Ebooks Bridge

January 26th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Well, www.ebooksbridge.com is live and we have already had some people who have downloaded the free issue of Canadian Master Point magazine.  Go ahead download it.  It’s worth it.  Well it’s worth more than free, for sure. 

I was just looking at more of the issue.  One article was labeled Beijing Snapshots.  Now you remember that Canada placed second in the 1995 Beijing World Championships.  I thought that this would be some hands and highlights but actually it was pictures.  In 1995 the tournament sponsor was Marlboro (how times have changed).  There is the Canadian team holding plaques and singing O Canada at the top of their lungs.  Two of the winners Joey Silver and Fred Gittleman would go on to win a gold medal for Canada at the Olympic Demonstration event in Salt Lake City.  Alas the last time Fred would play for Canada.

The rest of the team was

Irving Litvack (npc), George Mittelman, Eric Kokish,  Mark Molson and Boris Baran.

Mark Molson (several years later)

There was an interesting deal that Ray Jotcham presented.  It starts with an opening lead problem.

Partner opens 1◊ and RHO bids 4S and you are on lead.  Can you beat the contract?  I am not sure if this is something you can deduce but the deal is cute.  Have a go and I will show you the deal tomorrow.  I will give you a hint.  Declarer buys a pretty good dummy.

Next John Gowdy describes a system for bidding over 1NT doubled.  It is called Gouba (named after a local player who is now happily retired) and is still played by a lot of players in Ontario and Quebec.  In fact Isabelle and I play a souped up version of this system.  I had no idea that it was written up all those years ago in our magazine.

Mike Cafferata who went to university with me, a few years ago has a nice story about a hearing partner open the bidding when you have a huge hand.  He describes some expert bidding.

Oddly enough one of my favorite articles isn’t really about bridge.  It is about teams.  John Ross who was then a management consultant talks about the team principle in his practice and then applies it to bridge teams.  I needed this article.  I have had several discussions with partners about team interactions.  Its easier on some teams than others.  Win-win post mortems allow questioning for learning (curiosity) and not for teaching.  So it is acceptable to ask “Does four spades always make?” or questions like that.  I am not so sure about that John but I get the idea.

I haven’t mentioned everything but I did want to point out that there were also two articles for bridge students including one by Barbara Seagram and one by Karen Allison.

So go ahead, read it yourself.  Tell me what you like and while you are at it, tell me what you think of the site.  Luise Lee, my talented daughter-in-law designed and programmed it.  (By the way, she is available for contract work.  You can reach her at here at [email protected] if you need a bridge website designer with bridge skills, design skills and programming skills.  Although the latter two are stronger than the former, for now at least. 

Canadian Master Point and our new website

January 26th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

You may be aware that we are launching a new site to sell ebooks and other electronic products tomorrow.  We planned our launch tomorrow to be rather low-key so we could see how things are going so we haven’t done any publicity at all yet so if you try out.  The plan is for the site to open noon EST Monday January 26th but we might be a teeny bit late so don’t give up if you have a problem.

Ebooks Bridge

you should see a selection of some of our titles that you can purchase for download.  Over time all of our current books will be available in ebook form and almost all older books as well along with our software.  The great things about ebooks and downloaded software are: no postage and you have it exactly when you want it and you can’t lose it (we have it backed up for you).  Our ebooks have some special extra features too and our generally less expensive than the paper book.

But another reason to go to the site is that we will have a free issue of Canadian Master Point magazine available for you to download after getting a free membership.  And we intend to keep adding new magazine issues (to start one a month) so that in the long run you will have a lot of them available on the site.  It’s possible the free download might be available a day or so late (Tuesday).

I decided to take a look at this month’s downloadable issue.  It is dated January 1996.

In this issue there is a wonderful story by David Silver which is a bridge version of the movie/book A Prisoner of Zelda.  It has some wonderful one-liners and David’s own special gentle humor.  This story features Wright Cardinal who most local players know is our good friend and proof reader Ron Bishop.  I will give just a little away by saying that their opponents in the story are “unbridge players” who are incredibly lucky.

Fred does a writeup of a fabulous invitational tournament in Copenhagen where he played against 15 top pairs.  Everyone played in formal wear and there was a lot of press coverage.  There is a picture of Fred playing with George Mittleman against Omar Sharif.  Fred describes some interesting deals in his usual thoughtful manner.  (Is it a good thing or a bad thing I never had a chance to play against Omar Sharif, I wonder?).  Fred and George finished third behind Zia and Peter Weischel (first) and Buratti-Lanzarotti (second)

Ray has an article about a clash squeeze that was reported to him by David Lindop from the Blue Ribbon Pairs in Atlanta.  I do remember discussing it with David that night.  It is the only clash squeeze I know that occurred at the table.

There is a true bridge anacrostic for you to try by “The Griffin”.  I say true bridge anacrostic because both the quote (from a bridge book) and all the clues are about bridge.  I am not yet ready to reveal the identity of Griffin, maybe some time.  I am thinking about the clue “Do Californians use this to task for aces?” (7 letters).

There is too much more stuff to discuss in only one blog (so more later).  But I did notice one more article I am going to mention.  There is an article by your truly, looking wonderfully young in the accompanying picture.  The article is called “Coach Of The Year” and of course it is about Erick Kokish.  It describe a little about Eric and some of his coaching methods.

Every time I look at the magazine I realize how good it was and how sad we have given it up.  I think that Ray is one of the most talented editors anywhere.  He knows I think that.  Maybe some time I can convince him to join me and start up a “Zine” or online magazine.  It is so much work I know it won’t be for a long time, if ever.

Lessons with Kathie

January 21st, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

It was quite an interesting day here.  We all watched the swearing in of Barack Obama.  I think in some way this inauguration and that moment was a bit like the time when those of us who were around then all watched the landing of a man on the moon.  Okay this wasn’t quite as spectacular as that but it had that feeling of being an important moment. 

Well back to bridge reality.  Kathie and I played together today on BBO.  My plan was to try to talk about overcalls.  The way we have our sessions when we play a game is to play about an hour and then spend about 1/2 an hour discussing the deals.  I highlight interesting ideas and issues.  Today my plan was to talk about overcalls but that wasn’t one of the highlights.  I will probably blog some ideas about overcalls on Mastering Bridge tomorrow.

I think the most interesting play hand was this one.  Kathy and I spent a while talking about it but I don’t think I explained it as well as I should have.  You have arrived in the rather ambitious contract of 4♥ and you get a diamond lead.  How should you play the hand?

It appears that you have at least one spade and one club loser as well as two likely heart losers. 

Playing on the club suit early doesn’t seem to help much if the opponents defend correctly.

The line I suggested to Kathie was this one: 

Assume that you can pick up hearts for one loser and hold your club losers to one.  Duck a spade.  You will eventually trump a spade from dummy and play for a friendly trump suit like K10, Q10 or KQ onside.   This is where it got a bit hairy as I was explaining it. 

If you end up ruffing a spade in dummy before playing trumps you have two problems.  You set up the risk of a promotion and you give up an entry you need later.

So after you duck the spade you win the return and need to make a heart play.  You cross to dummy with a diamond and play a small heart.  If you see the a spot card or the 10 then you have an easy play of the ♥J, hoping that the defender has K10, Q10 or KQx.

But what if you see a heart honor on your right?  You don’t have to worry about a singleton honor since you can’t make it then.  But it could be KQ alone or KQx or even KQ10.  You can handle all those cases by ducking the heart honor, winning the return.  At this point you can trump a spade and play another heart with the plan of finessing the ♥J if you see a little one now.

But I see a catch: what if RHO puts up a trump honor from K10 or Q10 doubleton?  How will you know?  Now the winning play is to win the trump ace, ruff a spade and play the jack back.   Okay I know this play isn’t likely at this level.  I would like to think that I would have made that play if I had been defending with that holding.  With the 98x in dummy (and knowing Kathie has at least two trump) I am not sure it can be wrong.

Do you see a better plan?  I looked at some lines that involve playing clubs but they seem to require more than this one.  On the actual deal many plays will work but not the one that happened at our table.  Here is the deal.

Our declarer play ace and another spade.  I played the ♠Q on the first spade from dummy and then the  ♠ 7 and when Kathie won the king she made a terrific play of the third spade which declarer had to trump.  Now when I got in on my heart honor I was able to promote Kathie’s ♥10 by playing a fourth spade. 

Anyway, if you read this Kathie you can see why it is often good to duck when you want a ruff from a holding like Axx opposite xx rather than make the seemingly natural play of ace and one.  You keep control of the suit.

The Indian Bidding Contest

January 19th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

If you have been on BBO recently you will have seen the announcement for the Indian Bidding Contest.  I didn’t have any desire to take part but I did have a lot of fun reading the commentary by some top players.  As always it reaffirmed my belief there is no right answer.  I suggest you have a look at the panel commentary because it is a lot of fun.

Indian Bidding Contest

Here is one problem I found amusing. 

East-West is vulnerable at matchpoints.

South

What would you bid?  I think it is safe to assume that 5NT is a grand slam force.

From my hand it looks like they can make 7♥ unless I can manage to get a spade ruff.  So the “obvious” bid seemed to be 6♠.  But it does have some issues.  Since it will alert them to the spade ruff and make it a little bit easier to find a possible 7♠ contract.  That might argue for 7♣ and then a double of 7♥.  But I am going to pick 6♠ anyway.

First some panelist who thought along the same line and then the surprise.

Mike Lawrence (with a similar comment from Subhash Gupta and Jaggy Shivdasani ) : 7♣: The reason for this choice instead of one of the other bids available is that 7♣ cuts down on their options. You do not say what the responses to 5NT are, assuming it is some kind of grand slam force. If West answers in steps, 7C may take away important bidding room. If they do get to 7♥,  I plan to double, hoping for a spade lead. Again, I am hoping that my double does not cause them to run to 7♠.  Since East is the one who would bid 7♠, it may turn out that a heart lead from me will set them.

Eric Kokish : 6♠: It’s likely East was checking on top hearts intending to play in spades, but if he wasn’t, maybe we’ll get our spade lead against 7♥. And if they play in 7♠ I intend to lead a heart with some optimism.

And now the fun part.  I expected Zia (with company) to find a fun bid but look at Fred’s answer.  That was a surprise.

Zia Mahmood : 6◊,  not 6♠, which would stop them for bidding 7♥.  I will double 7♥, cancelling the diamond lead and hope that they can’t make 6♠ …….partner is not invited to support diamonds!!!!

And Prabhakar along the same lines as Zia but thinking about the extra points for a double at matchpoints ….

B. Prabhakar : 6◊.  This is not likely to be a popular choice!  But, here is my reasoning: This is matchpoints, and I want to defeat the likely final contract of 7♥ doubled rather than undoubled, while keeping the chance of their getting to a making 7♠ , to a minimum (East’s bidding suggests that he has solid Spades). Bidding 6◊ confuses the issue for the opponents, and when I double 7♥ it should rule out the diamond lead along with the other normal leads of clubs or trumps. Had I bid 6♠, instead of 6◊, I would be forced to pass 7♥ to get a spade lead in matchpoints. It may be necessary to defend this doubled.

And David Berkowitz who anticipated Zia’s bid:

David Berkowitz : 7♣:  Really anything but 6♠ which will lead to -2600, when partner saves. I suppose the correct technical bid is 6◊ and then double 7♥, cancelling the diamond message,  but I fear that all I will accomplish is to push the opponents to a making 7♠, (maybe partner can ruff a heart).  I plan to double 7♥, hoping that partner will infer spades because I didn’t bid 6◊,  which I could bid safely.

(hmmm,  I don’t think your final double says anything about which suit to lead you can bid both diamonds and spades safely.  It is a bit much for partner to figure out that you couldn’t bid spades safely because you thought they might be able to play there but you weren’t worried about diamonds.)

Fred Gittleman : 6NT: Obviously we have to try to find a way to get partner to lead a spade against 7♥ while ensuring that he does not bid 7♠ in front of me. Bidding 6♠ is too dangerous and bidding any number of clubs in the hope that my eventual Lightner Double will get the spade lead I want offers no guarantees.  While partner certainly rates to have more spades than diamonds, this is not exactly guaranteed. Doubling 5NT is unlikely to help so I am thinking that it might be reasonable to play that the two truly strange bids I have at my disposal, 6♥ and 6NT, could be used to suggest a lead direct in the corresponding side suits. Obscure – for sure! But a thinking partner might well figure out the sort of problem I have. I am not concerned that partner will interpret my bid as a choice between 7♣ and 7◊ (a truly unusual notrump!). I would bid 6◊with that. 

(There seems to be some disagreement between Fred and Zia about the meaning of 6◊.  Sorry, Fred but I think that Zia is right here.  6◊ is lead directing (see David Berkowitz as well).  6NT should be a choice between the minors I think.  Assuming your partner does NOT think that you are offering him a choice of slams and can figure out that you want why do you think partner will interpret 6NT as asking for a heart lead and the opponents, who are good enough to find spades at the seven level won’t figure it out.  It seems to me that you might as well just bid 6♠.  The only value in 6NT is to confuse everyone … Linda)

With company but not all the complexities …

Anil Padhye : 6NT I hope partner will find the winning lead against 7♥ as I don’t have defense if West becomes declarer in 7♠ .

And finally an interesting and maybe a wise big

Sunderram: Pass.  I will trust their bidding and double even if they stop in six.

I am going to give you the scores selected by Avinash Gokhale but as you can deduce from my comments I don’t agree with how he scored it.  (Is that why I don’t like bidding contests?)

Score from Avinash Gokhale:

6NT: 10 (5 for the bid and 5 for the innovation)

7♣: 8 (ho hum)

Double? and all other bids: 4

Pass: 2

So what would you do?

Better Declarer Play – Suit Combinations

January 19th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  5 Comments 

I decided I might write up some of my thoughts on improving my declarer play and I am hoping for lots of help and feedback.

If you are wondering why I haven’t posted recently I have had a series of unfortunate circumstances.  My computer developed a serious brain disease and went in for major surgery.  Since this resulted in wiping most of its memory I have had to do a lot of retraining.  Then I had to turn myself in for dental surgery and now I seemed to have caught Ray’s flu.  However my computer and I are doing well and should be fine soon.

I have been thinking about the value of learning how to handle some common combinations and creating an approach to making some of these choice.  Obviously there are many factors in a deal that make affect what you might do.  Still it seems worthwhile to think about the a priori odds in certain situations and not have to deduce them at the table.  I do remember a hand I played in the district final of the Open Canadian Team Championship where I had to make a decision at the table about the best way to play a particular combination.  As it turned out the way I played it didn’t work and my teammates did suggest it probably wasn’t with the odds when we discussed it over dinner.  I spent several hours later working out all the odds (I am not all that good at it) and decided that my line was fractionally better than the choice that worked.  That didn’t really bring my joy though.

Here is a simple combination.  You are playing in a slam.  You don’t have any real information about the opponents hands.  Your trump suit is

7

AQ106543

You have to play this combination for one loser.  You are missing the KJ982.  You could play A and then the Q, A and then little, small to the Q small to the 10.  Assuming RHO follows little what is the best approach?

There is no 4-1 (or 5-0) combination that you can pick up (assuming there is no trump coup) so we can zero in on the 3-2’s.  So I can’t see anyway that playing the Ace helps.  So that narrows it down to what is better the Q or the 10.  And I don’t think it matters, its just a guess.  You just don’t want to lose to the inappropriate doubleton honor offside. 

I guess the approach at the table is to start with the number of tricks I need and then work out what distribution is relevant and then pick a line that handles most of those cases, taking into consideration the quality of the opposition and whatever information I already have.  In the above case you would probably play the 10 if RHO had preempted playing him for JXX not KXX.

Let’s make it harder.  You have

73

AQ10654

Now I can pick up some of the 4-1 combinations.  It seems like the best play for four tricks is two finesses but the Official Encyclopedia did point out something.  It is better to finesse the queen first.  If you finesse the 10 and it loses to the singleton king it doesn’t help you.  But you can hold your losers to one if LHO has the singleton jack by finessing the Queen first.  It is not the best play for the most tricks but it is the best play for four tricks.

Now what I need to do is figure out which combinations I need to memorize and which ones I can work out at the table.  Any suggestions?  Bridge is not an easy game.

The encyclopedia of bridge has about 55 pages of these combinations or 656 examples. 

Here is another case.   You need the same one loser and four tricks and you have

A9xxx

Q108

The way I learned this is lead the Queen first and if that loses finesse the 10.  This is essentially right but the encyclopedia suggests that against weaker opponents it is better to play small to the 10 first.  The idea is that the hand with Kx in front of the queen would rise.  If this loses to the Jack then lead the Queen and finesse next.  If it loses to the King then you should finesse the 8.  (This assumes that  with KJ doubleton LHO would never falsecard.

656 examples seems like a lot but it does seem possible to memorize them.  If you did just two a day (and say two revisions to make sure you hadn’t forgotten them) you could memorize them in a year.  You could probably drop about half of them since they are similar.  Or maybe I could find the top 100 and just memorize those.

What do you think?

Of course the opponents and your intuition can change all that.

Then I remember having a holding something like this

KJ9xx

xxx

I was in five diamonds after my partner (Irene Hodgson) and I had a bidding misunderstanding as four spades would have been best.  Irene was upset and left the table.  I had to play this suit for one loser and I knew if I blew it then we were going to lose the event, not only because it was close but because there would be black smoke at the table.  I think the textbook play is to finesse the 9 playing for Q10x onside but there was something about the way RHO seemed to twitch and it took me a millisecond to play small to the Jack.  I still don’t know why.  This fetched the stiff 10 offside and kept Irene talking to me.   

My intuition has served me better than mathematics on a number of other occasions.

2008 IBPA Brazilian Junior Deal of the Year

January 10th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

The winner of this award is Rosaline Barendreft of the Netherlands and the Journalist, Max Rebattu.  I have translated this for you from the original Dutch.  Well actually Lex deGroot translated it.  Thanks Lex. 

This deal took place at the White House Junior International is a major junior tournament.  This year’s event included 24 teams of which four were Dutch.  You are South and you have this hand not vulnerable aginst vulnerable:

You open 1NT which I am guessing was 11-14 or something like that.  Partner bids Stayman and RHO bids 2♠.  You pass and your partner bids 2NT.   No red blooded junior passes an invitation but if you need excuse you could upgrade your spades.  (You can also ignore being 4-3-3-3 and have a fairly quacky collection).  You get the ♣2 lead (I am guessing again but I think this is attitude) and partner puts down a rather good hand for their bid.

Unfortuantely for North a double of 2♠ was penalty, hence the 2NT bid.  East wins the ♣A and switches to the  ♥10.  You duck and West wins the ♥K.  West returns a small heart to dummy’s ♥J.  You have a lot of work to do.  You might be able to get three diamond tricks, a club two hearts and three or four spades if things behave and you can handle the communication.  While you are in dummy you play a spade to the ♠9.  You are not surprised when West shows out throwing a club.  It looks like East started with six spades, two or three hearts, a singleton club and three or four diamonds.  You now play a diamond to the ◊K which is wins and you take another spade finesse.   This is the position now:

Tricks: N-S: 4 E-W:2

If diamonds break she has nine trick but it is quite likely that East has four of them.  She does need some shape for her vulnerable overcall.  What now?  Rosaline led the  ◊J trying to create some communications to the dummy.  West showed out and East ducked.  At this point we are playing the hand double dummy so let’s look at all the hands.

Tricks: N-S: 5 E-W:2

You have seven tricks at this point and you can set up an eighth with a club play.  So you lead the ♣Q.  Do you see where this is heading?  West wins and leads back a round suit, East throwing two spades.  But when you play the ♥A throwing a diamond from dummy,  East is in trouble.  If he throws a diamond the elegant way to make the hand is to cash the ♠K and then lead a diamond, a kind of stepping stone squeeze.  East wins but must play a spade to dummy.  (You can also just duck a diamond since you will win the return in hand and you last diamond will be high).  If he throws a spade you can overtake your  ♠K in dummy and make your ninth trick that way.

Max Rebattu points out that you have quite a nice stepping stone squeeze position if East had won the ◊A when a diamond was originally led to the ◊K in dummy.  I will leave this to you, dear reader, to work out for yourself.

A very nice deal.

Also nominated were:

Bessis (Mark Horton)

Geromboux (Ron Klinger)

Drijver (Kees Tammens)

Braun (Ron Klinger)

Linqvist (Ib Lundby)

Gidwani Family Trust Defence Of The Year

January 9th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

The winner of the IBPA Awards Gidwani Family Trust Best Defence Of The Year was Michelle Bruner in the Shanghai Venice Cup.  Normally you might think that a defence was a join effort but this very simple but very elegant play was a solo affair.  One of the pieces of advice that is given to declarers is to take your time at trick one since suprisingly often it can be a turning point in the hand.  It is harder for the defenders who may give the show away if they ponder too long.   Sometimes declarer gives you the time and perhaps that happened on this hand.  Here is Michelle’s  hand and the auction and you can decide if you would have done the same.

The Chinese ladies were playing Precision.  England was playing against them in the quarter-finals but were eventually eliminated.  (I know how they felt).  The Chinese were of course playing Precision and the British ladies were silent throughout. 

Both Vulnerable

North showed a game forcing two suiter with spades and clubs.  South showed club supporter and 0-7 points.

Rhona Goldenfield led the ♥J.  Michelle saw this dummy.  Dummy played the ♥Q and Michelle ducked this, we assume quite smoothly.

I believe North thought 5NT was a Grand Slam Force although there appears to have been some sort of misunderstanding.  With that in mind we can assume that she has solid spades, a diamond void, the ♥A and good clubs missing the king.  If she is missing the ♣A and partner chose not to double our play hardly matters.  Assuming she is 5-5 then the ♣K is coming down.  In any case the heart trick is irrelevant.  Perhaps all these thoughts passed quickly through Michelle’s mind.  Liu now is dummy took the club finesse and did indeed lose to the singleton king.  Had Michelle covered she would have had no chose but to play the ♣A and make the contract.

Perhaps Liu might have figured it out, since it meant that Rhona had led a heart from a dangerous holding into a grand slam rather than a trump which might have been more normal.  I think that is a very tough play and if she figured out what was happening and got the clubs right, she might have had a candidate for best played hand.

Here is the entire hand.

The shortlist included:

O’Keefe (journalist Andrew Robson)

Carroll (journalist John Carruthers)

Campanile-Barel (journalist Richard Colker)

Gromoller (journalist Andrew Robson)

Hamman (journalist Donna Compton)

Looking at this list I see that almost all the nominees were single players.  Maybe the truly great moments in defence are solo efforts then.

2008 IBPA Awards – C and R Motors Declarer Play of the Year

January 8th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I don’t know who C & R Motors are.  I did goggle them but the name is not unique.  All the businesses do seem to have some connection with vehicles though.  The winning player this year was Giorgio Dublin and the journalist was Mark Horton.  Mark Horton was bound to win something.  He kept submitting entries.

The deal is from the World Bridge Team Championships in Shanghai.  This deal is very nice.  It is a classic battle between great defenders and a great declarer.

It all started off with a bidding decision.  For the moment you will be Bocchi. holding the North hand. 

What do you like here?  I confess that I would have done exactly what Bocchi did, made a takeout double and that decision leads you to the tough contract of 3NT.  4♠ is easier.  Would you have bid 3♠ on his hand?  Is there any argument for doing so?  So it is now up to Duboin to make 3NT.  Play along with me for a moment single dummy.

The opening lead is the ♣Q and you perforce win with the ♣A.  There are a lot of potential tricks here but obviously some pitfalls.  Even if he ca play spades for five winners he is going to need some red suit tricks so he might as well play a diamond.  Duboin led the ◊J which Helgemo won with the ◊A.  Helgemo continued a club and Duboin could afford to duck once.  He threw a diamond from hand.  He won the third club with the ♣K throwing the ♠J from hand.  Helness followed to all three clubs.

Tricks: N-S: 2  E-W:2

At this point we probably know eleven of Helness cards, assuming he had a seven card heart suit.  He has seven hearts, three clubs and a diamond.  It is the last two cards that might give us a problem.  If we take the spade finesse and lose the defence will be able to take five winners.  The two they already have, two hearts and a diamond.  What now?  Duboin decided that he might as well try to develop a heart trick.  There is a slight risk that clubs are 4-4 but I assume Duboin was able to deduce the 5-3 club split from the defensive card play.

This has many potential benefits.  It cuts the defensive communication and it might put East under some pressure.  In fact, this is the key play in the hand.  Let say that Helness wins and cashes another heart and gets out a heart.  Playing any other suit will give up the ninth trick.  That will give us eight tricks.   But Helgemo is under tremendous pressure and will certainly be squeezed in the other suits.   Now let’s go double dummy for Helness is about to make two nice plays.

At this point Bocchi led the ♥K and Helness ducked.  He could see that winning the ♥A would only help Duboin.  According to Mark this led to some cheers from the Norwegian supporters.  Now Duboin crossed to his hand and led the ♥J.  If Helness wins this card and gets out a heart Helgemo will be forced to discard a spade or a diamond.  One of the pointed suits will have to break and Duboin is home.  So Helness made the only play he could, he ducked the ♥J.   A very fine play.  But now Duboin is home anyway.  When he plays a spade to the ace he doesn’t care what happens.  If Helness has another spade then Duboin sets up spades by giving  a spade trick to Helgemo who can only cash one club (he had to throw the other on the second heart) for the fourth defensive trick.  If he shows out then Duboin knows that the diamonds are breaking.

Here is the whole hand:

Congratulations to all involved.

Other entries on the shortlist were:

Lauria (Phillip Alder)

Sementa (Yeh Bulletin)

Cohen (Phillip Alder)

Cannell (John Carruthers)

Helgemo (Mark Horton)

Greenwood (Andrew Robson)

The 2008 IBPA Award – Precision Best Bid Hand of the Year

January 7th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

This is the first in a series where I will tell you about this years IBPA Award Winners.  The journalist who reported this hand was Paul Linxwiler (USA) of the ACBL Bulletin.  It was entitled Board-A-Match Beauty and comes from the Reisinger qualifier.

The winning players were Geoff Hampson and Eric Greco. 

Before you read on I have a warning.  This is my write-up of the deal.  I am not familiar with the Greco-Hampson methods in this auction and I have had to guess about the bids they did not make.  (Paul annotated the bids they did make).  Some of the following discussion is a bit tongue in cheek and I am not sure I agree with the award.  You decide.

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I think to win an award like this you need to take at least 8 or 9 bids.  I mean I can hardly see an auction like 1NT-6NT winning or 1H-2C-3NT!  Although sometimes those are really the best auctions.  They don’t give anything away to the defence, they don’t get you into trouble forgetting obscure conventions or waste unnecessary brainpower etc.  But here is all its glory is the winner.  Anyone who can come up with a likely winner of a bidding prize that takes four bids or less please send it to me.  I will award you the Master Point Press Simplicity in Bidding Award and a book of my choice from our hurt book bin.

One of the nice parts of this auction is that since Greco opened 2NT showing 19-21 balanced,  we are going to have an auction that we can all relate to.  Very few people play systems where 2NT doesn’t show something like this except for in Australia, of course.  With a good seven card suit and nine high card point Hampson must have already been thinking about slam. 

3♠ showed one or both minors.  These auctions are very tough. You are starting at such a high-level you barely have space to agree trump and find out about keycards.  I have tried to come up with some sensible methods here so I am interested in how Greco-Hampson handle it.   4◊ showed diamonds and a club fit.  I suppose that 4♣ might show clubs and diamond support?  

4♥ was keycard in clubs.  4NT showed 1 or 4 keycards.  At this point Hampson can count seven club tricks and four side suit winners.  5♠ asked for kings.  I presume that 5♥ was the ask for the ♣Q which Hampson didn’t need.  5NT showed a red king which produced the twelfth trick.  At this point Hampson knows about most of Greco’s high cards and he still can’t count to thirteen so he bid  6NT.  I heartily approve of this bid.  Even in top rated events you don’t need to bid grands on what is at most 30 HCP to get a good board.    As the reporter, Linxwiler points out 6NT would score well at BAM.  (I do find this sentence confusing.  What does that mean?  Was 6NT enough to win the board?  At BAM you can only win, lose or tie.  I don’t really think you can score well.)

Up to now this auction has all been about methods but now judgment came into play.  Greco felt that he couldn’t have a better hand.  Those diamonds look like extra tricks and Hampson had already suggested a grand slam.  So he took the push.   One thing I wonder about in these auctions is why he didn’t just bid 7♣ in the first place.  Did the 6NT bid suggest that Hampson had something that Greco didn’t yet know about?

Now here we are in a grand slam that just needs diamond to behave with the queen coming down and no club loser missing three to the queen.  It makes on 5-2 breaks where the queen is doubleton or where the queen lie over the jack (ruffing finesse) and all 4-3 breaks.  A high percentage and I guess they made it or it wouldn’t be the best bid hand.   I admit that if I were playing in any event with less stature than the Reisinger I would be quite happy to be in 6NT since that will win the board most of the time.  In fact, I am not sure that this is the right contract even in the Reisinger.

But then again how can you not admire an auction where the trump suit was not actually bid (except inferentially) until the seven level.  That was the very first time anyone bid actually bid clubs.

So what do you think.  Is this one of the best bid hands of 2008? 

I am sure we can do better next year.  If you have a hand that you would like to submit for next year’s competition send it to me please.  I can write it up and submit it for the award.  There is a cash prize and I would be happy to split it with you 60-40.

So what does this auction mean

January 7th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  5 Comments 

I was playing with Kathie today.  Our methods are to say the least simple.  Over 1NT we play Stayman and Jacoby transfers.  What does this auction mean?

So given these methods should 4NT be Blackwood or should it be a slam invitational in notrump.  The problem is that you have no way to agree hearts and then ask for aces that I can see.

Kathie thought it was Blackwood but it did not agree hearts.  I think it probably should be Quantitative but I was pretty sure (and I was right) that Kathie didn’t think that.  I need help here.

Tonight is an exciting night for me.  In about 15 minutes my daughter and my grandchildren are calling me on Skype and we are having a “teleconference”.  Jen bought me a camera as I mentioned in a previous blog.  So we are going to try it out.   We did send Cassidy a beginner bridge book.  I want him to learn.  Wouldn’t it be fun to play with him on BBO?  You know it would.  So that will be one of the topics tonight!