The Session From Zone 3

March 5th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I had my worst set in a while today.  Some of it happened because I was in the zone, the bottom zone and some of it just happened for no reason at all.  See if you can do better than me on this one?  Well who wouldn’t.

You have

Everyone is vulnerable and you are in first chair.  I think this is too good to open anything but 2♣ and partner bids  2◊.  Do you like 2NT?  I thought about 2♥ but 2NT seemed to tell the story.  Sylvia bid 3♥ and accepted the transfer to 3♠.  Sylvia bid 4◊ which I assumed was natural.  The first question does it show four diamonds or five diamonds.  I just didn’t know but I can’t think why it couldn’t be four.  I temporized with 4♥ hoping that Sylvia’s next bid would help out.  Sylvia bid 5♠.  She obviously wants to be in a slam but isn’t sure where.  I thought if she had six spades she would have just bid the spade slam.  I sort of wanted to suggest 6NT but I wasn’t quite sure how.  What would she think of 6♣ or 5NT?  Finally I decided she had to be 5-5 and was asking me to bid the appropriate slam.

These thoughts are from the cellar of zone 3.  If she was 5-5 or even 6-5 she would have been 6◊.  I could convert to 6♠ if I wanted to.  Now in retrospect I wish I had bid 5NT.  That would have given us a decent change to get to the best spot 6NT but  6♠ is almost as good.  I foolishly bid 6◊.  Sigh.  Here is Sylvia’s hand.

This wasn’t the kind of day where the diamonds split 3-3 and you survive your terrible bid.  Mea culpa.  Sympathy is welcome.

Canuck Team Game

March 4th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

Yesterday, Sylvia and I played a great 24 board team game.  Pamela Nisbet was playing with Herve Chatagnier at our table.  Our partners were Paul Thurston and Jeff Smith who were playing Isabelle Smith and her partner Sondra Blank.  If you are regular readers of my blog you will know that Isabelle and I have played on teams with Pamela and against her too.   Pamela has an enviable record in the Canadian Women’s Team Trials as the consistent winner over the last few years.  Paul will be well known to many as a wonderful author, columnist and bridge teacher.  He and Jeff have formed a partnership this year planning to play in the Canadian trials.  Sondra was the silver medalist in the the Canadian B Team Championships and Herve is a past winner of the Canadian Team Trials. 

One theme of this match was the opening lead.  On Board 2 Sondra sitting South, vulnerable against not held:

The auction had gone

What do you lead?  Sondra found a trump lead.  She does have diamonds over the diamond bidder.  Jeff is showing three trump and in these cases trump is often a good lead.  I like it.  Not that you can’t make an argument for other choices.  As it turns out on any other lead there are ten tricks without a sweat.  After a spade lead the deal is done.

Here is the whole deal:

This was worth 10 imps for Sondra’s efforts.  

Here was a fascinating and challenging deal.  Let’s start by looking at it from Paul Thurston’s viewpoint.

Vulnerable against not you are sitting East in first chair.  What do you do?   Paul decided to kick things into high gear with a weak 2♠ bid.  The auction continues double, pass, pass.  Do you sit?   I can see an argument both ways but I think many people with bid 3♣.  Would you?  Decide now.

Paul bid 3♣ but he is going to live to regret it in just a few bids.  South bid 4♥ and Jeff bid 4♠.  (Ouch).  The auction continues with 5♥ from Isabelle.  Are you a bidder now?   What does partner have?  He isn’t shy so why did he pass before and “save” over the game.  It must have been something about the club bid because even with a weak hand and good spades he probably would have bid in the first place.  Does partner really know what you have or do you have a surprise?  I think your 6-6 shape is a surprise and I would bid again here.   But I can see the argument for passing.  Partner might have a plan that you don’t understand.  Anyway Paul passed.  Partner wasn’t through though and he bid 5♠.  Remember he is red on white.  What does he have?  North doubles.  What do you do?  Here is the auction so far

How did you get into this mess?  Actually it doesn’t matter what you do at this point because partner doesn’t sit.  Jeff bids 5NT which Isabelle doubles.  I am not sure what Jeff was doing but you know that you have to bid 6♣.  Sondra passes but Isabelle bids 6♥.  Do you bid now?  Do you have any idea what is happening?  Paul passed and Jeff doubled.  One last chance to change your mind.  You sit for the double of course having made your decision a while ago.  And now over to the other table.

Now you are going to sit in my seat.   I am North and here is my hand.

You might not recognize that this is the same deal for a while.  Herve (East) opens 1♠ and Sylvia bids 2♥.  Pamela passes and you cuebid 2♠.  Herve jumps to 4♣ and Sylvia bids 5◊.  Pamela comes alive with 6♣.  This is not the moment of truth that will come in a minute.  You bid 6◊ and Herve doubles.  This is passed to you.  Here is the auction so far:

What is Herve’s double and like they say in the song.  “Should you stay or should you go now?”  Make a decision now. 

I passed.  I know Sylvia has at least five diamonds and we could easily be off a diamond ruff in hearts.  But I think Herve’s double suggests that we are off a heart ruff in diamonds.  Maybe this is too hard to figure out, well I would like to think that. 

Here is the whole deal:

6♥ always makes because although there is a diamond ruff the hand with the singleton diamond has no trump.  But If I pulled would Herve had stood for 6♥.  I will never know. 

Playing in 6◊ doubled I was lucky that it is not at all clear that the double is a Lightner double since East-West have bid a power slam vulnerable and East could have been doubling our save.  With only three hearts it is extremely difficult, maybe impossible to find a heart lead from the West hand.  In the end, very few imps were exchanged on this board because a doubled red suit slam was made at both tables. 

Par on this board is 7♣ doubled down one.  At the other table most of the players made some bad choices that could have led to a disaster even though North-South wound up with a great result.  At our table I think the bidding was better and I was the only one to make a questionable bid.

In the end my team lost but the match was a lot of fun.

A New Free Magazine Issue Is On Ebooks Bridge

March 2nd, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

It’s time for a new free issue of Canadian Masterpoint on www.ebooksbridge.com.  It will be available by March 4.  The issue this time is April 1996.

I am going to confess that my favorite thing in this issue is the editorial.  It seems just as valid today as it did in 1996!  Alice in Wonderland is playing bridge at the Mad Hatters Tea Party and the whole group is having some “problems” with the alert system.  See what you think.  I confess that I wrote the editorial with a lot of editing and input from Ray but it was written in 1996 so no complaints if you find the alert system clear, easy to use etc.

There is a long article by Jim Kirkham reprinted from the 1996 COI magazine which is entitled whatever LOLA wants.  This deals with breaks in tempo and the law of logical alternatives.  Jim discussion how the use if LOLA by appeals committees causes a lot of issues.  As far as I know this article is still relevant today.

Another favorite is an article by Fred Gittleman called a suitable study.  He discusses a hand from the McCallan Tournament in London and how three of the world’s best players were in 6S and each played the spade suit combination differently and describes their thinking was.  It is very cool.  You will like it.

There is a lot of very good stuff in this issue including a humorous story by David Silver, a rather superficial article that I wrote about wee notrump (long before I played it) which pointed out how it could actually help the other side when they ended up declaring the hand and an interested set of hands to try bidding with your favorite partner.  Dr. Andrew Diosy, the bridge puzzle maker has a nice story about a hand where you need to decide whether you want to take a bet to make a contract.  My better half writes up some fascinating deals from the Canadian Trials.  A lot of them seem to have resulted in four digit numbers.  And there is even an article about transfer responses to takeout doubles; I need to think about that one.

Barbara Seagram has an article for students about the art of signaling which includes the interesting poem:

High-low, High-low

It’s off two tricks he goes.

Just keep on signaling all hand long

High-low, High-low

There are a lot more articles and even a bridge cryptic crossword.  So download your free copy.  It is easy and you can read it all on your PC and print out copies for yourself and your friends.  All you need to do once you get over to www.ebooksbridge.com is to sign up and follow the instructions to download.

A little bidding problem

February 26th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

With everyone white you are playing a team game.  You are coming into the last board of a friendly match up by 7 IMPS.  You want to win this one because the opponents have been making a lot of aggressive bids.

This is your hand:

You open 1♠ and the aggressive Swede on your left overcalls 2♥.  Sylvia Caley, your partner bids 2♠.  Do you make a game try or not?  I passed.  You may disagree, more about that in a moment.

But the aggressive Swede on my left was not done and he bid 3◊ which is passed around to you.  Do you do anything now?

I think these are the choices.

a) bid 3♥.  Now that you have limited your hand you might as well make a game try.  Maybe partner is sand bagging a little bit

b) pass.  If you only see this as a partscore hand pass probably isn’t too bad.  It doesn’t sound like there are that many total tricks on this hand.  In the worse case if you lose the partscore swing it will only be about 5 or 6 imps and you will still win the match

c) bid 3♠.  They can’t steal from you.

d) double.  I am not entirely sure what that means but it should show good defensive values.  It sounds like partner might just have some hearts so maybe they won’t go down.  On the downside if they do make it, you will lose the match.  None of the other options put that so clearly on the line.

Am I a woman or a mouse (squeak squeak)?  Anyway, I passed and as it turned out we can make game.  At the other table my hand just bid 4♠ over 2♠.   My ♥Q was a huge card.  The opponents went four down for 200 and we still won the match by 1 imp even though our opponents had bid game.  +220 was only 6 imps (just as if we had lost the part-score swing).  What bid would work out best?  Double.  Sylvia would pass and you have a juicy +800 and they won’t feel so comfortable to bid like this if you should ever meet them again.

Can you believe Two Trump Coups (well sort of)

February 25th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Sylvia Caley and I played in a team game and a half (in one of them the opponents started fighting and left) today.  I didn’t play quite as well as I have been but I did have one gorgeous hand which I have to show you.  It is that wonderful feeling when the opponent doubles you and provides the information needed to make the hand.   Your hand is:

North-South Vulnerable

Do you like double?  Do you like pass?  Do you hate 2♠?  okay so its probably wrong but these guys were all over the place and I prefer to get into the auction early.  The auction continued 3♣ by aggressive but vulnerable North and 3♠ by trustworthy partner.  Do you bid game?  I mean you have shown your hand already maybe?  Yeah, yeah, I bid game.  Then wouldn’t you know it but South doubled.  The opening lead was the ♣A and this is your dummy.

North cashed two top clubs (South signaled an odd number so 3) and then switched to the ◊2 playing third and fifth suggesting an odd number.  I didn’t think South had five spades for a lot of reasons.  Did you notice he bid 1NT over 1♥?

Anyway you can make this deal a lot of ways but they all  involve some sort of trump coup or en passant play.  I won the diamond cashed the ♠A picking up the ♠9 on my left and then crossed on a heart and took the deep spade finesse.  Cashed a heart ruffed a heart, ruffed a club and crossed on a diamond to lead a club off dummy and scored both of my remaining spades.  At the other table they went one down in 4♠ undoubled.

South held

Later Sylvia had her turn after we had a bit of a miscue.

I opened a 12-14 notrump and Sylvia bid 2♥  which she meant as a transfer.  Unfortunately we are not playing transfers.  I bid 3♥ which shows four hearts and a maximum and that is where she played it.  By the way, I am not sure what you are supposed to do with Sylvia’s hand when partner bids 3♥.  The bid clearly awakens you to your mistake so I suppose it is okay to pass.  If anyone wants to give me their thoughts on this subject I am interested.  The opponents knew about the mistake because Sylvia had self alerted the transfer.  The opening lead was a spade which went to Sylvia’s 10.   She played a club and the ace came up in front of the dummy.  She now got the rather helpful play of the ◊Q which went to the ◊K and the ◊A.  Sylvia won the diamond in hand and played a heart to the nine losing to the ♥10.  A third diamond came back and she won that in hand as everyone followed.  She played a heart to the ♥8 which held.  Here is the position now.

Sylvia cashed the top clubs throwing spades and played a fourth club ruffing with the ♥ J when RHO discarded.  Now when she played a spade throwing the opponents in she was bound to make the last two tricks with the ♥AQ.

South had held

All this for a push since the opponents were in a ”mundane” 3♠.  Growing pains Sylvia called it.  Yes it is but it is a lot of fun too.

We are playing again tomorrow afternoon if you happen to be around.  Expect mistakes but the bridge will be interesting, I promise.

A Blitz

February 25th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I played with Sylvia Caley today in a ten board tournament on BBO.  We had a blitz but better than that Sylvia was a pleasure to play with.  After playing some pickup games, it is so nice to play with a good partner with whom you have discussed (at least somewhat) a system.

We won a surprise game swing on this hand and while we had a normal auction, this deal does remind me of one bidding point, keep the auction open if you can when your partner can have a wide range of high cards.

Here is the auction at the other table.  In third chair, all vulnerable, your partner opens 1♥ and you bid 1♠.  Partner bids 2♣.  What do you do?  I think it is clear to bid 3♣ don’t you?  You just have to show some values here and keep the auction open.  Anyway, the lady in my seat passed.  A bid that would not occur to me.  What I really hate about pass is that it ends the auction.  In this auctions partner can still have a very good hand.  At our table the auction was slightly different in that Sylvia rebid 2◊.  I bid 2NT which should show 10-11 since we are playing 12-14 notrump and Sylvia bid a very trusting 3NT.  She held

I was thinking about other choices Sylvia had.  I think 3♣ is forcing but any other suit bid at the three level is for play.  With a weaker hand and the same pattern I would have responded  2♣ to have the maximum chance of finding a fit.   She could also bid 4♥ because I will almost always have two hearts.  But with such a good hand and such good spots 3NT is a reasonable choice too.  When you look at both hands it seems to me that 3NT is slightly better than 4♥.

Here is an interesting play hand.

Linda

Sylvia

All vulnerable

3◊ was a constructive 4 card raise.  The opening lead was the ♥5.  How should you play the hand?   It looks like West has a heart honor (from the lead) so East should have most of the other high cards.   Your problem is that you don’t have any way back to dummy after the heart lead.  Sylvia tried the ◊Q and it held, not all that surprising.  All players played their lowest spots.  Diamonds are very likely 3-2 since West would likely have lead a singleton diamond but maybe not.  It seems to me that the best play is to draw trump and then assuming a normal trump break play a heart.  They will have to play diamonds eventually or give you a club winner or ruff-sluff.   So Sylvia played trump but they were 4-0 and the diamond ten was doubleton offside.  Here is the whole hand

After finding out the bad news in trump. I might try a heart  but West can win and get out a trump.  You can play the ♣Q hoping that East has both honors but as it turns out West can win and even lead a club back.  So in the end you just have to draw trump and lay down the ◊A.

I was thinking about the idea of playing a club to your hand at trick three, playing the nine if East ducks.  But the defenders can just cash out their winners ending with West who returns a trump to lock you in your hand.  Unlucky Sylvia, it seems to me you did the right thing.  Anyone see anything better?

At the other table declarer was even more poorly placed since he didn’t try a diamond at trick two.  After getting the bad news in trump he tried all the ways he had to get an entry to dummy but the defender were up to it and in the end declarer had to play the entire diamond suit from his hand.  So Sylvia’s more far sighted play of a diamond at trick two might have won the board on another day.

Being a wife

February 22nd, 2009  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

I haven’t been focused on anything but being a wife for the last few days.  Ray had a minor surgery which went very well.  He is in a fabulous local hospital called the Shouldice Hospital which is built on the grounds of an old estate and is run as much like a fine hotel as a hospital.  Anyway he should be home Monday.  We have talked and talked about everything from the economy to bridge and I took over a deck of cards.  So tomorrow I plan to kill him at crazy eights.

Talk to you all soon… Linda

Juniors Imp Pairs Tournament

February 18th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

I played in a junior IMP pairs competition today.  It was each junior playing with an expert.  I played the expert.  We played eight hands and my junior played a very un-junior conservative game.  I had a few interesting decisions to make and for once I got them all right (at least as the cards lay).  So here are a couple for you to try.

On this hand you are in fourth chair vulnerable against not and your hand is

You are playing 2/1 with puppet Stayman over 2NT, transfers and Smolen.  There are three passes to you.  What is your choice of opening bid?

I think the choices are 1♠, 2NT or 2♣ with a plan to rebid 2NT (upgrading) or 2♠.  I decided this hand was suit oriented so I was left with 1♠ or 2♣ followed by 2♠.  I think the former is more flexible.  What do you think?

In the end I bid 1♠ and we ended in 4♠.  Partner had

If you open 2NT you are going to end in 3NT.  The opening leader has five good clubs and you are going down.  Quite a number of pairs did not get to the right contract.  My partner and I had quite a long discussion about this deal.  He was surprised I hadn’t opened 2NT.  He asked what I would have done over a 1NT (semi-forcing) bid by him.  I would have bid 3◊.  If I was just planning to raise to 3NT I might as well have opened 2NT.  We both thought the discussion was interesting.

Was I lucky or did I do the right thing?

Here is a more wild and wooly hand.  This time everyone is vulnerable and you are once again in fourth chair.  You hold:

The bidding starts

Here was my first problem.  Okay it has that misfit feel and I have a void in partner’s suit but I do have seven clubs.  I bid 3♣ and it still seems right to me.  Partner perked up with 3♠.  This was clearly a request to bid 3NT.  I hate bidding 3NT with a void but I do have a potential source of tricks and spades stopped maybe even twice.  So I bid 3NT, a bit reluctantly.  Now South doubled and it was passed back to me.  Am I going to run like a rabbit or take it like a woman?  What would you do?  Here is my thought process.  It does sound like South has a club trick (the king?).  I didn’t really think he had a huge heart suit.  Partner has to have good hearts on this auction.  I am worried that partners diamonds which may look pretty good to him are not going to stand up as a stopper.  I was almost positive I would get  doubled in 4♣ which had an upside, I might make it.  So I bid that.  I suppose if I had the courage of my convictions I might have bid 5♣ and I did think of it.  South duly doubled 4♣ which made that choice mute.  The best part was that everyone had pretty much what I thought they would have and I made an uptrick!  Some days the sun shines even in the winter.  Here is the whole hand

Isn’t it great to have a partner who had his bid  Thanks partner, I hope you had as much fun as I did.

Reflecting on filling in the gaps

February 10th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

So many of us learn most of our bridge in a willy nilly sort of fashion.  Maybe once we took some lessons or in my case read a few books including the famous Charles Goren’s Point Count Bidding.  But most of it we learned from here and there, in no organized fashion.

Some years ago I decided to learn 2/1.  I had been away from bridge a long time and I was playing with some new women partners who all wanted to play that.  At the time I couldn’t find a really good book that explained all its ins and outs.  I learned some of it from my partners and some of it from books and a lot of it by trial and error.  It was a little embarrassing sometimes.  I didn’t realize that in a 2/1 auction that jumping in your major as in 1H-2C-3H showed a solid suit.  It was never mentioned until it happened. 

In working with Kathie who has played bridge for many years after a while I recommended that she get a hold of a copy of Barbara Seagram’s Beginning Bridge.  The title is a bit off putting.  This sounds like a book for a brand new player and it is.  So I realized that when Kathie saw the book she might wonder what I was doing.  Here is the answer for you, Kathie.  You just kept asking questions that were described in the book and the book explained it better with examples and practice exercises.

For example, I tried to describe to you and someone who happened to be at our practice table how to count your losers and make a plan.  And there it is in the book.  There is a discussion about notrump bidding with Stayman and transfers, just what we have been practicing and so on.  So I hope you will like the book and it will help you even if the name is beginning bridge.

I remember when Paul Thurston published Bridge 25 Steps to Learning 2/1.  I read it as soon as it was published and I realized that even though I had been playing 2/1 for a while by then, it still filled in some of the gaps!  I guess we all have to go back to the basics some of the time.

Escape from the cold

February 9th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Ray and I just got back from Florida.  A little over a week ago we had about the fifth snowstorm from Hell.  I couldn’t stand it any more so Ray agreed (as long as I promised tennis) to point the card South.  We ended up in a beautiful resort near Orlando.  It was unusually cold in Florida this week but Ray and I didn’t care.  We loved every minute.  Ray played tennis every morning and we visited Epcot.  I love Disney.

We had a lot of chance to talk and plan in the car.  We are excited about our new ebook site.  Ray has bought a Sony reader and he also has a Blackberry Storm.  He is just like a famous president we all know, even the Secret Service couldn’t remove his Storm.  Anyway he can try out our ebooks on these devices as well as on the computer.  It still works best on the computer but you can see that some day soon it will get better.  We also made our first few ebook sales and it made us happy that people could now buy some out of print books and they did. 

As I keep hearing about dishonesty in government, business and sadly in bridge I started to think a bit about ethics in business.  It surprised me how often in my career as a management consultant I had to make ethical choice.  Here is one example.  I was working for a company which provided computer services for other companies, hosting their applications.  After making a proposal to one of our customers and having it accepted the head of computer services decided he didn’t like it because he was trying to standardize equipment and it would require two different type of firewalls.  He wanted us to go back and tell the customer that a revised proposal provided equal security (it didn’t).  The security firm we had hired to put together the security solution told me what I already knew, it was a much weaker solution.  Now, I was supposed to present the solution to the customer and tell him it was the same.  The security company wrote an ambiguous report which could be read to suggest it was equivalent.  When I complained to my boss she told me to just do it.  What should I do?  I worried about it all weekend.  Finally I came up with a plan.  I told the head of security that he had to come with me to the presentation at the clients office.  I needed someone with his expertise to explain it properly (it was beyond my feeble skills).  He agreed to came.  When it came time to tell the client the “lie” he just couldn’t do it.  He dropped the idea and the original proposal was implemented.  If he had proposed it, I would have found a way to make sure that the client got the whole story.

A friend and sometimes boss used to call it “the smell test”.  If it doesn’t smell right then don’t do it.  I think the same thing needs to apply to bridge.  It isn’t just because something is illegal or you will get caught, it is because it is right or wrong.  I remember when we played in a bridge team league.  We thought we had lost the finals but it turned out that there was a scoring error and we had won.  We worked this out during drinks after the game.  The other team agreed but refused to change the score.  I don’t think I ever forgave the captain of that team.

I have a lot more sympathy for situations where you don’t know what to do.  This some times comes in those auctions where you make a mistake with a convention.  I remember trying to figure out what to do after Ray opened 1S and I bid 4H (a splinter) except you guessed it I had hearts.  When Ray bids 4S can I “wake up”.  Unfortunately Ray had alerted so I suppose that was out.  So now I had to decided what 4S meant in the pretend auction and what I should do with my hand after that bid.  I thought it had to be an offer to play (not a cue bid) so I passed.  But I still don’t know if that was really right or just convenient.  We obviously had never discussed follow on bids in a hypothetical auction we didn’t actually play!

There just seems to be too much cheating all around us.  Its time for everyone to use an honest ethical approach to everything in life.