May 1st, 2010 ~ linda ~
5 Comments 
Waiting for the 4th round of the Round Robin in the Italian Open Championships to start I commented about how much I like Italy. Italians just seem to be good at everything, wine, food, fashion, classic art and architecture, soccer (Inter Milan had just advanced to the final of the the Champions League in a strange game that even I had enjoye – New York Times article about Inter Milan win.) and of course bridge, winners of the European Open Championships 6 years out of 7.
So here we all were watching players like Versace, yum.
On Board 2 North Pinguello held vulnerable against not:
QJ98
5
AJ754
A108
Being last to speak the auction started 2 pass 4 to him. The former bid being weak. So the question on the table was should he bid or not. Partner probably doesn’t have all that many hearts either and he didn’t take action but that also means we are quite likely to have a fit somewhere. West’s bid of 4 could be weak or strong.
Worst Case:
If you don’t bid you could miss a vulnerable game
If you do bid, you could go for a vulnerable number.
There are a lot of other alternatives. Partner may pass and take his chances which could cost a modest 5 imps but you do have aces so you might win an imp or two if you defeat their contract doubled. The commentators (except me) thought double was clearcut. I didn’t. See above worst case about the “number”. I don’t have a problem with doubling but I think it is a difficult decision.
Here is one for challenge the champs, a great slam missed at both tables (one with no opposition bidding)
West (Giubilo)
54
732
AKQ4
KJ65
East (Versace)
AKQJ10986
A
97
94
Yes, Versace had 8 spades.
The auction started
| Giubilo |
Versace |
| 1 |
1 |
| 1NT |
2 (asking) |
| 2 (denying 3 spades) |
3 slam try |
| 4 |
|
Can you get to slam? The best one is 6NT (or 6) from West. But the strangest deal was this one. It involves a system break and an opening lead problem. The board had been accidentally rotated so that East was West and North was South etc. Was that an omen? I will let you hear the auction and try the lead. Versace was on lead holding against 6
East-West Vulnerable
| West |
North |
East |
South |
|
|
2 |
2NT |
| pass |
3* |
pass |
4 |
| pass |
4 |
pass |
4NT |
| pass |
5 |
pass |
6 |
| all pass |
|
|
|
3 was meant as a transfer.
West (Versace)
KJ9532
J9
K742
5
What do you lead? It seems like can account for all the spades, you have 6, north has five and declarer presumably 2. However, partner didn’t double for an unusual lead. And what does the auction mean. First it looks like South super-accepted spades and then when North signed off South asked for aces? And then bid a slam in clubs? Something is off the rails here.
I think in balance it is right to trust partner and just lead a heart and it would definitely have been right on this deal.
Here is the whole hand and no there was no adverse ruling as far as we have heard. The table result stood. There was a bit of a discussion amongst the commentators about this but in balance we agreed that after making a mistake South managed to wend his way to a lucky contract.
|
AQ1064
8543
8
AQ6 |
|
| KJ9532
J9
K742
5 |
|
87
AK10762
Q5
742 |
|
void
Q
AJ10963
KJ10983 |
|
I think a heart lead would have been automatic without the bizarre auction. My guess is that South worked out that he had messed up over the 4 bid and then hoped that North would figure out what was going on when he bid 4NT and finally just bailed in 6, lucking out.
April 30th, 2010 ~ linda ~
1 Comment
Coming home from Florida we played a lot of music and were surprised to notice how many songs referred to New Orleans. We like spirited songs we can sing to so we sang The City of New Orleans not once but twice.
Riding on the City of New Orleans, Illinois Central Monday morning rail…. and then the loud chorus of
Good morning America how are you?
Don’t you know me I’m your native son,
I’m the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I’ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.
|
But what really got me to thinking about New Orleans was a column I read yesterday which talked about how wonderful the food and entertainment was in this great city. The food sounded so yummy I am going to start making my own restaurant list before I go. i don’t want to miss a thing. Ray is becoming excited about driving there because we plan to go through Vicksburg. He has been reading his civil war battlefield book.
And this will be our opportunity to present the very first ABTA MPP Teacher of the year award. I am just glad that I am not the one to pick the winner. Don’t miss the facebook page with the photos and bios of the nominees
Facebook Teacher of the year
You can become a fan which is a way of showing your appreciation for these wonderful people.
Here is Norris "Pete" Peterson, one of the nominees in action.
So another trip down South is coming up pretty soon. Speaking of awesome people, Ray and I have been talking about how many Canadians have made a contribution to bridge and then I got my Bulletin and on the cover were the founding stars of the Canadian Bridge Hall of Fame. The first nominees are Bruce Elliott, Sam Gpld, Sami Kehela, Eric Murray and Percy Sheardown. All very worthy. If we were to add builders: I would put Audrey Grant, Fred Gittelman, Barbara Seagram, John Carruthers Eric Kokish and my wonderful husband Ray. Then there are some other terrific players like Geoff Hampson, Gavin Wolpert, a star of the future, Diana Gordon, Mary Paul, Francine Cimon and many others. If I missed some of the great players and builders please understand these are just examples.
April 29th, 2010 ~ linda ~
No Comments
Playing with Cora, my mentee, we had a number of hands that involved balancing. We talked about when you should balance and when you should pass it out. My thinking was that Cora was passing hands out too frequently on auctions that went Opening Bid- Overcall – pass-pass.
During the discussion I realized that Cora thought that to balance with a double you should have the unbid major. I used to think you needed to have good support for the unbid suits but that was a long time ago. Here is one of the hands we talked about.
Not vulnerable against vulnerable
Cora
104
KJ
Q964
AQJ72
In third chair Cora opened 1. East overcalled 1 and it was passed to her. Should she balance or not? I think given that I was a passed hand passing is very reasonable, especially at imps. And that is what she did. We beat it one trick with decent defense so at matchpoints. We would have wanted to get +200 at matchpoints although the hand doesn’t lie well for us and we are not going to make all that much. I was planning to pass the balancing double since my hand was:
Linda
AK864
Q9732
5
43
The discussion we had went like this. You don’t need good support for an unbid major to balance. With a normal opening bid and no extreme shape you should double if you have shortness in the overcalled suit in this type of auction. This suggests that partner might have a penalty double. After this discussion we left our chat room and played a few more deals. In a somewhat different auction I held (red on white)
Linda
K74
853
53
AQJ42
Do I balance? After the discussion I gave this hand quite a bit of thought. I have a poor holding in the opening bidders suit (and a not great hand either) so I passed. Since things were splitting terribly (clubs were 5-1)we might well have been doubled in 2 which goes for 500 so it turned out to be a good decision. What about double? Cora held
Cora
A109
J107
K10972
K6
That would have fetched 2 which will likely suffer a similar fate.
Maybe you would have balanced. I wouldn’t. But mostly I was thinking about how to explain my decision. In this type of auction I think it is more of a question about do we have a sensible place to compete than do we have a number. So in this position with length in the opening major I would like a fourth spade or a better suit to overcall.
I wonder if this makes any sense to Cora.
April 16th, 2010 ~ linda ~
1 Comment
A while back (in March) I wrote a blog about a round of the Camrose between 2 Irish teams.
The Clash of the Irish… Camrose
Just recently I noticed a comment from one of the players Tommy Gravey and I found it quite interesting. He had not found the defense that would defeat a contract of 6NT. This was an unfortunate result since the contract in the other room was 6 which required an impossible guess in hearts to make. Should Garvey have found the right defense? Was there a signaling problem with his partner? At the time I thought so but let’s look at it again, respecting Garvey’s comments.
North-South Vulnerable
| |
Garvey
Q1054
J1062
6
A974 |
|
| Hastings
KJ83
83
AKJ108
K8 |
|
Greer
A
AKQ974
Q5
J1053 |
| |
Carrol
9762
5
97432
Q62 |
|
| Hastings |
Garvey |
Greer |
Carrol |
| |
|
|
pass |
| 1 |
pass |
2 |
pass |
| 2NT |
pass |
3NT |
pass |
| 4NT |
pass |
6NT |
all pass |
Here according to Garvey 4NT showed some extra, about a strong notrump range. Garvey started off with the 10. He does have a terrible hand to lead from, doesn’t he? Greer won and continued with another heart seeing the bad break when Carrol threw the 7.
Now declarer led the J off the table. This was ducked all round. Declarer rattled off all his tricks and eventually endplayed Garvey who had to hold Qx of spades and the A.
Back to trick 2.
This is a tricky hand for the defenders to work out. There are many variations of pattern and point count and it is especially hard for Carrol to figure out how the missing high cards are distributed. Garvey on the other hand knows his partner has at most a queen and the only available one is the Q. Putting that card in partner’s hand this is his problem after partner played the 2 playing reverse count… I will let him speak for himself.
………………………………………………………..
tommy garvey April 6th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
4nt was described as quantitative, simply showing a strong nt.
John played the 2… he, correctly, thought it was important to play smoothly… but we do play reverse count…
Before you quickly dismiss my duck as a “defensive error” consider declarer having:
KJ83
83
AKJ10
K86
you will note that if you win the A, you are later squeezed in clubs and hearts but, if you duck, you can cope with any continuation (eg win the K (dropping pards queen) and return with the 9….)
interesting hand…
………………………………………………………
Garvey is completely correct if declarer had the hand he pictured than ducking is needed to defeat the slam. And I give him huge marks for figuring that out at the table. It is very difficult to keep in mind how to defend against squeezes!
So was this a signaling error by Carroll? Did he fail to plan at trick one and therefore have to just play a fast card? Would they not normally give count in this sitation, if so it is dangerous not to? Could Garvey have figured it out anyway? Carroll might have covered the J if he had a doubleton Q.
Eric Kokish does practice sessions where he gives partnerships tough hands to defend (like this one) and then they discuss what they might have done to get it right. Of course sometimes getting one hand right by changing your methods means that you will mess up your defense on a different hand with your “new” approach. Still this one deserves some discussion between Garvey and Carrol. (Something they may well have done already.)
I believe the defenders should have got this one right. I will assign no blame. But it is sad to lose 14 imps on a slam you could have defeated. Yes, this is a tough hand. It takes a good defender to duck the ace, even if it is wrong this time.
April 14th, 2010 ~ linda ~
No Comments
A lot of bids come down to that intangible thing called judgment. It is sometimes intriguing in a team match with players of reasonably equal skills to go back and look at the choice you each made. I was sitting East and vulnerable against not I held this hand
QJ8
AQJ5
J
KJ832
I admit I was a bit distracted and a bit groggy and Ray came in part way through intent on further distracting me. He did also provide some interesting comments.
This was the auction when it got to me in fourth chair
| Sylvia |
North |
Linda |
South |
| |
|
|
1 |
| pass |
1 |
|
|
Do you bid on my hand? The only sensible call seems to be double since even I am not keen on bidding 2 with a modest hand and a modest suit at this vulnerability The player holding my hand at the other table doubled. This is what I thought. I do have 14 HCP (not counting the singleton J but a lot of them are hearts. The K does figure to be onside true. I am not crazy about doubling with my spades. Maybe I will just wait and see what happens. At my table South bid 1 and North jumped to 3. All of this made me pretty happy about not bidding. Finally South ended the auction with 5. By this point Ray was jumping up and down and saying I should double. He was right too. But I wasn’t giving in to husband histrionics so I passed.
This was the whole deal
| |
North
void
K932
A1086
Q10954 |
|
| Sylvia
976542
107
Q952
7 |
|
Linda
QJ8
AQJ5
J
KJ832 |
| |
South
AK103
864
K743
A6 |
|
Sylvia found a heart lead and we started off we four rounds of hearts. Sylvia ruffing the fourth rounds as declarer through a club. By the time it was all over we were +150 (Should have been +500, sorry Ray).
At the other table where my hand doubled, South redoubled and West (Sylvia’s hand) bit 1. So far it wasn’t too bad. Here is the entire auction. I won’t comment on the remaining auction.
| West |
North |
East |
South |
| |
|
|
1 |
| pass |
1 |
Dbl |
Rdbl |
| 1 |
2 |
2 |
pass |
| pass |
3 |
DBL |
3 |
| 3 |
pass |
pass |
DBL |
| all pass |
|
|
|
3 DBL might go down two after the opening club lead but at the table 1 down was worth 8 imps. Was passing the better choice? Or was it the rest of the auction at both tables?
Here Sylvia made a good bid, much better than her counterpart, in my opinion.
Sylvia
1062
A4
654
J10854
We were not vulnerable against vulnerable and at both tables the auction started the same:
| West |
North |
Linda |
South |
| |
|
1 |
DBL |
| pass |
1 |
2 |
3 |
Sylvia made the big bid of 5. Cora (my student) if you read this, it explains the point I have been trying to illustrate. If you are going to save its usually right to make one big bid and make them guess.
Here was the North hand
North
K8754
10865
KJ2
3
Should North double, bid or pass? He has an extra spade, what looks like a heart fit but those diamonds don’t look all that good. The original 1 bid didn’t promise anything and this is not a forcing pass. North is under pressure and I can understand his choice of 5. This was the whole deal
| |
North
K8754
10865
KJ2
3 |
|
| Sylvia
1062
A4
654
J10854 |
|
Linda
void
QJ2
A10983
KQ972 |
| |
South
AQJ93
K973
Q7
A6 |
|
At the other table on the same start to the auction, Sylvia’s hand took a different view of his assets and passed. Now North was able to bid 4. My hand made the rather aggressive bid of 5. South doubled and North passed. Even if West had bid 4 North would have bid 4 and if either defender bid 5 they would likely have played there doubled.
April 10th, 2010 ~ linda ~
No Comments
I had some fun watching and commenting on the 2010 Australian Seniors Playoff last night. I was watching Round 2 of 9. There is an excellent website (North Americans take note) which has all you would want to know including convention cards, hand records, results by round by hand and so on. It’s effective, easy to use and I hear from Nick Fahrer that it was not all that hard to program. Have a look
Australian Senior Playoffs
Since they use Bridgemate the scoring is almost live.
Round 2 was not a good one for those who like to bid a lot (and I expect that would be most of the Aussies playing!). How would you bid this hand?
Board 23 Both Vulnerable Dealer South
The auction starts with two passes and then 1NT and it is your turn. Neill was able to bid 2 showing hearts (you get a similar effect if you are playing 2 shows an undisclosed major), When partner bid 2 he chose to bid a modest 3 and that ended the auction. If you are playing a system where you have to more or less just bid the suit then perhaps 3 directly is right. Or maybe 2 is enough? What do you think. Well 2 would have been plenty this time.
This is the whole deal:
Lusk who is famous for bidding aggressively (or as it has been called Lusky) knew how to defend aggressive contracts and found the best lead, a trump. Three has no play but it is interesting to see if you can make 2. The goal is to avoid allowing Chan in and to keep Lusk on lead since he will eventually have to help you. Suppose you decide that Lusk has not led away from the trump queen and cash the top two hearts. Now you play a top spade and are pleased to see the J9 fall. Lusk is in. He can get out a spade but you win and return another and he is endplayed. It seems only a bit far fetched. In fact, all of the other tables who played this board played in 4 but one. At that table the West hand decided to pass 2 and tough it out there. (Not something I would do). 2 was not a success and went 3 down.
I have this theory and I have been using it recently. Some matches things just don’t make. It doesn’t pay to push. It’s better to back pedal a little. What do you think?
Here is an example of a Lusky auction. It started us all off in the mood on the first board of the set.
Lusk
void
3
AKQJ1042
A10754
Lusk was dealer with both sides vulnerable and started things off with a quiet 1.
Hughes Lusk Neill Chan
1 2 2
3 ?
You are not surprised the opponents are bidding hearts. Partners spade preempt is not thrilling suggesting he has very little help. Still if he has six spades and say two hearts he has to have five minor cards or so. There is an argument for ignoring clubs since diamonds are self supporting and most of the time the hand will play at least as well in diamonds. Your call?
The Lusky bid is 5. Unfortunately as mentioned before this was not a time to be Lusky. Here is the whole deal
On a very good day you might even make 5 with the clubs behaving splendidly. But that was not the case in Round 2. Every North-South pair played 5 and everyone got the lead of the A and everyone went down. The match ended with Hughes-Neill outscoring Lusk-Chan 19 imps to 16 imps to win a modest 16 VP to 14 VP.
The event continues Saturday April 11. It’s always fun to watch Aussies. Take a peek.
10952 
Q 
K9873 
A54
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