A bit of this and that

June 26th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

We have booked the plane and have our hotel reservations confirmed so we are headed to Brazil later this summer to cover the Bridge World Championships.  Meanwhile we have also confirmed our trip to Washington.  I am rather looking forward to that although I am convinced that Colin and I are not nearly ready to play the forcing club system in anything serious.  There seem to me to be gaping holes in the system and we have little time to practice.  It is fun though.

Meanwhile Sylvia and I are continuing to practice on BBO.  We haven’t made any chances or additions to the system since Penticton but I am sure we will.  We still plan to play in something in Washington but I am not sure yet what we are going to play in.

We played a fairly long team game yesterday and did quite well I thought.  How would you bid this hand.  You are in fourth chair and North opens 1D which is passed to you.  Your hand is

You are too good for anything else anyway so you double and partner jumps to 2♠.  These were the bids that ran through my head:

a) 3♥  b)3NT c) 4♠ d) 3♦

How do you rate each of these bids?  What would you do?  I thought there had to be a better alternative than 4♠.  I was afraid that 3♥ might suggest a hand that was too good to just overcall hearts and overstate the quality of my heart suit.  Maybe it shouldn’t be that.  I just wasn’t sure.  What do you think?  I decided that the cuebid was most flexible and that is what I bid.  Partner bid 3NT which made please me.  At the other table my hand bid 4♠.

Here is Sylvia’s hand:

3NT was a piece of cake but 4♠ was nip and tuck and in the end the defense prevailed.   Still if Sylvia had three hearts we never would have got to hearts which may well have been the best contract.

The finals of the European Open Team Championship

June 25th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

The European Team Championships in Sanremo Italy started with 129 teams from 46 countries.  Going into the last of three segments of the finals of this events the Netherlands White team was facing an Herbst an Israeli team.  The Herbst brothers, Ilan and Ophir were on the Israeli team that did so well in the Round Robin last year in Beijing and I did a blog about that team at the time.

Blog about Beijing Israeli team

So it wasn’t so surprising to see that a Herbst team would make it this far in the event.  I did some commentary on one an early match featuring Ned White.  At the time I thought Ned White was a person but was soon put to rights when I was told that it was one of several teams from the Netherlands.

Coming into the third and last stanza of the final Ned White led by 14 imps, a very close match.  I had watched the Herbst in an earlier stanza and had noticed that they were very aggressive bidders.  I was sure the match would feature very good bridge but exciting bridge too.  The most exciting board of the match was Board 3.   In the Open Room the Netherlands facing a minimum of preemption had arrived at a sensible 6C.  However in the Closed Room the action was fast and furious.  What would you do on these cards? You have:

With your side vulnerable your partner opens 1NT (15-17) and North (Drijver) jumps to 3♥ natural.  What do you bid?  Zack for Israel found a 6♣ bid.  That would not be my choice.  Anyway South (Brink) bid 6♥ and it was now up to Barel.

Would you bid 7♣?  I think I would.  Partner bid 6♣ without at least three keycards its hard to imagine he doesn’t have hearts controlled and certainly the rest of the club suit.  This was strangely doubled by North, Drjver who held no defensive tricks.  As you can see you basically need two finesse to make and luckily both the spade and diamond finesse worked.

After this result the Herbst team took a one imp lead into Board 5.  But the next two boards were the deciders, the Netherlands winning 7 imps on each board to take the lead back.  Board 5 was interesting.  It talks about something I know I don’t do enough.  Let’s look at the deal in the Open Room where the key decision belongs to Ilan Herbst.  If he had got this one right it would have been enough of an imp difference to win the event.  So no pressure.

Everyone is vulnerable

You are in fourth chair and the auction starts with two passes.  RHO opens 1♦.  You double.  I know it wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste but that was the way the auction started in both rooms.  Here is how the auction continued in both rooms.

What do you do now?  At first glance it seems automatic to me to pass but as I look at the hand I can see that I might expect to defeat 3♦ most of the time.  I have two or three trump tricks quite likely, a potential club trick and a spade trick.  Partner has some values for his voluntary 2♥ bid.  So there is a case for double.  Ilan Herbst passed which is what I know I would have done too.  But Brink doubled.  All of your potential tricks come home.  You do have 3 diamond tricks, a club trick and a spade trick and partner shows up with the HA for you second down trick.  If you double you make +500 to +200 otherwise.  The difference, 7 imps.

You are now down by 6 imps and you come to Board 5.  If you get this one right you can still win the event.  Are you ready for it.  I watched this board live and was surprised by all its twist and turns.  Basically the auction started out the same at both tables.  Here is Ilan Herbst hand.  Once again he is the decision maker at a crucial time.  Partner opens 1♣ and your hand is

Your partner opens 1♣ and Muller passes.  You bid 1♠ and it is some sort of transfer, probably to clubs.  On you left you nonvulnerable opponent, Wijs bids 2♣ for the majors.  Partner passes and Muller bids 2♠.  What do you bid.? Ilan Herbst bid 3NT.  Its not a bad bid.  You have spades stopped and the hand has likely plays best from your side.  Partner probably has something in hearts.  At the other table East (Zack) bid 3♠ which makes it a really pressure bid for South who also bid 3NT.  At both tables now the East hand refused to sell and bid 4♠.  What now?  Do you double, pass or bid?  I am not one to bid now.  I have shown my hand completely.  I have a tenuous spade stopper and no heart stopper and minimum values.  I wasn’t sure about 3NT in the first place.  I double.  I don’t even pass it to partner.  Brink passed and Drijver doubled.  But Ilan bid 4NT.  As it turned out even 3NT doesn’t make.  Here is the whole hand

Astute readers will notice that 5♣ does make although neither table sniffed at a club contract.  After this deal the Herbst team won most of the rest of the imps, a one here, a three there but it was not enough.

Blackwood Part 3

June 22nd, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I wasn’t planning to write another blog on Blackwood but then this deal came up while I was watching the European Open Teams today.

Voids don’t work very well when you use any form of Blackwood.  Here is a case in point

You are sitting South with nobody vulnerable and you have

You open 1♠ and partner bids 2♥ , game forcing.  You bid 2♠ and partner splinters with 4♣ .  You cuebid 4♦ and partner cuebids 4♥.  What do you do?

Zia decided to bid Blackwood and partner now bid 5NT which it appears showed two keycards and a void.  This is not what you want to hear.  You are off two keycards.  Hope we aren’t missing two aces…. but alas

Now for those who hate Blackwood in these situations lets look at what happened at the other table with Tessiere and Fantun.

I am not familiar with their methods but taken at face value they seemed to have cuebid their way to slam.  I will try to find out more about it.

Playing the same deal, Fantoni and Nunes started off the same as Zia and Welland but Nunes bid 4S over 4H (which I confess was my choice) and Fantoni passed it out.  (I would have taken another try but perhaps there is something in their methods that helped him make that decision).

So somehow despite long books on control asking and Roman Keycard Blackwood, top players are still having trouble getting to the right slams.  Are there better ways?  Will the future bring us some new tricks?

Thinking about the they played better thing

June 22nd, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

When people talk about why one team wins and one team loses it seems inevitable that someone will say that the other team won because they played better.  It happened today while I watch the last part of a knockout match in the European Open Teams.  I hear it all the time.  But this is not always the case.  The problem is that bridge is a game of percentages and in the end even if I show you both your hand and partners and let you pick the contract and you do it perfectly you may still lose the board.  Theoretically in a long match this should cancel out.  If you do the right thing often enough you will win but any gambler knows that in the short run luck is a big factor.  Frank Sinatra didn’t sing Luck Be A Lady Tonight in Guys and Dolls for no reason.

Ray likes to talk about a preliminary round of the Spingold where we were playing against a very good team as usual.  We were having a great game and while we didn’t know it we were up just a little going into a late board.  We bid a grand slam (don’t wince).  There were 13 top tricks unless trump was 4-0.  When Ray did not get a trump lead he swears he almost played the opening leader for all the trump and took a first round finesse but he didn’t and we didn’t qualify because of that hand.  We had bid to the best spot, we were leading, we deserved to win we really did and we lost.

So sometimes it bugs me when people imply that the only reason you could have lost was that they played better.  As Ray repeated recently I would rather say as a chess master once did; “Why must I lose to those idiots?”  If I stop thinking that way I probably should stop competing.

So, today this lovely hand came up in a losing cause.  It was a defense featuring Fantoni and Nunes.   With North-South Vulnerable, North (Drijver) opens 4♠ .  This is passed to partner who doubles.  The match is very close at this point and you know that.  Do you sit or bid?

Fantoni passed as I think most of us would at this vulnerability rather than scramble around looking for a fit.  More about the bidding later.  He led the ♥ 2 (I assume they lead low from two small).  Partner won the ♥ Q as declarer played the ♥ J.  This was the dummy.

Partner lays down the A♦ which is ruffed.  Two thoughts here.  We had a great diamond fit and declarer has some clubs.  It looks like declarer might be 8-1-0-4, possibly another heart but not likely as partner might have continued hearts.  If declarer has the QJxx of clubs it looks like he will make it.  Even Q10xx is a problem.  Declarer now plays a club towards dummy as we duck and partner plays the ♣ 8.  So what is partner’s club holding.  Partner has three clubs likely and if the eight is a true card then he has QJ8, Q108, J108.  Why is declarer playing clubs anyway?  Does he want to get to dummy for a spade play?

Declarer continues with a club off dummy as partner plays the ♣ 10.  Okay cross out QJ8.  Declarer plays a low club.  What is happening and what should you do?

Declarer is obviously concerned about losing too many club tricks.  It seems like he might want a trump in dummy to ruff the fourth club if needed.  He knows the spade five is not very big but with only three missing it might play a role.  He knows where the spade king is on the bidding so there is no reason to take the finesse.

Would declarer play low with Qxxx of clubs?  Well he does know where the ♣ A is and maybe it’s doubleton.  It isn’t likely but ducking cost nothing.  This is not an easy decision as I look at it now but at the table Fantoni got it right.

I wonder if with J108 Fantoni would play the jack on the second round?  Maybe that was his clue. Anyway he overtook with the ♣ A and continued hearts.  Then when he got in on spades he could cross to Nunes with the ♣Q for a heart which promoted his spade ten for +500 and a couple of imps against –420 for five diamonds making six at the other table.  When you are looking at all four hands as I was this seemed like a much easier decision than it must have been at the table.  And I foolishly said so.

Here is the whole hand.

One last word.  Do you like Nunes’ double?  I don’t.  I really don’t like doubling with a void in trump.  If Nunes bids 4NT then the partnership will get to at least five diamonds and possibly even six.  Six diamonds is not a bad spot on the auction and makes even with the bad breaks.  Bidding and making six diamonds was worth an extra nine imps.  They would have lost by one imp.  That really would have been unlucky.

An Interesting Deal From the Swiss

June 21st, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I was commenting today on the European Open Teams, At the moment they are playing a Swiss to qualify for a knockout phase. Ten fast and furious boards. This deal was particularly interesting in the match between Lara and Texan Aces. FIrst sit in the West set for the Aces. You hold:

Everyone is white and there are two passes to you. You start the excitement with a modest 1♣ . North bids 2♦ which shows the majors and your partner bids 3♣ . On your right you hear 3♠ . Your call? You decide reasonably to take a shot at 3NT. But North-South are not done yet. North bids 4♠ and this is passed back to you. Your choice?

Sudderam bid 4NT meant as natural and played there.  There was some discussion about whether or not you can make four spades North-South and as it turns out they are down a trick.  But I like 4NT.  It is insurance and some times it makes.

Let’s switch seats.  You are sitting South and after this auction your partner leads the ♦J.  This is what you see

Partner leads the diamond jack and declarer plays low.  What is your plan?

Now, we commentators are nice sorts.  We know how hard it is to be out there giving it your all. So when Lara South played low what I said was that overtaking with the ♦J was a play that I would expect to make if I was “at the table”. Yes, I can slop it up some times and play low but if I am concentrating I won’t make that mistake. It does seem obvious now doesn’t it. (Sorry, Lara). She ducked. Declarer ducked this diamond and won the second diamond. 4NT is now cold. Here is the whole hand:

On a spade lead there are ten tricks so North did well to lead a diamond. After declarer and Lara ducked the first diamond and declarer won the second. Declarer finesses hearts twice the second one covered and plays clubs. Capucho (North) has to make three pitches to start. The best approach is to throw spades. We arrive at this point:

Dealer: Vul:		North
		♠	AJ8
		♥	875
		♦	void
		♣	void
West				East
♠	K10			♠	6
♥	void			♥	Q6
♦	105			♦	9
♣	105			♣	87
		South
		♠	Q972
		♥	void
		♦	K8
		♣	void

South continues clubs ending in dummy.  If at any time North throws a heart then South throws North in on the last heart to play a spade to West for the tenth trick.  If North stiff the spade ace instead  declarer plays the spade six from dummy ducking as North wins.North perforce returns a heart won in dummy.  Now declarer can force a hand entry by leading a diamond off dummy.  If South wins she has to give West her hand with a diamond or a spade.  If South ducks then the diamond nine is declarer’s tenth trick.  A rather pretty ending and easier to read (from the bidding and play) then most.  At the table declarer threw hearts early on which made the end play quite easy.

So South was punished big time for ducking that first diamond.

Blackwood Part 2

June 21st, 2009  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

This hand may be an example of a triumph for keycard Blackwood and perhaps also a failure.  This was from the first round of the CNTC Final.  Joey Silver and John Carruthers bid this deal to a slam.

Joey Silver
♠	J5
♥	53
♦	AJ873
♣	AKQ9
John Carruthers
♠	K4
♥	AQ
♦	Q1096542
♣	43

Here is how they bid this deal:

What I like about there bidding is how simple it is.  After John opened the bidding with one diamond, Joey’s two heart bid was a strong diamond raise.  After John made the quiet three diamond bid Joey showed strong slam interest while denying major suit controls.  That was enough for John who bid Keycard.  When Joey showed him two with the queen John knew that he had five diamonds.   This seems quite brilliant except that John was committed to the slam even if they were off two aces.  Could Joey have a hand like this?

I think he could although perhaps its not that likely. So was this really a Blackwood triumph? Let look at what happened at the other table where things took a slightly different turn.  Here Darren Wolpert was sitting South and Jurek Czyzowicz bid the deal like this.

The auction started out essentially the same way.  Here Jurek did not bid five spades to show extra diamond length.  Perhaps in their methods the initial two diamond already showed five.  Several of the commentators to the match thought it was easy to bid six now.  But is it?  Are you really certain that you are not off two aces.  Wolpert wasn’t.  He had the space to bid five spades and then sign off in 5NT.  Was this better science?  Playing regular Blackwood over 4NT partner can simply show two aces.  Expecting partner to likely have five diamonds for this sequence and being willing to take the chance of picking up the diamond king if he didn’t you can confidently bid the slam.  The greatest weakness of keycard is clearly the inability to distinguish which keycards are missing.

There are of course other alternatives.  There are systems of relays and asking bids that could establish you have what you need.

Home Again

June 21st, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

We just arrived home from Vancouver.  Both Ray and I caught a bit of a nasty flu in Mission so the journey home was not all that pleasant although I have to say that West Jet tries hard to make their flights pleasant.  I know that there are more than the usual number of typos in some of my posts.  Thanks to everyone who sent me emails to help me fix them.  Unfortunately I wasn’t checking email on the road but tomorrow I will go back and make the changes.

When I was reading about the swine flu epidemic all the symptoms seemed the same as our illness as Ray was only too happy to point out.  This means we probably infected the people on the plane to Calgary and then the people on the plane to Toronto.  Poor souls.  I can see how it is transmitted.  From now on I carry a mask with me when I am on a flight in case my seat mate is coughing and sputtering as I was.

Tomorrow I will also take down the poll about system restrictions in the ACBL.  It does appear that an overwhelming number of you believe that there is a problem with most picking the worst case answer – badly.  I agree although I am not sure I am ready for unfettered conventions.   During the round robin in our women’s trials one of the pairs decided to play the second defense to MULTI provided by the ACBL.  Despite reading the same sheets they got confused.  They complained that they might have bid on if they understood what was written there.  The director had no patience for them pointing out that there team captains knew about MULTI 2 months in advance and had written copies of the defenses.  They actually got a normal result on the hand but I did feel bad for them in a way.  This should not be that hard.  We were only playing that MULTI promised a weak two in one of the majors not anything more complicated.

Looking back on the event I am really glad that I went.  Sylvia and I never had any misunderstandings or system confusion throughout the event.  She complemented me several times on my declarer play and I did feel like I had my “mojo”.  I realized that a lot of the problems I thought I personally was having were BBO problems.  I simply cannot concentrate on BBO properly.  I lose spot cards, I lose count.  I don’t know why this is but when I mention it to other people some of them seem to have the same problem.  Is this BBO syndrome?  Sylvia and I significantly exceeded my expectations during the entire course of the event although we did have one or two rough patches in the first round or two.   I liked our team and I remembered how much I like being part of a team.

I have a lot of pictures I took in Penticton and I will try to post some of them soon.  I wish all the winners well and I will be there to cheer them on in Brazil although Ray and I may do some touring during all or part of the Round Robin week.  So Canadian teams your job is to make it to the quarterfinals and from then on you can count on us to be boosters.  My plan is to blog about the whole event but I will be focusing on the North American teams.  Like last year we will also pick up blogs from others who are blogging the event.  If anyone is planning to write a world championship blog please let us know (or if you know someone who is doing it).  If any one would like to write a US focused blog we are especially looking for you.  Last year the Canadian teams were well covered but the US teams weren’t.  We can host you on bridge blogging and get you started or do it on your own site whatever works for you.

I come back with good memories of Penticton (except for that one sad moment when I came down after the compare to find we had lost) and wonderful memories of my time in Mission with Jennifer and Jason and my three grandchildren.  We taught the eldest two a simple version of minibridge.  They liked it so much that Jennifer’s threat was that if they didn’t finish their dinner they wouldn’t get to play bridge! 

Blackwood

June 18th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

It used to be that Blackwood was simple.  Someone bid 4NT and you responded with aces going up the line.  The only hard part was remembering the rare occasions when 4NT meant something else.  In fact, one of our friends dispensed with this problem entirely by stating that 4NT was always Blackwood.  You also had to cope with 4C as Gerber but only directly over notrump (fondly called Gerber ON Toast) so it almost never came up.  Over time we have added grand slam force, roman keycard blackwood with several variations and a lot of extensions, redwood, exclusion and more.   Not to mention various conventions to cope with interference such as dopi and REPO. Life has got complicated and in the end one wonders if it is all worth it.

Watching the US women’s trials last week I noticed several cases of convention confusion over doubles of 4NT so I told my partner… forget it… we play system on and redouble is for business.  It may not be best but who cares.  Going through the hands in the CNTC I noticed some other problems with the control checking family.

In the first board of the final of the Canadian Open Team Trials we had this auction

I am not sure but I believe two hearts sets a game force and responder showed good diamonds.  3NT suggests a spot to play.  What is 5NT?  Is it a grand slam try in diamonds?  It could be.   If so is it Grand Slam Force or something else?  Perhaps it asks partner to pick the best slam.  Your hand is

West				East
♠	AK102			♠
♥	K106			♥
♦	Q6			♦
♣	10843			♣

Being confused and with a minimum I would probably be torn between six diamonds and six notrump.  Do I need to protect the heart king?  Maybe, so I would probably opt for 6NT.  Is there some reason partner didn’t check for keycards.  Maybe we don’t have a way to do it in this auction?  West at the table bid seven diamonds and was off the heart ace.  Trust me in the old days nobody would have got there.

West				East
♠	AK102			♠	Q64
♥	K106			♥	2
♦	Q6			♦	AKJ874
♣	10843			♣	AKQ

Now you may not think this is really an ace asking problem. I have more in a future article

Watching just a little bridge in beautiful British Columbia

June 16th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

I have been having a great time visiting with my daughter and her family in the beautiful country around Maple Ridge/Mission.  From time to time though over the last while I logged onto BBO for a few minutes to see what was happening in the CNTC and USBF Finals.  Yesterday I watched a small number of hands from the last round of the match to pick US2.  At this point Nickell had regained the lead from Fleisher and led by 23 imps but it was still very close with 16 hands to play.  Then Fleisher got a nightmare result.  I was pondering how even top experts can have disasters.  Let’s look at this one.

Rubin (West) was white on red in first chair and passed.  In third chair Granovetter opened a forcing club and Zia (South) overcalled one spade.  In their methods Rubin passed to show 0-4 (or a trap pass of spades.)  Hamman sitting North preempted three spades and Granovetter bid 3NT which had to show a big balanced hand.  Zia bid four spades and it was Rubin’s turn.  Given that you have shown 0-4 you sort of have a maximum and partner seems likely to have a fit with one of your red suits.  In this auction I think double would suggest that you have some values but are willing to play here and that doesn’t seem all bad to me with a partner with oodles of high card points, and something in spades, against vulnerable opponents.  If double is takeout then I would pass.  It just doesn’t seem worth it to me to shoot the dice at this vulnerability.   I don’t hate Rubin’s action: he bid 4NT.  Now Granovetter not surprisingly bid five clubs and Zia doubled.  The moment that Rubin wants back is about to occur.  He redoubled. 

Depending on your understandings, most of the time when the opponents make a penalty double of a possible contract, redouble is for rescue.  Some players like to play that redouble of a voluntarily bid game is penalty.  In any case here redouble is, to say the least, risky.  If you don’t have clubs you can always bid five diamonds so the redouble really ought to mean something different.  It ought to suggest playing here.  Even if there is an argument for using redouble for another purpose, unless it was underlined in my system notes I wouldn’t bid it.  I think he bid it too quickly without thinking the whole auction through.  But of course I don’t know that.  All I know is that bidding five diamonds would have got them to five hearts which would have gone down one.  Redoubling put a lot of pressure on Granovetter who held:

Could he figure out that partner meant this to be for rescue?  Without being party to their system notes and system discussions it is impossible to know.  I do know that if you go through the thought process that says that partner could have bid five diamonds with the reds then you have to pass.  You have to trust partner.  Almost always when I don’t it is wrong.

Would you have pulled?   Not me and not Matt Granovetter.

The result was minus 1600 and 19 imps.  The margin of eventual loss was greater than that but perhaps if Rubin had bid five diamonds than they would be going to Brazil.  We will never know.  As it turns out the winning action was doubling four spades.

We can all take some comfort in knowing that these things happen even to the great players and all of us who compete can feel sympathy for Rubin, for what did happen and for what might have been.

The Winners

June 14th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Despite my discussion about how to get the best open team for Canada this year I think the winners of the p[ene team trials are a good team and will be a good representative for Canada.  The L’Ecuyer team is young with good yound players like David Grainger and Daniel Korbel, Nicolas L’Ecuyer and Kamel Fergani, Darren Wolpert and Jurek Czyzowicz.  We all watched them grow up in bridge and while mostly they are not professional bridge players (few who play for Canada are) they are dedicated and talented.

The Senior team was strengthened when Carruthers lost the final so that John and Joey Silver joined Arno Hobart, Martin Kirr, the Shoe, Michael Schoenborn, Brantford ON and Boris Baran.  The Senior team are some old foxes all of whom have played internationally before.

I have noticed over the years that finals of long significant events are not always that strong.  Call it player fatigue.  There were certainly some hiccups as the CNTC drew to a close.  I was having a great time in Mission British Columbia with my daughters family but after hearing about the result I decided to take a quick peek myself.

The teams were only 15 imps apart as they started the last segment with L’Ecuyer enjoying the lead.  On the very first board Green opened his balanced 12 count with a mini notrump with nobody vulnerable.  This was doubled by fourth chair and that went pass pass back to Hanna who held

You do expect that the opponents have game since your side has a maximum of 13 HCP and if partner could only scramble 4 tricks, the number would be a small win.  But I confess I would not sit.  I would bid two clubs which shows clubs and a higher suit.  That is what happened at the other table and although partner had four hearts and three clubs they quite reasonably sat for it.  Despite a decent lie of the cards they could only take the obvious 3 tricks, two hearts (with the king onside) and a diamond.  In two clubs Fergani was able to scramble seven tricks after a club lead with clubs three-three, added by a misdefense producing a twelve imps swing.  In the end the match wasn’t all that close so no one board made a big difference.  I have several other deals to discuss but I will save them for when I am home.

Right now the sun is shining and we are teaching my grandsons bridge and chess.  We are in a particularly beautiful part of the world and having our first holiday in some time.