Vanderbilt Day 4 Predictions

March 19th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

There were a lot of upsets yesterday in the Vanderbilt.  It seems worth it to look at the teams that remain and of no I am going to make “predictions”.

John Diamond, Brian Platnick, Brad Moss, Fred Gitelman, Geoff
Hampson, Eric Greco
vs
Martin Fleisher, Michael Kamil; Chip Martel, Lew Stansby;
Robert Levin, Steve Weinstein

The Diamond team was seeded #3 and besides having some of my personal heroes on it has certainly earned their seed.  I have watched them on BBO vugraph several times and they are a very talented group.  They will have a tough match against the very able Fleisher.  Pairs like Stansby and Maretl and Levin and Weinstein are very tough.  Still the Diamond team has had some very tough opponents all along.  If they are ahead or not to far behind going into the last quarter I predict Diamond will continue on.

Carolyn Lynch, Mike Passell, Andrew Gromov – Aleksander Dubinin,
Cezary Balicki, Adam Zmudzinsk
vs
Aubrey Strul, Michael Becker Fulvio Fantoni, Rome Italy; Claudio Nunes,
Erik Saelensminde, Boye Brogeland, Norway

This is another tough pick, no surprise about that,  here we have mainly a battle of European teams.  Poland seems to be the new “Italy” of bridge producing so many great players.  Still I am going to pick Stul.  I had dinner with Boye Brogeland and others from the Norwegian team and as Ray can tell you after that I am a bit of a groupy.  So if only for sentimental reasons …

John Onstott, Gary Cohler, Tarek Sadek, Walid Elahmady,  Jim
Krekorian, Drew Casen 
vs
Pierre Zimmerman, Franck Multon, Michel Bessis, Thomas Bessis, Tor Helness, 
Geir Helgemo,

I love watching Helness and Helgemo play so I am going to pick Zimmerman to prevail.

Martin De Knijff, Frederic Wrang, Fredin, Bjorn
Fallenius, Fredrik Nystrom,  Peter Bertheau

vs

Romain Zaleski,  Albert Faigenbaum, Dominique Pilon,
Jean Quantin, Marc Bompis,

The battle of Sweden against France.  I like all things French but today it will be Sweden’s day.  Besides I once played the Fallenius adjunct and I might still if I could remember what it was

Let’s see if I do better than the dart throwers (who would average 50%).  Did you notice that it appears that most of the European teams had fairly low seeds which is why the 15th seed Kniff is meeting the 26th seed Zaleski in the round of 8.

Vanderbilt Day 2

March 18th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

I was assigned to do commentary on the fourth quarter match between Team Poland and Diamond.  I was delighted to see the quality of the players I would be watching but since the match actually started at a quarter to one my time I was also delighted to see a number of great commentators arrive, allowing me to leave early.  I had the pleasure of watching some great bridge and then coming back to the match more rested to see the rest.

Playing for Diamond was Greco-Hampson North South in the Open Room and Gitleman-Moss East-West in the Closed Room

Team Poland fielded Kwiecien-Jagniewski East West in the OR and Kotorowicz-Kalita North South in the CR.  Please forgive me if I make the odd spelling mistake of the Polish names.  I do have some Polish ancestory (great grandparents) but I have only ever seen their pictures.  Nice looking couple wearing very odd clothes in a sepia colored photo.

There were only 6 imps between the two teams after three quarters in a fairly low scoring match (1 imps for Team Poland and 65 for Diamond).  The last 16 boards provided some very good bridge, a lot of flat boards and 4 big swings.  Fortunately for the Diamond team 3 of them were their way.  The match ended 106-86 for Diamond.

Board 53

North dealer North-South vulnerable

At one table, Hampson and Greco got to 3NT by and at the other Kotorowicz and Kalita arrived in 5 both from the North hand. Where would you like to be?

Lets start with 5, Kotorowicz received the lead of the J and he won he Q, a good start and cashed the A.  You could lead a club to dummy planning to throw a club on the top hearts and then play a spade.  Let’s say that you are able to create a spade winner this way.  You have four outside winners and need seven trump winners which seems plausible or you might be able to set up spades (you could afford to lose two).  North decided to lead the 10  from hand which is another way to set up spades. 

Gitelman East won the queen and returned a heart ruffed.  Kotorowicz then led a club to dummy’s ace planning to cash winners and crossruff no doubt when Fred ruffed in and returned another heart. 

Now the defenders have two tricks and North can set up hearts by ruffing but he will still end with a club loser in the dummy if he draws trump.  It seems to me he is committed to a crossruff.  I think he has to throw a club from hand and win the heart in dummy and then crossruff.  He can ruff the club with his small trump but he is going to have to ruff a heart with the 9 so he will need some luck there and he will have to make two spade ruffs with the 10 and 3.  It doesn’t look too bad (and it works on the lie of the cards).  But instead declarer ruffed the heart and there was no longer a play for the hand.

In the other room East bid 3 over 1 and Greco ended in 3NT.  The preempt was to help him along in a tough contract but on the other hand he did not get a club lead.  Here is the whole hand

	North KJ1043 A Q952 Q75
AQ752 QJ109 J74 6		96 876 86 KJ10943
	South 8 K5432 AK103 A83

Greco’s approach was to set up hearts.  He started by playing a spade winning the jack in hand and cashing the A.  He played a diamond to the table and ducked a heart.  East won and returned a club which Greco won in dummy.  Another small heart from dummy sealed the deal and he could still get back for hearts on the 10.  Easy peesy. 12 imps.

These guys are much better declarers then me but I wasn’t crazy about how Kwiecien played this hand in 4 and neither did the commentators.  What do you think?  (this time I rotated the hand for you).

Board 63

	Jagniewski 103 KQ754 AQJ75 8
AQJ6 932 862 K2		K72  A10 93 976543
	Kwiecien 9854 J86 K10 AQJ10

After Kwiecien opened 1 Polish, he got to be declarer in 4 because this pair played transfer responses to the opening one club bid.   The opening lead was a diamond.  How would you play the hand?  I like a ruffing finesse in clubs myself.  Its not a matter of whether it works or no, its just that you will be better placed if it losses.   Kwiecien took a club finesse and they cashed out for one down when it lost.  I know I am right on the lie of the cards but maybe his play has more merit than it intially appears?  (Yes see comments later I know drawing trump and claiming works well too!)

So these two swings were oddly on declarer play.

On the very last board of the match Greco and Hampson bid a grand where you needed to pick up the queen in a side suit missing four.  When Jagniewski showed up with four trump to Kwiecien’s two Greco decided to finesse the clubs playing Kwiecien for queen third.  It doesn’t seem unreasonable since their are more vacant spaces in the West hand.  Perhaps Bob will chime in here with the odds.  But it was wrong.  Fortunately for Diamond by this time they had imps to spare.

Can You Get To This Slam In Standard Methods – Read Larry Cohen’s Answer

March 18th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Recently I posted a blog which featured this hand from the the Swedish District Championships

The issue: Is it possible to get to the heart slam playing standard methods.  I have some answers from experts who responded to my blog.  But most involved some very unusual treatments.  I decided to ask the maven Larry Cohen.  In Larry’s book My Favorite 52

Larry managed to get to a lot of great contracts on lesser fits (even when knowing their side held a better fit).  So he was the ideal person to ask. 

In the match, at one table the pair routinely got to 6. 

The “normal” auction at the other table was

North	South
	1
1	3
4	4
4NT	5
6

 Larry answered that in a standard system such as 2/1 or SAYC the first three bids will be the same and it will be impossible to avoid playing in spades.

For many players in a forcing club system after North shows a positive and five spades when South opens a strong club, the die will be cast.  Those playing relay systems where responder describes their hand exactly will be well positioned to make the slam.

At the other table they were playing a very unusual system South showed a strong hand and North an opening bid with five spades.  South then used a series of relays to find out that north was 5-4-2-2 with two aces and the club king.  He could at that point used 4NT to find out about queens but apparently wasn’t sure that he could know exactly which queen North had.  (They need more relays here!).  So he settled for 6.

Larry wants to add that this hand will not make his book! 

Larry has a great website Bridge with Larry Cohen.  There is lots of content and it is the “Real Deal”, very instructive and entertaining.  (One of my all time top sites made better).

For more suggestions on how to bid this hand and some interesting system ideas read the comments from readers at this blog:

Strange Systems

Watching The Vanderbilt Day 1

March 16th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Since I didn’t want to write five blogs in a day I decided to consolidate my day’s Vanderbilt blogging activities. 

Watching the first match, first quarter we have the number 16 seed facing the number 49 seed.  Not that either of these teams are pushovers.  Two of my favorites are playing on teh #16 Zimmerman team,  Helness and Helgemo.  I watched a high scoring first quarter.  One of the big swing occurred on Board 15 of 16, just when the players were starting to think about a bit of food.

In the Open Room  Gabriella Olivieri of Italy had this problem sitting east in fourth chair at favorable vulnerability.  She held

East

AKQ6
A
A962
AQ42

The auction had started 2 by South showing spades and a minor (usually 5/5 or better weak).  Her partner Jacqui Mitchell of New York New York (I always sing that name) passed and North bid 4 to play.  Okay smarty, what is your bid.  Warning mucho imps are riding on your decision.  Double seems pretty reasonable to me but it has the disadvantage that partner who is quite likely to have a minor suit on this auction may pass without many hearts and that might not be very good for you. 

Do any of you master solvers types like 4NT?  If you double do you think Mitchell should pull with

West

J102
106
KQJ1053
83

Not so easy really.

4 doubled made an uptrick as did 6.  Here is the whole hand

I was a commentator in Round 2.  This time I was in the Closed Room watching Fleischer who was playing with Kamil.  Their partners in the Open Room were Levin and Weinstein.  They were playing the Agica team and the score after the first quarter was an amazingly low 16-10 for Fleischer.   PO. Sundelin was one of the commentators along with me and we had some interesting chats.  On this deal you have as North all not vulnerable:

KQ9
AQ106
J842
86

East passes and partner bids 1.  You bid 1NT forcing.  I think this hand is a game force over 1.  I don’t see anything wrong with bidding 2 on my way to supporting spades.  Anyway partner bids 4 over your 1NT.  You call? 

a) pass b) 4NT c) 5 d) 6

What would you do?  I would bid 5.  How much trouble can we be at the 5 level.  It has to say good spades, good hearts, watch out for the minors, great hand over here partner.  North McNamara passed and that passed was –11 imps.  Partner held

AJ108732
K73
A
KJ

If anybody wants to bid b) or d) that’s fine.  Just don’t pass!  P.O. didn’t seem to like 5.  I am not quite sure why.  Any thoughts?

The most interesting discussion was around Board 28.  This is the auction.  Your job … wait for it.  I give no hand here only an auction.  McNamare and Shalita are vulnerable against not.

Fleischer	McNamara	Kamil	Shalita
1	1	2	3
Dbl	4	5	pass
pass	?

Is Shalita’s pass forcing.  Several commentator. myself included thought that most people would play this as forcing.  The forcing pass situation was set up by McNamara freely jumping to game vulnerable after his partner showed some strength.  The 3 bid along was not enough.  It was the combination of both the 3 and the 4 bid.  Without a clear agreement these things can become problematic.  I understand that.  Top players should discuss these situations.  I like to have some generic rules.  One of them usually is that if we freely bid a game vulnerable and we have never preempted than we must not pass it out undoubled.  This would be the case here.

My belief is that these two players were not on the same wavelength.  But who knows.  Maybe they don’t play such things.  Here is the deal and you will see that Kamil-Fleischer stole the hand in 5 undoubled.

	McNamara A854 J1086542 3 4
Q7 Q7 A86 A109732		Kamil 93 3 KJ542 KQJ86
	Shalita KJ1062 AK9 Q1097 5

I can understand McNamara’s reluctance to double but if he believes his partner has stuff he could try 5.  Your side has at least 10 hearts and partner has some stuff.  And even though he has done a lot of bidding on five high card points if he believes that partner is showing a desire to bid on then he should.  It turns out that 5 is a fortuitous make.  The other table played 5 doubled and I can assure you that Levin did not overcall 1.  He passed at his first bid.  The match ended with Fleischer having extended their lead to 43 imps (64-21)

Strange Systems

March 16th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  5 Comments 

I was commenting on the Swedish District Championships recently and one pair at my table was playing a forcing pass style system It was interesting and I considered how I would handle it (besides quaking).  I hope I would have come to the table prepared.  It didn’t look like their opponents had given it much thought.  It did make me realize that the ACBL was right to keep this from players although I think it’s fine to have “anything goes” in an NABC knockout teams like the Spingold, perhaps after the first round or two.  Here is a very interesting deal that came up.  I think that it would be very hard to get to the right spot in most systems, except for those that allow one player to describe their shape, usually a relay system. 

You are south and nobody is vulnerable.    East passes and it is your turn

South

KQ107

AKJ4

J3

A96

In most systems you would open 1 and partner would bid 1.  You might bid 3  since that is about what the hand is worth.  Now lets flip over to North

North

A9532

Q1065

A2

KJ

You are definitely in the slam zone.  Suppose you try 4.  When partner cuebids 4 you might bid keycard.  Partner has one.  If you now try 5NT I don’t think South will go but he might cuebid the K.  You know you are off the diamond king and correctly you just play the small slam.  This is similar to the auction in the Closed Room.

In the Open Room where I was watching South passed (showing either a very weak hand or a very strong one).  Now before we go further do you think West should bid over pass.

6

873

KQ765

10753

With partner being a passed hand it seems certain the opponents have game at least.  I would like to have a bid here.  If I could I would open a weak 2.  If I couldn’t I might even pysche something.  I never never pysche but it just seems right in a situation like this opposite forcing pass opponents.  Anyway, West passed and North opened 1.  Through a series of relays South was able to find out that North was 5-4-2-2 with two aces and the K.  At this point the auction had progressed to 4.  His problem was he wasn’t sure about the heart queen.  He forgot that 4NT was asking about queens and he decided to just bid the small slam in hearts.  Putting the two hands together 7 makes almost all the time.  You just need to be able to ruff a club in dummy and you have 13 tricks so even a 4-1 heart break can probably be handled.

After a quick claim a heated discussion apparently ensued.  To me (ignoring the ignoble conclusion) it shows the power of a relay system and it also says … get in there opponents.  Don’t let them relay to the grand.  Just a thought.

On a later deal they relayed there way to a cold 7 not bid at the other table.  Same comment.  It wasn’t only the relays that were a problem 1 opener showed11-13 or 17+ and 1 opener basically showed 7-10 high card points or so (I forget the exact number) and said nothing about diamonds.  This definitely needs a defense.  Playing nothing doesn’t work.

The ACBL has completely stopped even sensible bidding improvements in the last few years.  I have no idea why these decisions are made.  I agree that forcing pass is a bit out.  But simple transfer over an opening one of a suit or switching 1 with 1NT seems overboard.

We need to keep it simple in the low-level games and let freedom ring (at least a bit) in the higher level games.  The conventions allowed and not allowed are inconsistent and irritating.  I am going to start a new party.  I like tea but that name is already taken.  So how about the beer party.  You know what are logo will be and it has a seven in it.  We can probably get a sponsor pretty easily and our motto will be:

Free the conventions and free beer…. or something.

Can anybody come up with a sensible realistic auction in standard or 2/1 or even forcing club (no relays please) that gets you to seven hearts?

Fun with Colin

March 16th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

If you are going to play with Colin you better get used to playing tough contracts.  Here is one from last night that was fun and my thoughts while playing it.

In third chair at unfavorable vulnerability I held:

AK1076 

AJ1062

K

K8

The auction started pass by Colin, 2 by RHO showing hearts and a minor.  Hearts were always five long but the minor could be four.  (This will be relevant later).  Well this was rather a surprise.  I bid 2 anyway.  Colin raised to 3.  Should I go on?

Are you kidding?  Does it matter if I “should”, you know I will.    LHO doubled and I started to think again about the “should”.

LHO led the 3 and this was the situation (rotated for convenience)

	943 void A109742 1096
	AK1076  AJ1062 K K8

See what I mean about playing dummy well.  Actually Colin’s hand wasn’t that bad for me.  I decided that   Now what was East’s shape.  He held five hearts.   What was his minor..  I had six clubs and seven diamonds so he could have had either.  West certainly had the QJxx of spades but maybe more likely all five of them.

There is no doubt I have to just take tricks.  I won the A as East play the Q.  It looked like West might hold the K. If both diamonds cashed as seemed likely and I could make two heart ruffs I was up to seven tricks.  To have any realistic chance I thought I needed to make two more spades in hand (in addition to the ace-king) and the K

If East held clubs he was likely to hold the A since it looked like he didn’t have much in hearts but then again he could have anything at this vulnerability.  I did also have the problem that if I played clubs early and he held a spade he could win the club and lead a spade which wasn’t going to make me happy.

Do you have a plan now?  This is what I did.  I cashed the K and ruffed a heart.  I cashed the A and ruffed a heart,  I cashed the  K.  From their carding I was now certain that the diamonds were splitting and that was very good news.  I ruffed a diamond and I ruffed a heart with West following to the K, I was almost certain now that West had two clubs and five spades left.  I had to arrived at this position with the lead in dummy and six tricks in.

	9 void 1097 1096
QJ852 void void ??		void 98 void ?????
	AK107  J   K8

Who has the A.  If West has it my best shot is to play a diamond now throwing a club.  He can ruff the diamond and okay clubs but I ruff the third round for trick seven, play the heart and he cannot stop me making three trump tricks with the AK10 and the 9 in dummy.  What if he gets out the trump queen instead of giving me the club ruff.  No that doesn’t work either.  However if East has the A I better lead a club from dummy since this plan will not work. 

Well West had enough for his double without it..  It does seem more likely doesn’t it.  So I led the club from dummy and put up the queen when East ducked and it held.  Now it was easy.  I led the J and nothing West could do could stop me from making three trump tricks.  That was 14 imps when they failed to make the same contract at the other table.

You see bridge is like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you are going to get.

Box_of_chocolates.wav (you can hear the original quote here).

So even though I made mistakes and I didn’t know the system and I kept playing 3-3 fits I can still have fun.

Sunny side up

March 13th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Yesterday was a great day.  I found out that an ailing loved one is recovering (prayers answered) and Apple gave me a free replacement Itouch after I had an accident with mine (a customer service model to follow).  My family room renovation is nearing completion and we can move all the furniture back in today.  The sun is shining and it is warm.  The convertible comes out of winter storage this weekend.  And today I get to bowl with my two grandchildren.  Life seems wonderful.

Anyway I remembered that the Reno tournament was underway and I decided to check out the bulletins

Daily Bulletins

Day 1 I found that local players Jordan Cohen abd Barry Senensky led the NAOP Flight A – Qualifiers.  The eventual winners of the event were Douglas Doub and Franklin Merblum from Connecticut.

And Jeff and Isabelle Smith qualified in NABC Imp Pairs.  They are going to be tough competitors… warning to those who think they are just a nice young couple.

Reading the Bulletin I noticed that there was a seminar on teaching bridge to young people.  I would like to hear Julie Greenberg’s idea.  Maybe they could post some of the content on the ACBL site (Maybe they have!).

Here is an interesting deal written up by Liam Johnstone of London England.  It starts with the Silver Certainty Principle although he doesn’t know the source.  In one of his several humorous stories David talks about the idea that whatever level you bid, the opponents will bid one more.  So if you want them in 3 spades you should bid 3 hearts etc.

Recognizing this principle Liam nevertheless bid 4 spades after the opponents bid 1H pass 4H with

♠10 9 5 3 2 ♥– ♦A K J 10 5 3 ♣K 4

But when the opponents bid 5 hearts they passed it out there and –450 was a near bottom.  I don’t remember if David’s principle says to keep bidding one more or not.  There’s more fun in the article if you have a chance to read it.

The Vanderbilt is coming up soon and I have signed up to comment a session or two.  I hope all of you in Reno are having a great time and I will be watching the score sheet for your names.  Good luck.

Reversing… for beginners

March 12th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  9 Comments 

I am working on SAYC on two fronts.  One is that I am mentoring Luise and her partner who are trying to work on a convention card (and on a system).  I am also working on editing an SAYC book.  So my teaching brain is thinking about SAYC.

I have always hated reverses.  As I get older and maybe wiser with more system knowledge I hate them less.  It always seemed that whenever my partner or I reversed something bad happened.  I remember sitting in on a lecture at a regional that Paul Thurston gave about reversing and it seemed to make sense at the time but I can’t remember what he said now.  Over the years I have developed my own system which many of my partners consent to play to humor me.  Its designed for minimum pain.

The idea is that you always bid 2NT (Lebensohl) on a weak hand and then over 3C make the descriptive (and nonforcing) bid you want.  Any other bid, be it fourth suit or a rebid of your major is game forcing.  It seemed to me that if you were forced to the three level you might as well just go there.  I can see some problems with this approach but at least it is clear and simple.

Now I am playing that the negative bid is either fourth suit or 2NT whichever is cheaper.  In this approach rebidding your own suit at the two level is still a game force so you will have to make the negative if you want out in your suit.  This seems okay to me and is still pretty simple.  It does have the advantage that you still have chances of playing notrump from the strong side when opener wants to play there even opposite a negative.

The book I am working on has rebidding your major as a weak bid although it is still forcing on opener.  So the auction 1C-1H-2D-2H is weak but forcing.  I am not sure why it has to be forcing if it is weak.  Some of opener’s rebids can be passed by responder but not I think fourth suit or a rebid of opener’s second suit (diamonds in the example).  2NT is still Lebensohl (for hands where you don’t want to rebid your major) and fourth suit seems to be natural and forcing.

I tried to explain some of this to Luise this morning suggesting the 2NT is the only weak bid method.  It was my KISS approach.  What do you think we should teach beginners.

I still hate reverses.

More Bridge Stories from our last match

March 8th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

I thought that Sondra Blank made a very nice bid on this hand.  Let’s see what you think.  Sondra held

AQ
Q742
Q64
10972

Isabelle opened 1 and Sondra bid 1NT(forcing).  West overcalled 2  and Isabelle bid 2 .  What should Sondra do?  Taking the inference that West had a lot of high cards in club and that Isabelle was quite likely to be short in them she realized the value of her major suit cards and just bid the game.  Had she simply made a game try then Isabelle who had a minimum might not have bid it.  Here was Isabelle’s hand.

K10832
AJ86
K92 
9

Now let’s look at Isabelle’s rebid.  While she does have a minimum her club singleton suggests that Sondra might well have a heart fit.  At out table North passed 2.   What should South do now with her 10 points.  She doesn’t really have a club stopper.  I suppose she might bid hearts but instead she took the “safe” route with 2 and that is where they played it losing a game swing.  So Sondra and Isabelle combined to get to this good game.  While game is not a guarantee as long as the major don’t split to badly you are a favorite.

Here is a hand that Colin and I didn’t get right and I confess I bid it like a dumkopf but I am interested in some thoughts (not so much about my dumb bidding but about how you think these things should be handled over forcing club).

I opened 1 in third and Colin made a negative 1 bid.  North a passed hand bid 2 and we really hadn’t discussed this situation.  Here is my hand 

AK106
A3
10 
AQ10843

What do bids mean now?  Should 3 be forcing one round?  Or do you have to jump or cuebid to create a force?  Is a double a three suited takeout?  I wasn’t sure and I managed to talk myself out of bidding at all (that is the dumbkopf part.  Suppose I do bid 3 like a mensch (I am exercising my inner Jewish here) and it goes 3 pass pass would you bid 3.  If you do you are a winner since partner will easily summon up 4.  (We ended ingeniously in 4 which won in imps because 5 doubled at the other table was only 1 down).  Colin and I did discuss this all and agreed to think about it but I think 3 here should show a good suit but not be forcing over the negative.  Colin held

QJ96
52
7643 
975 

(This hand bid 1 over an opening natural club bid and 4 was not far behind.)  I would be happy to here from strong clubbers about there thoughts.

Playing With My Favorite Son

March 8th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Last night I was playing again with Colin (he is my only son in case you are wondering) against Isabelle and Sondra and with them.

Colin with his favorite son, Marcus (picture from his facebook page)

Any time I play with Colin interesting things happen (ditto against Isabelle and Sondra).  Last night was no exception.  I am going to start with two lovely hands one that features Colin and one that features, moi.

Here is Colin’s hand.  I am going to tell it from his point of view first but I will mention some actions by the opponents later.  Colin held:

Q98632
4
AK653
5

Colin opened this 2 (white on red).  This shows about 4-9 (he is on the heavy side) with 5-5 in spades and a minor (or occasionally 6-5).  He might have opened it 1 too but I like 2 which is so descriptive.  Anyway, Isabelle bid 4 which shows clubs and a higher suit and I bid 4.  Sondra doubled ending the aution.  But for Colin this hand is about the play.  I did have a quick look at the hand and then I excused myself for a short break and I came back to see that Colin had taken the winning line.  Isabelle led the A and this was what Colin saw (hand rotated to make Colin South(

	Linda A75 107 Q92 Q1084
	Colin Q98632 4 AK653 5

Isabelle started with the A and continued with the Q which Colin ruffed.  So Colin knew that Isabelle was at least 5-5 in the round suits.  Sondra had to have tat least three spades with the top ones, one would think.  If Isabelle is 1-5-5-2 then the hand is easy since diamonds are splitting and Colin merely has to play spades for one loser.  So the question is how to play the hand for a worse distribution.  The two that come to mind are 1-5/6-1 and 0-5/6-2 or 0-5-5-3.

In the first case Colin has to make a diamond ruff in dummy and lead a trump towards the closed hand.  He can’t play the A and another because Sondra will win and play a third spade.  The elegant solution is to play a diamond to the Q and then a spade from dummy.  Sondra can win or duck .  Colin wins the Q and A and then can ruff a diamond if needed.  Rising on the K is no help for the defense.  That is how Colin played it and that was the winning line.  (Another alternative cashing he A and then playing on diamonds before eventually leading a trump towards his hand will work as well.)

There is no point in worrying about a 4-0 spade break, you can’t make the hand if they do.  Here is the whole hand.

	Linda A75 107 Q92 Q1084
Isabelle 10 AKQ932 8 AKJ96		Sondra KJ3 J85 J1074 732
	Colin Q98632 4 AK653

Now to my hand and this is about bidding.  See what you think: I held

Linda
AJ543
AK
AK8
A108

I counted it twice to get to 23 HCP (I really counted it about 4 times).  I opened a strong club an over Colin’s negative 1, I bid 2NT.  Colin transferred to hearts with 3 and then bid 4NT.  Now what could that mean?  Colin had at most seven high card points, I had 23.  He could not have a six card heart suit for this auction (for various reasons).  What do you think my favorite son has?  I deduced that he had a good five card suit like QJ10xx and some other points adding to seven.  He was looking for a fit slam.  Well although I only had two hearts they were going to help bring home five tricks and I had all those other aces and kinds.  He was quite likely to have a black king (the spade king would have been best).  The problem is that it may be hard to get to Colin’s hand enough in notrump and besides maybe I could set up spades with a ruff.  So I decided to play the 5-2.  Did I read too much into Colin’s bidding….  You know I didn’t or well it wouldn’t be “my hand”.  Here is his hand just as I imagined it (but without the right black king).

Colin 987 QJ765 92 KJ6

Well I was right to be in hearts.  In hearts I can get to Colin’s hand twice to play spade.  In notrump I am going to need the club finesse to create an entry (it is probably unneeded otherwise).  In hearts you can draw trump (crossing on the club) and then take two spade plays (ruffing the diamond to get there the second time.  It also means that you may be able to handle some 4-1 spade situations (when hearts are 3-3). 

So Colin had a hand that gave me a reasonable chance of making slam but this wasn’t as good as 50-50 and pehaps I shouldn’t have bid the slam.  There really was no way to find out his spade holding which was the key (assuming I was right about hearts).  Still this is not a terrible slam.  After hearts broke evenly I could pick up a lot of spade positions.  Of course I planned to play for K10x(x) or Q10x(x) pr KQ10(x)_ onside but I did have the quite reasonable possibility that righty would split from the KQx or KQxx and that is in fact what happened.

So I give myself full marks for figuring out what Colin had and half marks for getting to the slam. 

I am not done with interesting events from last night… more later.