bid with high cards and bid it to make.  Now partner can decide whether to defend or to bid on.  Dhondy passed and it was 11 imps to  Netherlands.

In the third board of the match both declarers were in the same contract.  The difference was that the English defenders never bid while the Dutch defender gave away the show with her opening bid.

Dealer: S Vul: E-W	North ♠ K8  ♥ A982  ♦ 102  ♣ K10874
West ♠ AQ4   ♥ 5  ♦ AQ94  ♣ AQ963		East ♠ 932   ♥ KQJ10743  ♦ 5  ♣  J5
	South ♠ J10765   ♥ 6  ♦ KJ8743  ♣ 2

In the Open Room taking advantage of the vulnerability Simons opened 2♠ showing spades and a minor (usually 5-5 or 6-5 the way I play it anyway).  This did not prevent East-West from getting to 4♥.  Simons led the ♠J and Brown was taking no finesses with this auction.  She rose on the ♠A played trump and eventually made 4♥.  But in the Closed Room where Dhondy passed and led the innocent ♣2 there was nothing to make Verbeek suspicious.  She finessed.   Senior returned the ♣J and Dhondy got her club ruff with a stiff trump and when she returned the ♠J Verbeek had to decide if she was stiff-stiff in which case she could rise and play clubs discarding her spades or whether in fact she was underleading the ♠K.   Perhaps there was evidence that the ♠K was offside.  Senior returned the ♣J asking for a spade but Dhondy being 1-1 in the rounded suits seemed even more unlikely to her. So Verbeek finessed and went down one.   13 imps to England.  Which just shows that sometimes you win imps by not bidding.

The match was high scoring but in the end England prevailed 51 to 32.  I found the bridge entertaining and I would like to tell the authorities, go ahead show more of the best of women’s bridge.  We can take it.