Paul we can find the right opening lead

July 11th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Paul Thurston’s column in the National Post included the comment that players often made the wrong opening lead.    During our session last night I couldn’t help but think that a lot of bridge players are pretty good at finding the right one.  Exhibit is one is the lead Colin made on our fourth board.

He held S Q62 H 932 D J8 C J9653

With all vulnerable the auction went:

What do you like?  Colin lead the DJ and found me with the DKQ762.  The opponents were not in the best contract and would probably have gone down on any lead except a spade but this certainly made it easy.  Some might argue for a heart lead but on this auction I am quite likely to have diamonds and his DJ is a helper card. 

My opening lead was a lot easier.  You have S K1083 H 64 D Q73 C K872.   You are vulnerable against not and the auction goes:

I think a heart lead is completely clear, don’t you.  It is the only lead to beat the hand.

After a heart lead and heart continuation declarer has no chance.

I wasn’t sure how to bid this hand which lead to some discussion after the game. 

S K103 H A72 D KQ1098 C 65

What do you think?  Colin opened 2C showing 6C and a limited hand.  He can have a four card major or a five card one if he is 6-5. 

I think in retrospect I should just bid 3NT but I thought we could easily have a big problem in one of the major suits.  I can find out more about his shape by bidding 2D so I did.  I wasn’t sure where I was going with it though.  It went double and Colin bid 2H showing a four card major.  Expecting him to be short in diamonds now (and with a likely diamond lead) I bid 3NT which turned out the be right.  He held SQ72 H KJ54 D Void C AQJ743.  The question was what would I have done over 2H without the double.  I suppose I would probably have bid 3NT anyway.  What would I do if he bid 3C, minimum no majors.  I probably still should bid 3NT.

Do you ever have hands where you hate your bid and it turns out perfectly?  Here was a hand where I just bid and it worked out well when partner had the hand of my dreams.  I held S QJ H 64 D J7532 C A986.  With all white, West opened 1H and Colin overcalled 2C.  East bid 4H.  Do you like 5C here?  This is a momentum bid isn’t it?   I knew that Colin would make some allowance for the fact I was under pressure.  David Silver, one of my favourite humorous writers has a name for this.  He calls it certainty principle.  On some hands whatever level you bid to, the opponents will be their suit over it.  So you get to place the contract!    It went pass pass 5H.  Now I really didn’t want him to bid again so I doubled 5H.  As it turns out if I lead the SQ we can take 5 tricks (and 4 tricks on any other lead) so this would have been safe.  But Colin was ready for bigger things.  He figured I had to have some high cards for my double and he bid 6C.  East doubled and here was Colin’s wonderful hand.

S AK52 H J D A C KJ107542

Or as Ray likes to joke, there were 21 total tricks on this hand (roughly) unfortunately (for the opponents) 12 of them were ours.

Whatever has happened to the ACBL Bulletin

July 8th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

The July edition of the 2008 Bulletin arrived on my desk this morning.  Over the years I more or less got used to ignoring it.  It was full of tournament results and later articles for beginners and very little that an "expert" might want to read.  Over the last few years that started to change.  I have always liked the Granovetter column and it was a fast fun and occasionally instructive read.  The best part was the letters to the editors and of course the Eddy Kantar play problems.  Beyond that I would flip the pages and look to see if there was anything else of interest.  It didn’t usually take that long to finish.

But when I read the Bulletin today I realized that there had been a gradual transformation and there was a lot more fun stuff.  Let me start with one article that might interest you.  There was a discussion of the stop card with all sorts of comments including an editorial by Brent Manley.  Apparently a reader had written a letter to the editor questioning the value of the stop card.  This caused lots of other letters, apparently all agreeing that it was of no use at all and actually fostered cheating or at least unethical practices by calling attention to some bids.  I thought about this.  Yes, it was true.  The stop card had served its purpose.  It was unnecessary and did more harm than good.  As someone who usually plays online I tried to remember did people still use it?  It seemed to me than when I was playing in tournaments it was hardly used at all.  So I agree with all the readers, lets ban the darn thing.

Than there was a letter about players not wanting to play against pros.  I guess at some level the idea of professional bridge players and how they affect the tournament world just won’t go away.  The reader suggest very high masterpoint limit events (like 5000) which would allow in most of us (at least those who have lives) but exclude most experts.  I think the role of professionals in bridge is still evolving and I would like to see all pro events (like world championships) but perhaps that is impossible.  Its not that I don’t want to play against them (see next paragraph) but I want to see them play against each other and show us a lot of really top expert bridge.  But I suppose there is an argument for amateur events.

Then in George Jacobs article something I enjoyed Stacy (his wife?) and a number of mostly very young but talented players won the top flight of a knockout beating a star team Bob Hamman (with Jerry Helms, Berkowitz-Cohen, Levin and Weinstein) as well as a mostly star team which included Meckwell.  I thought that must have been fun.   I would have like to go to Gaitlinburg and I admit lost to teams like that.

Sabine Auken wrote a really fun column where you have to guess who was the young player (18) and who were the older ones based on some hands from a team league she played in.  However, she didn’t get me on the grand slam off an ace.I have seen too many competitive auctions where someone just bids the grand.  

I really like anything Larry Cohen writes.  His "The Real Deal" column is always interesting and its fun to see how an expert can get "got" by a relatively innocent opponent.  I won’t spoil the story for you.

I will spoil one story because I loved this hand.  Barry Rigal wrote a very good article about the Cavendish Pairs.  Here is the hand and see if you can figure out the great defensive play that Bob Hamman made.

South plays in 6H.  The auction is not reported.  West leads the S6 after Bob Hamman has doubled a spade bid.  Declarer wins the SA, cashed the DK and played three rounds of clubs – over to you?

Bob Hamman ruffed with the HK.  If he had ruffed low than South would overruff, ruff a diamond.  Whatever line declare takes now will likely make the contract.  (Try your favourite).  But what did you do when you see the HK.  South did what most of us would do he threw his spade loser.  Now he had a reasonable but losing option.  He played to ruff two diamonds in dummy and drop the HJ.

Of course one special section for me this month was the Book Reviews and there was The Lone Wolff scoring an A++ as the lead off book.  I have to say that I think that the reviewer needs to rethink their marking scheme since another book scored an A++, a series scored an A+ a fourth book scored an A and there was a lonesome B at the end.  It seemed like mark inflation.  Does someone tell the reviewer that pretty well everything has to get an A so give the real A’s an A+?

Nevertheless if you haven’t had a chance to read the Lone Wolff check it out at www.masterpointpress.com. You can read a long excerpt from it.

Well done Brent.  I have already spent 45 minutes on the darn magazine and I still have lots to go.  I will save it for later.

So here it is 45 minutes later and I still have lots to read.  I will save it for later.  Great job Brent Manley.

Ecuador versus the stars

July 7th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Last night Colin and I played in a 12 board tournament set up by Eqqus and the bridge was quite a lot of fun.  Our team the stars did lose 37-36.  It would have been a lot better but Colin and I lost 13 imps on a bidding misunderstanding. 

The match started out when we gave up a couple of overtricks against 3NT when I failed to find the right switch at trick 2.   Colin overcalled quite a weak heart suit with a weak hand which made it harder for us.  Do you like his overcall all not vulnerable?  He held S void H A8764 D 8743 C QJ103 and he overcalled a third chair 1D with 1H.  We do like to overcall at the 1 level when we can to get into the auction but with a bad hand and a bad suit this overcall is questionable especially because it doesn’t take any bidding space from the opponents.

See if you can find the killing lead on board 2.  I held S 643 H AJ5 D AQ9 C KJ74.  North South vulnerable.

The only lead that beats it is the H5.  Did you get that?  Here are the North South hands

At the other table our partners were inexplicably in 4S which has no play.  We were now down 14 imps.  The next board we defeated 2C a trick when our opponents misguessed and we defended very well to pick up 5 imps.  We won 5 imps on the Board 5 when we we pushed the opponents to a minus and the score was now 15-10.

Nothing much happened until board 7 when Colin and I had a misunderstanding.  I take responsibility but the issue is how should you play this sequence.  Help from big clubbers would be nice here.  Colin held S A H AK975 D KJ762 C Q5.  He opened 1C and North bid 1S.  I bid 2C natural and game forcing and Jfvc bid 3S preemptive and putting it to Colin.  What are your methods here?  Colin doubled which I thought showed no clear bid, do what you think and I passed on S 102 H QJ8 D 853 C AJ942.  Okay, that was pretty bad and I guess I should bid 4C.  We have now decided that doubles by opener in this position are strongly for takeout.  But we are looking for advice.

After this disaster (they made it) we were down 28-11 but we came back on the very next board with a game swing.

Here is my hand.  Do you agree with my bidding?

Colin opened 1NT 10-12 and Mcobos overcalled 2H.  I held S KQ62 H K4 D J862 C A43.  I wasn’t sure what to do.  My heart stopper was a bit weak but notrump might be the right spot still.  Spades look promising if Colin had four.  I also wasn’t sure I wanted to force to game.  Anyway I decided to bid 2NT (lebensohl) and then bid 3H which would be stayman with a heart stopper.  Colin bid 3C forced and North ruined my plan by bidding 3H.  What now?  Well by this time I decided I didn’t want to play notrump so I decided to take a chance on spades.  I bid 3S which in this auction is invitation.  With a full heart stopper Colin can still bid 3NT but he will think I have 5 spades.  Do you hate this bid?  Anyway Colin bid 4S and there we were.  Here is the hand.

The open lead was the HJ and Mcobos continued the H10 as I won the HK.  I have a lot of work to do and I can’t draw trump before I do it.  I started with a club to the CJ which held and the lead a diamond off the dummy which fetched the D9 DJ and DQ.  My thought here was that Mcobos figured to be short in diamonds and if the diamond honours were split he was likely to have the diamond doubleton.   Jfvc won the DQ.  I think this is the place for a falsecard with the DKQ don’t you?  I was pretty sure now that Jfvc had both diamond honours since if Mcobos held the DK9 he wouldn’t have ducked but he would have ducked the DQ9.  Jfvc returned a trump but in any case the hand is now cold as long as you finesse diamonds.  I drew three rounds of trump (which broke 4-2) and then finessed diamonds playing winners until the opponents took their final trick, the long trump.

Here is the whole hand

I like an original 3H bid by Mcobos.  If he does that I have to place the contract and I can’t get any help from Colin.  At equal vulnerability I probably would have doubled.  It goes down two tricks which isn’t bad at all.  At the other table on a completely different auction our opponents wandered into 3NT after a heart overcall which had could not be made on the expected heart lead.

On Board 9 our partner’s got into a bit of a trouble and we were now down 37-21 or 16 imps with 3 more boards.  But they weren’t quiet ones. 

On board 10 Colin overcalled a four card heart suit and we arrived in 4H on our 5-4 on a hand which was passed out at the other table.  This made on a misdefence.  We arrived at the last board down 4 imps.  Colin made a great bid on this hand.

We were not vulnerable against vulnerable and Colin sitting West passed in first chair.  North Mcobos opened 1D and I passed.  South Jfvc, bid 2.  Colin held:

S KJ1052 H A742 D 3 C J87.

He doubled and Mcobos redoubled.  I bid 2S which showed that was the suit I wanted to play.  Jfvc held: S 8 H K109 D KQ85 C A10543.  He is soon to play a significant role in our drama.  What would you do on his hand?  It seems reasonable enough to pass and now Colin found a great bid.  He bid 3S.  North passed, I passed and now Jfvc was left with a decision.  He could hardly bid 3NT or double spades.  So he is going to play in five of a minor.  Should he play clubs or diamonds?  It seemed likely that Mcobos had some club support but he was looking at great diamond support so he decided to bid 5D.   I like 4D to let partner pick between the two suits.

Now to my hand.  I held S Q763 H Q5 D 107642 C K6.  I thought Colin was at least 5-5 in the majors for his bidding.  He would have opened any hand with 10 or 11 high card points with that shape so he didn’t have as much as that.  He might have something like S AJXXX H AXXXX D — C xx.  If I double will they run to 6C?  Will we beat 6C?  Okay so I am a wimp.  All of those who think I should double raise their hands!  Colin you don’t get to vote. 

As it was we got 400 when we defended quite well and declarer didn’t place all the cards perfectly.  The hand is cold for 2 down if declarer plays for a bad diamond break and places the high card better.  So perhaps if I do double we will only get 500.If they run to 6C they are likely to go 1 down. 

Here is the whole hand

At the other table the auction was much quieter and the opponents arrived in 3NT. Eqqus holding Colin’s hand had doubled but there were no further bids from our side.  The hand is actually cold for 1 down if you play on hearts with such lovely spots.  I figure to have 2 hearts and if I have the heart queen (as I do) you can make 4 diamonds, a club, 3 hearts and a spade but the defence will take 4 spades and a heart first.  However out partner didn’t play it that way and ended up 3 down.  If he could have held it to 2 down or if I double and get my 500 we win the match as it is we lost by 1.

I know this wasn’t perfect bridge but it was fun and raised some interesting points.

Defending while bidding

July 6th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Some years ago I help George Mittleman write an article about defence and how you could set up the defence with the bidding.  This article was republished in what I consider to be a terrific book called Northern Lights.  Here is a hand where Colin knew exactly how to defend from the auction.  I think the defence is very pretty see what you think.

Colin held S Q5 H KJ6 D 83 C KQJ987

This is how the auction started out

When I doubled 4D Colin knew just how he would defend.  If I could start off with a couple of diamond tricks.  So he doubled.  Here is the whole hand

Colin started of  with the diamond eight and I took the first two tricks with my AQ.  Just as he had planned.  I made the necessary play of cashing the CA before returning a spade promoting a spade trick in Colin’s hand.  (If you don’t cash the club declarer can discard one on the club return. Even if declarer ruffs high and throws Colin in to on the third spade he can give her a ruff-sluff with no damage.

Sometimes it all worked out just as it did in your head when you made the double.  Right, Colin?

Irate opponent

July 6th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

A fellow showed up at our table last night who wanted to play what he called random bids over forcing 1C.  The idea was that his bid could mean anything from 0 high and 0 cards in the suit to a real suit.  His partner was supposed to raise him only to the 2 level or (even better) bid 1NT with a raise, regardless of how good his support was.  I suppose though he didn’t explain this that if he then bid another suit over 1NT it was his real one.  Who knows?

Regular readers will remember that we played against him before and he went for a bunch of numbers when he bid over 1C.  As he chatted I remembered him.  As you can imagine all his bidding was erratic and his partners kept leaving.  He would go through his routine again with  his next partner, at the same time making the case to us that this was not a pyschic and besides he was doing us a favour by bidding this way.

Now these methods are generally illegal and worse in a pickup partnership they are ridiculous and very likely (as previously) to lead to numbers and get his partner to walk away.  In the end after a long time of listening to him; we booted him.  He kept complaining to us but in BBO you don’t have to play against an opponent and you don’t have to listen to them either.  What do you think about booting opponents?

Our game started out rather well last night and I liked board 2.  Let me call it bidding one more. 

Do you have clear rules about forcing passes?  We don’t really but it is clearly in play on this hand.  You ((me) hold S 4 H A2 D KJ1042 C AJ963.  The auction starts

Your opening 1D bid is limited and does not promise diamond length.  Colin’s 2S shows a limit raise or better and at least 5 diamonds.  What now?  I like 5C here.  You can have a top of the line hand (you are limited) and with the right hand from partner slam is a clear possibility.  Suppose partner has the DA and the CKQ.  Slam is likely then.  So you bid 5C showing him where your house is and Colin bids 5D.

Now your vulnerable opponent bids 5S.  What next?  I think a pass here is forcing asking partner to consider 6D or double them.  Although you don’t have 2 quick losers I think this hand has told its entire story and I doubled.

Colin held S 109 H K43 D AQ9765 and C 75 so as you can see 5D was the maximum and 5S doubled went for 500.  The 5S bidder held

S 87653 H Q106 D void and C KQ842.  The club cards figure to more useful offensively than defensive but partner may be short in clubs I suppose.  I think the vulnerability was just wrong for this bid.

Colin and I have started our discussion on forcing passes and he threatens to teach me undoubles where passing shows a desire to penalize the opponents and doubles don’t.  I look forward to this with some trepidation.

I always thought that 2C and 2D openers would be weaknesses in the system.  In fact they work pretty well as this hand shows.  I suppose it is because they are so limited and so precise.

Colin held S Q1065 H Q87 D J95 C AQ5.  I opened 2D in third chair showing diamond shortness and my LHO doubled asking for a diamond lead, I suppose.  Colin bid 2NT asking my shape and when I bid 3H showing 4-4-1-4 he could confidently bid 4S even though he was minimum in high cards.  My singleton diamond was very helpful to him.  I held S AK43 H KJ53 D 3 C K763 and this was quite a good score.

Playing with Colin you always have to be prepared for the inventive.  On this hand what do you think 4D means?  You have:

S K94 H K65 D AQ1032 C AQ.  You open 1C and Colin bids 1S which is game forcing and shows at least 5H.  You bid 1NT showing a balanced hand with 17-19 HCP.  Now comes 4D?  You have no agreement here other than over 1NT all bids are natural.  Put yourself in my son’s head and see if you can work it out.

This is what I thought.    He wouldn’t take up this much room if he wanted to make a slam try.  This is a transfer to hearts since he thinks it will play better from my side.  So I bid 4H.  Guess what?  I was right!

He held

S A H Q109872 D K84 C 974.

He was right with the CK offside the hand does play best from my side but he was wrong in not having a bit more ambition, since as you can see 6H from my side, is a pretty good contract.

Some of the deadly sins

July 4th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Some years ago we were going to publish a book called the seven deadly sins of bridge but the author hasn’t completed the manuscripts yet.  I was thinking about that book after we finished play yesterday.  Here is one hand where I committed the sin of greed but the auction was quite pretty up to that final moment.

I held quite a nice hand

S A103 H K3 D AKQ8752 C A

Here was our auction up to the point the greed stepped in.

Colin’s 2D bid showed 8-11 high card points.  Everything else was natural and 5C showed one keycard.  Now my thinking at this point was that Colin had denied the CK and even just a little would make 7 possible.  For example if held S KXX H AQX D XXX C XXXX it is cold.  So, yes I bid 7 and it had no real play when Colin held S Qxx H A102 D J103 C Q764.  6 can be made any number of ways on the lie of the cards and is a very good contract.  I don’t think any other pair had reached 6D by the time we played the hand.

Now with other partners I wouldn’t have had any temptation.  Since over 4D partner would have responded with controls starting 0-1.  So Colin would have bid 4S showing either both black kings or the heart ace and no kings and there would be basically no chance for the grand.  (I can find out about the heart AQX but not about the AQJx which would be the only other chance).  Colin has added control asking but not in this type of auction.  I want it here too.   So I suppose I need more system to control my greed.

Now here is a hand that might qualify for the sin of gluttony and it is a situation that often seems to come up over 10-12 notrump.  This time it is Colin’s turn.  He held S K1085 H AJ82 D Q7 C J65.  I  opened 1NT 10-12.  This 11 point hand very rarely makes game if I have a fitting hand.  Even if I have a major suit game is going to be a big stretch.  When you bid Stayman on this hand you really don’t want to hear 2D because you don’t want to rebid 2NT you want to rebid 1NT.  I have found more success in passing this hand.  It is amazing how often opponents back into the auction and you can often catch them for a bit of a number.  As it turned out I bid 3NT with

S J7 H 654 D A9853 C AK2 and it did have some play especially if diamonds behave, but the hand did not lie very well at all.  Bidding 2C on this hand is like bidding is similar to bidding over a strong notrump with 6 points (one could argue 7 point because hands tend to play better when the points are more evenly divided).

Now a hand that is an example of anger.  You may not approve of my opening bid but I think with a good 11 you should open and our system notes concur.  I held S A103 H AK742 D 964 C 32

I opened 1H and when Colin bid a forcing notrump I responded 2D (wishing that 1NT was not forcing!).  Colin gave me no choice and bid 4H.

The opening lead was a small spade and East Jack forced my ace.  How do you play this hand?  Let me say that I wasn’t too happy to be in 4H but this contract does have chances.  What is the best one.   My approach which didn’t get enough thought, hence the sloth was to play for everything right, clubs 3-3 with the king onside and the diamond king onside,  I still had to negotiate 7 trump tricks somehow.  So I started with a club to the CQ which held and the club ace and a club ruff.  All had gone perfectly.  Do you see my best chance now?  I need to play for the HQ doubleton.  If its there then I have 10 tricks. There is another chance too.  If I cash the top hearts and the queen doesn’t come down, if the diamond ace is onside and the heart queen is in the other hand I can get to dummy on the diamond king and run clubs until the opponents ruff in and the heart jack will still provide an entry to the rest of the clubs (not to mention a spade ruff). 

I just didn’t think about the hand because I wasn’t happy about being in this contract.  And the worst part was that the HQ was doubleton and the hand was cold.

This was the strangest auction of the night and no sins were committed by  our side but the opponents aided our efforts with a auction that demonstrated the sin of pride.  Let’s look at the hand from Colin’s perspective.  Noone is vulnerable.  West opened 2H and Colin held S QJ2 H K104 D AQ942 C K10.  He overcalled 2NT and East doubled.  I passed and West ran to 3H.  When this was passed to me I bid 3NT and noone doubled.  What could I have?  If you suspect clubs you are going to be right. 

The opening lead was the SA and Colin dropped the SJ from his hand (a nice card) but this was not going to fool East who was a fine player.  He switched to the H9.  Colin won the HA and crossed back to his hand on the CK.  West played the C8 and East played the C2.  When Colin lead the C10 East followed with the C^ and Colin correctly played the CJ and soon made 5NT which was worth a game swing.  What did everyone have?

I don’t agree with our opponents bidding on this hand and it was very helpful to our cause.  Obviously West should have opened 3H and I have no idea why she chose 2H.  I think East was too proud of his hand.  While he could expect more from his partner we almost certainly could play the hand in a minor and even if his partner had a more typical weak 2 bid they were not going to be happy doubling 3 of a minor.  Not only that but I can easily construct hands where 2NT makes and no more and partner will sit for it.  What do you think?  Perhaps I am being too harsh.

Finally one hand where Colin made a fine bid which shows perhaps that when you have a chance at a vulnerable game you should be greedy.  Colin held

S void H Q1082 D AQJ542 C A86.

All vulnerable.  He opened 1D and I responded 1H.  Here is how the auction proceeded keeping in mind that East had made a few strange (tactial, pyschic?) bids in previous hands.

Colin bid 4H.  Do you like that bid?  This went all pass and I held

S 83 H AJ95 D 983 C Q1095

With the heart king onside this was an easy make.  BY the way if he passes 3NT and I lead a diamond we take the first 11 tricks, down 7 for +700.

Here is the whole hand.

The simple 4S bid here by East was going to work better.  I expect we will sell to 4S doubled and that will go 2 down for -500 and a small win.

Little hands and big hands

July 3rd, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Sometimes little hands pose interesting problems.  Here is an example.  Partner opens 1NT 10-12 and it goes 2H all pass.

You have S K8 H J842 D 10942 C K85.  You decide to lead a small diamond and this is dummy.

Dummy has S Q64 H A5 D J875 C Q763

Declarer plays the DJ and partner wins the DA and returns the DC, declarer’s DK winning.  Declarer plays a heart to the HA in dummy and then plays a club to the CJ and your CK.  You return the D10 and declarer ruffs it and plays the HK as partner follows.

Partner has to have the SA for his opening bid.Its likely partner has no more than four spades since he might have opened 1S with S AJXXX H XX D AQX  C XX.

It appears that declarer started with:

S J? xxx H KQ10xx D KX C AJ

Declarer has 3 tricks in with at least 2 more hearts and the CA to come.  Declarer now leads a spade and you play the SK.  You don’t want to continue diamonds now because you don’t want declarer to make the H10.  You continue with a S to partner’s SJ.  Partner plays a club back (a very good play as we will see.).  You have arrived at this position (dummy is irrelevant)

Colin

S A3 H — D — C 94

Declarer

S 108 H Q10 D– C–

You

S — H J7 D 9 C 8

Declarer is now booked for only one more trick.  Say declarer leads a spade and Colin wins as you discard a club.  Colin returns a club and declarer can make only the HQ.  Down 2 and  plus 100 was a top score.

This hand was a big hand and we got a good result although sometimes I wasn’t totally confident I knew what was going on.  This hand is about the bidding.

You start out with rather a nice hand.  You have S AQ54 H AKQ53 D void and C AQ65.  You open 1C strong and partner bids 1H.  This rather diabolic bid shows either 8+  with spades or 11-13 balanced.  It is totally unclear to me how you find out which.  If I knew he had spades I could just raise them.  My choices now are to bid hearts (the first step) or to support spades (the fourth step).  I am not sure what happens if I support spades and he doesn’t have them.  I decided to bid the first step, 1S.  Colin now bids 1NT the first step which shows less than 3 hearts and a good hand.

Can he have 11-13 balanced still, I guess so.  Anyway we are now out of system so I bid 2S a natural bid and Colin bids 3D.  Does this confirm spades as trump?  I think he would bid 2NT now with 11-15 and not try to show a diamond suit.  I think we are playing this one in spades but I still don’t feel entirely on firm ground.  I decide to cuebid 4C and see if this brings me confidence.  He bids 4D.  Here is the bidding so far

I can use keycard now since if I have all of this right he has to have the DAK so I can afford to bid Blackwood with my void.  I was a little nervous about the auction and as he said afterwards I tortured him with 4H.  Now Colin bid keycard and we ended in 7S.  He held

S K9732 H 97 D AKQ2 C 72

Only a 4-0 spade split would be a problem and +1510 was worth over 9 imps.  I suppose I can get used to the ambiguous 1H response but if it just showed spades this auction would be so much easier.

Wow the new beginner book is awesome

July 3rd, 2008  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

It’s always exciting around here when a new book arrives from the printers.  Yesterday our new beginner book, "Barbara Seagram’s Beginning Bridge" came in the door and we couldn’t wait to open the book and take a look.  Barbara had dropped by and we had a long chat about the book and just a few hours later the courier arrived with our cartons. 

The book was beautiful in appearance.  I love the cover.  It shows Barbara teaching.  See what you think. 

www.masterpointpress.com

The book has great visual appeal.  I like the way the cartoons, photographs and other illustrations worked out.

We created this book to allow an individual or small group of people who are new to bridge. to learn enough to play bridge with their friends.

My sister and her friends are going to try it out as is Becky, an intern who just arrived at Master Point Press to work on all aspects of electronic publishing.  So we will get some quick feedback on how easy it is for self-learners.

Of course its even better to have a teacher and this book will serve that purpose as well.

Anyway, we worked hard with a lot of help from bridge teachers to make the book modern and suitable for a wide range of teachers and students. I want to thank of all of you who helped. I hope you like the book as much as I do.

A short Canada Day session

July 2nd, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Colin and I spent a part of the Canada holiday talking system but we did play a short session before Colin took his family to watch fireworks and I retired to a session of Age of Conan, a new online role playing game (MMORPG).  I am still trying to decide if I like it.  It definitely has great graphics.  Still we did have a few interesting deals.

I like watching Colin play hands.  He finds interesting lines.  Here is a nice example.

Colin was declarer in 4H and he received the lead of the D9.  How would you play this hand?

Your losers:  You likely have one heart loser, one or two spade losers primarily depending on the position of the SA and 2 club losers but they may be 3-3 or you may be able to ruff the fourth one. 

Here is what Colin did.  He played three rounds of diamonds, and cashed the top clubs and played a third club as RHO threw the DJ. RHO has a safe club exit on this hand but if clubs were 3-3 he might be forced to lead a spade and Colin would have had created a spade guess.  As it was he cashed the SA and lead another one.

Colin had to ruff his last club and he knew that the club void was over the dummy so he wanted to keep a high heart in dummy to handle it.    He ruffed a spade to hand and lead the last club ruffing with the HJ.  When East didn’t overruff  Colin was pretty certain that West had the H Kx and the D9 left.  He played a heart to the HA and another small heart to West’s king.  Very nicely done.  If we are going to bid these aggressive games we better play them well.  The whole hand was.

I wasn’t sure exactly how to bid this next deal and we failed to find the heart suit (which on the actual hand turned out to be fortuitous since the hearts broke badly.)  How should I have bid it?

I held S 54 H KQJ9 D AKQJ42 CA

I opened 1C as North and East (playing nothing) doubled for takeout.  Colin passed which showed 0-4 HCP and West passed with club length.  I suppose that I could bid 1D but if Colin has four or five little hearts than we likely have game and if he happens to have the SK or a major suit ace we can make 5D.  I bid 2D showing a strong diamond hand.  Now it was up to Colin.  He held S QJ102 H 7542 D 83 C 1094

He raised to 3D and we played it there.  Is there some way to get hearts into this picture?

Here is a deal which I will call leaving well enough alone.  I held

S 3 H AKQ952 D AK632 C 8

I was in fourth chair and in third chair with noone vulnerable West opened 3S.  Isabelle and I have a bid for this hand we bid 4D showing a good two suiter.  I suppose I could have bid 4S showing (I think) hearts and a minor but did I really want to force to the 5 level especially when Colin wouldn’t be able to judge whether his minor was fitting.  Besides these hands tend to split badly.  I settled for 4H.  Do you agree?  Anyway West decided that he had a bit more in him and balanced 4S.  Now I could show my diamond suit and I bid 5D.  Colin jumped to 6H because he did have the perfect hand.  He held

S 9 H J1087 D 87 C AK7654

Still feeling out the system

July 1st, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

In the next couple of days I am going to start consolidating  email and backs of envelopes and start putting together something more like system notes.  As we play we discover the nuances of bidding after opener has limited their hand.  Here is one such auction.  Colin opened 1H at favourable vulnerability.  We were playing against the rhyming Dascher and Lascher.  Dascher overcalled 1S and I held

S 932 H 98 DAKQ106 C 962

I took the overbid of 2D.  I just wanted to get the fine suit in.  Now Colin bid 3C.  I suppose that even with a limited system this has to be a game force or does it?  I thought it did so I bid 3S since if he had a spade stopper notrump seemed right.  And there we were much to high.  Colin had

S KQJ H AJ654 D 4 C K743

I suspect that he thought it was okay to bid 3C because he had limited his hand but if that is true than shouldn’t 3H be non-forcing (or maybe we just both overbid.)

Sometimes taking a push isn’t so bad.  Do you agree with my hand evaluation on this deal?  Lascher opened 2H all white and it was passed to me in fourth chair.  I held S K10984 H 92 D K7 C AQ87.  I know that my call here will not be to everyone’s liking, I bid double.  I just like to double in case my partner is trapping and I accept that it doesn’t always work out.  Colin bid 2NT Lebensohl and when I bid 3C he bid 3S invitational.  Of course, I bid 4S.  I know I have a minimum but he did pick my 5 card suit and look at those spot cards.  Most of the missing cards are going to be onside.  What do you think?  It turned out to be right when Colin held

S J632 H A8 D A986 C J54 and the spades were both onside, (the club king was as well but that really didn’t matter).

And an interesting system feature came up towards the end.  I opened 1C and Colin bid 3S.  Scrambling to my notes I realized Colin had 4-4-4-1 (with a stiff club) and four or more controls.  We are in slam try territory. I held

S AK932 H AQ74 D 84 C K8

The problem is that the system notes ended here.  I am not sure what 4C would be.  Perhaps it should ask Colin to bid 4D and then I name the suit to start a slam sequence.  After that we can then cue bid or keycard.  Anyway I bid 4S to set the suit.  Colin bid 5D which denied the club ace.  I knew he had the remaining controls I needed and in the worst case we might need a spade break.  I bid 6H.  (I am not sure why.) And we played there when  Colin figured I was asking him to pick the suit he had the most cards in.  Colin held S Q1054 H KJ105 D AKJ2 C 3 so this was a very good result.  We do need more system here though or at least agreement on what opener’s rebids over 3S means.