Playing with the guys

August 19th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Well I got to play with both my men today and the contrast was interesting.  Playing with Ray this really happened.  Once again before we started we agreed – no fighting or comments at all.  We were only going to play an eight board team match.  What do you think the chances were?  Never mind.  We actually had a pretty good set.

I thought this board was interesting and perhaps it shows the value of weak notrump.  You decide.

I held S KQ65 H J1032 D 964 C J7

Ray opened 1H which is 4+ and I bid 2H.  Ray now made a game try by bidding 2NT showing a balanced hand with probably about 17-18 HCP and I bid 4H.  He held S A932 H KQ97 D J10 C AK6 and 4H was easy on normal breaks.  I was thinking that if someone opened a strong notrump they would play it there.  However as it turned out our opponents were not playing strong notrump and they still missed the game.   Here is what happened

Ray’s Hand My Hand

1C             1D

1H             2H

2NT           3H

all pass

so in effect they had the same auction (2NT was alerted as forcing so I don’t know if it guaranteed a balanced hand) and my hand wimped out with a vulnerable game in the offing.

In the evening playing with Colin, all was quiet as it always is.  The discussion after the game was thoughtful and calm. We played against Paul Thurston and Jeff Smith and it was a lot of fun.  As always there was a fair bit of action.  Knowing Jeff Smith what do you think is happening on this hand.  Here is Colin’s hand S AK864 H AKQJ2 D – C KQ3.  All red, Jeff opens 1C (Polish) in front of you.  We haven’t discussed what we play over Polish club but if you can I think I would probably bid 2C Michaels.  Anyway Colin bid double.  Paul bid 1D which is a negative but shows better diamonds than clubs and now Jeff bid 1H which he alerted as could be as short as two.  What do you do now?  Colin doubled again.  Does that show hearts?  Anyway Paul bid 2H and this was passed around to Colin.  I think there is a case for making a double now a penalty double but that is certainly not clear.  What do you do now? 

Colin just bid 4S which was a decent spot.  I held S 1097 H 107 D KJ1083 C 1092 and no Jeff didn’t pysche (well sort of) He held SQ3 H 96 D A97 C AJ8654

How do you bid this hand playing standard?

S void H K109432 D K4 C AQ984

Colin opened 1S and I bid 2H (not a game force) and Colin bid 3S.  Don’t you hate that.  Well I already know that I can’t get clubs into the mix.  If I bid 4C it will be a cuebid for spades.  Even in standard I think 3S in this auction should show a really good suit.  4H now should be natural but it won’t  show any extra values (if partner has a few hearts, slam is still a possibility).  I bid 4C hoping Colin might bid 4H.  But if Colin does bids 4H is it an offer to play or a cuebid?  I am not sure.  In other sequence the bid of 4 of partner’s major is always an offer to play in the major so maybe it should be here too. 

So in retrospect, I should have bid 4H all along.  Over 4C Colin bid 4D and I bid 4S.  Colin had

S AKQJ43 H J D A62 C 653

We had reached the best spot, although on the lie of the cards Colin can and did make 6S.  In fact, almost all the field played in 4S which I found interesting.  Of course in 2/1 3S would have shown a suit like this and I suppose it is easier to get there then.  Noone seems to have rebid their heart suit.  But playing 2/1 Colin tells me he would have only bid 2S.  I wondered how the auction would have continued.

This also brought up an old discussion.  Should 2H promise another bid?  I think it should but that unless opener shows strength most followup bids by responder can be passed.  When I asked Ray he said nope.  Responder can pass a 2S rebid with S X H KJXXX D KXXX C KXXX or something like that fearing a misfit.  Maybe we can convince him otherwise.

Ekren did come up one time with Colin but it probably helped them by keeping them out of their 4-4 heart fit which was splitting 4-1.  So about a 1/2 point minus for Ekren so far.  ( But who is keeping score).

Yet Another Bridge System for the Lee’s

August 18th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Since Ray and I are going to be playing together and so are Colin and I, we did agree recently that we needed to all play the same system.  It was just too much work to develop two bidding systems and too much memory for me.  So for now Colin and I are going to put away the notes on forcing club and move to a more or less standard system since Ray refuses to play 2/1.  Since in the last while I have played to some extent all three foundation systems it is interesting to compare them. 

With many partners I play 2/1 with strong notrump and perhaps 10-12 notrump in first and second not vulnerable with 5 card majors

With Colin I was playing 2/1 with forcing club, 10-12 notrump as above and otherwise 14-16 notrump with 5 card majors

Our threesome system is Standard with 12-14 notrump throughout with 5 card spade suits and 4 card heart suits when opening

Each system has some strengths and some weakness.  It is actually helpful to make a 2/1 with an invitational hand since forcing notrump has such a wide range.  A lot of the problems that exist in standard still exist in 2/1.  The main problem area are the one over one’s.  Sequences like 1C-1H-2C need special consideration.  How can you support clubs and force at the same time and still not get past 3NT.  There are a lot of other pretty challenging components here like the dreaded 1C-1D-1H-2S fourth suit forcing.  You get the picture.  One area that is even more challenging in 2/1 is  bidding after a forcing notrump especially this one:  1S-1NT-2D.  There are many problems here.  Opener can have up to about 19 HCP so responder really needs to try to keep the auction opening.  There is no easy way to handle an invitational hand as well as a weak one and so on.  The 2/1 by responder playing standard helps to minimize some of these problems.  The best part of 2/1 should be the auctions that start with a 2/1 game forcing response providing a lot of space to find the best place to play the hand and also to probe for slam.  Nevertheless so far the systems I have played never really live up to that promise.  For example, it is often not clear if opener or responder have extra values.  I think some of Ken Wexford’s ideas in his book Cue BIdding At Bridge are very good for 2/1 players in particular but I haven’t yet played them with anyone and I would like to see how much that helps.

The forcing club system brought out craziness in our opponents who thought it was a matter of pride to bid over 1C.  I have no idea why this is true since it is clearly easier to go for a penalty when you know your partner has 16plus points even if you have a moderate hand with some trump.  There are many other reasons why this type of action makes no sense.  Anyway, this did help our cause and lead to a lot of action for us and numbers.  Forcing club was actually best when we had weaker opening hands since the limited hand  helped responder to determine how high he wanted to go and how high to compete.  The parts I liked best about forcing club surprised me.  I expected to like the ability to start with 1C with strong two or three suiters – really challenging hands in any other system and I did.  But the opening 2C (showing 6+ clubs) and 2D (showing diamond shortness) worked exceptionally well.  I am convinced that a forcing club system is the best and I still want to play it.

The craziest thing we are doing now to make Colin happy) is playing Ekren.  This is a bid of 2H showing (gulp) 4-4 in the majors and a weak hand (3-9).  It can be as much as 5-5 so as you see it has a wide range.  It is intended to be more destructive than constructive – I just hope we usually point the missile at the right target.   Ray and I spent about an hour bidding Ekren hands and we decided that we have some ways to survive when partner has a good hand but they really aren’t the best way to bid these hands.  Without opponents we can’t really tell if the weapon works so we shall have to see,

So our system discussions have changed for now and we have been talking about how to respond to one of a major, in particular 1H which can be 4 cards in length.  If you are playing 4 card majors do you want to have a special bid to show a constructive raise with four since we don’t really raise with 3 initially anyway.  In the end we agreed to play 1M-3M as preemptive and use 3D to show a limit raise but not to play a jump to show a four card constructive raise.  We will see how that works.  I wonder if we shouldn’t play 4 card spades again, we used too.  We dropped it when we realized that most of those hands were 15-17 balanced and might as well be opened 1C with a 1NT rebid.

Colin has suggested with play undoubles and I am looking forward to trying that.  The idea is that in forcing pass situations you reverse the meaning of pass and double.  I am not yet sure I understand all the implications and I am sure I will have something to say about the effectiveness as I use this approach.

A Canadian’s thoughts on the Olympics

August 18th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

If you live in Canada you will be aware of the incredible amount of whining that took place the first couple of weeks about Canada’s lack of success at the Olympics.  Canada had sent this huge team and have won 0 medals.  This was compared to some tiny country which had won their first medal that day.  Why was this?  We didn’t spend enough on sports.  We didn’t pay enough for training, coaching, equipment. 

(The Canadian government does actually sponsor elite athletes in some sports and pays them a living allowance.)

While there may be some truth in this, a lot of it is silly.  Over the weekend Canada did win 7 medals including 2 gold and the whining has been reduced.  When you are a small country you just can’t do well at everything.  You have to specialize.  You don’t have the resources to do well across the board.  There has also been a discussion about the swimming program which is in a rebuilding phase and how the swimmers actually did much better this time, setting personal bests and Canadian records and making more finals.

Do you actually care how many medals your country wins?  Is it really important?  I do like to hear the individual stories of character and perseverance that lead to great personal performances.  They can be inspirational.  But in all honesty if someone asked me if the government should put even more emphasis on elite players in a sport I would say no – work on training the new players especially the youth.  Use the same money for that purpose.  But I do recognize that watching great performance can inspire young people to get involved in that sport.

What does that mean for bridge in Canada?  I would like to see more money coming into the game but I would like to see the focus of that money being: teaching new players, providing a broader based coaching program so that people who learn to play bridge in their 30’s can also have an opportunity to build their skills beyond the beginner and intermediate lessons and more promotion for the game.  It does help to have some players who provide inspiration for new players.  The more publicity we can get the better.  And I confess I wish we had a trials system for the Open Team (at least) that would get the best possible team to compete for us.  Right now I wonder if we even get the best team possible.  We need a wealthy sponsor with some good advisers to select the best players across the country and bring them together to form the let’s say "Vancouver Victor" or the "Canadian King" (I couldn’t come up with something as good as the Dallas Aces).  I don’t even care if they feel they have to be on the team (although in most cases I would prefer it if they would be content to be captain).  I wonder how much money it would take.

Another thing that keeps coming up is the likelihood of cheating at the Olympics.  Are the Chinese gymnasts really 16 years old?  Somehow I think not.  Why are some countries doing so very well at some races especially sprints – could it be better less detectable drugs?  Are some of the judges colluding to get a better score for their countries?  We do know many people have been caught cheating over the years and I am sure it is happening but we just don’t know who is doing what.  And unfortunately when I see an incredible result, I wonder is cheating going on.  It does take a lot away from the event.  Again there is a parallel with bridge.  The harder we try to stop cheating, the better the cheaters become.  It is even easier  to cheat in bridge than in track and field.

I also have mixed feelings about China.  I know that I made the right decision in not going to Beijing once my team lost the trials.  Ray and I planned to go but the pollution is just too much for an asthmatic like me.  If I won I was going to spend a lot of time with doctors trying to work out the best way to deal with the pollution.  I also don’t like the censorship and the way they are clearly treating people.  On the other hand I don’t care if the girl singing the national anthem at the opening ceremonies is lip syncing since she is prettier than the real singer – its all just a fairy tale anyway.  I think China has done an incredible job of preparing and providing the best experience they can to visitors and participants.  The pageantry and facilities look incredible.  The city itself is interesting with the Forbidden City and the Great Wall.  I am sure for most competitors it will be an experience they will never forgot.  All of this is true for the World Mind Games as well.

Playing with your husband – why would you ever?

August 18th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Playing on BBO with Ray is completely different than playing with anyone else.  We have been discussing why.  We start a session and I say that I don’t care how we do I just want to go the whole set without talking to each other but it is completely impossible.

One thing that happens we have discovered is that when one of us is playing dummy the other person sees the perfect line (seeing all 52 cards does help) and they can’t understand why their moron spouse didn’t get it right. In general the bidding is less explosive than the dummy play even when we get it wrong.  Perhaps defence is the worst.  Here is an example of the problems on defence

Dummy opened 1S and Irritating Opponent responded 1NT which was passed out. 

Irritated spouse started with the H8 playing attitude leads, hoping perhaps for a spade switch if it was appropriate.  Oblivious spouse won the HA and switch to the D10 and you could see (if you were sitting behind him) that irritated spouse was already unhappy about the diamond switch.  Declarer wont the DJ  and played a diamond to dummy’s DK and irritated spouse took the opportunity to throw the C3 to suggest a major suit was the right continuation to oblivious spouse.  Now declarer decided to play a club from dummy for some unknown reason.  If oblivious spouse had been awake they could have reasoned as follows declarer is known to have the HK, DAJ, they simply can’t have the CA but he was not counting. 

Irritated spouse won the CJ with CA and played the SK.   Oblivious spouse threw the SJ.  Irritated spouse had no idea what their agreement was but he thought that his partner would play the S10 from the J10 doubleton.  So he continued with the SQ crashing his partner’s SJ as declarer won the SA.  Declarer now played two rounds of diamonds as oblivious spouse won the trick.  At this point declarer cannot be prevented from taking two more tricks.  Either two clubs in dummy or a heart and a diamond in hand.

What do you think the first comment was?  "Why did you play the SQ crashing my SJ".  While it is an interesting point to discuss the carding at this moment you can see it did not affect the hand at all.  What was the second comment?  Irritating opponent saying it was a hard fought battle making both spouses more angry.  The third comment came from irritated spouse who asked why his partner had not returned a heart at trick two.  (On a heart return irritated spouse can’t return a heart anyway since the spots are against his side).

Time has passed since I first wrote this and we have played some more on BBO.  We still haven’t got through a set (not even three hands) without some comment.  We can but try.

Bridge in Australia

August 11th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Ray and I are heading over to Australia this October.  We will be in New Zealand first and that will be during the World Mind Games so I am not going to be able to watch much bridge online and report my slant on it.  I will definitely watch some of it though and I am sure I will have a comment or two.  But right after that we are headed to Sydney and Ray and I will actually be playing an event in their Spring Nationals. 

We are playing a two day Swiss pairs matchpoints.  I am guessing from the brief description that this is scored by matchpointing (across the field or a section)  and then the result of the match is turned into victory points. You are placed with another pair for each ten board round who has a similar victory point score.  It should be interesting although I am not expecting a great result for two reasons.  Ray does not like playing matchpoints at all.  I haven’t played matchpoints in ages and we haven’t played together except for a hand or two in several years.  In fact, Ray has mostly stopped playing bridge. 

I was heartened when after we signed up for this Ray took out the big black binder with our notes and started to read them.  We have agreed not to change our system drastically but both of us think we can do just a little bit better.  Our notes are nine years old.

Apparently tournaments in Australia are very social.  They are smaller and the you must pre-register so the organizers are well prepared for you.  I like that.  I have always hated the waiting around before each event at North American tournaments although the tournament directors here do a great job of getting things started.

We shall be meeting with lots of Aussie bridge players, teachers, and writers.  I am expecting to play against lots of strange conventions.  Ray and I generally play nothing against most of them and that works out fine.  Nothing means that we treat the bid as natural and just make our normal bid over it.  However, we may have to do more if they play something really unusual. 

I have started to think that simplest is best in systems anyway.  The most important thing is to remember what you play and have a failsafe if you get lost in an auction.  I have been reading some reports in Bridge World about major tournaments and it is amazing how often a swing occurs when an experienced pair gets lost in their system.  The last report I read involved an established expert pair who got to a grand slam off an ace when one partner was bidding keycard and his partner was responding to something else entirely.

What do I mean by a failsafe?  Ray and I have metarules.  These are rules that apply when you are not sure what an auction means.  When you have entered the undiscussed twilight zone.

Speaking of the twilight zone Ray and I played a few hands in the last couple and this auction came up:

In this auction we play forcing and nonforcing Stayman over 1NT.  2H is obstensibly natural. But that made no sense in this auction What was 2H?  We are now outside our system and our metasystem.   I decided that Ray was asking about my spade and setting up a game force (as would 2D) but perhaps was also somewhat nervous about the quality of my heart stopper.

I held S A8 H Q93 D KQJ9 C K764

and so I bid 3D. Ray figured out that I had to be 2-3-4-4 (clever fellow).  He had the next decision.  He held S KQJ94 H 84 D A632 C Q5.   If we really were both on the same wavelength then perhaps he should have bid 4S although 3NT worked alright this time.

As you can see a club lead is nasty.  West had to guess and he decided to play a spade.  That ended things pretty quickly.  4H can go down after three rounds of hearts.  I have to trump high and then finesse the S8.

Here is a hand where Ray got to use his beloved Exclusion Blackwood.  He held

S J10943 H A6 D void C AKQJ98

He opened 1C and I bid 1H.  He bid 1S and I bid 2D fourth suit.  He bid 2S and I raised spades to three.  Now was his moment.  He bid 5D.  I bid 5H one keycard.  What do you think he should do now?  He can’t asked for the SQ and he really needs it.  He bid 5S (fortunately in tempo) and I decided I had the right stuff.  I held S KQ86 H K10974 D AK53 C void and bid 6S.

The Yanks are coming

August 5th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

I watched a USA versus Canada match with members of our ladies and seniors team taking on some players from their ladies team and some prominent American players.  The Canadians were Doug Fraser and John Zaluski Karen Compstone and Pamela Nisbet.  The American ladies were Sylvia Moss and Judy Radin.

The Americans definitely had the best of it.  Would you bid on this hand?   You have S6 H 1062 D A109743 C K95,  You are not vulnerable against vulnerable and RHO opens 1H.  Karen Cumpstone passed.  I might have bid 3D although I wouldn’t argue with pass.  (It’s the vulnerability that I like)   If you pass you hear 1S on your left and 2S on your right.  I think we are all definitely passers now and it gets passed out in 2S making 3.  But at the other table John Solodar bid what I would consider a comic 2D and he struck gold when his partner with SAJ74 H A987 F QJ5 C J10 but 3NT.  With the cards lying well it was cold.  Is that luck or skill?

Not to be outdone in the luck department here is a hand the Canadian’s won big:  Here is Ed Zaluski and Doug Fraser

Here was their auction

This was worth 11 imps when the heart was onside and John guessed which side had the stiff CA.  Would you want to be there?  Hamman would.

The Canadians had another 10 imp pickup on this declarer play hand.  Let’s keep the declarer anonymous at the other table for this very interesting hand.  Here is the hand:

At the men’s table  North received a high diamond lead ducked to the DK and West continued with the DK giving North-South nine easy tricks.

Play at the women’s table was much more interesting.  East lead a low club and

West opens 1H and North arrives in 3NT with no further opposition bidding.  The opening lead is a club and the CJ forces your CA.  You are going to have to do something with the diamonds so you start by ducking a diamond to West.  West returns a club which you duck.  East now makes a good shift to a small spade.  You duck this as well to West’s King.  Here is the position:

West leads a club which you win in hand.  It seemed to the kibbitzers who could see all four hands that with only 15 high card missing and East already having shown up with the CQ West was very likely to have the remaining high cards.  West is at this point known to have three clubs and at least 5 hearts.  It seems quite likely that might have a doubleton KQ in one of the two pointed suits so you could try for that by playing a diamond to the DA just in case but let’s say you play a diamond to West’s diamond Q and West now comes back a heart you HQ winning.  Here we are now.

You know 4 of West’s card and all the important ones.  Suppose that you now play a diamond the DA.  West shows out in diamonds so but when you cross back to hand with the HA East shows out.  West started with 2 spades, 6 hearts, 2 diamonds and 3 clubs.  So playing for the SKQ looks very attractive.  But let’s say that West had three spades so we have this ending.  Can you see the lovely squeeze to make the rest of the tricks

North is on lead and leads the C10 to discard the DA from dummy and can now arrive at a crisscross!  I love those squeezes.  Colin did see the possibility at the table.  You cash the top diamonds the two spades from dummy.  What three cards does West keep.  If she keeps one heart you cash the HA and then cross to dummy on a spade and if she keeps to hearts and one spade you cross to dummy on a spade and then return to hand with the HA.  Anyway our declarer never had any of this fun.  She just took another spade finesse when she was in on the club and lost to the doubleton KQ.  Shrug.

The Americans did have the best of this match and it was wild and wooly as you can guess.

Buy this book – a commercial

August 4th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Ron Bishop was over this afternoon conducting some business with Ray when he mentioned that I had booted a couple of hands recently.  I think the conversation went along these lines… Well I told all the kibitzers that you were the best women declarer in Canada (not my opinion) and that you would make the hand and then you didn’t.  Here is my excuse.  Most of the time on BBO I figure out my plan and then about halfway through executing it the phone rings, or something interesting happens on the background TV or Ray shouts something at me and I just forget my place.  Usually I make the play I planned for two tricks later or something like that.  Anyway, I told him I was in a slump but I promised to do better.  I logged on today and had a good set in a much better than usual pickup game where the opposition were actually a partnership. 

Feeling like I was getting my mojo back I decided to read a bridge book that would teach me something and make me feel good.  I happen to have the whole library of 100+ Masterpoint Press titles to chose from (and many 100’s of others) and my hand lit upon Northern Lights.  These are a wonderful collection of more than 50 stories from the old Canadian Masterpoint magazine.  I read several of them and realized once again how very much I liked them.

There are way to many wonderful articles to even pick a few favourites but here are two stories that relate to some things I have been thinking about lately.  The first article is by Fred Gitelman and it is called "Would you rather be lucky or good"?  Frequent blog readers will notice that I have been on that topic a bit lately as I have been feeling it in my bones after such a narrow loss in the CWTC.  But it made me think about much more.  In this article Fred recounts several occasions where he lost a match on an unlucky hand.  This made me think about several recent occasions where Fred lost the finals of the US team trials so very narrowly.  How important is luck?  Are there people who are luckier than others?  I do think that some people are just lucky and I think for most of us luck runs in streaks, like Zia’s zones.  During the semifinal of the CWTC I noticed that on one round nothing was making.  I stopped pushing on hands and won several boards by winning imps by not bidding game.  This is not generally a winning strategy but it was right that day.

Fred gives a number of examples of his misfortune but this hand is my favourite.  Mary Paul found a terrific lead against 6H which was not bid at the other table.  After that lead Fred went down and failed to qualify for the knockout round of the Canadian team trials.   Fred ends with this summary:

" I guess that the lesson from all this is that whoever wins any given bridge tournament is not the one who plays best on any absolute scale.  The luck of the cards often contributes as much towards who will win as does the skill of the participants.  Be grateful for your luck when you get but don’t get depressed when you don’t.  Luck does eventually even out.

The nature of bridge is that everyone does have a chance to win.  The better you play, the more often it will happen to you."  Now there doesn’t that make you feel better.  Thanks Fred.  (All his example hands are really cool, Fred is such a great write I wish he would do it more.  He has many articles in this book.)

Fred has a wonderful hand about suit combinations too where he talks about how to work out what to do at the table, but Fred you just do it better than I can.

On a related theme Andy Stark has a funny story about playing a slam.  It’s all about driving a car….after all you can get caught speeding, have an accident or simply have a wheel fall off.  Andy goes down in this hand.  You try it.

With no opposition bidding you arrive in 6S after partner has shown both majors.  The opening lead is the H10 which gets covered by the HQ, HK and your HA.  You cash the SA only to discover that LHO (West) has all five trump.  How do you play the hand?

Let’s say that you start out by cashing your DK and top two clubs, ruffing a club and cashing two diamonds throwing hearts.  Everyone is following to everything.  This is the ending.

Now you play a diamond ruffing with the SJ as West throws a heart.  You lead the C10 and West is helpless.  Andy missed this and went down in a cold slam.  But wait, it isn’t cold.  Do you see how West can beat you?  Andy did in the post mortem.

But that wasn’t the second article I meant.  It was actually an article called Shorty remembered by Bruce Gowdy where he talks about Shorty Sheardown, Canada’s "Mr. Bridge" after his death in 1993.  He talks about a favourite hand where Shorty had to find a lead against this helpful auction 1NT-3NT with

S xxx H AQx D xxxx C xxx and lead the HA finding partner with H K98xx

The opponents were so incensed that they called the director.  Who could find such a lead.  The director who knew Shorty well said that he suggested that they kibbitz Shorty for the rest of the game and he would be glad to find a substitute pair.

All of this started me thinking about my favourite hands.  I just wish I had a better memory for these things.

Anyway, this book is a great read.  I don’t think the title does it justice.

If you are a Canadian and want to get this from Amazon make sure to go to Amazon.com not Amazon.Ca which only has very overpriced used ones.  Chapters Indigo is a fine source too and of course all the bridge retailers.

Will wonders never cease

August 4th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

My husband Ray played with me on BBO today.  I can’t remember the last time he did that.  We did play Eddie’s home game in Las Vegas and maybe that is why Ray wanted to play.  Playing with Ray reminded me that although I have played with many fine bridge players, Ray is my favourite partner.  But he yells at me all the time and I yell back.  With all my other partners we don’t discuss things at the table, except Ray.  I don’t know why this is.  Anyway after the first few hands I was determined not to say anything and I was a little bit better.  But still… Does anyone have any suggestions for husband and wife peace at the table.

Here is an interesting hand that we "discussed".  You (Ray) hold S KJ7 H AKQ1073 D 76 C 105.  We are vulnerable and they are not.  Linda opens 1S in first and East bids 2D.  You bid 2H and West bids 4D.  Linda bids 4H and East bids 5D.  Here is the auction so far

What is you call?  Ray decided to double.  I confess I would have passed his hand with the double fit.  What do you think?  Anyway, it is no big deal at imps, we got 500 into 650.  I held S A9643 H J82 D void C AQ832.  6H is a pretty good contract and it takes a club lead to beat it even though both finesses are offside. 

This took the prize today for the strangest auction. 

What does West have and what does this bid mean?  East-West were a partnership and West was a good player.  Actually he meant it as west coast bid 3NT with a heart stopper.  What would you do now on the East hand?  East held S AKJ76 H AQ983 D void C A65.  (Yes, he was laying in wait).  He dutifully bid 3NT.  Now guess what the West hand was?

If you guessed more or less sold diamonds your right (even though he passed in first chair) but the surprise was?

S 10983 H void D AKQ8742 C J9

So 4S was a great spot and when my partner lead a club 3NT didn’t make when the spade queen didn’t come down in 2 rounds to provide a dummy entry.

I teased him a bit on this hand.  I open 1NT vulnerable (12-14) and Ray held S4 H AJ10642 D 1073 C 764

Ray bid 2H and I bid 3H saying I had a great hand for hearts which should include a maximum, ruffing value and four trumps.  The wimp didn’t bid 4H.  When dummy came down it sure looked good.  I held S A852 H Q987 D AK6 C 93.  What I didn’t tell him was I could see all four hands and the HK was offside and any extra chances like a spade diamond squeeze also didn’t operate so you can’t make it anyway.

Another try, an opening lead problem.  Ray held S J10 H QJ3 D 10732 C AQJ8.

Here is the auction

What do you lead?  Ray lead a trump.  He loves trump leads, so when he is on lead don’t bid any game that can’t stand a trump lead.  If you led the HQ you are a winner.

Here is the whole hand

I probably wouldn’t have led a spade but I can’t really argue with it.  It certainly looks safe.

Here is Ray winning a bunch of imps.

He held S AK86 H AK643 D 8 C KJ10

All vulnerable in first chair I opened a 12-14 notrump.  He bid 2D forcing Stayman and I bid 2NT, no 4 card major or 5 card minor.  He bid 3H and I bid 4D, a cuebid in support of hearts.  Ray bid 6H and there we were.  I held S 107 H QJ7 D AKJ3 C Q742.  Not much trouble at all.

For Old Lang Syne

August 4th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Tonight Pamela Nisbett and I reunited for a few fun hands.  We had a nice auction on this hand I thought.

I held S AQ62 H 3 DAQJ C AK973

After 3 passes I opened 1C.  Pamela bid 1H and with 20 high card points I better jump shift even with the stiff heart.  I bid 2S and Pamela bid 4D.  I thought about it for a while and I decided that with the stiff heart and the wasted diamond cards I didn’t have enough to push for slam.  Besides that Pamela had heard me jump shift.  Pamela held

S K1097 H KJ752 D 5 C 1054

She made a nice call with 4D.  I wonder if she would have bid on over 4S with the HA?  Probably not.   In retrospect maybe I should have have made a slam try.  You can actually make 6S on these cards if you guess which hand has the diamond king.  The ruffing finesse in diamonds work, spades are 3-2 and clubs are 3-3 so slam can be made.

The next hand was fun.  I held S Q85 H 75 D J95 C AQJ103.  Pamela opened 1S and I heard my vulnerable opponent overcall 2C.  This was just too good to pass up and when Pamela nicely balanced doubled for me we were in the place I wanted to be.  West did actually have his overcall I think.  He held S- H AK4 D K87 C K986542.  He was just unlucky that the clubs split 7-5-1.

Pamela made a thoughtful play on the defence.  We had punched declarer so that his trump length and mine were equal but I had all the high trump.  I also held a spade and heart while declarer held two high hearts.  Pamela was in on a heart honour and she returned a heart.  If I held the high heart I was claiming while if she had returned a spade declarer could ruff it for one extra trick.  As it was it didn’t matter because declarer held high hearts but it was a fine play so late at night.

It was a lot of fun and I don’t think we had any bad boards at all.  Pamela and Karen are practising late tonight.  Good luck to them in Beijing.

Having fun not playing all that well

August 3rd, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I didn’t play very well tonight.  I kept getting ahead of myself.  I knew what I wanted to do but I just kept blowing it, if you know what I mean.  But that was okay because Colin wasn’t playing his very best either and our opponents who were all partnerships had their problems too.  So there we all were playing good bad bridge and somehow it was fun, well most of the time.

Here is an example of good bad bridge,  Everyone vulnerable Colin passed in first chair and East opened 1D. 

Colin passed in first chair with all vulnerable and East opened 1D.  I overcalled 1NT and west bid 2H.  Do you like that bid?  I suppose so.  Colin doubled and West bid 3C.  Now things were getting nasty.  I passed and West gave "preference" to diamonds which Colin doubled.  I started the HA and switched to a diamond which East won.  East played trumps and we basically forced East in spades or hearts at every opportunity.  East took four diamond tricks, the AK of clubs and the SK.  Looks like 2 down, unless you accept the false claim!  That was what happened amid many apologies.  It was that sort of night.  3NT doesn’t make on a diamond lead but that might not always be West’s choice.

Outside of the false claim it doesn’t seem like anyone did anything terrible.  Maybe -500 is a normal result.

What about this hand?  How would you handle it as West?  I opened 2C showing 6C and 11-15 with S A H J42 D 86 C AJ109843.  West held S Q73 H K98 D AK942 C Q2.  What would you do?  My West overcalled 2D.  I don’t like that bid at all.  Isabelle would be proud of my for saying that.  Your diamonds aren’t that good.  This went pass, pass back to me.  I knew Colin had diamonds but I also knew that the opponents just had to have a major fit so I was quite happy to pass.  As it turns out 2S is the limit of the hand for our opponents and 2D went 3 down. 

I wonder what Colin will do if West passes.  He might bid 2D asking about my hand and I will bid 3C showing no major, shortness somewhere and a minimum and we will probably play likely going minus.

And then there are those ugly moments.  Red on white East opens 1C and you hold S 1086 H 1097 D 1065 C QJ63.  You pass, West passes and partner reopens double.  When East passes you briefly consider playing 1C doubled but decide you better bid something since vulnerable uptricks add up.  What do you like?  I bid 1H which turned out the be an error.  At the time I thought partner was more likely to have a major suit but in retrospect that is exactly why I shouldn’t bid 1H.  West bid 2C and partner now bid 4H which had no play at all being off the AKQ of hearts and the SA.  Next time I will bid 1D.