Squeeze hands… do you have one to contribute?

December 10th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  5 Comments 

As part of the update to Clyde E. Love we will have a number of squeeze practice hands available as a free download from www.ebooksbridge.com.  Of course these hands will be available to everyone not those who buy the book.  There are also a number of references in the book to other good online resources that they might wish to try.

If you have a hand that you think might be interesting then send it to me at [email protected].  You don’t need to have done all the analysis but if you want to that is fine.  If we use it we will give you credit for it.  I am aiming to have some deals available in January but we can always add to the download in the future.  All kinds of squeezes are needed.  Since these are intended to be practice problems we don’t want all of them to be compound squeezes or complex trump squeezes etc.  It is always good to have some easy ones and some harder ones.  If there is a story that goes with it we will be happy to tell the story too.

Simple squeezes and strips and throw ins occur quite a lot I have noticed.  Here is a problem for you to try.  It will be included in the download.  It is an original problem from the book which in the end we decided to move to the practice problem section.  Answer tomorrow.

	North 854 AKQ1087 – A765
	South AJ6 65 AKQJ1054 Q

West	North	East	South
pass	1	pass	2
pass	4	pass	4NT
pass	5	DBL	7NT
all pass

Opening Lead: 9

East plays the Q and you win with the A. You play two rounds of diamonds and East shows out on the second, playing the 2. How should you proceed?

One of the nice thing about doing squeeze problems is that you get to play in a lot of slams.

The weather is cold here today, snow and sleet.  My daughter is sending me these gorgeous pictures from Peru.  But I have Love to keep me warm I suppose.

Getting to 2 suited slams, forcing passes and all that

December 9th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

I have noticed that one of the types of slams that is often missed, even by good players, is a slam based on a double fit.  Here is an example from a Norway Regional Championship I was watching.

KQJ86 Q9652 A9 9

This is your hand in third chair white on red.  Partner opens 1 which is passed to you.  What do you do?  If you play as they did at one table fit jumps than you have an easy bid of 2.  Even if they are not game forcing you likely be well positioned after this bid.  Suppose you do not play this than what are you other choices? 

a) splinter in clubs b) game forcing raise of hearts, say 2NT c) 1

At the table I was watching Olsen bid 2NT, a heart raise.  East bid 3 and his partner bid 4 which showed a minimum.  In the normal course of things this might have been passed back to him.  What would you do now?  If partner has the AK and the A then 6 will normally make.  Your vulnerable opponent sounds like he has very good clubs so partner probably doesn’t have club cards.  What does partner have?  There are eighteen points missing outside the club suit.  If you give East the A then you could be off two key cards at worst say something

xx AJxxx KQJx xx

 

I am going to bid again, probably keycard.  If we have the three I need I am bidding the slam.  However my vulnerable opponent inserts 5.  Since I am playing against good opposition I have to assume that besides club support he has something else.  He might have a heart void but I don’t think that is enough.  He just has to have a source of tricks and a lot of shape.  The only possibility I can think of is he has diamonds.  This makes slam our way even more likely because if the opposition has diamond high cards partner has to have major cards.  I am not sure if this is enough to be slam though.  How do I get partner to bid slam on the right hand? 

Is it clear in your system that a pass is forcing here?  I usually have a simple rule if we bid a power game than a pass of a bid over it is forcing regardless of vulnerability.  So the 2NT bid put that in play.  I am not sure this is the best rule but it is a simple one.

Suppose you play that a pass is forcing here.  Should I pass?  First what are your rules.  Do you play that pass and pull is stronger than just bidding?  What is the difference between a direct cuebid and pulling partner’s double to a cuebid?

Now we get into the terribly complex world of forcing passes.  I am going to suppose that I play the following:

a) pass and pull is stronger than a direct bid

b) there is a difference between a direct cuebid and pulling to a cuebid.  I think that a direct cuebid should suggest that partner bid slam with a good hand for the auction and passing and pulling to a cuebid should suggest that there is some specific problem.  I really am not sure about this at all.

In general I think the direct cuebid should be the strongest possible bid and that is the bid I would make here: 5.

On this particular hand even without all of these understandings partner has the perfect hand to bid 6.

A1043 AKJ873 62 Q

 

At my table R Olsen bid 5 and that is where they played it.  Perhaps South, T Olsen should have bid on anyway.  After all partner has to have something for his bid after you showed a minimum.  I would have I think.

In the other room the fit jump was raised after the overcall but West made it easy by passing and North was able to ask for keycards.  Still I think after North knew about the double fit if he had to he would have bid the slam without Blackwood.

So what is the lesson that I learned from this?  First if you can prevent the opponents from bidding Blackwood it can work quite well.  Second, this forcing pass stuff needs a lot of discussion.  Third, there is a lot of merit in fit jumps but I wonder if it is better if they are invitational or forcing.  They were played as forcing in the room that reached slam.  Here is the whole deal

	KQJ86 Q9652 A9 9
972 10 KQJ43 8653		5 4 10875 AKJ10742
	A1043 AKJ873 62 Q

 

 

 

Canadian Master Point June 1993 Available for Download

December 8th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I am a little late on this one. Blame San Diego, but a new issue of the magazine is now available for download, if you haven’t done it already. While you are on the site don’t miss the free download of Mother Goose On Bridge, it is funny and pretty in a 1900’s sort of way.  Our staff worked very hard on this one since it is our Christmas present to you.

When I looked at the year of the magazine, oh my, almost 17 years ago, I thought what happened in June of 1993.  For those of you who may be too young to remember:

• Prince changes his name to a symbol and comes to be referred to as “The Artist formerly known as Prince”
• A weeklong product tampering scare, later proven to be a hoax, occurs as customers throughout the USA discover syringes in unopened cans of Diet Pepsi Cola.
• Dr. Charles Epstein of California and Yale computer science professor Dr. David Gelernter receive bombs form the Unabomber. Gelernter seriously injured.
• Kim Campbell is chosen as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and becomes the first female Prime Minister of Canada.
• Guatemala president Jorge Serrano overthrown by army
• Jurassic Park” opens, sets box office weekend record of $502 million
• Actress Julia Roberts weds country singer Lyle Lovett
• English mathematician Andrew Wiles proves last theorem of Fermat
• “Late Night with David Letterman” airs for last time on NBC-TV

So much for trivia.

John Gowdy had just joined our editorial board which was a big boost for us. The first thing that caught my eye in the magazine was a letter to the editor from Chuck Galloway where he talks about how to improve your competitive notrump auctions when using transfer Lebensohl and negative doubles. I think I might just read that in more detail and see if I can use any ideas from it.

David Silver has one of his humorous stories in this issue, this time about the Total Quality Management in Hell. SIlver has just arrived at Hell’s Bridge Game and well things aren’t going so well, in fact the as Beelzbub says, “things have been going to Heaven.”

Fred Gitelman talks about his Bridge Master program. But there is a really beautiful hand in this article that contains a strip squeeze but not just any strip squeeze. Anyone who read this article would realize that Fred was a future superstar since he actually made this hand at the table.

An old friend, John Goold provided a bridge cryptic crossword. John and I went to university together and you guessed it, played bridge together in the college refectory. This did not improve our marks at all. John and I both worked together in the computer field several times in several places. John is now living in Costa Rica and actually played on the Costa Rican team at the Bridge Olympiad. Since my daughter is now spending almost half the year in Costa Rica I wonder if I could become qualified to play on their team. John do you need a partner?

Ray brings back a few bad memories and lots of good ones in his article on the Kansas City NABC. I have to admit I lost it a little when he didn’t find the right lead against a slam I had doubled. See if you can do better. Then again, he found a terrific lead on another deal to clinch second place in a regional Swiss. There is a picture of Paul Janicki, our current ACBL director in this article and honestly he doesn’t look any different now.

Dawn MacNeal writes a fun article about the Canadian Invitational Pairs Calcutta held by Irving Litvack in Toronto. There were many big names at this big money event. The winner was Eric Murray playing with Brian Glubok. This article includes some very fine hands and lots of quotes from the droll Mr. Murray. John Gowdy has an interesting article about responding to partner’s preempts.

I also have to mention that I reviewed Chien-Hwa Wang’s book “The Squeeze At Bridge”. It seems that even then I was the squeeze meister in the family. I did report that this book was designed for true squeeze lovers who wanted to be able to categorize many complex squeezes rather than a how to book. Interesting, as I researched books on squeezes while doing Love I did notice that a lot of them were just collections of types of squeezes with an example or two. What sets Love apart is that he creates the theory of squeezes and teaches you how to recognize them and how to execute them. Our new revised Bridge Squeeze Complete will be out early next year, Ray tells me. I can’t wait.

Lots more too including articles on Swiss team tactics and another on matchpoint tactics.

Playing Against Isabelle and Sondra

December 7th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Colin and I were practicing against Isabelle and Sondra last night on BBO.  We will be playing again in two weeks, Sunday at 7PM EST.  They are a very good partnership and very exciting and Colin is a fine player so I think the games should be a lot of fun to play and to watch if you feel inclined.  We had some interesting deals last night.   Colin and I did pretty well on this deal.  Colin held

Q864 AJ97 KQJ54 –

We are playing strong club with four card majors so when I opened 1 I only promised four of them and I could have a longer minor.  I was limited to 15 HCP.  Isabelle at favorable colors bid 3 and it was Colin’s turn.  He decided that he had a hand worth a slam try.  He had controls in every suit and a potential source of tricks.  Even though he knows our side can have at most 27 HCP and that we might only have an eight card fit.  Do you like his decision?  I do.  I bid 4NT and now Colin had his second decision, should he show the club void.  He does this by bidding 6 which shows 1 or 3 keycards and a club void.  This is a pretty good description but it does have the disadvantage of forcing us to slam.  I think he is right to show the club void.  I held a hand that could have opened 1

AK72 2 A73 A10963

This is a borderline hand in our system but with some many controls the book bid is 1.  I am far from an expert in forcing club but at favorable vulnerability I wanted to get my suits in.  If I start 1 and Isabelle bids 3 I think we will have more difficulty in the subsequent auction.  Colin and I did have a discussion about it afterward and we did agree that the correct bid is a forcing club.  Without interference we will be easily be able to get to the spade slam, still…  What do you think?

I did not try for the grand slam, although Colin is unlimited because the club void made my hand worse and I was concerned about the trump suit.  So here I was in 6 on the lead of the K.  I won the A as Sondra followed with the 6.

	Q864 AJ97 KQJ54 –
	AK72 2 A73 A10963

If everything breaks the hand is a claimer.  But on this auction it was likely that things were not breaking.  On the good side I had no top losers and the only clear loser I might have is in the trump suit.  So this is a hand about tricks.  It seemed to me that if I played this hand on a dummy reversal and ruffed two hearts in hand I would be well positioned.  This would give me presumably five diamond tricks, six spade tricks, a club and a heart if everything broke perfectly.  But if Sondra had four spades this line would still work.

So this is what I did.  I ruffed a heart and Sondra showed out pitching a club.  I played the A and both followed low, I cashed the A and played one round of trump as both followed low and I led a diamond towards dummy.  Isabelle now had a choice.  This was the whole deal.

If she ruffs, as she did I and returns a heart I can cash the second trump, umblock diamonds and claim.  Suppose she doesn’t ruff.  The very best way to play the hand is to play a trump from dummy.  In the unlikely event that Isabelle is 1-7-0-5 and shows out I can ruff a club in dummy and then play all my diamonds ruffing the last diamond in hand.  Sondra gets her trump at trick thirteen.

In fact on the lie of the cards most things work.  If you do draw three rounds of trump then you can still make the hand on a squeeze.  Suppose you play a diamond winning in dummy and then concede a heart when you see that the diamonds are not breaking and as the cards lie you have a simple squeeze on Sondra.  If you give Isabelle any top club the double squeeze does not work this way because you don’t have an entry to the common threat, clubs.

Many lines work on this deal but playing three rounds of trump is definitely the worst of them.  Bidding and making the slam was worth 13.3 imps at imp pairs.

Here is one other deal where I thought Sondra did quite a good job on defense.  The auction started with 1 strong by Colin, I showed a positive with five spades and Colin showed a balanced hand with 17-19 HCP.  Sondra made a natural diamond lead and this is what she saw

Isabelle played the J and Colin won the Q.  Colin played the 4 to the A and Isabelle followed with the 5.  Playing reverse Smith a high spade would suggest you don’t like diamonds.  Now Colin ducked a heart to your Q.  What do you do?  Sondra played a club.  Isabelle won the A and returned the 5 as you took Colin’s 8 with your J.  Sondra now correctly worked out that unless the diamonds cashed Colin would have nine tricks and she laid down the top diamond.  When Colin’s K came down she had defeated the contract two tricks.  Well done.  Here is the whole hand

Obviously 4 is the better contract and Colin might have shown his five card heart suit.  But he liked his hand for notrump.  He might have won the K which would have made it a touch harder for Sondra to figure out the diamond situation.

One more time on the hand from the Sao Paulo Venice Cup

December 5th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

I try to be fair so when I got a long comment (and I do love comments, really) I thought I would revisit the hand for the very last time in the light of Nick Krnjevic comments.  Let’s start with the bidding.

 Board 20. Dealer West. All Vulnerable.

	♠ A 7 5 3 ♥ K 6 A 5 3 ♣ A K 3 2
♠ 8 ♥ Q J 10 9 4 4 ♣ Q J 10 8 7 4		♠ Q J 9 6 ♥ 8 5 2 K 10 9 8 7 6 ♣ –
	♠ K 10 4 2 ♥ A 7 3  Q J 2 ♣ 9 6 5

THe bidding in the Open Room was as follows

West: Liu	North: McCallum	East: Wang	South: Baker
pass	1♣	2	Dbl
pass	3	pass	3NT
all pass

McCallum opened a natural club and Wang made a preemptive jump overcall.   To some extent bidding is a matter of style.  While I didn’t comment it at the time Wang’s 2 overcall is a matter of taste.  Granted she has good diamond (and spade) spots but I personally would expect more playing strength from a vulnerable partner.  On the positive side it does take away a fair bit of space from North-South.  On the negative side it does lose the spade suit if it belongs to your side. 

I didn’t and don’t object to the negative double.  In fact I previously said it was a sensible call.  I am not at all sure what I would have bid on the South hand.  The problem with a negative double in this position is that the auction may time out badly in terms of finding the spade contract although it might have the opposite effect and induce part to bid spades.

North, McCallum has to pick between bidding spades or suggesting notrump as a contract.  There is an argument for bidding 3♠ on the North hand, letting partner try 3NT with an inappropriate hand. 

I see bidding as a series of decisions that each player has to make.  Each choice may set things on a better path or a worse path but it is sometimes hard to tell which one will work out better.  Here three of the players had decisions to make.  I don’t think anybody did anything wrong.  One could discuss their choices and argue (like a bidding panel) about which one was a bit better.

But in summary, as it turned out North-South got to the superior contract and Lynn made a good choice as did Karen.

So now Karen and Lynn have arrived in 3NT and it is up to Baker to make the hand and win a bunch of imps.

Baker got a heart lead and ducked it in both hands winning the second heart.  It does seem from the lead like West has length in hearts.   What now? 

This is what Lynn did

After winning the heart in dummy she led a diamond from dummy — incorrectly attacking the entry to the safe hand, since the diamond finesse would always lose to East, not West.  East won and cleared hearts.  Now Lynn cashing the ♠K in the hope that spades split 2-3 and she might be able to lose a spade to East.

Here is Nick’s suggestion based on Lynn’s line

l agree that there was a better line available than the one Lynn B. chose. Having said that, from where I sit it seems that Lynn B.’s line may well have had better chances of success than the one that you and Mark H. suggest (the ‘’safety play’of Ace and a spade at tricks 3 and 4).

Your article implies that declarer should have played on spades in the manner Mark suggests because LHO was “known to have the heart length”.

That seems a bit unfair. Lynn’s RHO was marked with *at least* 6Ds and likely had 3 hearts given (a) LHO’s initial pass and (b) RHO’s play to the first 2 heart tricks.

Since RHO had stuck her neck out, both red, opposite a passed hand partner, with a moth-eaten diamond suit and apparently 3 small hearts, she was quite unlikely to be 2-3-6-2.

If RHO was 1-3-6-3 or 1-3-7-2 she might well be inclined to stick her neck out to disrupt her opps undisclosed spade fit. It’s not so clear that she’d be in a hurry to bid if she was 3-3-6-1.

More importantly, from Lynn’s perspective RHO had very little reason to pre-empt holding 4-3-6-0 since RHO would want her opps to have all the bidding room necessary to find their badly-breaking spade fit (the open room result shows why).

So there were some fairly strong inferences that RHO had black-suit shortness, quite likely in the spade suit.

If so, the line suggested by Horton/Lee (playing A and a spade) seems ill-conceived. When declarer makes the “book” safety play of A and a spade, LHO, holding four spades including the QJ(spot), simply wins cheaply and continues the suit, breaking up the communication for the black suit squeeze.

If I were using this deal in a declarer play course I would use it to illustrate the idea of losing first to the danger hand and then taking a play to the safe hand.  What I said in the blog was that you should play spades before diamonds.  As Nick suggested in his commented West clearly had heart length, not East.  The textbook “safety play” is to lose the first trick to the danger hand.  Even if spades break evenly after you played diamonds its may be completely impossible to lose the spade trick to East however you play the suit.  You know that the diamond finesse will only lose to East even if East has psyched.  The main point therefore is to play diamonds first. 

Having made that decision what is the best way to play spades for one loser?  If spades split 3-2 you can always make 3 spade tricks and you really don’t care who wins the spade.  If spades break 4-1 then your only real choice is to eventually play a spade to the ♠10.  The next question becomes whether to play the ♠A first or not.  The ♠A wins if West has the ♠Q or ♠J alone.  The only reason that it might be right NOT to play the ♠A first is that you might reduce your squeeze chances if West is 4-5-0-4 or has the QJ10 in clubs with four spades.  Cashing the ♠A may increase your chance in other ways.  For example if you play the ♠A and then another and you see that West has none you can try ducking a club to West which works on some hands where the clubs are 3-3.

But in any case the main and critical point about the deal is not who to play for three spades and who to play for two spades but which suit to play first.  Once you have made that mistake I still don’t understand the point of playing the ♠K first. 

If you want to duck a spade to East just do it.  Let’s say you mispull and play a diamond at trick two.  East wins and plays back back a heart.  At this point if your goal is to duck a spade to East you can simply play a spade from hand and try.  If West plays a high spot you win the ♠A and play another one.  If East plays the highest outstanding spade you duck.  If not you play the ♠K and another and hope.  Playing the ♠A and another as suggested by me, Mark, Barry Rigel and a variety of other experts on the panel was not a textbook play.  It is not even an important play.  But it is the normal play at trick three.

I do appreciate your gallant defense of the damsel and since I have been having fun with quotes from the AFI top 100 movie quote list here’s yours

""Listen to me, mister. You’re my knight in shining armor. Don’t you forget it. You’re going to get back on that horse, and I’m going to be right behind you, holding on tight, and away we’re gonna go, go, go!" from On Golden Pond, a movie I rather enjoyed.

Julie and Julia

December 4th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

On the plane home from San Diego I watched a cute movie called Julie and Julia.  It was a true story about a women who started a blog.  Her goal was to cook all of the recipes in Julie Child’s book the Mastering The Art Of French Cooking (both volumes) in a year and describe her experiences during this adventure.

At the same time we watched the story of Julia Child played brilliantly by Meryl Streep during her days in Paris learning to cook, the years spent writing the cookbook and then the effort of getting the book published.  I had a lot of empathy with Julie, the blogger.  At one point she says; “Is there anyone out there reading this” “Is there someone, anyone?”  Every blogger feels that way at times.  Well maybe the ones that get hundreds of comments don’t feel like that.  Eventually if you blog non-professionally you just have to decide that you are doing it to please yourself and not worry too much about your audience.  Finally Julie gets her first comment and well it’s from her mother. 

I also empathized with Julia Child especially as she tried to get her book published and a bit from the publishers side.  She submits this huge manuscript and talks about the need for 6 or 7 volumes.  The poor publisher says he thoughts it was a cookbook not an encyclopedia.

This led my to thinking about the idea of having a blog that would go on for a period of time and where it would be my goal to do something, learn something.  Everyone keeps telling me I am a really good dummy player.  Now you would think that would be nice but all I hear is that they are not saying that I am NOT a really good bidder.  So I thought maybe I should do something to improve my bidding.  I am definitely NOT going to try to cook (sorry Ray).

This whole thing requires more thought.  I could look at hand I have bid in the last while and study them.  I could get Ray to watch me and tell me what he thinks.  I could read bridge books on various bidding topics.  Let me know if you have any ideas.

So then I looked at

AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes

Here are some from the top 15

"Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn."

I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.

"You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender.

"Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore."

"Here’s looking at you, kid."

"Go ahead, make my day."

"May the Force be with you."

"Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night."

"You talkin’ to me?"

"What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.

"Love means never having to say you’re sorry."

Maybe I could find a bridge hand that would illustrate each of them.  Actually that sounds like a cool idea for a bridge book.  Some quotes of course are perfect like the one from the Godfather or the quote about not communicating and of course Clyde Love could be used for the last one.  

Somehow this all brought me back to another idea.  How would you bid or play a particular deal at different types of scoring.  I played in two events, matchpoints and board a match.  In the last few years I have played mostly imps and I sort of understand the strategy there but I am not at all sure about board a match and maybe even a bit hazy about matchpoints. 

Here is a hand from the BAM.  When I tried to think about the best line and then the best line at all scoring I gave myself a bit of a headache.

	108 AKQ8 AK10975 9
	AK942 754 2 Q1042

North is dealer and opens 1.  South bids 1.  I reversed into 2.  Perhaps some of you will feel that this is a bit of a push and I am open to your ideas (see above about bidding) but I do have a couple of spades, my points are well placed and not quacky and the spots on this hand take it over the top.  Partner bids 2 game forcing and you end up in 3NT from the South hand.

What is the best way to play this hand on the lead of J at imps?

You have seven top tricks and need two more which could come from diamonds or spades (and even a heart is a possibility).  Diamonds look promising. 

If diamonds are 3-3 then unless the opponents can take four clubs all is well.  If West gains the lead in diamonds I can’t think of a failing club position.  If East gains the lead then assuming you are a good guesser West would need something like the AJxx or KJxx but not the AKJx to beat me.  The order you play diamonds doesn’t matter either unless West the Q and J the defense can always arrange for East to win the diamond loser. 

My quick analysis says that cashing the top diamond honors is more likely than the finesse to produce five tricks and it seems to me that cashing the top diamonds is clearly the right line at imps.

At matchpoints I would expect most of the field to be in 3NT with me.  There might be one or two who don’t get there.  I think the imps line is still right.

Now in board a match you could play to win the board especially if you thought you needed it and you were certain your opponents were in 3NT.  It seems that things work out the same (more or less) when diamonds are 3-3 and if diamonds are 4-2 finessing wins in 6 cashing and playing for the drop in 9 cases of the 4-2’s.  You might have some chances on the 5-1’s and the finesse is a bit better since it handles stiff small (more common) than stiff Q or J.  But this is not worth considering in the scheme of things.  So I think that cashing the top diamonds is the right line at any scoring.  The situation changes quite a bit when you have more than one diamond in the short hand.

Did I learn anything from this exercise other than the best way to play this suit combination (I hope)?  Yes, I still don’t really understand the thought process in different scoring methods and while I think such a book would be interesting, I will not be the author.

San Diego Adventures

December 4th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

I love your San Diego picture Memphis Mojo  Pictures of Players in Memphis Blog.  I too noticed the large number of players from around the world.  The final of the women’s BAM seem to have more European players than Americans.  Well I didn’t count them up.  I could easily have been playing in an Olympiad.  Actually I knew many of the Europeans better than the Americans because I had played against them (and watched them) in world championships and I haven’t really played many women’s events in nationals.

It is exciting to think that going to the nationals gives you a chance to play against the very best in the planet not just North Americans.

Ray and I had a lot of fun touring around (not so much fun yesterday flying home).  I was thinking that when you go to a bridge tournament to play you had to also remember to take the time out to look around.  We visited Laguna Beach which we seem to go back to fairly often, bought a few prints at our favorite art gallery, the  Water Color Gallery 

and then we searched for some geocaches and ended with a very nice Italian dinner recommended by a friendly New Zealand ex-pat.

We started out by checking out La Jolla.  We went into historic Sunny Jim’s Cave Store and walked down (and up) about 150 steep steps.  This would normally be alright but I was a bit tense since I had a sore knee.  All was well though and it was quite nice to have a look at the cave and a good view of the ocean.

The cave

We looked all around La Jolla Cove and it was we agreed spectacular.  We decided that the La Jolla Cove Bridge Club was in one of the most beautiful settings in the world.  Here is a picture of the ocean beside the club.

and the club

Wow.  I really liked the seals on the seal beach but when we first saw them we thought they were rocks or plants.  It wasn’t tell one moved that we realized exactly what they were.

If you are still in San Diego and get a chance don’t miss the Greatest Generation collection right near the USS Midway.  My favorite and apparently the very newest memorial/sculpture set is A National Salute to Bob Hope And The Military.  There is Bob Hope standing at a microphone at a USO show and you can hear him telling the jokes to his audience

The audience includes a 15 military men and women from all branches of the service.  One is drawing a caricature of Bob.  Its really very good. 

I also really like the huge statue of a sailor kissing a nurse called Unconditional Surrender

I really enjoyed this bridge tournament.  San Diego is a terrific destination.  I loved the Embassy Suites.  For once Ray and I didn’t feel crowded in our hotel room.  The second room really makes a difference especially if you have a husband who wants to get up very very early to watch soccer from the U.K.  The location near Seaport was excellent with lots of good restaurants within walking distance. 

I really enjoyed playing in the Women’s BAM.  The final was a very good field.  The whole experience was much better than the Wagar.   I didn’t really expect to enjoy it, but I did.  We had terrific team mates too.

I Just Had To Tell You .. A Gift from ebooksbridge

December 4th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

I am very tired and jet lagged having spent the entire day (ending well past midnight) travelling home from San Diego.  But we have a wonderful gift for all of you as a free download at www.ebooksbridge.com and I just had to tell you about it.

We have in our bridge library a beautiful book published in 1909 by Mabel Allen Avert called Mother Goose On Bridge.  Our staff spent much too much time creating a beautiful ebooks version.  It is full of Mother Goose style humorous bridge poems.  Some I get and some I don’t get quite as well.   These are the days (not really so long ago) when bridge was more of a gambling game and times have changed more than a little in the last 100 years.  Still I think everyone will find a poem or two that they enjoy and gives them a giggle.  Here’s an excerpt from one

Jacky, come give up Bridge,
If ever you would thrive;
“Nay, I’ll not give up Bridge
For any lass alive.”

Then I must give up you,
I will not lose my life;
Your club shall be your home,
And, Jacky, Bridge, your wife.

several more verses and then this happy ending…

“But then, my little lass,
I’ll tell you what I’ll do,
At home, I’ll play the game,
But only, dear, with you.

“I love you, my own lass,
I love you as my life,
So we’ll play the game, dear,
The game of man and wife.”

This one is for my mom:

Rain, rain, go away,
Mary’s Bridge-Club meets to-day;
Mistress Mary wants to play;
Therefore, rain, go away.

The illustrations are lovely.  We all hope that you enjoy our gift

Thanks to Luise, Eric and Sally.  Happy Holidays.

Board A Match

November 30th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Yesterday we played in the qualifying round of the Women’s BAM.  It was a first for me in this event and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  The field was very good especially in the evening.  There were women from all over the world, many I recognized from various World Championships.  We played one round against Danny and Sabine and another against Catherine D’Ovidio and Daniele Gaviard, two top Russian ladies, a surprisingly strong Japanese team.a top Swedish pair and of course many strong American women’s pairs.  Because we got to play the whole field and not just one team it was apparent how strong the field was.  This made it a lot more fun for me.

Generally most pairs were quite well behaved although one or two had trouble with Sylvia’s noise problem and slow play was consistently a problem. for us too.  The whole field seemed to need a little bit longer than the round time.  This actually causes me to speed up which in general doesn’t seem to reduce the caliber of my play.  As I told Ray my brain seemed to move faster and instead of actually counting a hand I could see the whole distribution as a unit.  Playing this event reminded me of how much I like playing as part of a team.  We had wonderful teammates Diana Schuld a bridge club owner from New York who was attractive, witty and spirited and Ljudmila Kamenova, a young women originally from Bulgaria now from New York.  We had a wonderful dinner between sets at a fine fish restaurant.  We had some fun chatting and also discussing the hands and I did make the mistake of having a lovely glass of white wine.  During the conversation Diana mentioned that her husband was John Schuld who had written a book about simple squeezes quite a long time ago.  When Ray found out who I was playing with he immediately asked if Diana was married to John (who died a while back), the one who wrote the squeeze book.

As always there were many hands to love and to forget.  I had two quite interesting hands I would like to discuss right now.  The first was in the afternoon and it was a strip squeeze.  Looking at the hand right now it doesn’t seem so remarkable but at the table where I had to figure everything out in the short time available it left me quite pleased with myself.

I opened 1C with the South hand playing weak 10-12 notrump in this position.  Sylvia bid 1H and I rebid 1NT (13-16).  Sylvia showed a game force with five hearts and the auction ended in 3NT.

The opening lead was the DK and RHO played the D5 playing standard carding.  I ducked the first diamond and one the second and ran the H10 which held.  I played a heart to the HJ and the HA, cashing the HK throwing a club and played another heart throwing another club.  On the play of the hearts RHO threw one spade and two clubs.  If West cashes a diamond now she concedes four but she didn’t she got out a club.  This was the ending

The best approach now is to cash two clubs ending in dummy and then play a hear throwing a diamond from your hand.   But I won the club in dummy and played a heart throwing a diamond as did both my opponents.  Now I do have to guess the ending.  There are a number of spades left and also a club winner and a diamond winner. From all that had happened so far it seemed to me that LHO had the SQ guarded so I played a club to the CA.  When West showed out in clubs at this point I could claim three of the last four tricks by endplaying her in diamonds.  If I cash the top clubs first she should hold on to her diamonds and bare her spade to a doubleton which will still leave me with some card reading to do.  Maybe it was an easy one and maybe cashing the clubs is a bit better but I still enjoyed a strip squeeze and endplay at the table with almost no time to work it out.  Here was the whole hand

I am quite convinced that strip squeezes are the most common of the squeezes.  I personally seem to have a chance to execute one with a fair amount of frequency.  I did have a chance to have an easy simple squeeze on Catherine D’Ovidio but as the cards lay a finesse would have worked just as well.

Anyway we did win this board but my squeeze was completely irrelevant.  My opponent misplayed the hand against partners, blocking the heart suit and did not even make 3NT. 

On the same hand against D’Ovidio I had to decide whether to finesse clubs or not.  I did it was right and Catherine was not a happy camper (that was before the squeeze).  This decision did win the board.  Here is the hand.  I will give you my reasoning and let you decide.  This was Board 28 our last board.

I arrived in 3NT after West had opened 2S white on red.  I know this French pair to be sound bidders.  The opening lead was the SK, East play8ing the S10.  I decided to win this since I was certain that West had six spades anyway.  I now played the CK, West the C3 and East the C10.  When I played another club East followed with the C6.  Who has the CQ?  If I play the CA and am wrong West will have two spades to cash and then I will make the rest of the tricks.  If I finesse and I am wrong I will make six or so.  (I still have to make an extra heart or diamond trick).  I know that West has a lot of spades and there are fewer vacant spaces in her hand for the CQ.  But I decided to finesse since I didn’t duck a spade.  My thought was I was still a strong candidate for 6 and my opponent would have to have also won the first spade and also find a trick in the reds if she played the top club and it was right.  So making 6 might win the board anyway.  And if I finessed I had a likely win.

I finessed and I made 7.  My opponent did not finesse and made 4.  Here is the whole hand.

As you can see the heart finesse is marked.  That is if you cash the HA and then the HQ.  I was mentally already claiming on the squeeze (which is almost surely unnecessary) so I cashed the HAK and the the HHQ and ran clubs.  East is marked with the top diamonds so hey why not.

Ignoring the frivolous squeeze what do you think about the club play?  Maybe I was just lucky.

The weather is incredible and I am having a very good time but I am glad today is my last play day.  We are going to be playing a lot of board today and my jet lag is still limiting my sleep time.  Tomorrow we rent a car and visit the area.  Ray I know is looking forward to some together time.

From San Diego

November 29th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  5 Comments 

Now while I say from San Diego at this point I might as well be anywhere in North American except that the weather is quite lovely.  If I ever decide to live in a warmer climate for part of the year maybe San Diego is the spot.  It is a long way from Toronto though.

Many people here have recognized  me from my blog.  This is really exciting for me.  So if you are here and see me say hello.  I’d love to meet you and talk about bridge and blogging.  I met some very nice young men who were playing an interesting system based on a precision club with relays.  There responses to a club showed four card majors but they did not open a four card major.  We had quite an interesting system talk and I would be interested to share ideas.

There were some interesting hands and some bizarre ones.  Have you ever looked at a scoresheet and wondered how on earth someone could get such a result?  Well here is one of the answers.  Our opponent, lets call her Wow, who perhaps had missorted her hand had this beauty in fourth chair vulnerable against not.

Sylvia opened 1D and her partner bid 4S.  I bid 5D and our hero was in an awkward position I admit.  What would you do?  I might just shot 6C myself.  Anyway she doubled.  Sylvia couldn’t quite make it and went one down.  Wow’s partner held

Neither of Wow’s suits break but as it turns out the HJ comes down singleton and you can make 6H or 6C.

We had a most unusual ruling yesterday.  I started out today with the resolution of being as positive about people as possible but I will make an exception of this couple who did not obey the niceness rules. 

It started out when the man who was sitting North bounced the boards on our table when he passed the boards in the previous round leading to an unpleasant exchange between him and Sylvia.  I don’t know why it offends people so much when Sylvia asks them, always nicely, to be quieter because she has a medical condition.  When we arrived at their table the couple was fighting with each other in a most unpleasant manner.  During this exchange I glanced around for a convention card but could see none on the table.  Eventually the bidding started.  My LHO bid 1NT and this was my hand

We were vulnerable against not and Sylvia doubled.  We play this shows a longer minor and a major although only against strong notrump.  The man passed which was alerted.  I assumed they played some sort of runout and perhaps I should have asked but I didn’t.  I just bid 2C.  It went pass, pass and my RHO now asked what Sylvia’s bid meant and I explained.  He bid 2H.  At this point Sylvia likely had spades and clubs and I decided not to sell out to 2H.  I had not shown any values yet.  So I bid 3C.  This was passed to my RHO who bid 3D which was passed out.

Now Sylvia did something I really didn’t like much.  She left the table to talk to the director.  The opponents grabbed for the card.  It turned out that LHO’s 1NT was 10-12.  RHO had announced it but not so I could hear it.  Although he was still screaming at his partner he decided he said later to the director to announce the bid very softly because Sylvia had trouble with loud noises.  Anyway, I didn’t hear it.  I know it is my responsibility to ask questions and to check the notrump range and normally I would.  But in this event, against this pair I just wanted not to be there.  This was the whole hand:

In looking at it I notice that Sylvia had an odd hand for doubling a weak notrump.  It is supposed to be stronger than this.  But it is matchpoints and I suppose she wanted to get in.  3D went 1 down while 3S would likely have made.  I will also say that South made no effort to make this contract he obviously expected an adjusted score.

With the director at the table North-South started a screaming match to the point where the director said he wouldn’t listen to either of them until they stopped talking at the same time.  It appeared that North who did not ask what the double was at her turn would have bid 3S over her partner’s 3D bid if she had known that Sylvia had a good hand rather than a major and a minor.  Hmmm. 

Sylvia had of course left the table before the director came and did not return.  The yelling and screaming continued until we had to move to the next table, missing the last board of the round.  I did not take very much part in the action although I did try to say that I found it unlikely that North would really have bid 3S and that yes, I was at fault for not finding out what their notrump range was.  I should also explain that I have a bit of a hearing problem.  Under normal circumstances I have never failed to hear any announcement.  LHO among other things suggested I carry a sign saying I had a hearing problem.  (Give me a break). 

In the end I thought the ruling was okay.  The North-South pair were actually supposed to tap the alert button when they made an announcement (or at least make some effort to make sure you know what that they have actually said something) In addition the directors thought it most unlikely that they would get to 3S even if they had been given the correct So they kept their score, a bottom and I thought that was well deserved.

Our score was changed to 3S making which was the normal and almost the only result on this board.  It is true that if I had known what Sylvia’s bid meant I would have passed and North might have just bid 2S (although she is asked to redouble by the pass). 

I was dreading the idea of playing a late play against our opponents but they had already left when we finished the round and we just got an average plus.  Well worth it when you consider the idea of another board against these two.

I am sure they came to enjoy bridge.  I am sure they had a bad day but I wonder did they have to take it out on us.  I noticed that after we left there was another fight, another director call and another bout of screaming.  Whatever happened to the idea of zero tolerance?  I don’t believe in absolute zero tolerance but I do believe that some times players behavior crosses a line where they should be told to cease and desist or they will be penalized and then this action should be taken.  The club directors seem to handle this better than the tournament directors.

Finally last night I had the chance to play against Stacy Jacobs.  I have to say that I quite like her and I can see why others do as well. 

I have had some really fun hands (maybe I will describe some later) and Sylvia has starred several times.  I am having quite a good time except for that one awful moment last night (my ears are still ringing).