September 29th, 2007 ~ linda ~
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After a long and tedious plane ride, we arrived in Shanghai on Friday morning. Friday was spent checking in, saying hello to a few people and mostly sleeping. Our hotel room has an incredible view of the central square around the river and the Pudong River which runs through Shanghai. In the evening they like incredible fireworks and the boats go slowly down the river all lit up. My overall impression is of a counry that is awakening, of a beautiful dynamic city, a place full of all the energy of 18 million people most of whom seem to me to be entrepreneurs.
I did have some time to talk to Pamela about the system but it still seems like we are only scratching the surface of what is needed. We updated the WBF convention card and it has now been handed out to the other 21 teams.
I think I am finally embracing the idea that I am playing. Eric Kokish asked me how I ended up playing and I didn’t have an answer though.
Yesterday Pamela and I played 20 boards against 2 New Zealand ladies pairs including one playing the Moscito club. It turned out to go very well and the system didn’t seem to give us any problem. Here is one nice hand that came up, well a nice result anyway. You can decide if you like my bidding. Pamela’s was impecable. Pamela held S void H Qx D 109xxx C J8xxxx. On her right her opponent opened 3s and she passed. It went 4S and I doubled. Even though this is mostly for penalty she bid 4NT. I bid 5C which was doubled. I made the contract on a spade lead. My hand was S Ax Hx xxx Dx AQx Cx KQxxx. Do you agree with my double or was I just lucky? I won’t give you my rationale right now but if you want to post a reply telling me what you think I will respond.
Pamela had one of those hands you don’t often forget. Perhaps it is easy to get to 7D on this hand but it still is fun. She held AQ AKJxx AKQJxx void. She opened 2C and I bid 2D showing some values. She bid 3D and I bid 4D. She bid 4H and I bid 5C (both cuebids). She bid 7D. I got to play the hand but that didn’t amount to more than a claim. I held xxx Q10x 9xxx Kxx. You may disagree with my bidding but you can see Pamela was once again impeccable.
One last hand. I held Jxx K xx AQ10XXXX. It goes a strong club, pass, a negative diamond (less than 9) your call. I was quite distressed to notice that I was red on white. The preempt meister (Ray) agrees with my 2C call. It does take up so much nice space when they haven’t bid a real suit yet. 3C is just too rich at this vulnerability with such a ragged suit — i’s too easy for them to double and you may go for a number when they aren’t making anything. Anyway they got to 3H which they didn’t make when they took the poorer line in the heart suit. Perhaps they would have got it right in 4.
Feeling pretty good about our game we headed out to find some lunch. There are little food stalls all around a central park near by. We looked them all over and pointed at what we wanted. Having now had Chinese food for breakfast lunch and dinner I plan to try to find something else to eat today.
Am I nervous about playing? Probably less than usual. Before I felt that I had such a strong partnership that I had to play perfectly (well as close as I could). This time I know that there is going to be a bit of guessing and mistakes will be made. In a funny way that takes the pressure off. Pamela also has excellent instincts and seems to know the right thing to do a lot of the time. We also seem to be better than expected for a new partnership on defense. I guess we shall see,
The opening ceremony was fun. It was great to stand up and wave to everyone. I think we looked smashing in our uniforms. I always think that this is one of the highlight moments of these tournaments. That perfect moment before you have hands that you would rather forget.
The Special Olympics has a lot of inspirational mottos pasted around the city. One I remember is ‘We all participate We all win’. I hope we do better than that but in some ways I feel that is also true. It was amazing to see bridge players from 30 countries stand up as the role was called.
September 26th, 2007 ~ linda ~
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A few days ago I was busy getting ready to go to Shanghai as NPC of the Canadian Women’s Team. I had a long checklist of things to do. I had finished all the defenses for all the teams but I wanted to go through them one more time for typos or other errors. Then I had to photocopy lots of copies so the team would have the convention cards and defenses before every match. I was discussing the lineup for Day 1 with everyone. And had just found out the great news that Unit 166 was helping out with some money. Things were busy but I was excited about going.
Then disaster! Poor Rhoda had an emergency and couldn’t go. We talked it over and I know she made the right decision but boy will we miss her. Panic. Where could we find a replacement on Monday afternoon who could leave for China no later than Thursday, packed and with a VISA in hand. We tried a few people but it wasn’t looking good. The CBF and the WBF were wonderful. Yes, we could bring new convention cards, yes we could replace Rhoda with any sensible choice.
We talked about playing 5 but everyone thought they couldn’t handle playing that much. The only choice seemed to be that I would play. Will at least I have played in this event before but who would I play with? How would we configure the teams. It seemed so unfair to all the players who had practiced so hard. In the end Sylvia and Isabelle played together. They had played together during the Canadian Team Trials with great success. Pamela and I had about 4 hours to form a partnership and then Pamela was off. She tried to change her ticket so she would be on the same flight as me but it proved impossible. We tried to keep it simple but even with that it was not possible to discuss much and to write the card.
Those of you who have written a WBF card no that this is no easy process. Anyway poor Pamela is mostly going to have to live with what I submitted. We may have a few hours to change it before the captain’s meeting on Saturday. So perhaps we are making history:
– the only pair playing in the event who has NEVER played together before, not one hand
– Pamela the only player in the event who doesn’t even see her convention card and system until a few hours before.
Oh, you may have been wondering what Ray thinks of all this. Well, he has been made NPC to replace me. I spent part of the last few precious hours turning everything over to him. The good part is now I can stop worrying about captain stuff. I know that this was not how Ray planned to spend his time in Shanghai and he still has some business to take care. I think he is going to find this quite interesting. I hope he enjoys his role.
When I try to visualize myself playing, I just can’t do it. I can’t get my head around this whole thing. Oh well, as soon as I pick up my first hand that will go away.
Pamela has been such a good sport about this whole thing. I know that she was really looking forward to playing with Isabelle. They have been working so hard. Pamela tells me that she has a huge rooting section in Coburg and they have raised a lot of money for her and sent her so many good wishes. While I know this can’t be the experience she wanted, I say right now, I will never say one bad thing to Pamela, I will never complain. Whatever she does will be remarkable and I thank her for it.
September 16th, 2007 ~ linda ~
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Our
team will be leaving for Shanghai
in about 10 days. It seems incredible that the time has gone so
fast.
Isabelle wrote to us that
the local Ottawa Bridge Club held a fundraiser
for the players going to China.
(Jeff, Waldemar, John, and Isabelle), and raised over $1600.00! Colin the
club owner provided a golf shirt for each member of the men’s and women’s
teams. He asked that we take a team picture while in Shanghai waring the shirts.
I would like to get a copy
of the picture and post it for all of you to see. I applaud the support of the
Ottawa Bridge Club. I have thought for some time that there should be a
better way of fundraising for our championship teams than relying on the
players or other helpful people to fund the players once the teams are
picked. It simply isn’t possible to do a good job when you only have a
few months and the players are also busy practicing and preparing.
We should do the fundraising across the country with a team that works on
the preparation year round. Maybe we need a special game which is not
played for points but for donated prizes, scored across the country. I
would be interested in ideas that others might have. Please post your
thoughts.
Thanks to the generous continuing support of Master Point
Press. all of our team
have copies of Sabine’s wonderful book, I Love This Game
When we were practicing in Montreal Rhoda talked about winning by taking all of your
defensive tricks. While I certainly think that is true I would add that
winning a championship is often about doing the simple things like taking your
nine tricks on defense against 3NT. In her book Sabine describes the great
German come from behind victory against France in the 2001 Venice Cup Final. On Board 12 Cronier playing for France was in 3NT on this hand (roated for convenience).
J1087
J5
K72
A863
KQ93
642
A32
Q1064
864
QJ53
752
94
A5
K987
A109
KQJ10
Pony’s opening lead was the D6 (2nd or 4th). Declarer played low from
dummy and won her ace. She played a club to the Ace on which Andrea
contributed the nine, a Smith signal saying she liked the opening lead.
Declarer played the HJ, covered by the queen, king and ace. Pony
continued with another diamond. What do you play now?
Cronier ducked the diamond and Andrea found the spade switch to defeat the
contract. Declarer can work out the the diamond suit does not present a
danger. After the play to trick one neither defender can have five
diamonds. Declarer should rise on the diamond king when Pony continued
the suit. After the heart play declarer can give up the H10 to make 9 tricks
and by winning the second diamond the defense cannot prevail.
This
hand provides a great example of the need for both defender and declarer to
count their tricks. Andrea was able to realize that a diamond
continuation would not provide enough tricks for the defense and found her best
chance, a spade shift. Declarer didn’t get deeply enough into the hand to
determine that her best chance of nine tricks was to win the second diamond
lead.
Sabine
goes on to show some brilliant hands that illustrate these principles.
(Check out chapter 12 if you have the book).
September 8th, 2007 ~ linda ~
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I am starting to think China. And preparations are underway. Today I had a manicure, pedicure and took my team jacket in for alterations!
Last weekend the team had a terrific time in Montreal. We all arrived at Rhoda’s lovely house in suburban Montreal. Sylvia drove up in a rental car which she had named the Banditmobile and called herself "the bandit". You will have to ask her if you want to know why. My lips are sealed. We spent the morning bonding and talking about our expectations for Shanghai. Our first goal is to make the round of eight and we all agreed that would be a good result for us. However, if we can achieve that who knows what will happen in the knockout round. So if you are following our results watch and see if we can achieve our goal. We also talked about personal goals and there were some interesting ideas. I ask you, should having fun be a goal for a team trying to win a world championships. I would be interested in your comments.
The hands were tough but I saw some very good bridge, along with a few mistakes. The hands were predealt and provided by Eric Kokish and Beverly Kraft so you know they were tough. They were primarily play problems. To my knowledge Francine made all her tough hands. Way to go! On Sunday I primarily watched Rhoda. Sitting behind her I know that I would find her a tough opponent. On several hands she smoothly ducked a couple of offside cards without a flicker.
We finally finished uploading the convention cards. I say "we" because I had to help out a few times. While I think the ideas behind the cards (provide a lot of information to opponents) is great, the convention card editor is a challenge. Many of the teams have repeatedly changed their cards. I know I need to go back and review all of the opposition convention cards again and make sure that we have the appropriate defense for each one. No more changes are allowed so I just need to get ready (psychologically) for another pass. Tomorrow…
Here is one interesting hand from our weekend. Thanks to the Kokish-Kraft crew. Try bidding it with your favourite partner. Dealer South with no opposition bidding.
North
S K75
H QJ108
D A653
C A7
South
S AQ82
H AK652
D 2
C K83
If you are bidding it then read the rest of the post after you are done….
Both pairs from our team had no problems reaching 7H. If you reach this contract you might get the QD lead. Plan the play and then read on.
Both pairs made it by carefully playing the dummy reversal. Here is the whole hand
North
S K75
H QJ108
D A653
C A7
West East
S 106 S J943
H 9743 H void
D QJ104 D K987
C 952 C QJ1064
South
S AQ82
H AK652
D 2
C K83
August 31st, 2007 ~ linda ~
3 Comments
Ray and I have been going through the opposition convention cards to get the defenses all ready. Just when I think we are done I get the dreaded email from Anna Gudge telling me that there have been changes. I have learned my lesson, I will wait a few days more and try again. One of the more interesting things I noted is the popularity of this defense against notrump. It has various names but I think the most descriptive is multi landy
2C=majors, 2D=1 major, 2H=hearts and minor 2S=spades and a minor. There are of course several variations but this is the gist of it. Although I actually have played it I am not sure it is that much better than other choices but it is easy to play. What do you think?
One other interesting thing is the many meanings of 2D, none of them natural. Besides Multi in all its variations, strong bids of various types including 18-22 any shape distributional, major two suiters of various strength including gulp – 4-4 with a weak hand, an unspecified Acol 2 bid and of course the deaded dreaded Flannery.
Isabelle sent me a team picture taken in July. Here it is
The back row from left to right:
Rhoda, Isabelle, Pamela and Sylvia.
Front Row: Julie and Francine
August 26th, 2007 ~ linda ~
2 Comments
This is my first ever blog and I hope to get better at it over time. I plan to write about the Canadian Women’s Bridge Team and their experiences in Shanghai as well as bridge in general.
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