October 26th, 2008 ~ linda ~
2 Comments 
Ray and I had a terrific time yesterday, playing in the open pairs. We were playing an event called Swiss matchpoints, something I have never seen in North American. We played six 10 board rounds yesterday with six more today (with no cut to the field). This means that good pairs tended to play good pairs. No need for stratified events. Each board which was pre-duplicated is matchpointed across the field. You get an average matchpoint percentage for all your boards that round which is then turned into victory points and you are now paired based on your victory point total.
I realized the reason I don’t like matchpoint events is the pace of it. When you play two boards a round, you don’t have time to understand the opponent’s system. give the tough hands the extra time they deserve and have a bit more social time with your opponents. (And like all Swiss almost everyone gets some masterpoints and the satisfaction of winning rounds). The ACBL really should consider this event on a trial basis. I think it would bring back some life into matchpoints.
We did face some wild systems and some on the edge players. Perhaps the strangest was a pair that played that 2D, 2H,2S showed 4-4 (or more) with spades and the bid suit and 0-9 or 10. I suppose with more practice we would feel more comfortable playing against these destructive methods.
We had a “hesitation bid” against us. I opened 1NT (12-14) and Ray bid 2S. RHO though for a long time and passed. I bid 3S a maximum, with four trump and LHO holding S xxx H xxxx D Axx C Axx ventured 4H. As you can imagine she bought the dummy of her dreams. With the silent scorepads all the director had to do was get agreement that there had been a hesitation and take the scorepad page away. Eventually the director came back with an adjusted score and the game was not disrupted at all.
Our first round was against the famed Michael Courtney. Michael is one of the most interesting bridge thinkers and best rubber bridge players ever. He has written some books which are amusing and imaginative and every time we see him we ask him to send us some of them so we can consider them for publication. But as he said again this time, he always loses our business card. (We shall have to enlist some local help to prod him). He thinks about the game in a different way then you or I. Here is an example. Michael held this hand white on red.
S J7 H A72 D AK32 C 8654
His partner opened 1D and I overcalled 2C. Having more faith in my overcall thentr is usually justified Michael bid 2D! While 3NT is possible on a club lead it is requires taking a strange position in diamonds missing QJxx.
My most frazzled moment was the last board we played in the third round (just before lunch break). The bell had sounded meaning time was up (although I could finish the board) and Ray had put me in 7S.
I am still not sure what the best line is but I took the before lunch line. As it turned out pretty well anything lead to 13 tricks.
S AQ84
H AQ
D 10
C AKJ765
S KJ65
H K32
D AK32
C 93
The lunch line is to draw trump when they prove to be 3-2, play the top clubs and ruff a club if needed. (The club queen is third onside).
Afterwards a number of us headed out to the Linda and Nick Fahrer’s house for a lot of stories about bridge, bridge people and life in general. The food was awesome and I started thinking about moving to Sydney, surely one of the most beautiful cities in the world, where it never gets very cold and the people are so very warm.
October 24th, 2008 ~ linda ~
2 Comments
Today we had a good time making some new friends. We started out by meeting Derrick Browne at Trumps Bridge Club.
There were two games underway so we tiptoed to a small room at the back. Trumps Bridge Club has over 1000 members. Check it out at: http://www.trumps.net.au/
Derrick has written his own beginner and intermediate books and interestingly a book on Benjamin 2’s, a convention we don’t see in North America. Later in the afternoon we visited Paul Marston at Grand Slam Bridge Club which were impressive digs.
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Paul Marston
He had a lot to say about Bobby Wolff’s book but since most of it has already been published so no more here. He did have some nice things to say about Master Point Press.
He may be interested in doing a bit of blogging and after our chat I know he has strong opinions and will have a lot of interesting things to say! Paul has written quite a number of books under the Grand Slam Books imprint and he is editor of Australian Bridge and writes a bridge column in the Weekend Australian. For more
http://www.australianbridge.com/grandslam/login_gsdb.php
Check out the item on Oz One. Here is a few sentences from their original press release. Canadians please note. You may find the next few sentences disturbing or at least pretty close to home…
Australia has never been a major force in bridge. We have never reached the finals of an important international event and we haven’t won a Far East Championship since 1970. When you consider that recent winners include Japan, New Zealand, Hong, Taiwan, China and Indonesia, and none of these countries has ever been a world champion, it is clear that we are a third world country when it comes to bridge.
Yet we do have a large and prosperous bridge community with many talented players so you might wonder why we haven’t done better. The problem is that the best players are usually spread over several teams and the pairs that do get together are rarely well prepared for the level of competition they encounter overseas.
Saturday at10AM Ray and I try our luck at matchpoints. Neither of us are expecting much but we are hoping not to embarrass ourselves. I am not sure what that means yet but somewhere in the middle of the field perhaps. There is no doubt that we will mix up some conventions, so the trick is to stay calm (and hope our opponents do as well)
By the way, I noticed that when you psyche at an Australian bridge tournament you MUST resport yourself at the end of the event. I believe you are not allowed to psyche too much or use the same psyche more than once. I wonder what David Sabourin and Jeff Smith would think about that,
October 23rd, 2008 ~ linda ~
1 Comment
Ray and I had a chance to chat with Ron Klinger before he started to play yesterday at the Sydney Spring Nationals. His team is leading after the second day of play in the qualifying rounds (a Swiss).
Ron Klinger
Ron is blogging from the Spring Nationals and you can read his blog at
http://ronklingerbridge.com/blog/1701/spring-national-open-teams-2008-entry-1
Ron let us know his blog was all business. Bridge and bridge and none of the personal stuff (like mine). I didn’t find the hand in the today’s blog difficult but I do enjoy reading his blog generally.
After our visit with Ron with took many components of the Sydney transportation system and arrived at The Bridge Shop.
http://www.bridgeshop.com.au
We had a very enjoyable afternoon with Nick Fahrer, the owner and a Master Point Press distributor. It was fun to see a shop completely devoted to bridge. Besides bridge books and software of all kinds there was everything from bridge supplies to bridge pillows. There seemed to be lots of traffic at the store while were there a constant stream of customers showed up in person or on the phone. I did notice that one of them bought one of our books. Speaking of our books while I was at the tournament the young man I was watching asked me my name and when I told him, he asked if I was one of the editors of Northern Lights (which I confessed to be true) and he told me that he had really enjoyed reading it. Nick also picked it out as one he really liked as well.
I am looking forward to meeting Nick’s wife on Sunday and I plan to talk to her about women’s bridge. She is a keen international player.
We want to go geocaching today as we visit some bridge clubs but Ray is quite worried about the insect life around the caches, after reading some of the warnings. Still we want to get at least one Australian flag on our geocaching map.
We booked La Boheme at Sydney Opera House on Tuesday night which given my general dislike of opera shows great magnanimity on my part. But I confess I do want to revisit that beautiful hall.
Ray and I have also been doing just a bit of system work. Neither of us is clear about what we play and we also have to contend with CRO. This is a system which is generally illegal in most places (or brown sticker in WBF events). This is an opening 2 bid which shows either 2 of the same colour (2H), 2 of the same rank (2S) and the remaining 2 suiters (2NT). We did find some sort of defense where you bid 3C to show the 2 suits remaining which include clubs (for example if they have majors or minors, 3C would show overcaller had the minors and presumably opener had the majors) and 2NT if available to show the two suits that don’t involve clubs. We don’t know how well this works but we hope it will get us by. Hurry with a comment if you have any help here.
October 21st, 2008 ~ linda ~
2 Comments
Ray and I are sitting in the lounge in Auckland and thinking back about our adventures in New Zealand.
The last few days have mostly about seeing old friends and geocaching our way through some unusual locales in Nelson and on the way there. We did check up on easy to bridgeblogging and Ray made some comments on Judy’s blog www.judy.bridgeblogging.com cheating on BBO. We also had some discussion about it. I realize it is awfully easy to cheat online. After all when we practice Ray sits in an office only a few feet away and I can hear him cursing me, quite often. Fortunately he doesn’t give anything away when he does that.
When I think about the various cheating issues in sports of all kinds it is hardly surprising that bridge is not immune. I can’t remember any time where I actually did feel tempted to cheat although I can remember a number of times where I did have the opportunity to do so. But then again I am a bridge amateur so I don’t feel the pressures others are under.
We were very pleases to see Suzanne and Sarah again and we had a great time chatting, geocaching and generally getting caught up. You can see that they enjoy life in Nelson where the climate is mild, there is the ocean and the mountains and a different quality of life than in Toronto. Suzanne is part of the volunteer ambulance corps and seems to be really enjoying that while they both work as freelancers. Suzanne still does a lot of editing for Master Point Press and if anyone is writing fiction she gets our heartiest recommendation as a fiction editor.
Suzanne and Sarah welcome Ray to their home in Nelson
It was also amazing how quickly we found all our geocaches with so many helpers. Here Sarah is swinging from a tree branch just after a geocache find near the cathedral.
WOW – a museum of wearable art. They wihat seems to be an incredible show once a year and we spend quite a while looking at the incredible creativity and artistry that went into the many costumes on display. There also is quite a good collection of classic cars. After that the ladies took us out for some excellent Turkish food and New Zealand wine.
Yesterday we spent more time wandering around Nelson. The beach was a highlight. It was a beautiful sunny day and it was low tide revealing an enormous white sandy beach full of shells, birds and warm water. We also checked out Founder’s Park, too early for the day’s art festival but interesting non the less. We also talked and talked and ate and talked with Sarah and Suzanne.
Then a quick flight to Auckland. The most remarkable part of that was that there was no security at all. No passport check, no metal detectors, they barely looked at our boarding passes. If you happen to be nearr Auckland airport some time Ray and I heartily recommend the Toby Jug. The food was great and even I paid some attention to the cricket game between New Zealand and Bangladesh.
October 19th, 2008 ~ linda ~
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We spent the afternoon and early evening driving to Westport a seaside town in the Northwest of the South Island of New Zealand. We managed to find a few more geocaches on the way.
When we last left the World Championships we had just Board 12. There had been action on almost every board and the event was still in doubt in both the Senior and Women’s competition.
On Board 13 China got to 3H. After the opening lead the hand could not be defeated on the lie of the cards, but once again a Chinese declarer misplayed a hand. This time Sun could afford two but not three heart losers missing the AJ8XX. Sun had Q10 alone in dummy and K97652 in hand. When she decided to play a heart to the H10 she left herself open to the potential of losing the HJ, HA and a ruff. Had she played the HQ, unless the defense has an immediate ruff she cannot go down when hearts break 3-2 and on some 4-1 breaks. After losing the H10 to the HJ, the defenSe was able to set up a ruff and score it when in on the HA. This was 6imps to England.
But on board 14 the Chinese struck back. They bid a slam in a rather haphazard manner. The English however did even worse. Here is the slam. Ray who is our resident Acol expert will describe it for you.
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S AK10
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H AQJ853
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D 75
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C AK
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S QJ53
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H K9
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D KJ62
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C 1063
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Smith opened the North hand 2H in fourth chair. This showed a strong hand with hearts (we assume along the lines of an Acol 2-bid). 2NT was a positive and we think it showed spades (since 2S was a negative). 3S we think is a spade raise and then 4H was preference back to hearts. The problem was that South never really showed the quality of her hand with fitting cards and 10HCP. While 6H is only about 50% on a diamond lead, 6NT from the South hand is almost a guarantee. To be fair the Italians also missed slam on what looked to us to be a very strange auction but they were way ahead and maybe they were just playing it safe.
Going into Board 15 the second last deal England’s lead had been reduced to 11 imps over the Chinese ladies. While in the Senior where the last two boards had seen no swings the USA lead Japan by 10 imps.
It was not over yet. Board 15 was quiet in the ladies but not in the Seniors. Our records are confused but somehow Lev who was vulnerable found himself in 3D doubled. He did have seven very good diamonds and a side king but Eisenberg’s hand was no use at all and he went for 800. So while 3NT did make at the other table for 400, it was still a 9 imp loss which meant that the US entered the last board up by only 1 imps.
On Board 16 North-South have 25 high cards. They just have one tiny problem there is no where to play the hand. They have lots of tricks in notrump but there heart stopper in Q2 opposite the 4. 4S is the best shot with S AJ853 S92. But the spades don’t break among other things so no game makes. In the Seniors it didn’t seem so terrible when both teams got to 4S but not vulnerable the USA went three down and Japan went only 1 down. Checking the imp scale a difference of 100 is 3 imps. 3 imps! 2 to many for the US. Who lost the match USA 200 – Japan 202. So in the end Japan who had originally lead by 11, were able to come back and win the match by 2 imp.
Now you recall that England was up by 11 imps playing the last hand. This time both teams got to 3NT. England went 1 down when the Chinese cashed out their heart tricks. But at the other table an unnamed English player holding H K10853 lead a heart to her partner’s HA and when her partner returned the H7 ducked declarer’s HQ despite seeing 7 diamonds to th AKJ in dummy. In fact we draw a veil over this deal and just say that declarer was now able to take 10 tricks when the defense discarded properly and this potential extra overtrick was very important because 430 and 50 was only worth 10 imps and not the 11 China needed to tie the match.
So England won by 1 imps in a final stanza that was not all that well played. Still when the medals were handed out it was the English anthem that was played.
Has a World Championships ever been this exciting and this close! Two events decided on the last board and by the slimmest of margins.
October 19th, 2008 ~ linda ~
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Ray and I just got back from a successful morning of geocaching.
Can you see that the rock looks like a submarine rising. There is a nearby cache that had us stumped for a few minutes,
Here is Ray trying to figure out the best way across the pool of water.
Now back to the World Championships. Ray promised to help but he seems to be out like a light on the bed (having a kip as they say here).
Try bidding these hands. All vulnerable, dealer South (The deal has been rotated).
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S KJ
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H 1097
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D K7
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C AK8632
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S AQ10852
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H K6
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D AQ104
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C J
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Here is one suggested auction playing standard (or perhaps 2/1)
1S 2C
2D 2H
2S 3S
3S 4C
4D 4NT
5H 6S
Not everyone got there though. Here was the Dhondy-Senior auction in the women’s final
Senior Dhondy
1S 2C
2D* 3C (2D is artificial and game forcing)
3S 4S
I think the artificial 2D made it a bit harder but Dhondy should have some way to support spades and suggest slam interest. After all her partner just made a game force showing extra and she has 14 great points including two trump honors and her own six card suit. In the Open both pairs managed to get there but in the Seniors Japan missed the slam as well. b After 10 boards the USA was leading the Seniors by 14 imps and in the Women’s England was leading by 18 imps. Italy was well ahead of England in the Open.
Board 11 is interesting only in that the Chinese Women were in 3D which was cold. Declarer knew everything about the deal about halfway through and lost her way. That cost China what amounted to 6 very valuable imps as we shall see later. On the same deal in the seniors match the USA got way overboard and lost 6 imps.
Board 12 brought 7 imps back to the Chinese women when Brock faced this defensive problem against 3NT.
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S K642
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H AK104
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D J2
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C 765
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Wang opened 1NT 13-15 and Sun bid 3NT
Smith led the S3 and Brock saw this dummy.
She won the SK and returned a spade the ace winning. From her perspective the damage was done and the hand was going to be made. Should she have laid down a heart honour at trick 2? What do you think?
Here was Smith’s hand. Maybe she could have worked it out.
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S J973
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H Q75
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D 1085
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C A103
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After her spade lead and her partner’s spade continuation it seems like it couldn’t hurt to duck a club. Maybe this would give her a clue about how to proceed. In any case it seems likely that declarer has diamond honours since she didn’t attack that suit. If that is the case Smith has to play a heart. This is certainly a tough one though.
At the end of 12 boards the USA is ahead of Japan by 10 in the seniors and England leads China by 16 in the women’s.
Since it seems there is something happening on almost every board the conclusion to these exciting match in part3….
October 18th, 2008 ~ linda ~
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It’s quite a cool morning as we set off with a plan to Geocache in the area today and so you can see how pretty it is around here… a nearby waterfall
We left the Beijing final after the first three boards in the final stanza.
We have arrived at deal 4 and once again we have a swing board. Your hand is
S A65 H AQJ852 D K7 C 97
and you East, are in third chair with all vulnerable. You partner passes and North opens 1NT (15-17). You bid 2D which shows a major. South passes and your partner bids 2S (pass or correct). Knowing that your partner has a heart fit you bid 2NT (values) and your partner bids 3C (natural). You bid? Ming bid 3NT and South, Brock doubled. On a diamond lead you have nine tricks when the heart king is onside doubleton. Partners hand;
S 97 H 9643 D J96 C AJ102
Obviously 4H is better but 3NTX is worth 750 and 11 imps when they play in 3H making four the other way when Dhondy did not show any help to her partner after her heart overcall of 1NT. (I think I might have raised to 3H, but it is easy now). By the end of the first four boards the Chinese had scored 33 unanswered imps and were now trailing England by only 14 imps. I can hardly imagine how excited the Chinese must have been to watch this performance.
Meanwhile in the Seniors the Americans scored 10 imps as well when they got to the heart game while the Japanese played part-score. The Americans had gained 21 imps in the last two boards and were now within 3 of Japan.
By the way in the England-Italy Open match the Italians had reached 4H from the West hand after East had also bid 2D over 1NT. Here Gold for England lead a small heart from his doubleton king and Versace with only 3 hearts missing knew that Townsend had at most one heart and rose ace. Certainly an anti-percentage play especially as he knew that Gold had most of the high cards. In the other room where they played 3NT Duboin found a spade lead which defeats 3NT since declarer can’t setup a diamonds trick without giving up the club suit, the only entry to dummy.
Board 5 was another 10 imps to the US seniors when they made an impossible 4S and by board 6 the USA was in the lead in th seniors 179 to 172.
Board 7 was the next action board. This hand ended any run England might have made in the Open match, helped Japan to gain some lost momentum in the seniors and at least temporarily ended the Chinese run in the women’s match.
Deal 7 East-West vulnerable Dealer South
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S J8543
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H Q65
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D —
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C AKJ104
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S 10962
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S KQ7
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H A2
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H KJ7
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D AKQ93
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D J854
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C 82
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C 976
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S A
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H 109842
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D 10762e
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C Q53
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In most of the matches after West started things off with 1D, North overcalled 1S and eventually East-West arrived in 3NT. In the Open match when England held the East-West cards after this start Sementa doubled 3NT hoping to get a club lead and West redoubled! Duboin had no problem with the lead. He started with the SA and when Sementa played a low spade for suit preference Italy took the next 5 club tricks for +1000. while in the other room did not double and collected 200, 13 imps for Italy. In the women’s where the Chinese North overcalled 2C. 3NT was never going to be the contract (maybe it pays to overcall your weak suit sometimes) and the Chinese who were aggressive throughout wound up in a pretty terrible 5C contract where they were lucky to escape for -200. Put that together with -200 by their partners in the “normal” 3NT contract and that was 9 imps back for England. Board 8 was one of the quieter boards. The English did pick up another 9 in the women’s match on Board 9 when the Chinese got way too high and the Chinese failed to find the defense to get a plus score against the English part-score. But Board 10 was to be the next big swing hand… More next post.
October 18th, 2008 ~ linda ~
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Ray and I had a wonderful day in Hamner where the hot springs were well hot and the breakfast as promised was 3 awesome courses. Murchison is an isolated small resort town which is pretty empty as the season hasn’t really started. We did some hiking and are contemplating white water rafting. The Internet here is excellent which gave us the opportunity to check out the world championships and what a finish.
Before the bridge,,, here is a picture of me wielding an axe in middle earth
and today resting on one of our hikes…
cv
So here we are after dinner going through the final match of the finals. The Chinese ladies started down 53 imps. So how did they make the match exciting? It started right at board 1 where they were the only table of the 8 in play to get to 4S. It need the club ace onside, a 3-2 spade break and a bit more. Do you want to be in this game not vulnerable. Let’s call it a Hamman game … one that makes and besides down 53 imps you can’t just hope for the opposition to mistakes.
In general the way to win imps on board 2 was to avoid bidding game. The Chinese ladies were not going to do that vulnerable but somehow they made it (the only table to do so) on a brutal defense that I won’t describe. So the aggressive Chinese ladies had pulled within 31 imps and it seemed possible that they might somehow pull off a huge comeback.
Meanwhile in the seniors not much had yet happened and we arrive at board 3 with the USA trailing Japan by 24 imps.
Board 3 was an interesting deal with a lot of imps changing hands across the field. Here are the North-South hands
North
- S void
- H AKJ843
- D J872
- C QJ10
South
After Wang opened 2C Precision which could be 6C or 5C with a 4 card major, Smith overcalled 2H and Ming doubled. After that England arrived in 4H and got the lead of the SK. This tap meant that Smith had to play diamonds for no losers because even with the 3-2 trump breakshe didn’t have the time to set up clubs and concede a diamond trick. With repeated spade leads the defense would set up a spade winner before she could get diamonds going. The DJ was covered and from the play and auction she could deduce that West had at most 2 diamonds so reasonably she hooked into the D10. Unlucky and 6 imps for China who played in part-score at er table. Sam Lev made it for the USA senior team on a similar auction and opening lead. At trick 2 BEFORE drawing trump he lead the CJ from his hand. When West won, worried about a possible club ruff, he returned a trump and Sam was home. I like that play, don’t you?
Things are getting closer but more about these exciting matches, next time.
October 16th, 2008 ~ linda ~
1 Comment
I tried to post a couple of days ago but it doesn’t look like it took so if you have seen some of this before, just ignore it. This post is a bit of bridge and a lot of a travelogue.
Ray and I left Toronto on Sunday for Vancouver and then had a great anniversary dinner at the Cannery. It is a terrific restaurant but you have to hunt for it first, it’s behind imposing barricades at the docks which protects against terrorists and naiive diners. After that we had a really great journey (giving the total elapsed time) to New Zealand. Hurray for pods! We immediately flew to Christchurch which is a lovely town in the middle of the South Island. While visiting the cathedral, nearby, we met a rabbi and his helper. The rabbi was a young New Yorker, Rabbi Goldstein and he let us hold the traditional Sukkot fruit and palm. It was enormously difficult to get them into protected New Zealand requiring special agricultural permits and more.
Yesterday we took a rather amazing tour to one of the major sites used for the filming of the Lord of the Rings. They took 8 months to build a hall and a village in a remotre valley surrounded by mountains and then after 8 days of filming they tore everything down and replaced everything just as it was. The tour involved fording streams in a 4WD truck and climbing rather steep hills. The whole thing was great fun.
Lord of Rings group with flag
Now for the torture. Just before we left Toronto Colin and I played a session of bridge. It was getting late when I held this hand
S 107653 H 87 D 97 C 9652
Your partner opens 1D in first chair (vulnerable against not), RHO passes and in your turn you pass. LHO balances 1S and partner bids 2S. What do you do?
You have to bid something? It sounds like he wants a suit from you. I bid 3C. Not bad so far but the torture is about to begin. Colin bids 3H. Sounds forcing. What does it mean?
At this point one of your opponents says that he has to go soon. Everyone is agreeable to quitting soon but when you suggest that now would be a good time. Colin shouts – after this hand.
Back to you…
I bid 3NT. If he is looking for a spade stopper I guess I have one. But in retrospect maybe 5D is better. It seems like he is 6-4 (why didn’t he just reverse? not forcing enough?) I got a heart lead and for a while it looked like this had a play.
Colin
S K H AKQ4 D AKJXXXX C 4
But the diamond queen didn’t come down so nothing really makes.
Well was I tortured or is this just “bridge”. You decide.
2
5NT
J5
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