Day 6 Better Bridge on the Internet “Hello” to BBO and ecatsbridge

September 5th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

BBO is no stranger to me.  I play bridge on BBO and I watch vugraph.  I occasionally use BBO as a chat room and for bidding practice with a partner.  I have reviewed my past deals and even checked out how some friends have been doing.

Today I decide to check out the BBO Forum.  It is an organized active set of forums although it is clear that some forums are much more popular than others.

I am an American election junky so I take a quick glance at the water cooler (off bridge topics) and see a discussion on Sarah Palin.  I am not going to talk politics here (even though I want to) and just say that without regard to skills, style, her personal life etc. I personally love three things about her:

1. a woman candidate 2. 44 is considered young 3. she knows about Canada and like us

Unfortunately no one has commented since August 29th though so it isn’t very relevant at this point.

Back to work I of course go immediately to interesting bridge hands (what a surprise) and no surprise I find the discussions very interesting.  Here is the first hand I look at:

You are east, playing imps with no-one vulnerable in second chair.  You have

S A8xxxxx H 7xxx D void C Qx

question 1: do you open

answer: not me.  It seems to me that second chair is the very worst place to preempt in spades with four hearts on the side, regardless of any other considerations.  I notice that mostly everyone else agrees with passing without giving a reason.

The auction continues 3D on your right and 3H by partner, pass to you.  What now?  The choices seem to be 4H or 4D.  I have a lot of offence in some ways but 4D seems a bit rich to me.  Could we have a slam?  I try to imagine some possible hands for partner like …

S Kx H AKQXX D XXX C KXX 

This hand needs some breaks to make.  If partner has six good hearts, a club control and ideally something in spades he would have bid 4H most of the time.  So slams seems possible but remote.  I would bid 4H.  Most of the responders don’t agree with me.  I still think that after a preempt is not the time to be looking for a pushy slam that is likely to need decent breaks. 

Interesting that 3S was not given as an option but that doesn’t really show the quality heart fit.

The auction continues with more interesting questions at http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=27246

So now I know 2 great bridge forums: www.rec.games.bridge and  the bridgebase forums.

I have been here before but I recommend looking at he bridge library.  There are a few interesting articles mostly by Fred Gittleman but the star on this site in the deal of the week.  Fred wrote a book for Master Point Press based on some of these deals Master Class: Lessons from the Bridge Table which is quite wonderful but working through the deals online on BBO is a great way to improve my bridge and yours too.   There are several other really good features as well including several deals from Bridgemaster 2000 (which I own and use).

I decide to visit another author Jerry Helms at www.jerryhelms.com.

Jerry is author of Helms to HELLO

http://www.masterpointpress.com/bidding/hello.html

The main feature of the site is the Ask Jerry columns from the articles Jerry writes for the ACBL Bulletin and some in 2007 for the Better Bridge magazine and some for Better Bridge magazine.

Moving along I visit an old friend ecatsbridge.com.  This site was developed by Anna Gudge and Mark Newton who are lovely people.  This is the very best site for keeping track of what is happening in the broader bridge world.  If you are interested in the details of bridge at the World Mind Sport Games in Beijing this is the place to go.  Right now there is a list of events, competitors and most interesting the WBF convention cards for each pair.  If you are interested in what some of the world’s best pairs are playing have a look.   It looks there are about 71 countries competing in the open and of course some countries will have very weak teams in this Olympiad year but for them it is all about participation.

Anna and Mark run many of the world’s SIMS (similtaneous pair events) and if you want to see the results in the World Wide Bridge Contest held in June 6th 2008 it is all there (there does seem to be a UK focus).

I finished up with a quirky page just for fun.  It is Michael Arnowitt Bridge Sanctuary.  Michael describes himself as an intermediate player.

http://www.sover.net/~foodsong/bridge.htm

THere is some fun on this site.  I loved the Congratulatory letter form the ACBL on becoming a life master with translation.  He also has a section on quotes from Zia.  Some including my favourite is attributed to Bridge My Way (another MPP book).  Here is his Russian Bridge Joke

A Russian Bridge Joke

Stalin is playing bridge with three other generals. Stalin bids 1 Club, the next general bids 1 Diamond, the next general 1 Heart, the next general 1 Spade; Stalin bids 1 Club, all pass.

(This joke was told to me by a bridge official of one of the former Soviet republics.)

Getting to slam with voids

September 5th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Colin and I had a bidding problem yesterday and we weren’t the only ones.  When we played this hand no one had got to the best contract.

Linda

S void H KQ2 DKJ974 C Q10652

…………………………..

Colin

S J932 H A86 D A6 C AK73

This is our auction. 

Colin didn’t feel that he could go forward without a spade control. 

Ray, Colin and I have been chatting about this hand a fair bit.  Here are my thoughts at this point:

I should have bid 4D over 4C.  Then when Colin bids 4H I should bid 4S and hope that Colin understands that since I am 5-5 I may be cuebidding shortness in his first bid suit.  (We don’t normally do this at our first opportunity to cuebid partner’s suit).  That is the easiest way to get there.  Our notes say that 4S is always an offer to play in spades but when you are known to be 5-5 I don’t think it should be.

This is a lot of bidding though on my hand with weak clubs, a void in partner’s suit and no aces.  Partner has shown some slam interest but when I think about it, it isn’t all that clear that he has strong slam interest.  When he bids fourth suit he may still be probing for the best game.  When I show 5-5 he might just be supporting clubs with three of them.  4C does show some extra but he may be leaving me room to look for slam.  The thing that makes this a good slam is my spade void opposite his Jxxx. 

These type of auctions are always a bit challenging because it isn’t clear how well the hands fit.  I know at the time I didn’t really like my spade void much.  I would have been much happier with a heart void.

There was some discussion about the fact that I almost had to have spade control.  Although I suppose I could have this hand and the auction still makes sense.

S QJ10 H void D KQJXX C QJ10xx or something like that.

Can I bid 4S on that hand to pattern out and offer an alternative contract or is that clearly a cuebid?  I think I would bid 4D ahead of 4H on this hand.

and with

S QJ H X D KQJXX C QJ10xx

I would just bid 5C.

So possibly Colin could have worked it out but I think the real problem was my decision to cuebid 4H.

We also talked about the idea of using 3H after 1D-1S-2C as slam interest in clubs but we do need that bid as invitational with 5-5 in the majors so we scrapped that idea.  I hate fourth suit forcing.

I think the blame is mostly mine but I think this is a tricky slam to get to for any partnership.

Bidding a strong hand over a preempt

September 4th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

Ray and I played last night and afterwards all the discussion centered on one hand.  The result wasn’t the problem.

With everyone not vulnerable West opened 2H

Ray held S A87 H AQ D AJ104 C AJ63

He was too strong to bid 2NT.  His choices were 3NT or double.  We don’t have anything specifically in our notes about 3NT.  With Isabelle I play either strong or tricks and then 4C asks:

4NT minimum 18-19

Suit natural (source of tricks)

Cue 20-21

There are some other continuations too.  Ray and I do play this over a 3 level preempt though. 

Anyway he doubled and I surprised him with 3S.  Does this promise five spades or just four.  Is it forcing.  I could bid 2NT Lebensohl first and then bid 3S what is the difference.  With Isabelle I play that the direct bid is invitational and the slow approach is a GF.  I suppose it doesn’t matter which way you go.  Of course this bid isn’t available to you with hearts over 2S (weak).

Without discussion I would assume it is invitational.  I don’t see why you couldn’t have a four card suit.  You can force with a cuebid on an invitational hand.  Ray temporized with 4H.  His idea was that if I bid 4S he would try 5S (how good are your spades).  Over 4H I bid 5C showing slam interest and Ray just bid 6S.

I held S QJ10964 H 83 D K7 C K108

Obviously we need some discussion here but I would interested in your comments too.

Starting at the top of the food chain Day 5 to better bridge on the internet

September 4th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

Today I decide to go to the best source on the Internet for bridge links and news for my inspiration – Great Bridge Links

http://www.greatbridgelinks.com/

There is a list of major international bridge tournaments here, lots of pictures and graphics.

Look at that I didn’t realize that Bridgeblogging is on the front page.  Thank you Jude. 

There are so many links it is dazzlling.

I decide to look at some Blogs to start with.  I ignore Blogs that have nothing written in them in 2008 and wind up at The Beer Card, Paul’s blog.

http://thebeercard.blogspot.com/

The current Blog has the depressing heading “Summer is over”.  He started off with some auctions that had cost them a big match and oddly enough it was an auction that I had discussed in this BLOG (day3 maybe?).  What do bids mean over interference over 2NT.

Partner opens 2NT 23-24 BALANCED and your opponent overcalls 3H.  What is a pass.  Can partner pass?  Colin, Ray and I did discuss this after “Day 3” but our notrump range is a little lower.  We decided that pass is not forcing for opener but at this notrump range I think it should be.  Anyway maybe this isn’t such an obscure area.

His last problem asked the question about overcalling a weak notrump.  I think trying to deal with weak notrump using all natural overcalls is not a winning approach regardless of how aggressive you are.   Maybe I should reply.

There are some system notes, including notes on Polish club (which distracted me for a while) and some bidding theory ideas on the site as well.

I decided this was an interesting, fun BLOG written by a young serious bridge player and I will visit again. 

Back at great bridge links I find a link to Vikings In Space which turns out to be the website of Jannes van ‘t Oever, a young Dutch bridge player who fortunately has an English language website.  At the top of the site is a review of Iron Man and for a moment I wonder is I have got to the right spot.

He liked it.

The bridge blog du jour is called the glass cards (so you know it is about card reading).

The next was a story of a neat hand.  He was able to use keycard to get to a slam after partner had denied a control in his void.  He arrives in 7C which has a small flaw, there are only 12 tricks off the top (if hearts break decently.  As it turns out he gets a little help from his opponents and some card reading and … well read it yourself.  http://www.vikingsinspace.nl/

The most important thing I learn is a reminder “don’t bid grand slams unless you can count 13 tricks.  Kudos for making it but I think you were getting all the imps/mps for bidding and making 6.  I read the comment which provides an even better line.

Okay time for a top player and teacher.  I arrive at Mike Lawrence’s Bridge SIte and find the articles and am pleased to see a good selection.  I wind up looking at a quiz on responding when partner bids over the opponent’s preempt.  This is interesting because Ray and I spent quite a while discussing a hand yesterday that starter with an opponent’s 2H bid.

I don’t do very well on the quiz.  This is an area that does need a lot of thought and attention.

Here is a problem for you to try:

West opens 3D.  What do you do if partner doubles, bids 3NT or bids 4S

You have S Q8 H K74 D A82 C 109763

Answers…

Over double bid 3NT, over 3NT pass and over 4S bid 5D.

I confess that I didn’t come up with all those answers.  Did you?  Do you agree with them?  There is a lot of very good stuff on this site.

http://www.michaelslawrence.com/

Day 4 – Better Bridge, “the voice of the players”

September 3rd, 2008  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Years ago Ray came and told me excitedly about finding a great news group – rec.games.bridge.  It is still alive and well as a google group.

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.bridge/topics

There should be some interesting things here and I amazed to see how active it is.

I see a post labelled “apportion the blame”.  I feel that this is something I am good at!  Here is the problem from richlp

IMPS

Before looking at the auction I try to imagine how I would bid this hand with the South hand as dealer  with weak notrump which I play with all my partners right now.

I can now bid 4S Exclusion Blackwood in this auction and will be very disappointed to here 5C (0 or 3) and we will play there.  If I wasn’t playing that I would bid 3S which should turn South completely off and he will bid 3NT showing the spade wastage if I bid 4C I would bid 5C on the South hand.

I guess the auction is fine up to 4D.  I think South should bid 4H now and he has more than said his piece.  North shows the spade void with 4S and South should bid 5C.  So perhaps 4S was the worst bid.The most interesting thing I find in the discussion is whether it is better to use minor suit stayman or to transfer to diamonds.

Another comment suggests that 4C would be better over 3NT allowing opener to cuebid 4D (or 4H).  That is certainly true.  And I also find that many players on the board use 4S here as exclusion.

Actually this was more interesting than I thought it would be.  Well I give South most of the blame but if North had bid 4C instead of 4D they would have been much better placed.

I read a play problem and a defence problem and an article asking people how they would change “bridge”.

I can see why people love this site.  I sign up and I bookmark it for later.

Tearing myself away I somehow drift to Gerard Cohen’s website

http://gerard.entsoft.com

and see that it is still a work in progress.  From here I head over to Swan Games.  This is an awesome site for following championships and I know I will be here many times during the world championships.  Besides following a table or two you can see the score board by board across the field in real time and the butler.  I look up the European Championship in Pau France.  There is a list of participants, all the result round by round, the butlers, and the bulletins.  You can go into any match and see the hand record and the scorecard board by board.  If it was a featured match you can see the bidding and card by card play.

I wish someone would do this for North American team championships.  They already have Beijing set up.

http://www.swangames.com/main/Bridgecast/bridgecast.html

It looks like a very fine pay for play site.  It seems to have 5 different rating systems for players including self rating.  Interesting.

From here I link to Karen Walker’s Bridge Library.

http://www.prairienet.org/bridge/

This seems focused on newer players with lots of lessons and other material.  There are a few interesting tidbits and I especially like the article on default agreements (something Isabelle, Ray and Colin and I called metagreements).  One thing I realized after a discussion one night is you have to make very sure you completely understand your default agreements, when and where they apply.  The 8 part series on default agreements: “Was that a penalty double”  seems particularly important because a misunderstanding here cost me a major championship. 

Since I am done for the day I am going to go back to rec.games.bridge and enjoy myself.

Forcing pass and other interesting auctions

September 3rd, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Colin, Ray and I have some basic rules like a pass is forcing if we have bid a vulnerable game except if one partner has preempted (and his partner hasn’t shown extra strength).  A number of questionable situations came up today.  Here is one we discussed.  I am interested in your thoughts.

We were red on white.

East opened 1D and South (me) passed.  West bid 3D (preemptive) and Colin doubled.  East bid 4D and I bid 4H.  Now West bid 5D.  Are we in a forcing pass situation?

I thought that we were because we had voluntarily bid a vulnerable game after Colin showed strength.  Colin thought that my pass had shown weakness, although in later discussion we agreed it hadn’t.

As it turned out we did the right thing (doubling them).

It didn’t take long before another forcing pass problem arrived. 

Once again we were vulnerable against not and we voluntarily bid game.  Since Colin had passed he had more shape than cards and I had passed 1D.  But my pass of 1D didn’t show a weak hand (just no sensible bid).  What do you think?  If you assume that at these colours Colin should have a good hand then perhaps it should be forcing.  Anyway once again we doubled and it was right but I am still not sure about this one.

We did agree that this auction was not a forcing pass situation.

This time you are white on red.  Colin did show strength by doubling and I think I showed some cards when I bid 3C but at this vulnerability I don’t need all that much (except 5 clubs). 

Now here is one where you have to guess the trump suit.  You have S 8 H KQ10942 D J86 C AJ4

Playing standard you open 1H and partner bids 2C.  RHO bids 2S and you bid 3H.  Partner bids 3S.  Is partner looking for a spade stopper or does partner have hearts.  It just isn’t clear.  Now you bid 4C.  Does this just show club cards or does it show support?  I didn’t really care on this hand.  LHO now bids 4S and partner bids 4NT.  What is the trump suit? 

I think it has to be hearts.  I don’t think partner was looking for notrump any more.  His spade had to be a cuebid.  Anyway Colin didn’t take a chance and just bid 6H which was cold.

It seems to me that you can get a lot of this type of ambiguous auction in slam auctions.

Day 3 – Internet journey to better bridge

September 2nd, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I really want to learn lots today so I decided to go to Larry Cohen’s website.

www.larryco.com

It contains a lot of interesting looking articles.  It has a lot of material for beginners and intermediates too.

Larry has done three books so far which are Master Point Press titles, the most famous is To Bid or Not to bid – about the law of total tricks.  I like all of Larry Cohen’s writing and Larry Cohen’s Bidding Challenge is no exception.  Here you and your partner can bid hands and then compare with the world’s best since all the hands are taken from Invitational Pairs events.  (For a sample see the PDF at  http://www.masterpointpress.com/pdf/cohen.pdf).

I love Larry’s CD My favourite 52 hands (he has a sample on his website).  There is lots more on this site and I know that I would like to read his article about the finals of the team trials (which they lost in the last set) but I will save that for another time.

 If you can’t learn something on this site then get off the web and come back later when you are not bridge brain dead. Larry Cohen is definitely one of the outstanding bridge teachers and authors (and players) of this generation. His website however, could use some better organization but with material of this quality, I don’t care.

To start off I read an article called Don’t Give Up and by the first few paragraphs I realize that he has made me think differently. This is a play hand but there is an interesting point in the bidding. You try it: You have S AJ H A108754 D Q5 C AJ3 You open 1H in second chair (white on red) and LHO bids 2NT for the minors. Partner bids 3C which you have agreed shows a limit raise or better in hearts. RHO passes. What do you do? My immediate reaction (and the bid at the table) is to cuebid 3S since slam is certainly possible. Larry suggest bidding 3D as a game try. If partner signs off raise then you can forget about slam and just bid 4H. I see that is the right bid now. The play portion of the hand (which includes a strip and endplay) has an interesting inference. It is natural to think about what the 2NT bidder holds but don’t forget to consider his partner who passed in first chair. (In this case you can deduce that his partner does not hold SKQ109xx since he would have opened a weak 2 spade bid and that helps you to plan the play). The most interesting part of declarer play and defense for me is to use all the clues from the bidding and choice of plays to work out what is going on. When I am in the zone I can do this well. This article reminds me about how to organize my thinking to move into the play zone more often.

The next article I read is called a vital opening lead. It contains a useful point. Try the lead first S J643 H 98732 D 3 C 1042 The auction goes 3NT gambling on your right showing a solid minor with no outside cards and 6NT on your left. What would you lead. Now I am going to give you a hint. You have an agreement with your partner that in an auction like this if dummy jumps to a slam and dummy hasn’t bid a suit, a double asks for the highest unbid suit (here a spade). If this helped you to pick a heart lead you are a winner. Dummy held S AK107 H K10 D 84 C AKQJ8 (and should have bid 6D). You can guess where the rest of the high hearts are! I immediately check my notes. I don’t have an agreement! Definitely something to add.

Obviously I will come back to this site but time to move on. But before I go I sign up for his newsletter and I read the current addition. I suggest you do too.

Well since today is going to be a great day I decide to go to the website of another author and a great friend, Eddie Kantar

www.kantarbridge.com

It is impossible to say enough about Eddie Kantar.  I love him and his wife Yvonne.  Eddie is a prolific Master Point Press author.  I had the privilege of working with him on his latest update to Roman Keycard Blackwood, coming soon.  He is also one of the great players and it is fascinating to listen to him discuss a deal.  You can’t help but learn something.  If I had to pick a bridge teacher for any level of player Eddie would be my first choice.   Enough!

First I start at the humour page, just to warm me up.  Here are a couple of samples:  The ones I chose are more things to think about.  I think I should pin this one to my terminal (when I play online)

It’s not the handling of difficult hands that makes the winning player. There aren’t enough of them. It’s the ability to avoid messing up the easy ones.

-S. J. Simon 

Here is one that Ray and I always use.

When I take a 50-50 chance, I expect it to come off 8 or 9 times out of 10.

-The Hideous Hog. 

There is a lot on this website too but for today I decide to try one or two test your play.  ( I wish he separated the answers from the problem but I do this by moving the window towards the bottom of my screen and hiding the answer.  I try problem 11 and 12.  I like problem 12 better but both would be suitable for advanced players.  I suppose that doing a lot of them would be decent practice for brushing up on my technique although so far I would be disappointed if I didn’t get them right.

Wanting more. I checkout double dummy problems (which are described as mostly aimed at the average reader) but try #1 Hard to imagine which is labelled as a toughie.  It is.  I get most of it quite easily but it will take a while to get the whole solution right.  Here is the problem but head over to the website for the solution at

http://www.kantarbridge.com/double_dummy.htm

           North  

                                 S. K742

                                 H. 8 

                                 D. 87532 

                                 C. 1098 

West                                              East

S. J53                                             S. AQ10

H. Q97653                                      H. J42 

D. AKQJ                                         D. 10964 

C. –                                                C. 543 

                                South 

                                 S. 986

                                 H. AK10 

                                 D.  –

                                 C. AKQJ762 

South to make 5C after West leads the DA. 

I know that double dummy problems don’t make me a better player (even if they are fun) so I move on to ideas.

There are a lot of good ideas here.  I gravitate quickly to an article on responding to 2NT (with slam invitational hands).   I have never found a way that I love to handle the auction after an opening 2NT.

It does have a lot of interesting ideas and I think is better than what Isabelle and I play now but I know that Isabelle hates the idea of using 2NT-3NT as a relay (if you want to bid 3NT you have to start with 3S which forces 3NT).  I will ask Ray and Colin to take a peak and see what they say.

One last interesting thing from Eddie’s bio

 Eddie with Aldred Sheinwold being inducting into the

Bridge Hall of Fame.

Eddie is the only person ever to have played in a World Bridge Championship and a World Table Tennis Championship.  Eddie was inducted into the Bridge Hall of Fame in 1996, the same year he was inducted into the Minnesota State Table Tennis Hall of Fame.

Two bridge deals and then a husband

September 1st, 2008  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

Here is an interesting bidding decision from a team match – Cayne versus the Israeli National Team.

With North-South vulnerable against not you South hold S J643 H KJ8 D 42 C AK76.

At both tables the auction started the same

Your opponents are presumably playing 2/1 and it is your call.  At one table South passed,  West bid 2H which was passed back to him.  He passed again and 2H made for -110.  At the other table South doubled and ran into a meat grinder.  West who held S A108 H 52 D A86 C Q9532 redoubled.  North who held a moderate hand with 3 small spades and CJ1084 naturally bid 3C and West naturally doubled.  This went for 800.  Do you think it is obvious never to enter the auction with the South hand?  I am not sure if I would have bid right away but I might be tempted over 2H pass, pass.  It was the Israeli National Team which got the number, by the way.

Later in the match the Israeli’s collected another number on this hand.

You hold S QJ9 H J9863 D 87 C J109 and this time you are white on red.  Your partner opens 1S and you chose to bid 1NT (I assume 2S is constructive).  The auction continues this way

I confess that it wouldn’t even occur to me to double but South did just that, I assume to make sure partner leads a spade (since you haven’t raised – anyone really like 2S as a constructive raise!).  Its worth it thought South since it only gives up a few imps and a spade lead might beat it.  However West redoubled.  Do you pull now?  You should.  4S only goes for about 300 (maybe 500 double dummy) and 3NT redoubled makes a cool 1000 (it could have been worse since West taking no chances didn’t make the overtrick he was entitled to.) 

In the last little while I have decided that playing 1M-2M as a constructive raise gives up much more than it gains.  If you have support for the major bid it – that’s what I say.

I have had some opportunities to play with my husband and to practice with him in the last few days.  Colin has been too busy watching Torchwood and running his online football team.  I have noticed that Ray and I have a very different approach to bidding problems.  I see a number of solutions and try to decide which will be best.  Sometimes I think both are about equal and then I just pick.  Ray usually sees a solution and he strongly believes in it.  Here is an example from a poll on Richard Pavlicek’s website.

You have S10 H A7 D AK932 C KJ974

You open 1D with noone vulnerable and partner bids 1H.  You bid 2C and partner bids 2NT.  What do you bid?

I liked 3C which I knew was a bit of an underbid.  If partner has a maximum he can still bid 3NT and with a minimum I don’t mind playing there not vulnerable.  If partner’s spades aren’t very good we may not be able to make anything. 

Here are the other choices

3NT: I could see a case for 3NT but it seemed too risky. 

4C: I could see a case for 4C but it seemed to overstate the hand when partner likely had lots of his values in the majors. 

3S: I didn’t really pay much attention to 3S but in retrospect that is a good bid, since with my partners it asks for a good spade stopper initially. 

3H: It seemed a possible bid since if we had any game it was likely to be in hearts but I didn’t really want to wind up in a 4-2.

3D: I don’t really understand this bid.

What do you think Ray picked?  He picked 3NT.  He hated 3C and dismissed any other option but 4C (which he only hated a bit).

As it turned out 3NT was the popular bid and received 10 points but when the hand was played at the 1955 world championship. Partner actually held

S K84 H K8632 D 864 C A6

and 3NT is a poor contract but all games make on a friendly lie of the cards.  Now you can decide what bid you like but the difference is not our choice but the way we think about it.   I am not sure what makes a better player, one who sees possibilities or one who sees the answer.  You decide.

We did have a “discussion” about this auction.  What do you think it means?

Playing weak notrump the auction starts

Is Ray’s double here for penalty.  We agreed it was.  If so, would you double on this hand S K82 H AK63 D K4 C A543?

Suppose you pass and in fourth chair I double.  Is that takeout or penalty (with no agreement).  We do not bypass diamonds routinely so I could still have a four card major.  I think it is penalty.  After all I can have 8 points (I did) and four hearts and I know we have the balance of points and 6 hearts at least).  Ray argued that sitting under the bidder I wouldn’t want to double and it was a way to bring spades into play.  Anyway I held S A754 H 74 D Q972 C Q97 and I found another way to bring spades into play I bid 2S.  As it turned out I was able to make this even with a 5-1 spade break with an endplay (I liked that) for a very good score.  2H doubled?  You can beat it a trickon reasonable defence so I supposed we couldn’t go too wrong.

Weekend Off – Having fun with bridge on the Internet -Day 0

August 31st, 2008  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

Since this is a long weekend I am going to just enjoy myself over the  weekend. I decide that to celebrate I will look at a fun bridge site or two.

I goggled my way to www.Pattayabridge.com  Pattaya is located in Thailand and seems very proud to be bringing bridge to that island paradise of beaches, diving, windsurfing and gold.  It is warm all year with no volcanoes, tsunamis hurricanes, tornados (but the occasional monsoon between July and November) and a low cost of living.  Wow!

There is a link to the suit split calculator http://www.automaton.gr/tt/en/OddsTbl.htm.  It’s cool but cruelly there is a link to sailing in the Greek islands on the side.   It just sounds so good.

The instructions for the calculator are a little confusing but it works quite well.  You can consider other known cards in the opponents hands and you can combine odds for more than 1 suit.  Even better is a little program which shows you how to play a suit.  I enter AQ764 for North and South J82.  What is the best way for 5 tricks?  It not only tells you that the best line is to playing low to the Q but it walks you through what happens as each player follows with the card of your choice.  Interesting.

And finally I check out the cartoons and quotes.  A sample cartoon:

A post mortem as enjoyed by most married bridge partners

Later in the day I found that I couldn’t resist going back to Richard Pavlicek’s website http://www.rpbridge.net/ .  I played all the oldies like the 2001 A Space Odyssey theme and the Carpenter’s Your On Top Of The World and just loved doing the bridge problems.  I read all the answers and the discussion.  This stuff is great and very addictive and I think I will go to bed whistling 70’s music.  Do they not make great songs like that any more or is that what happens to you when you qualify for the seniors?

Day 2 – Internet journey to better bridge

August 29th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Readers of this BLOG will know that I love Bridge World so I decided to start with the Bridge World site today at www.bridgeworld.com

It does have a few interesting things: the most fascinating is the Bridge Glossary, a very good list of bridge terminology and one of the few on the web.  Some were fun like Bagel – score of zero on a board.  It was hard to find any I didn’t know but here is one.  Do you know what a Bluhmer is?  Answer later.  Bridge World Standard 2001 is listed in detail.  This might be useful for some but I am currently working on at least 3 bidding systems (none of which are like BWS).  I sign up for Bridge World Extra – an online magazine and move on to the links.

I can’t resist going to Hugh Darwen’s home page. I have a weakness for bridge puzzles and Darwen is one of the master puzzle creators.   Do you think doing double dummy problems actually helps your dummy play?

This is an awesome site.  I love it.  It is full of double dummy problems. 

http://www.doubledummy.net/

The top of the site has a double dummy contest problem.  Has Deep Finesse, the double dummy hand analyzer destroyed double dummy contests?  Anyway I am going to resist the STRONG temptation to use deep finesse and try this without any aids.

I am not going to post any problems, just follow the link for endless fun.  By the way, Hugh, it would be helpful to provide a bit of a scratch pad.  Maybe some people can do DD problems completely in their head but I need to be able to cross out cards as I go.  Alright I suppose I can print it out.  That will help a lot. 

I bookmark the site for when I am NOT trying to fall asleep.  I follow a link to Richard Pavlicek’s website.  I have been here before and I know it has a lot of great stuff.  I am sure I can learn something at this site.  http://www.rpbridge.net/

There is so much to love on this site I know I will be back again and again.  I start with the bridge calculators

I find out my own personal deal by entering my name, birthday and city.  Can you believe I am a partscore!  I try my husband Ray and find out that he is a slam.  This is a bit depressing.  I move on to system notes.  There is a lot here including 7 different sets of Pavlicek system notes.  If I had my own page I know I wouldn’t publish my notes but then I didn’t invent 12 bidding ideas.

We have been talking about major suit game tries in auctions like 1M-2M so I look at Richard’s idea of using relays.  I decide this convention is not for us. 

I move to bidding polls and contest.  The poll I try (yesterday, once more) has a lovely picture of the Carpenters at the top.  I am participant number 202.  I have the song on my computer so I play it while I do the contest.    These are impossible problems – bidding problems with no clear answer.  I score 54 out of 60.  The average score is 46.16 so I don’t feel too bad but several people scored 60.  I read the analysis.  I know part of the problem is that this is matchpoints and I really don’t feel comfortable playing matchpoints any more. 

Here is a problem I think is clearcut but it didn’t receive the top score (based on results in 1978 and 2000).

You have

S 102 H 109843 D J10852 C 10

Partner opens 2NT 21-22 and RHO bids 3S vulnerable against not.  Your choices

pass, 4H, double and 4D.  (None of these are transfers).  I just don’t think RHO is suicidal and he can easily have a black 2 suiter and make 2S 21-22 high card points or not.  So the question becomes what is the difference between a direct bid and passing.  I think that partner should expect that if you pass you are interested in a penalty and that you will pass a reopening double OR maybe something else (pass and pull).  So if you pass you should pass his double.  Otherwise his double has no meaning since it would be very rare that he could do something else.  So I bid 4H.  That got a score of 8 out of 10 with pass being the top bid.

For example David Sterling for the passers said – “I still don’t know what I will do after partner reopens with a double, as he most certainly will”.  

Some of the doublers think partner will pass the hand out.  Does that make sense.

Karen Walker speaking for the 4H bidders says ” looking for a safe spot over 3S, which could easily be cold.  4D might be slightly safer but you might as well go for the game bonus”.

Karen and I are on exactly the same wavelength and so is Richard Pavlicek.  I decide that I need to clarify my notes after interference over 2NT.  I don’t think I have any but in today’s hyperactive bidding world it is a good idea to have something.

I have learned something and I can spend the rest of the day doing problems and having a great time at the last two sites.