♠♥♦♣ Planet Bridge

I am pleased to announce the release of Really Unusual Notruimp (R.U.N.T.) as an ebook through Master Point Press.  It can be found at http://ebooksbridge.com/www/ebb/index.php?main_page=ebb_product_book_info&cPath=138_136&products_id=489&zenid=74461e63cec3cbfb8ce16bed223d730e.  (The paperback version will be coming shortly, through Amazon and other sources.) 



For those of you who know me, I have been using R.U.N.T. for about 20 years, and it is one of my favorite tools, mostly because it comes up constantly, meaning sometimes 6-8 times in a session.  More than just about any other call imaginable.

You might not know that the computer bridge program Jack also plays R.U.N.T.!  The link at ebooksbridge has a "sample" and a table of contents.  R.U.N.T. is not for the conservative among us -- it is clearly for the wild people.  But, there are many of us.  I hope you enjoy this.

Gong Xi Fa Cai! Wishing everybody a Healthy, Happy and Prosperous New Year!

This is the year of the Dragon. The docile rabbit makes way for the magnificent dragon on Monday.

Those born in the year of Dragon are supposed to be lucky, They also have great charisma and leadership qualities.

Here are some sights of Singapore.

 

 

 

 

It was the 'Bobby Allan' last night at the club, the SBU Simultaneous Mixed Pairs. As holders we were striving for another 70+% session to give us a chance of retaining the trophy but we missed a few opportunities and the opponents did some good things, so lightning was never striking again.

We scored 62% at the club but I'd scored it as 53%, so I guess we'll be somewhere in between. Our cause was not helped when Reg pushed to a notrump slam holding a balanced eleven points opposite (a known) nineteen points. Perhaps last year this would have proved to be a foolish action and we'd score a top, but this time there were thirteen (!) tricks available and we'll score very poorly for this.

Some pairs were more generous as we scored two +800s and a +300 on a part-score hand, but we lost out on a number of hands where our opponents were ultra-cautious and the cards rewarded this. We were sitting against the cards, playing only eight of the twenty-four hands, and you just cannot win with such a low percentage (of course the opponents played three hands that should have been ours, but to win you need to be playing considerably more than your opponents). Even worse, I only played two hands all evening - although LotG is a good card player I am more likely to gain the odd trick either through skill or by creating problems for the defence.

We'll see how the score stands up over the next few days, but I think we'll be nearer 55% than 60%.

The Laws of Duplicate Bridge define a psychic call as "A deliberate and gross misstatement of honor strength or suit length."

A call is NOT a psychic if the definition given for the call is such that the person making the bid has not deliberately misstated strength or length.  There are many situation where a psychic would be called for, but the partnership can avoid the psychic occurring by defining the bid to include the "psychic meaning."  Why do this, though?

Consider a simple example.  White on red, partner opens Three Clubs.  After a pass, you bid 3NT, played as non-forcing and showing either a strong hand that thinks 9 tricks possible or a weak hand with club support.  Opener is expected to pass throughout.  You do this for two reasons.

First, if the hand belongs to the opponents at the game level, 3NT undoubled down 9 (-450) might beat 5CX-3 (-500), which is a matchpoints gain.  So, 3NT undoubled is a good result.  Plus, you cause the opponents to have a problem.

Second, if you really wanted to play 3NT, you might induce a mistake by an opponent if the remaining points are stacked.  For instance, if you have 26 HCP combined, one opponent might have all of the remaining 14 HCP and bid, to his great discomfort.

By having a two-way meaning, each of which merits 3NT as a call, you protect both.  Two-way calls in such situations avoid unnecessary disclosure of values.

Similarly, consider a 2S response to a weak 2H opening.  If this is "spades, or hearts" and non-forcing, you cause problems when your intent is preemptive, but you also protect the times when you wanted to escape to 2S, as the opponents must bid against oth possibilities.

So, is this a "psychic control?"  I don't understand that term, frankly.  If a call is used to "show a psychic," then the "psychic" was not a "psychic" after all.  That is, unless the definition of the call did not include the "psychic meaning."  IMO, a "psychic control" is not really what it sound like.  Rather, it is a means of conventionally agreeing a meaning that is not otherwise allowed (which would be a GCC problem and not a psychic problem) or is a means of allowing non-disclosure of the true meaning, which is really a disclosure problem (and/or a failure to alert).

Thoughts?

If you pick up a strong hand you should first evaluate how strong it really is and then plan the bidding accordingly. How is this done? Think about that for a minute, it is the key to successful slam (or game) bidding. If you don’t have a mental process that you routinely use, you need one. And if you do have a process, is it the right one? Is it overly complex? Before I tell you my recommendation, let’s look at two examples:

1. You hold AQx, AQx, AKxx, AKx.

2. You hold AKxxxx, void, x, AKxxxx.

 

Clearly, these are strong hands. The first one is easy; you have been taught how to bid it – open 2♣  and rebid 3NT unless you play a strong club system. The second one is tougher since you don’t have a ready-made solution. You would probably open 1♠  and, with no interference (unlikely), jump shift in clubs. But then what? And, what if there is interference? Why is it advisable to bid the first one the way you have been taught? What should you do with the second one? Which hand is stronger?

There is a magic question which must be asked with all strong hands and is the most likely way to solve these problems. It has little to do with point count, controls or other considerations that you most likely use. It is simply this:

 

What does partner need to make slam (or game) and, if he has it, will he know it? Once you answer this question, all you need to do is plan the bidding in the most effective way to find out whether or not he has it.

 

In example 1, this question will lead you to the same approach, even had you not already learned it. He needs about 7 scattered HCP for slam. You don’t really care which specific cards he holds, so if you show him a balanced hand with about 26 HCP, he will know it if he has what you need.

In example 2, if P is 4-2 in the black suits with no card higher than a five then you are odds-on to make slam! (Note that if this is his hand and you hold hand 1 you may be hard-pressed to make even a one-level part score, so hand 2 is stronger by far). Furthermore with hand 2, if you are unlucky and P is 3 – 2 in the black suits you are only slightly less than even money to make slam (you merely need trumps to spit 2 -2 and the other black suit to split 3 – 2). Worse yet, he may be only 3 – 3 in the black suits and slam still has play (you need a 2-2 split in both black suits). With any of these hands, P would certainly not suspect that he is a favorite to have what you need, so exploratory bidding may be useless. Without interference I would bid 1♠  and jump shift in ♣ ’s, planning on bidding 6♣  unless you either have a clear indication from the bidding that P is likely to be at best 2 – 2 in the blacks, or if you have a way to find out which specific Ace P might hold (in which case you can probe for 7). With interference, I would merely bid 6♣  at my second turn. P will bid 7 with both Aces and reasonable support for one of your suits. He might also have the right Ace and not bid 7 or the wrong Ace and bid 7. But in the first case, you can’t find out anyway, and in the second case you will still be OK if the opening leader doesn’t lead a diamond.

 

With other strong hands, asking the magic question is still your best guide. Merely use whatever sequence in your arsenal is best geared to find out whether or not P has the card (or cards) you need. If you learn to routinely ask this question whenever you pick up a good hand your slam (or game) bidding should improve significantly.

 

Since the pros and cons of psychic bidding have been the subject of discussion on my blogging comments below, I asked Bobby if he had any close up and personal opinions and if he had ever been involved in any action in favor of or against it happening.

His answer caught me by surprise since he immediately related what happened at the World Bridge Championships in Geneva, Switzerland in 1990, the same tournament he wrote up under the chapter heading in his book, "Losing Team Wins" about Canada being jobbed out of reaching the finals of the Rosenblum because of a score correction which was not allowed.

When he arrived in Geneva several days before the tournament was supposed to start, there was a hotly contested election for President of the WBF going on between the incumbent, Denis Howard from Sydney, Australia and Jose Damiani from Paris, France.  However, according to him, several European tournament directors (TD) searched Bobby out, whom they had gotten to know as a bridge lover activist, a bridge appeals guru, and someone with immense energy and strong desires to right wrongs.  The TDs all confirmed that during the previous few months and during various European tournaments there had been a great deal of psychic bidding, which, of course, has always been a legal and traditional part of all forms of competitive bridge, but in the recent cases appeared to be done in very timely situations (when partner was also weak) and even when they appeared there was possibly some illegal communication going on between the psycher and his partner, more or less warning him (or her) to tread carefully.  With the format for the Geneva tournament scheduled to contain many very important pair games (including the World Open Pair, the World Women’s Pair, and the World Mixed Pair) there appeared to be a worry that basically, if their fears were well founded, and they thought they were, they needed to be prepared and if so, what should be done.

Since he was up to his  neck in other issues, he asked them to give him a day or so to think about it and then he would meet with them.  A couple of days later he complied and suggested the following plan:

Psyching is still very much allowed and not to be discouraged.   HOWEVER …  

When a psyche is made, the pair making that bid was expected, under the threat of some kind of penalty, to report it to a special psychic desk set up in a convenient area, whereupon the pair against whom the psyche was made was also expected to check on whether the pair had reported it and if they had not, then, after a brief investigation, a penalty might be issued.

The first day in use, the World Open Pair, there were about 35+ psychics reported (and corroborated by their opponents).  Those particular psychics were on file and ready to be used if any illegal activity was suspected.

Every day after that, at least for the next few days, the number of psychics went down, almost in a geometric progression. until starting with the 5th day there were absolutely none reported.  It stayed that way for the whole tournament and there were no complaints nor any action taken, at least none which were reported back to Bobby.

The basic fear of complicity with psychics, faded out with the sunset, since no one who had evil intentions could stand up to the investigation which would be transparent to all who would be privy to the facts involved.  While none of the recent psychic chatter had complained about partners being in cahoots, nevertheless it could happen anywhere, since, if left unattended could be the source of great results against inexperienced or unknowledgeable opponents; and even if no great illegal signaling system was in place it would (could) be noticed whether lesser players were targeted for their antics. 

This comment is made only to suggest to many players that there are various ways to fight back against possible wrongdoing without causing a great deal of negativity.

The time to focus on becoming District 14's GNT pick is swiftly approaching.

GNT coordinator Mike Cassel alerts us to many opportunities for this exciting event!

First - be sure to get qualified at your local club.  Mike can help you with questions as to how to do this.

Second - if you are able, do plan to compete in our Minnesota Joint Unit Finals.  This one day event is Saturday, March 10th at the Bridge Center of St. Paul.

Third - as long as you are qualified for this season's GNT event, head on down to the New Brighton Community Center on April 28-29 to battle against other teams.  If you end up at the top of the heap, your team could be the District 14 representative at the Summer NABC in Philadelphia!  Play at the Nationals along with a trip subsidy!

Mike has all the details about these events below the fold.  In addition, Mike explains why it is worth our while to compete in the Unit finals - although this is not a necessary condition to becoming a District winner.

Download 103178GNTUnitFinalflyer2012

Download GNT_2011-2012flyer1

Download Redgreengold2012

One of the mistakes that new players make is when they have a combined 10-card holding missing the king, they try to drop it instead of finessing. I don't remember the exact percentages, but it's considerably better to finesse.

Bridge has lots of great colorful names for various plays. One of them is called the Rabbi's Rule. It says when the king is singleton, play the ace. You can even buy a tee shirt from Zazzle that sports this whimsical advice (see here).

Playing against the robots recently, I made a takeout double of 1♥ and the robot's partner raised to 2♥. My robot partner passed, and the first robot rebid 2NT. I doubled again, and it went all pass. Here are the two hands from declarer robot's perspective (rotated) after I led the ♦K:


I switched to the ♣9 and my robot partner won the king. He returned a club to the queen and my ace. I continued with the ♣J and 8, then took the setting trick with the ♦K and exited with a low diamond (the club suit blocked).

The robot declarer won that and led the ♥7 to his ace, dropping my king, ouch.

Here are all four hands in their original position:


I don't know how the declarer knew to drop my king as I'm more likely to double again with a void than a stiff king, no?

Hi all

Here’s a deal from the San Francisco Sectional. Geoff and I reach heights where the air gets very, very thin. I pick up a decent hand, but the auction that follows doesn’t give me warm feelings.

West

North

East

South

 

1 1

pass

2

pass

2 2

dbl

2

pass

3

pass

3NT

pass

…5

a.p.

 

 

1. 8-17 hcp systematically
2. Any minimum

Perhaps I should have smelled a rat and pass out 3 but I still visualized game to be reasonable. I’m surprised by the jump to 5 , curious I wait for dummy.



Of course West starts with a trump so ruffing all my losers is going to get difficult. I’m in a terrible spot. And I make a mental note to tell Geoff his hand doesn’t qualify for opening in my standards, or our standards. Add a couple of spots to the suit, then maybe if not vulnerable.

Anyway, I’d better make a plan. My best chance is to find QJ-third onside. Perhaps I can set up a to pitch a from dummy so I can tackle 3-3. Not that it brings my odds for bringing this baby home anywhere close to 50%.

I win in dummy with the Ace and request the 5. East rises with the Ace and returns her trump, fortunately they break 2-2. Now let’s see if I can work something in the suit.

But wait… if I play a top from hand then it doesn’t matter what West does. Covering and forcing me to ruff will leave me an entry short to finesse twice in later (East will split) if my experiment is fruitless. While if West ducks then it doesn’t gain me anything, with the miniscule exception of finding East with exactly AK9 or AQ9.

A cunning plan fosters in my mind… I check whether West is awake. I put down the 8 intending to let it ride, playing West for any Honor-9 combination. Later I can take a ruffing finesse against his honor, and I have one trump left in dummy to establish my (just depending on a 3-3 split).

But no, West covers the 8 with the 9 and I’m forced to ruff. So far my experiment in the suit… The hook against QJ is all I have left.

North Dealer

NS Vul

North

5

KJ864

A986

753

West

Q9732

932

73

962

East

AK6

AQT75

52

QJ4

South

JT84

-

KQJT4

AKT8

 

It works… for +600. Not happy with the bidding, but the result is nice to surprise your team mates with.

... what happened to January ... normally it seems quite a slow month but this one has whizzed past without me noticing !

It's been a bit of a sad one really - my last ever BGB Simultaneous after more years than I care to remember. As you will probably know by know, the EBU has decided to take it over, calling it the British Simultaneous Pairs, I think, and running it themselves. And of course they are doing the EBU Simultaneous pairs as well - we will do the Bridge England one on 7th February, and it seems the Stratified ones in March and then that's it. Mind you, when we first started doing Sims, the EBU thought it would never catch on and didn't start using us for quite a while!
BUT - ECatsBridge will still be running plenty of events so you won't lose usthat easily ! We have all the Charity Pairs and will still run the World Wide and the European so watch this space for news of all those won't you ?

The Charity Challenge is the next one which will be on Thursday 8th March. It is in aid of the Prostate Cancer Charity this year which I am sure you will agree is a very very worthwhile cause ... did you know that it is the most common cancer in men ? I didn't.

Because the terms of the EBU licence for English clubs state that, in order to receive overall master points, only affiliated EBU clubs may participate, we are running two separate sessions for this event.

One will be for the EBU affiliated clubs, plus all the Scottish and Welsh clubs and any overseas clubs wishing to join us.
The other will be for the non-affiliated clubs, but we will also display an overall ranking list so people can see where they came in the whole event. That way the non-affiliated clubs are not left out in the cold !

Because of all this we have offered to reduce the entry fee from the normal £3.50 per player to £3.20 per player, as the EBU members will all still have to pay the P2P charge, and we don't see why the non affiliated clubs should have to pay extra to cover licence fees etc. We are DELIGHTED to have had a lot of clubs email us though, and say that they will still collect the £3.50 per player so that the Charity is not disadvantaged. Isn't that lovely of them ? And we are hoping that some clubs will run raffles etc to help raise additional funds. Please, if you can, go along and play in the event - I will put up a list of participating clubs around mid-February so you can try and find a club near you.
I am constantly being asked about the 2012 World Mind Sport Games - where and when will they be held ? I am sorry but I don't have an answer yet, but I will announce any decision as soon as I hear about it, and send out press releases, newsletters etc as well as putting it onto the website. Incidentally if you want to register for our newsletters, please click here and just follow the on-screen instructions.
Mark and I are both looking for additional work to fill thegap left by the loss of the BGB and EBU Sims and hope to be working with some different websites soon. And we will be adding to the information on the ECatsBridge site in our spare moments, so do watch for that, as hopefully you will find things there to interest you.

Some hands are straightfoward.  One line of play or one defense is clearly the best.  Nothing else would be considered.

Others, however, are more complex.  Should declarer play for a simple finesse - or the more exotic squeeze?  Set up a suit?  Or strip out a defender's exit cards?

In this week's Koch Korner, John ably takes on the task of weighing the best line of play.  Here's a hand that is of note both for bidding, offense and defense.  Enjoy!

Download 260.FickleCombinations1

The winter of 2011-2012 may not seem like much of a winter.  Nevertheless, the St. Paul Winter Carnival will assuredly be quite the tournament!

It's just a couple of days away.  Check out the schedule and be sure to attend one of Minnesota's winter highlights!

When I was starting out as an oh so young bridge player I ran into a game called Autobridge.  Autobridge was a nechanical device that let you play a bridge hand by yourself.  An expert provided a set of deals which you could play through.

 

This is a 1950 version of the game with deals by Charles Goren.

The game could be fun and instructive but it did have some problems.  The biggest problem was that you had to guess the exact card it wanted you to play.  If you were drawing trump and had all the honors you had to figure out which order Autobridge expected you to play them in even if it didn’t matter.  You would push down the tab for the Ace at trick two and it would have a four on it or a six.  that number represented the trick where you were SUPPOSED to use the spade ace. 

Over the years friends who knew I was a bridge player gave me Autobridge that they inherited when a bridge playing relative died.  So I still have various sets.  I haven’t played it in years but I did find that it was fun at the time.  How technology has changed things.  Now there is a new Autobridge website called Vu-Bridge.

This is a free site that has garnered a huge following already.  If you are a bridge player you can play a lot of hands with expert comments, many from major events.  Sometimes the order that you play the cards doesn’t matter and Vu-bridge like Autobridge can be expecting a specific order but the software handles this much better than the mechnical Autobridge and I didn’t find it detracted from playing the deals at all.  There are a huge number of deals up there now from some very talened people.  According to the website as of December 2011 16,000 visitors hadn played over 96,000 hands.

Bridge teachers can use the site for free for their students or others and it can be used by bloggers too.  I haven’t explored any of this yet but I admit I often go and play deals on the Vubridge website.

Sometime soon I am going to try to create a vubridge deal and post it to this website.  It may take a while for me to do this because the weather in Sarasota is perfect and the outside keeps calling me.

Have fun playing deals on the website.  I am on the mailing list (you can be too) and get emails when some new series of deals are posted.  Today I got an email called Series 61, Anthony Moon squeeze you. I had to try a deal (being a squeeze lover)  Board 1 was a criss-cross squeeze.  Knowing what it was in advance did make it a bit easier but I was happy to figure it out.

 For more information email didier@vubridge.com

 

 

 

 

Ben Kristensen's USBF Junior team may be composed of all 13 and 14 year olds.  Do not, however, think that their young age means they cannot follow suit.  They do - and quite smartly!

Sunday, Ben and partner Burke Snowden, plus teammates Hakan Berk and David Soukup won a tightly contested match by five IMPS to earn the right to represent the US as USA2.  Over 64 boards, as the match swung back and forth, the Snowden team was on the plus side when it mattered.

My spies tell me that the boys will add Murphy Green and Arjun Dhir, two of the pairs they played against yesterday, to be their third pair.

We wish our wiz kid from Duluth the best as he gets ready for the 14th World Youth Bridge Team Championships and China this summer!  Hands and more detailed reports shall be forthcoming.

 

If you have been reading my new book, an idea might have popped into your mind.  If Overcalled bids Two CLubs as Crunched Cappelletti and happens to hold hearts and diamonds, and if Responder shows spade preference by bidding Two Diamonds, Overcaller might be tempted to pass Two Diamonds, at least in some situations (depending on vulnerability, seat, state of the match, scoring form, etc.).

This is something that you might want to discuss with partner.  If this is a possibility, then Advancer in some circumstances might want to give a false heart preference.  Consider, for instance, Advancer looking at a weak hand with 5-3-0-5 pattern.  Having heard Two Clubs, Advancer would normally bid Two Diamonds for spade preference, planning on playing in the major, whichever Overcaller-Partner has.  However, if Overcaller is allowed to make a "judgment pass" of Two Diamonds with both reds, then Advancer might opt to use a "judgment preference" himself.  With 5-3-0-5 shape, Advancer expects a huge likelihood that partner has the red suits.  He might be wrong, but the odds are high.  Advancer who playts with an Overcaller-Partner who likes the "judgment pass" could protect by showing "false heart preference."  If Overcaller-Partner has the expected red-suit two-suiter, this gets us to the right contract quickly.  If, however, Overcaller-Partner actually holds spades, or hearts and clubs, the contract will be acceptable but not ideal.

This might be cause for not allowing any "judgment" decisions.  But, as a person who once passed a Roman Two Clubs opening with 6-2-2-3 shape (it worked, as Two Clubs was the only makeable contract), I am also a realist.  So, I thought it a good idea to predict this "abuse" and to counter with the "abuse counter" of the "false heart preference."

By the way -- thanks to all who have already sent kind words about my book.

In my mind the SBU Winter Foursomes is the only weekend of decent bridge in the Scottish calendar. The format of the subsidiary events is a little tiresome, but the double elimination used in the main event is exciting and fair. Although the 32-board matches used in the EBU Spring Fours is even better, the 16-board affairs here give the better team a reasonable chance and the winners of the event will have deserved it.

Twenty-six teams entered, about the same as the last few years but short of the 'perfect' 32 that everyone would prefer. So it was triads and quads on Friday with only one of your two lives at stake. We took on HAY and HAWKINS in our triad and were comfortably leading both matches by 32 imps after eight boards.  We piled on more imps against Hawkins but decided to lose 31 imps to Jim's team. No matter as we emerged unbeaten.

Meanwhile Reg and Diana were playing on the GORDON team and narrowly failed to upset the seeds (MCGOWAN) in their triad.

On Saturday morning we played OUTRED (Charles & Vi, Clive Owen and Brian Senior). Tied at the half Senior bid two good slams in the second half and we missed a thin game, so we lost comfortably. Then we lost by three (or four?) imps to HARLEY to lose our second life - we all missed opportunities in this match and it was disappointing to exit the main event so early.

Reg and Diana exited at the same time as us, but they had done incredibly well to win their triad on Saturday morning and only lost narrowly to PIPER.

So now we would play round-robins on Saturday afternoon and evening. The first round-robin is a qualifier for the second and final round-robin, with more qualifiers for the consolation final coming from the 'A' section. We finished second in the first one and won the second one to easily make the consolation final. Reg and Diana finished a creditable fourth in the 'B' section, but with only two qualifiers they were consigned to the Sunday Swiss.

Meanwhile, back in the main event, OUTRED continued to make the pace and finished Saturday unbeaten. This earned them a place in the final and Sunday morning in bed. The other semifinal was a repeat of last year's final except the result was reversed, with PUNCH (Sam, Tim Rees, Alan Goodman, Mike Ash) beating STEEL (Les, John Matheson, Dave Walker, Brian Short) by three or four imps.

In a very tight final OUTRED beat PUNCH by about 16 imps. As is often the case, all the small hands which could have collectively made a difference were lost as there was one slam hand that swung more than the winning margin. The Outreds were the beneficiaries of making a poor slam but overall they fully deserved their victory having not lost in the entire weekend.

Although the round-robin qualifiers on Saturday are tiresome (and seemingly never-ending for some), the nine-team consolation final is a good quality field and it feels a proper competition (a bit like the teams' finals at Brighton). We played pretty solidly throughout and finished on 92/160 VPs. Surprisingly, after a split-tie, this was sufficient for second place and some money. The winners were Bob McKinnon, Ian Patrick, Maida Grant and Sheila Macdonald.

Finally Reg and Diana finished seventh in the Swiss Teams with 59/100 VPs.

♠ 9 8 6 2♥ 9 5 4 2♦ K 9 7 6 2♣ --

Partner opens one spade, and RHO overcalls two clubs. I wish I could bid three spades, but partner insists on playing that as a limit raise rather than as pre-emptive. Four spades seems a bit much with eight losers. so I settle for two spades. LHO bids five clubs, and everyone passes.

If partner has the spade ace, the trick probably isn't going away. And cashing it now may simply set up discards in dummy. As I've said before, it can be dangerous to lead a nine-card fit when you are missing the middle honors. Diamonds looks like a better choice. If my king of diamonds is not working on defense, we probably aren't beating this, so why not hope it is working and act accordingly?

Since I have an entryless hand, I have to consider leading the king to try to retain the lead, but I don't have to consider it very long. It's hard to see why I need to be on lead at trick two. And if partner has the diamond queen rather than the ace, I surely want to lead low, since we don't want partner to have the sole guard in every suit. Accordingly, I lead the diamond deuce.

West	North	East	South
Phillip	Harry	Jack	William
		1 ♠	2 ♣
2 ♠	5 ♣	(All pass)

I don't think we have much chance of beating this. Partner wins the diamond ace; declarer drops the three. Partner returns the diamond eight, and declarer plays the five. The eight cannot be partner's highest card, since declarer would have covered. The only holding consistent with the eight is ace-queen-ten-eight, giving declarer jack-five-three. So declarer's shape seems to be 0-4-3-6 or 0-3-3-7. None of our tricks can go away. Either partner has the heart king or he doesn't. Either he has a trump trick or he doesn't. I can go back to sleep now.

Declarer ruffs in dummy, draws two rounds of trumps, and claims. Making six.

How about that? I made the right lead for a change. I stopped the second overtrick.

Since the opponents have a wasted ace - not to mention a wasted queen and two wasted jacks - it seems they should have come a little closer to reaching slam. Obviously three spades by North is a better start than five clubs. But would that work? South has two features to show: his second suit and his spade void. He must decide which is more important. If he bids four hearts, North will bid a slam. If he bids four spades, North probably won't. Or if he does, it's just a lucky decision. He would also be reaching slam opposite the same hand with the red suits reversed.

Our teammates did not reach slam either, though they apparently received more aggressive interference than we gave our opponents. They wound up defending five spades doubled and dropped a trick, beating it only one. We lose eight imps.

How did they drop a trick? I can't say for sure, but I can guess. Suppose the defense starts with a club, ruffed low in dummy. Dummy now leads the spade six. North, thinking declarer is psychic and is about to let the six ride, covers with the seven. Declarer wins with jack, discovering the bad break. He ruffs another club and leads dummy's last spade, the nine. North ducks, and declarer lets the nine hold. To get to his hand to continue trumps, declarer must play a diamond. Then, when he leads a trump to North's ace, North can recover his trump trick by taking a diamond ruff. He plays ace, queen of hearts, expecting South to overtake and give him his ruff. But will he? South must decide whether to overtake and play a diamond or to duck, playing declarer for

♠ K Q J x x x♥ J x x♦ A 10♣ x x

Or perhaps even to overtake and play a heart, playing declarer for

♠ K Q J x x♥ J x x♦ A Q 10♣ x x

It does seem there are clues enabling him to get this right. But apparently he didn't. Can North help him out? If South has managed to signal possession of he heart king, North might try the effect of leading jack, queen of hearts. Once South knows for sure declarer has a doubleton heart, he has no reason not to overtake and play a diamond.

Why jack, queen rather than queen, jack? In this deal, it doesn't matter. Partner should do the right thing however you card. But you should still play jack, queen just to reassure partner for the sake of future deals that you know how to signal.

As a general rule, playing your cards in a non-standard order is an alarm clock, waking partner up to the fact that something unusual is going on, frequently that you are ruffing something. If there were any ambiguity, your decision to employ or not to employ an alarm clock is how you would resolve that ambiguity.

For example, take this layout:


You want to take three heart tricks, then lead a fourth round for a trump promotion. So you lead queen, jack, hoping declarer misplaces the ace and ducks twice, trying to block the suit. If you are wrong about the location of the king and partner has it, no harm done. At least no harm done unless partner decides you are trying to put him on play for a ruff and overtakes the jack. He knows not to do that, however, if he can be confident you would play jack, queen as an alarm clock if that is what you wanted.

Table 1: -420
Table 2: +100

Result on Board 1: -8 imps
Total: -8 imps

I opened this 14-16 NT hand the other night in a local team game and partner bid 2♥, a transfer to spades.

♠8xx
♥KQJx
♦ xxx
♣AKJ

After I bid 2♠, he then bid 3♦, a forcing bid showing spades and diamonds.  What is my call?

*****************

Although it is usually right to play in your 8-card fit (spades), in this case I had plenty of reasons to rethink conventional wisdom:

• My hand was perfectly balanced with no ruffing values 
• All of my values were in the unbid suits--hearts and clubs
• Partner's values were in spades and diamonds--so all suits should be well-stopped.

When my family first moved to The Republic of Singapore in the 60′s. The island measured 581 square KM with 1.2 million inhabitants.

Very early on, the first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew realized that in order to compete in the world stage and prosper, Singapore needed to increase it’s land mass and population.

To-day this beautiful island state had grown to over 5 million people and with the land reclamation program, the island is more then 722 square KM or 268 square miles. With GDP at $266,498 Billion. per capita at $50,714. rank 11th in the world, just one place behind Canada.

I am back on the island for a family reunion and to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

In Bridge, the size of the opponent’s reputation matters. Some of us have tremble with fear when we play against famous players one time or another.

The size of the kibitzers at the table also matters. Often in the middle of a large crowd, a normal player would lose his mind and make some impulsive play. 

On BBO the other evening I notice there was a table in play with over 200 Kibitzers.

Sitting East-West were Justin Lall and Joe Grue, Silver Medalist from the recent Bermuda Bowl. North-South were expert players.

 

  <iframe class="iframe-class" frameborder="0" height="400" scrolling="auto" src="http://tinyurl.com/7ypoy5l" width="500"></iframe>  

 

Click next to see the play.

The lead was the fourth best six of Diamond.

Seems to me JoBoo and Justin stepped out a little in the auction and South was in the prefect position to punish their indiscretions.

There were many winning options. However South got distracted, took only eight tricks in three no-trumps for -400.

 

 

 

Bobby has been fighting the ugliness of  CONVENTION DISRUPTION (in all forms) FOR 25 YEARS PLUS and WHEN IT STRIKES — THE OPPONENTS ARE TOTALLY PARALYZED AND UNABLE TO PROTECT THEMSELVES.  

Why?  The gurus on high who have the power of appointment either don’t understand the game or don’t want to understand it as it is to their advantage and the appointments are often political – not in the best interest of  the law-abiding citizens who live by rules.  I am sick and tired of hands-tied directors saying he or she can’t do anything about it as the ludicrous Holy Bridge Bible of the so-called knowledgeable player committee orchestrating laws which favor people, especially playing conventions which are designed to  show weak distributional hands with certain suits where many times partner forgets which suits they are.  Such a development makes it impossible for the opponents to affirmatively bid their suits that supposedly are inferred in length by one of the opponents.  When the authorities don’t crack down on the opponents who either intentionally or unintentionally forgot the convention but nevertheless cause terminal damage to the opponents, it is a sad state of affairs.   For our authorities to not address these wrongdoings is to completely abrogate their responsibilities in trying to make (especially tournament bridge) intelligible. 

INCIDENTLY THIS WAs THE SECOND DAY IN A ROW that CONVENTION DISRUPTION OCCURRED against us as the opponents don’t know what the hell their bids mean and massacre innocent opponents because they have no recourse thanks to the stupidity of the laws on this subject.   Here is yesterday’s one of many debacles we have witnessed with our own eyes:

Bobby opened 1NT (I ANNOUNCED 12-14) holding Q9XX  J10  AQX   KQXX.   THE NEXT HAND FLICKERED A FEW SECONDS AND BID 2H HOLDING  JXX KQXXXX JXX X and when my LHO alerted I asked, and was told  it was THE MAJORS.   My hand was AK10X  X  XX  AXXXXX and since we play double is for takeout. how could I be interested in playing spades as they were obviously stacked on my right.  My other alternative was 3C and we eventually reached 5C (for a 1 out of 8) rather than getting to the obvious 4S contract  (which happens to be cold for 6) getting an average+ instead of a 1.   When (if ever) will the ACBL get off their high horse and surrender to the evils of CONVENTION DISRUPTION.   To me, the ACBL is on a rapid downward slide because of situations like the above.   By the way, the miscreants who forgot are not evil, and, at least in this case, my LHO was telling me what he thought partner had.  They just don’t know any better and since CDers keep getting away with it time after time, with the organization not making an effort to stop it, it will just continue to be a way of life.   As long as the dues and card fees keep rolling in and the professionals are the ones who are on the committees allowing convention disruption, I predict eventually the game with go to hell in a hand basket.

THIS IS NOT THE MAJESIC GAME IT STARTED OUT TO BE IN THE TWENTIES.   HAROLD VANDERBILT WOULD TURN OVER IN HIS GRAVE!

At the club yesterday, we had a solid game (54%), but not enough to scratch.

Here was one of the problem hands where I was West. Because the club hasn't uploaded the hand results yet, I can't see what happened at other tables.  From my point of view, everything looks so ... routine.  Why would 6H making 6 on this hand be a zero?


What am I missing?  Should I have bid 4NT over 1H to show the two-suited minors? That might have made it harder for them to find their cold slam.  Sacrificed in 7C?

Everybody knows about Black Monday-The day world stock markets crashed on Monday 19th October 1987.

In Canada we have Blue Monday-Most Mondays are challenging for most people, seems the third Monday in January is the worse of the year.

Playing Matchpoints with Josee (Toronto), we had our Blue Monday against Helene and Ray Grace (Edmonton).

 

  <iframe class="iframe-class" frameborder="0" height="400" scrolling="auto" src="http://tinyurl.com/6sfvdqt" width="500"></iframe>  

2♠ -4th suit game force. 4 ♦ -key card ask in diamond. 4NT-2 key cards.

Full marks to Helene-North and Ray-South for getting to the slam. Made 12 tricks for 920.

We got 9.31% ouch!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recently my wife has been experiencing times when she can’t find her glasses, or forgets where she parked her car, or even why she has wandered into the bedroom in the middle of the afternoon.
 ‘What can I do to slow the aging process?’ she asked her doctor.
’Take up bridge,’ was the quick answer.
‘Oh, no! I won’t do that,’ she replied, ‘my husband has been complaining to me about bridge for 30 years and I don’t think it is something I would like to do.’

Fortunately there are many older ladies who have heeded their doctor’s advice and play a remedial game in the afternoons. Their participation has kept the game alive in my area. Naturally the best strategy against a pair of forgetful foes is not the same strategy one would employ against Meckwell. Mostly it pays to follow Jeff Rubens’ advice to try not to lose and leave it to others to hand over top scores. The pairs with the most plus scores have a good chance of coming out on top. Here is hand where my partner of the day scored a top by passing throughout where others found a bid or two along the way.

 

Dealer: West Vul: EW	Bonnie ♠   KJ54 ♥   KT8643 ♦   T ♣   94
Me ♠   AT962 ♥   Q ♦   AQ2 ♣   QJT8		Eustace ♠   3 ♥   AJ95 ♦   9643 ♣   K532
	Clyde ♠   Q87 ♥   72 ♦   KJ875 ♣   A76

 

Me	Bonnie	Eustace	Clyde
1♠	Pass	Pass	2♦
Dbl	2♥	Pass	Pass
Dbl	All Pass

The reader may criticize my doubles, but one must make an extra effort to prod a partner who occupies a warm seat beside the window on a sunny afternoon. I don’t make excuses, but note that EW can make 3NT. However, it is not about me but about Eustace who was the main architect of our top score of 12 out of 12. The opponents voiced their indignation at the result (-300), but as Eustace explained, ‘what was I supposed to do with 4-4-4-1 and no fit for spades?’ If a good result is proof of wisdom, he was wise.
That being said, there are players, who want to bid on every hand regardless of the merits of their holdings. They imitate today’s experts, and do especially well when timid opponents do not take advantage of the information on offer for free. There are women, grandmothers all, amongst the crowd who are willing by nature to risk everything on one call; these are the Lady Macbeths of our club. One is led to wonder how they spent their youth. The trick is not to give their bidding too much credence; they are not bidding as you or I or Stephen Hawking would have bid the hands, but they are not totally insane, either. Here are 2 hands from the local club where bad bidding gave declarer the clues needed to score tops. We shall present them in the form of a short quiz. Here is Problem 1. The lead is ♠2 to the ♠K. Do you see a reasonable approach to scoring 13 tricks?

Bob	Eustace	South	West	North	East
♠ AJT9	♠ —	—	—	1♣	Pass
♥  KQ86	♥ T72	1♦	Dbl	2♣	2♠
♦ AQ875	♦KJ62	3NT	Pass	4♣	Pass
♣ —	♣ KQJT76	4♦	Pass	5♦	Pass
		6♦	Pass	Pass	Pass

Problem 2   Assume you open 1♣ playing Precision and reach 3NT as shown.

Bob	John	West	North	East	South
♠ KQ753	♠ T6	1♣*	2♥	3♣**	Pass
♥  AQ43	♥  76	3NT	Pass	Pass	Pass
♦ J93	♦AT2			**GF
♣ A	♣ KQJ73

Many players are taught to preempt wildly over a Precision 1♣, but the attempt often backfires, as it did on this occasion. A low heart was led to my ♥Q, the RHO following disgustedly with the ♥8. You have been forced into 3NT when the field is most likely to be playing in 4♠. Hearts are split 6-1, so 4♠ may be defeated, but your aim is to make 10 tricks to beat any who score 420. Can you see a reasonable way to make 10 tricks? Hint: the preemptress is expected to hold the ♠A.

Problem 1 The bidding has marked the RHO with 5 spades and an ace; otherwise he hasn’t got a raise to 2♠. Because the LHO doubled for the majors, it is reasonable to assume she holds the ♥A and is short in diamonds. It is safe to get rid of the hearts in dummy by taking a ruffing finesse in spades, then drawing a round of trumps with the♦K and passing the ♣K for a ruffing finesse in the other direction. Fun!

I played the hand in a desultory fashion and took just 12 tricks, but then I was in 4♦ only.
Eustace broke his customary silence by opening 1♣ in first seat, and then fell into his old ways by passing with ♦KJxx in support. I suppose he was worried that if he bid 5♦, I would be sure to bid 6♦, and I would have done so, as taking 3NT out to 5♦ is not good matchpoint strategy. This is another case where if one opens light, one has to keep the faith that the hand is worthy of that initial assessment. By the way, only 1 pair out of 13 reached slam, 3NT being the contract of choice despite the 2 voids shown below.

 

Dealer: North Vul: None	Eustace ♠   — ♥   T72 ♦   KJ62 ♣   KQJT76
Lady M ♠   Q762 ♥   AJ95 ♦   3 ♣   9432		Banquo ♠   K8543 ♥   43 ♦   T94 ♣   A85
	Bob ♠   AJT9 ♥   KQ86 ♦   AQ875 ♣   —

 

Problem 2 The opening lead away from the ♥KJ indicates that the LHO has an entry just in case partner comes up with the ♥Q. It appears most likely she holds the ♠A, but she could hold the ♦K. To be safe, declarer can play the ♠Q hoping for a duck, but the LHO grabs her ace and continues with a second heart on which the now gloomy deuterogamist discards a club. Declarer clears away the ♣A and finesses in diamonds losing to the ♦K. A club comes back and the clubs are played to the following ending:

 

Dealer: South Vul: NS	Dummy ♠   T6 ♥   — ♦   A9 ♣   —
Kate ♠   — ♥   95 ♦   32 ♣   —		Petruchio ♠   J8 ♥   — ♦   K8 ♣   —
	Bob ♠   K7 ♥   — ♦   T3 ♣   —

 

A spade to the ♠K and a spade exit assures 10 tricks even if ‘Kate’ has been very naughty and holds the ♦Q as well. All other pairs were in 4♠, and more than half were going down, so once more a bad preempt led to a bad result. Yes, an opening diamond lead would have been best, but wild bidders are usually not great guesses: their minds don’t adapt well to the requirements of a passive defense.

Finally a problem for a defender who is in desperate straits when an Iron Lady stretches to a game that must be defeated. It is a situation where the matchpoint strategy matches the IMP strategy since letting declarer make her game results in a bottom score.

West	South	West	North	East	South
♠ —	♠ AK8	2♣*	Pass	Pass	Dbl
♥  QT3	♥ AK82	Pass	2♠	Pass	3♠
♦ K732	♦QJ6	Pass	4♠	Pass	Pass
♣ AQT973	♣ J64	Pass

Problem 3 The 2♣ bid was 11-15 HCP with a club suit, The ♣2 is led and West (you) go up with the ♣A, dropping the ♣K from declarer. Partner can’t have much in the way of high card controls, but he might have 5 spades. Which free finesse do you choose to provide? A low club won’t fool her as that is one of her favorite ploys, a diamond looks equally dangerous, and a low heart risks losing to the ♥J in declarer’s hand.

Thinking of the problem in another way, how might West promote an extra trick in trumps? A tentative count of declarer’s hand places her with 5 spades, 3 hearts, 4 diamonds to the ♦A, and a singleton ♣K. (With 5-4 in the majors she might have given South a choice.) It may appear strange at first glace, but the only return to defeat 4♠ is a diamond. The ♦J wins, declarer cashes the ♠A getting the bad news, then leads the ♦J. West ducks this allowing partner to ruff the third round of diamonds and to return a club forcing declarer to shorten her trumps to the same length. The full deal is shown below.

 

Dealer: West Vul: EW	Iron Lady ♠   J9764 ♥   J65 ♦   AT94 ♣  K
John ♠   — ♥   QT3 ♦   K732 ♣  AQT973		Bob ♠   QT532 ♥   974 ♦   85 ♣  852
	Denis ♠   AK8 ♥   AK82 ♦   QJ6 ♣  J64

 

Masterpoints are the coin of the realm for bridge players.  We earn them in club games.  Sectionals.  STACs.  Regionals.  NABCs.  Online.  There isn't a bridge player alive who doesn't like to add to their lifetime total.

So, here we are, starting out a new year - and looking at what the top 100 Minnesotans have earned for their lifetime masterpoint totals.

You might note that I, your webmaster, am at the top of the list.  I am honored to be there.  But please also note that no one gets their masterpoints without help.  If not for fine partners, tough teammates - and the occasional hapless opponent - we wouldn't have our masterpoints.  And - we would not be enjoying this great and complex game.

My thanks to Sue Jackson, Unit 178 president, for supplying us with the current top 100, along with the top 100 masterpoint winners for 2011.  Enjoy studying the stats.

Kudos to those who made the list - and - may everyone have a wonderful 2012 earning their new masterpoints!

  Download MNTop100lists2011

Players like to complain when the robots do crazy things. Yes, sometimes they don't play well, but often the make plays that an average club player wouldn't find, such as this one.

The auction was 1♣ Pass 3♣ (preemptive) to me. I held:

♠J 7 ♥K J 8 ♦A K Q 7 6 5 4 3 ♣ --

What would you bid? I'm old and conservative, so I bid only 3♦. The surely auction won't end there, will it? Unfortunately, everyone passed, West led the ♠K, and this was what I saw:



It looks like it might make 5♦, but look what happened. West continued with the ♠A and the ♠Q. On the third round of spades, East ruffed with the ♦10 and that set up a trump trick for his partner. Here are all four hands:



East's play is called an uppercut. Bridge is filled with colorful expressions such as this. Don't you love it.

I'm still not sure how to get to 3NT. A 4♠ contract might also make, and I got a bad score.

I always enjoy a well-played bridge hand, even, as in this case, it is against me!

South Deals N-S Vul	♠ K 4 ♥ Q 5 2 ♦ A 10 5 ♣ 10 7 5 4 3
	N W E S
	♠ 8 2 ♥ A J 3 ♦ 7 ♣ K Q J 9 8 6 2

West	North	East	South
Jenn			Wayne
			1 ♣
1 ♠	2 ♣	3 ♣	5 ♣
Pass	Pass	Dbl	All pass

5 ♣ x by South

`

I overcalled 1♠ in theauction and partner cuebid 3♣,  showing aspade raise.  Against 5 ♣ x I led the ace of ♠ and shifted to aheart, declarer winning the jack.  Declarer was Wayne Gordon of Sonoma.How should he play this hand?<o:p></o:p>

Wayne rose to theoccasion by crossing to the ♦ ace, ruffing adiamond, then crossing to the ♠ king and ruffing thelast diamond.  Now the stage was set.<o:p></o:p>

He merely exited with aclub and when partner won his singleton ace he was endplayed.  A heartreturn could be ducked to the queen for no heart losers and the return ofanother suit would provide declarer with a ruff/sluff.  Either way he would make his contract.<o:p></o:p>

South Deals N-S Vul	♠ K 4 ♥ Q 5 2 ♦ A 10 5 ♣ 10 7 5 4 3
♠ A Q 9 7 6 3 ♥ 10 8 6 ♦ Q 8 3 2 ♣ —	N W E S	♠ J 10 5 ♥ K 9 7 4 ♦ K J 9 6 4 ♣ A
	♠ 8 2 ♥ A J 3 ♦ 7 ♣ K Q J 9 8 6 2

Either a heart opening lead or a spade continuation after the spade lead would have disrupted declarer's timing and prevented him from successfully eliminating the diamonds which was necessary for the endplay.

Minus 550 cost us 4 IMPs.

See you at the table!

Playing online with the feared robots, I held:
♠A J 6 ♥9 6 3 ♦A K 6 ♣Q 10 9 5.

My right-hand opponent opened 1♥. What would you do? Normally, making a takeout double with 4-3-3-3 isn't a good idea, especially with only three spades. I did have 14 high-card points, however, and defending with a robot partner is dicey at best -- get in there! My LHO passed and North bid 1♠. RHO rebid 2♦, ending the auction.

I think trumps leads are usually a poor choice. It's not that you finesse your partner, but what usually happens is that you lose a tempo. You should be trying to set up your side's tricks, not helping declarer by drawing trumps.

Some auctions scream for a trump lead, however, and this was one:


I led the ♦K, the ♦A, cashed the ♠A to extract that card from declarer's hand, then exited with a low diamond.

Declarer played the ♥A K Q and another. Partner won the heart, shifted to a low club and declarer misguessed by playing low. I won my ♣Q and returned a club to partner's ♣A for down one and a score of 100%. Even if declarer had guessed clubs and made +90, we would have scored 72.73%.

Maybe I should rethink trumps leads? Nah -- I still hate 'em.

There have been no blog-worthy hands the past few days. One of the upsides of making a flagrant error at the bridge table is that I at least get to write about it on this blog. But this week, none of my mistakes costed much.  We ended up with 60% games (and one 75% one) every time we played, and that was not because we were playing all that well.  We were just plain lucky, which is not good for blogging purposes.

Consider this hand from an online matchpoint tourney (click on lakshmanok to hide the other hands).  Partner bids 1NT. What do you bid holding 4-5 in the majors and 4 high-card points?  I saw two options: Garbage stayman (bid 2C and pass partner's response since bidding 2H over his 2D should promise a better hand than this) or a simple transfer to hearts.  I chose to transfer:

<iframe height="500" src="http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=pn|opp1,pard,opp2,lakshmanok|st%7C%7Cmd%7C4S247KH45D25JC28QA%2CS3AH8JAD78QC456JK%2CS8TQH79QD69KAC79T%2C%7Crh%7C%7Cah%7CBoard%2010%7Csv%7Cb%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7C1N%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7C2D%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7C2H%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7Cd%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7C2S%7Cmb%7Cd%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7C3D%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cpc%7CC3%7Cpc%7CC2%7Cpc%7CCJ%7Cpc%7CC7%7Cpc%7CC5%7Cpc%7CC9%7Cpc%7CD3%7Cpc%7CC8%7Cpc%7CH3%7Cpc%7CH4%7Cpc%7CHA%7Cpc%7CH7%7Cpc%7CC4%7Cpc%7CCT%7Cpc%7CD4%7Cpc%7CCQ%7Cpc%7CHK%7Cpc%7CH5%7Cpc%7CH8%7Cpc%7CH9%7Cpc%7CS5%7Cpc%7CS2%7Cpc%7CSA%7Cpc%7CS8%7Cpc%7CC6%7Cpc%7CDA%7Cpc%7CH2%7Cpc%7CCA%7Cpc%7CST%7Cpc%7CSJ%7Cpc%7CSK%7Cpc%7CS3%7Cpc%7CDJ%7Cpc%7CD7%7Cpc%7CD6%7Cpc%7CDT%7Cpc%7CD2%7Cpc%7CD8%7Cpc%7CD9%7Cpc%7CH6%7Cpc%7CDK%7Cpc%7CHT%7Cmc%7C7%7C" width="500">&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; qw&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;</iframe>

South decided to get in on the action with a takeout double (vulnerable, holding a balanced hand, with a strong 1NT sitting over him!) and North bid 2S. I know partner has at least 2 spades, and so, they are about to play their 4-3 fit.  I double.  North then runs to 3D.

Now my errors began. I should double 3D also, of course, but I thought we were in a forcing pass situation (for what? partner can have no bid). In the defensive card play, I made another error (click Next on the above hand to see if you can spot it).

Neither error -- the failure to double or cashing the king of hearts -- cost us. Declarer ruffed dummy's winning Ace of clubs with the Ace of diamonds, negating my heart suit mistake.  3D down 2 for 200 points was itself a match-point top.

I make two mistakes, and still get a top board. That's how my week has gone, bridge-wise.

Our spot cards are integral to bridge.  Sometimes having a five instead of a four can make all the difference.  Sometimes we have a touching series of spots, and the card played - at least in some respects - is irrelevant.  Once, while explaining how to lead to a beginner, I said, "If you have KQJ10x, lead your king and you will establish other tricks for yourself."  The student thought about this, then responded, "Why not lead the 10, and save the higher ones for later?"  Why not, indeed!?

In today's "Koch's Korner," John presents us with a hand where our spots matter.  Sometimes we play a spot card just to show off or for flair.  Other times - we do so because it's the only road to success!

Download 259.Flair4

2012 is less than two weeks away ... and Winter Carnival 2012 follows soon thereafter!

As always, the Winter Carnival tournament is a highlight of Minnesota's schedule.  It's fine schedule and fun festivities are a bright spot - irrespective of the cold and snow.

This year the tournament falls on January 27-29.  Do check out the flyer below so you can make all your plans for Minnesota's first sectional of the year!

Download WinterCarnival2011Entire

Playing online with the crazy robots, I held:
♠A K Q J 8 ♥J 8 6 ♦A 7 5 2 ♣7.

Partner opened 1NT -- what would you do? In robot-land, you always have the best hand. Therefore, you know North holds exactly 15 high-card points, so slam would be dicey at best (a combined 30 HCP). I raised to 3NT, ending the auction.

The robots often do things that humans think are crazy. Recently, I led a club from Q 8 7 2. Dummy had the stiff 10. My robot partner held J-9-X-X didn't cover and declarer won three tricks with A-K-X-X opposite a singleton 10.

But the bots do good things, too, as you are about to see. Here are all four hands:


East led a low spade. North won with my ace and played five rounds of the suit. West discarded two clubs and two diamonds. Declarer continued by running the club suit. After two rounds, this was the position:



On the next-to-last club, dummy and West discarded a diamond. On the last club, dummy threw a diamond (baring the ace), but what could West play? If he discarded a diamond, North can play a diamond to the ace, cross back to his ♥A to cash his good ♦J. So, West was forced to discard a heart. Now it was easy for declarer to play the ♥A and another, setting up dummy's jack. The crazy robot had executed a variation of that rare bird, a criss-cross squeeze!

I put the deal in Deep Finesse and it said declarer had to play it basically the way it did (although it could run clubs first). DF also says that a diamond lead will hold it to five. A heart lead will hold it also, but only if the ♥10 or ♥9 is led. A low heart won't work.

If squeezes fascinate you, check out Bridge Squeezes Complete, written by Clyde Love and edited by Linda Lee and Julian Pottage at Masterpoint Press. It's also available as an e-book.

Now that your new years resolutions aimed to avoid over bidding, over sacrificing and playing Gerber have worn off it's time for a bidding problem.

You hold:

♠	6 5 4 2
♥	K
♦	A J 8 7
♣	K 9 7 5

Lets say you're nil vul, 4th to act and playing Imps.

West	North	East	South
Pass	1♥	2♠	?

If you double then tell us what you'll do over partners 3♦.

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Hi all

So it’s Saturday evening now. After a wealthy dinner at Montrio we get to sit down against two lovely ladies. I had my guard up a bit, because it’s still the finals of a two day KO. I’d better not be lulled into a false sense of comfort.

We start good by extracting +800 from a phantom sacrifice. And then Geoff and I Beowulf to slam on the cards below.

North Dealer

NS Vul

North

KJ653

T4

AJT

842

West

84

K762

K87

J965

East

7

Q9853

Q9642

T3

South

AQT92

AJ

53

AKQ7

 

West

North

East

South

 

pass

pass

1 1

pass

1 2

pass

1 3

pass

3 4

pass

4

pass

4

pass

4NT

pass

5 5

pass

6

a.p.

 

 

 

 

1. 15-17 bal, or stronger any shape
2. 6+ hcp
3. Natural, 18+
4. Maximum/slammish raise
5. Two keys with trump Queen or extra length

When West led a trump, I needed either the to break or the double finesse in . I’m glad they didn’t lead a . A tentative estimate puts us now at +20, I think. But the ladies proved to be a lot more resilient than expected.

West Dealer

NS Vul

North

T983

953

76542

A

West

54

AJ762

-

KQJ942

East

J6

KQT84

AK8

873

South

AKQ72

-

QJT93

T65

 

West

North

East

South

1

pass

1

2NT1

4

4

dbl

pass

5

a.p.

 

 

 

1. Unusual

5 went down one silently, but at the other table they maneuvered a contract of 5 in the South hand. So East gets his two tricks, but West not the ruff he was looking for: 13 imp down the drain.

In addition they brought home a sharp 3NT and outbid us on a couple of part scores, so after the first 12 boards a boatload of imps has crossed the table: 42-42.

The second half starts of poorly for us when I find the single lead that lets them make their game. Then the ladies hopscotched into 6 with two top missing. But on a non- lead all losers went away… Geoff and I now both sit at the table like hawks, waiting for an opportunity to pounce. And the opportunity gets there…

Sitting in 3rd seat, all red I decide to open a Beowulf 2 (showing 8-12 hcp, exactly 4 crd suit unbalanced).


My LHO overcalls 3 , passed to me… I know we’re good. She misplayed a bit and went down four, for +400, no game for anyone in sight. A funny side note: Because in the US we’re not allowed to play any conventions over an opening like this, all bids after that have to be natural. So without a blush or embarrassment I could have doubled 3 for penalties. Now how’s that if you have opened weakly in 3rd chair?

We have a lock. We win the finals by 89 to 77. That’s quite rich over a 24 board match.

My new book is now in stock at Amazon as a paperback edition, if you are interested.  I am pleased to see that it is already in the top 100 bridge books for current "sales rank!"  The price at Amazon is $11.95, with free shipping available.

You can also find it at a discount at Barnes and Noble for $8.60 right now:   http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/overcalling-opponents-1nt-ken-rexford/1108315832?ean=9781554947621&itm=1&usri=overcalling+opponent%27s+1nt, but this might not include the free shipping.

If you get the book and enjoy it, please consider writing a review on these sites.  If you hate the book, get around to a review later!  ;-)

A 62% session but we did not make ground on the overall leaders as Brian and George scored the same. First a bidding problem - what do you open at unfavourable vulnerability?


Matchpoints can be a tough game and a single trick makes all the difference. The eleventh trick on this hand was worth half a top, or almost 2% of your final score.


West leads the five of diamonds and the jack wins the trick. With no minor losers now thoughts should turn to how you can restrict the major losers and you should be thinking endplay or throw-in. If hearts are 3-1 then you cannot do it, as you need to ruff a club to establish the endplay, so then there is the problem of diamonds 6-2. If you try to cash the diamonds to pitch a club, then they may be able to ruff.

So I think the best line is to cash the ace of hearts and lead another. The hearts break two-two and you can win the club return, cash two diamonds pitching a club, ruff a club and then play ace of spades and another.

You will make eleven tricks if EITHER (1) East has the king of spades (2) West has the king of spades singleton or doubleton (3) East has the jack and ten of spades. On the actual hand West had the king and jack of spades doubleton and had to concede a ruff and discard after winning the spade, allowing me to pitch my spade loser.

A fairly easy hand where three other declarers also made eleven tricks, but seven only made ten. As the club finesse also worked the lead was not really an issue.

I watched a few hands from a practice match that Sharyn Reus and Diana Gordon played on BBO against Sondra Blank and Sylvia Caley.

Diana and Sharyn had racked up a great score and they did it by outbidding the field several times.  Here is a

Board 3 was an example when they were the only pair to getg to a grand slam in spades.

 

Sharyn ♠ AJ9432  ♥ AQJ6  ♦ 5  ♣ AJ

Diana ♠ K10765  ♥ K53  ♦ AQJ  ♣ Q5

 Test yourself and see if you would get to the grand.  Here was their auction

 

Sharyn	Diana
1♠	2NT
3♦	3♥
3NT	4♦
4NT	5♠
5NT	6♣
7♥	7♠

2NT was Jacoby and 3♦ showed the singleton.  3♥  was a cuebid and a slam try.  3NT indicated slam interest.  4♦ was a cuebid.  4NT was keycard and 5♠  showed two keycards and either the ♠ Q or extra length.   5NT showed all the contols. 

Then a few boards later Diana held these cards.

 

Diana ♠ 87 ♥ 65 ♦ KQJ952  ♣ AK5

 With everybody vulnerable Sylvia passed and Sharyn opened with 1C.  Sondra passed and Diana bid 1D.  Sylvia bid 1NT showing both majors and DIana bid 3C.  Sondra passed and now Diana made a big bid.  6C.  Do you like it?  Once again they were the only pair in the right slam.  Sharyn held

 

Sharyn ♠ 6  ♥ AK87  ♦ A8  ♣ QJ10986

 Three boards later they reached an excellent slam in diamonds but this time they had some company.  One other pair had bid the slam.  There were more nice deals.  These two ladies really put on a clinic.

Playing online against the famous robots, I picked up:

♠A K Q 5 ♥A K ♦A 9 6 3 ♣A 7 4.

I started with 2♣, my robot partner bid a waiting 2♦ and I bid 2NT. Do you agree with this bid?

This auction delivers 22 to 24 high-card points in robot-land, but the hand is really worth 25. Did you notice I had all four aces? Aces are undervalued in the standard HCP methods. Even Charles Goren says to add 1 point for having four of them.

On the other hand, the robots are aggressive as responders, so it's unlikely you'll miss game.

Over my 2NT rebid, the bot bid 4♥, a transfer to spades. Having underbid previously and holding great trumps, I jumped to 5♠, ending the auction. Here are all four hands:


First I underbid, then I overbid landing in a contract that won't win any prizes -- there's a lesson in here somewhere.

I won the ♥J opening lead with the ace, cashed one high trump and advanced a low diamond. West played the ♦Q, dummy played low and East contributed the ♦7! I assume this was to show four diamonds, but look what happened.

West continued with a heart and I won my king. I played a low spade to dummy and advanced the ♦10. East covered with the jack (playing low wouldn't matter) and I won the ace and continued with the ♦9, discarding a club from dummy. East won and now the defense shifted to a club -- too late. I won the ace and discarded dummy's last club on my ♦6 which was high (East was left with the ♦5).

Plus 650 scored 94%.

Divorce Court is the longest running television court program since 1957. Where couples come before a presiding judge to air their dirty laundry, either to sought a reconciliation or divorce.

Mr. West-the plaintiff and Mrs. East-the defendant came to Divorce Court because of the following deal.

Board 9, Matchpoints. Dealer North. E-W vulnerable.

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Mr. West was first to make an opening statement.

“You Honour, after three passes to me, I bid one spade, LHO bid two spades-Hearts and a minor. My partner bid three spades, in our agreement-less then a limit raise in spades. RHO bid four clubs-pass or correct. I bid a vulnerable game four spades! LHO pass and so did my partner. RHO bid five clubs. I made what I thought was a Forcing Pass! LHO pass and to my disappointment my partner also passed!?”

“Five club went down two for +100, we got 23%. Five spade made six would have given us 74%.”

“Please tell me do I have grounds for divorce?”

Now it is Mrs West’s turn to address the court.

“Your Honour, I have been busy working in my gerden when Mr. West asked me to play bridge. As I love my partner very much, I obliged and dropped everything. When this hand in question came up, I checked our notes and found no agreement as to what constituted a forcing pass. Looked up the latest Encyclopedia of Bridge, the 7th edition and found not much help either. As I already shown my hand, I thought best to pass.”

The Judge asked to see their notes and found no agreements.

“After deliberation, I found Mrs. East could have doubled five clubs. Bridge logic tells you, partnership bid vulnerable game and the opponents were pass hands. Mr. West could have saved the day if he had bid four hearts instead of four spades over four clubs. You don’t need a divorce, what you need is some rules.” Said the Judge.

Forcing Pass: a pass which forces partner to take action. 

Here are some rules for Forcing Pass suggested by Daniel Korbel that may help.

 

The paperback version seems to be imminent.  A link to Amazon for notification when it arrives:

http://www.amazon.com/Overcalling-Opponents-1NT-Ken-Rexford/dp/1554947626/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326814725&sr=8-1

President Sharon Anderson continues her trek to clubs.  Thursday evening, she visited Tony Ames' game in Minnetonka.  Check out all the details and photos!

I have been receiving some thoughtful questions about the use of Losing Trick Count and will start addressing them here.

In the 1971 film Dirty Harry. Clint Eastwood plays the role of Inspector Harry Callahan of the San Francisco Police.

At a bank robbery, Callahan points his .44 Magnum at one of the robber who was lying near a loaded shotgun.

“I know what you’re thinking: “Did he fire six shots, or only five?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well do ya, punk?”

The robber surrenders.

Wrong! Callahan’s gun was empty.

Later in the film, Harry Callahan confronted the sadistic killer Scorpio and made his ”Do you feel lucky, punk?” speech. This time Scorpio went for his gun.

Wrong! Callahan shot him in the chest, propelling Scorpio into a pool of water.

Playing IMPs; Dealer North. Both sides vulnerable. 

I picked up this hand.  ♠ AQ83 ♥ A76 ♦ 7 ♣ AQJ92

This was the auction.

West	North	East	South
	1♥	2♣	3♣*
3♠	4♥	6♠	All pass

 

3♣* was alerted as a nice heart raise.

I thought to myself. Partner has to have long spades and short hearts. North opened the bidding, If we need a black suit finesse it rates to be onside. So I bid six spades.

Wrong! They led ace of diamond and the king of club was offside.

“Do you feel lucky, punk?” rings in my head.

 

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♠ A 5♥ K J 9 4♦ 6 4♣ Q 8 7 5 2

LHO opens one club, alerted as showing "at least a doubleton." Of course, that doesn't mean it could be a doubleton, but I'll assume that's what RHO meant to say.

Partner overcalls one heart, and RHO bids one spade. I could cue-bid to show a limit raise or better. But why be so delicate? Are we really going to buy this in three hearts? The opponents have the master suit, and this is probably their hand. Sometimes when you hold the heart suit it's better to overbid slightly and force the opponents to guess what to do. This is particularly true if you can't tell from your own hand what you want them to do. If you don't know whether they should bid four spades or not, why should they know?

I bid four hearts (showing at least a doubleton). LHO bids four spades; partner bids five hearts. Not to be outdone, RHO bids five spades. Since I have more defense than I might have for my four heart bid, it's tempting to double to make sure partner doesn't bid again. But that isn't necessary opposite a disciplined partner. If partner were contemplating bidding again, he should have involved me by bidding five of a minor. We don't rate to beat this two tricks. So there is little reason to double except to stop partner from doing something he shouldn't do anyway. Accordingly, I pass. Five spades ends the auction.

I don't see any need for partner to be on play at trick two. On the other hand, it might easily be necesssary for me to switch to a diamond at trick two. So I lead the heart king.

West	North	East	South
Phillip	Nathaniel	Jack	Marcus
	1 ♣1	1 ♥	1 ♠
4 ♥	4 ♠	5 ♥	5 ♠
(All pass)
1At least a doubleton

Dummy wins with the ace, and partner plays the heart eight. As I play, a high heart suggests that the obvious shift (diamonds) is a bad idea. I know some would play this card as suit-preference, but that's a serious error in my book. Longtime readers of this blog might want to skip the next three paragraphs, since you've heard it all before. (Unless somehow I still haven't unconvinced you. In which case, please read on.)

Let's call my method of signaling Method A: Discouraging in hearts suggests the obvious shift (in this case, diamonds). Encouraging ostensibly suggests I want hearts continued. But partner must be alert to the fact I have no way to ask for the less obvious shift (in this case, clubs). So he is free to use his judgment and shift to clubs if that seems likelier to be productive than continuing hearts. The more common method of signaling is Method B: If a heart continuation is logical, my card is attitude. Encouraging suggests hearts; discouraging suggests the obvious shift. If a heart continuation is illogical, my card is suit preference.

Note that if a heart continuation is clearly logical or clearly illogical, it makes no difference which method I play. Either method will work. But if one of us thinks a heart shift is logical and the other thinks it isn't, (A) is clearly superior. Playing (A), if I want a diamond shift, I am going to get one, since a low card always suggests diamonds. Playing (B), if there is any confusion, I am guaranteed to get the wrong shift whichever shift I want.

There will always be some hands where it is unclear whether a heart continuation is logical or not, and I don't think you can devise sensible rules to eliminate these ambiguities. Even a rule like "a heart continuation is illogical if dummy has a singleton heart" (which many people play) is demonstrably wrong. Sometimes you want to continue hearts because you want to defend passively. Sometimes you want to continue hearts to tap dummy's trumps, promoting a trump trick for the defense. Yes, there is point somewhere along the continuum where a heart continuation becomes illogical. But how do you define where that point is? Or, more importantly, why bother to define where that point is? What do you gain by switching from attitude to suit preference? How can it possibly be right to play "high" for diamonds in some cases and "low" for diamonds in other cases based on some subjective criterion about which you and your partner might disagree? Sometimes one must make tradeoffs in choosing one method over another, and different people may evaluate the tradeoffs differently. But here I see no tradeoff. I don't see that (B) offers any advantage over (A).

Jack, of course, plays neither (A) nor (B). He plays (J). He is simply showing the heart queen with his signal. Thanks, Jack.

Declarer plays a low club from dummy, partner plays the king, and declarer ruffs with the four of spades. Why is declarer ruffing clubs to his hand? It looks as if he's missing king-jack of diamonds and is trying to strip the hand for an endplay. I play the club deuce.

Declarer ruffs the deuce of hearts in dummy. I play the four; partner, the six. I haven't seen the three yet. Partner should be giving count, but Jack tends to play up the line in these situations. So the three is probably in declarer's hand. That gives partner a 1-5-4-3 or 0-5-5-3 pattern. (I refuse to believe he bid five hearts with 2-5-3-3.)

Declarer ruffs a club with the six of spades. Partner plays the nine; I play the five. Declarer leads the elusive three of hearts--nine--spade three--heart seven. He then ruffs out partner's club ace with the spade seven.

We are down to this position:

We need to score two diamond tricks to beat this. If partner is 0-5-5-3 (making declarer 7-3-3-0), what are our prospects? Declarer will lead a trump. If I win and play a diamond, declarer can simply duck and partner is endplayed. To stop the endplay, I must win and play a trump. But then declarer doesn't need an endplay. He can concede a trick to my club queen, then pitch his last diamond on dummy's good club. I can't beat this if declarer is 7-3-3-0.

What if partner is 1-5-4-3 (making declarer 6-3-4-0)? Declarer leads a trump. Now if I win and play a trump, declarer is a trick short. Do I need to win it? Can I afford to duck in case partner has a stiff king of spades and no jack of diamonds? If I duck and partner follows low, declarer can abandon trumps and duck a diamond to partner. A diamond return into dummy's ace-queen is obviously fatal. If, instead, partner returns a heart, declarer pitches a diamond, ruffing in dummy. Declarer is now down to two trumps and two diamonds, and I am down to the spade ace, one diamond, and two clubs. Since I have two clubs, I can't stop declarer from scoring both his trumps. He ruffs a club, plays a diamond to the ace, and ruffs another club. I end up ruffing partner's diamond winner with my spade ace at trick thirteen. So I can't afford to cater to a stiff spade king in partner's hand. Not that I'm too worried about it given the auction.

Declarer leads the spade queen. I take the ace as planned, and partner follows with the ten. I play a trump. Declarer wins in dummy, and partner plays the diamond eight. Declarer now leads the ten of clubs. Partner pitches the heart ten, and declarer pitches the diamond deuce. I win with the queen and exit with a heart, which declarer ruffs. Declarer is left with three small diamonds in his hand. Dummy has ace-queen of diamonds and a good club. Declarer takes a losing diamond finesse and is down one.

Declarer was out of trumps. The only reason he could afford the diamond finesse was partner was out of hearts. Partner erred by pitching a heart on the ten of clubs. Had he pitched a diamond instead, we would beat this two if declarer tried to make it by finessing the diamond in the end position. Of course, it would be pretty foolish of declarer to do that. If I had the diamond king, I wouldn't be putting him in his hand. Upon winning the club queen, I would just return a club and lock him in dummy. But it can't hurt to give declarer a chance to be foolish.

I suppose I shouldn't complain about partner too much. He did bid five hearts, after all. I doubt very much I would have done that. I don't expect to make it, and declarer doesn't have a source of tricks in a minor, so it seems unlikely four spades is making. Accordingly, I would pass. That is such a poor decision in practice that I wonder if I'm missing something. Why is Jack's judgment better than mine? I presented this hand in a bridgewinners.com poll to see if anyone had any insights. Over 80% of the respondents chose to defend. So either Jack knows something we humans don't or he was just lucky.

This board is yet another push, the fourth one of this match. We win the match by two imps and pick up a mere 16 out of 30 victory points. I was certainly right not risk a double. The extra two imps would have picked up no victory points, so the risk-reward ratio was infinite. Fortunately, 16 victory points is enough to stay in the lead.


Table 1: +50
Table 2: -50

Result on Board 7: 0 imps

Result on Match 3: +2 imps (16 VP)
Current Total: 58 VP

For our next match, we play William and Harry, another Majeure cinquieme pair. I didn't even know William and Harry played bridge, although I know their mother was a big fan of the game.

Two cup matches over the weekend.

First up was the Scottish Cup match against McMenemy (McIntyre, Kane, Kane). Danny and Helen have returned to regular bridge after a few years away and narrowly missed Camrose selection in the final trial. Jim and Ian are also trialists, less steady but full of flair and a dangerous pair.

Over thirty-two boards I did regard us as warm favourites, even though Fiona was substituting for Alex. However, despite computer-dealt hands, there were 23 flat boards effectively reducing the match to 9 boards. We made a couple of mistakes, they made a couple of mistakes, ours cost, theirs did not and we lost the match by 33-41 imps.

Alex was able to fly up for Sunday's Gold Cup match against Dee Harley's team (Harley, Nolf, Male, McGinley, Copley, Peden). Of course this match put two of my Camrose pairs in competition so, unsurprisingly, the match was played in good spirit. The first set was not as wild as the score of 47-40 imps suggests, but these eight boards caused more imps to swing than the entire match on the previous day. There was quite a lot of poor slam bidding throughout the match, disappointedly almost all of it in non-competitive auctions.

We established a comfortable lead by winning the second set by 39-0 imps although promptly gave some of it back just before the break, losing the third set 1-25 imps after a couple of misplayed hands. Alex and I also failed to break the following game:


So what do you try and do next?

In the fourth set we lost 7-18 imps with the main swing due to the notrump range and a decision about whether to double a weak notrump with a balanced 15 points and a long suit of 109xx. When the contract goes down four you know double was the winning decision.

With sixteen boards to play our lead was down to eleven imps, but if we could stop giving them fifteen imps a set then we should win easily. So it proved as we held them to six imps in the final two sets while scoring forty-nine ourselves, so a comfortable win by 54 imps.

A slightly bitter-sweet win. Our team of four, with one Camrose pair, did not play very well. Their team of six, with one Camrose pair and the reserves for the Senior Camrose, were significantly worse. Again I thought we were warm favourites for the match but I think we'd all have preferred a higher quality match.

But, at the end of the day, a win is a win.

I was playing with Jenn recently in a regional KO match.  The match seemed to be close, so every IMP could be important.  With both sides vulnerable, I picked this up in third seat:

♠  xx
♥  Axxxx
♦  J9xxx
♣  x

Jenn dealt and opened 1NT, 14-16.  With the opponents silent, I transferred with 2D.  Jenn now bid 3H, which was a "super-accept" showing a good hand with 4 hearts.  Since we now had a known fit, it was time to trot out LTC.  So, 2+2+3+1 = 8 losers.  Jenn and I had discussed using LTC in these situations and had agreed that a super-accept should show 6 losers, so I took the plunge and raised to game.  Hey, it's IMPs and we were vulnerable, so with only 14 implied losers, I didn't let a little thing like only 5 HCP get in my way!

Jenn got a trump lead, and looked at:

♠  xx
♥  Axxxx
♦  J9xxx
♣  x

♠  Axxx
♥  KQJx
♦  QTx
♣  Kx

She had the expected 6 losers, so the contract had a chance despite only 20 HCP between the hands.  The hands didn't fit too well (her club king opposite my singleton was an unfortunate duplication of values).  A spade lead would have sunk the contract, but after the trump lead, the contract had a chance.  Jenn needed to try to set up the club king to pitch a spade loser from dummy.  She therefore drew trumps ending in dummy and played a club toward her hand,  Bingo!  RHO won the ace and shifted to a spade. She won the ace, pitched a spade from dummy on the king of clubs and knocked out the two diamond losers-- losing only one club and 2 diamonds.  Making 4 gained our team 10 precious IMPs--which we sorely needed as we ended up winning the match by only 1!

So it turned out to be a victory for LTC.  Sometimes you need a little luck as well as having the right number of losers, but that's bridge!

Good luck!

I love opening, it's why I turn up to bridge and one of the reasons I venture into silly systems. In these examples everything is mostly natural.

♠	K Q 9 8 3 2
♥	-
♦	A T 8 4
♣	9 7 5

Second seat, unfavourable.

You have a weak 2♠ available but is that really what this hand is worth? 6430 is high on the powerful shapes list and all your values are in the two longest suits. I opened at the one level.

Vul: NS Dealer: East	♠ T ♥ K Q 9 8 5 3 ♦ 6 2 ♣ A J T 6
♠ 7 5 ♥ A J 6 2 ♦ K J 9 5 ♣ K 8 2		♠ A J 6 4 ♥ T 7 4 ♦ Q 7 3 ♣ Q 4 3
	♠ K Q 9 8 3 2 ♥ - ♦ A T 8 4 ♣ 9 7 5

Partner responded 2♥ which made me feel all warm inside but she passed 2♠ which rolled in.

As an aside would you have made a takeout double sitting West? That won't go well if North thinks to send it back.

The consequences of taking the weaker option can be seen in this example:

Vul: Nil Dealer: West	♠ A J ♥ K 8 5 4 ♦ Q T 8 6 ♣ Q T 6
♠ Q T 9 7 6 4 ♥ 2 ♦ K 9 7 4 3 ♣ A		♠ K 8 5 ♥ Q 7 ♦ A 5 2 ♣ J 9 8 5 3
	♠ 3 2 ♥ A J T 9 6 3 ♦ J ♣ K 7 4 2

West	North	East	South
2♠1	Pass	Pass2	3♥3
3♠4	4♥	4♠5	End

1. 5♠ & 4+ any other (Lucas).
2. Just missed game.
3. There's me, handing out the life jackets
4. Oh look, I have an opening hand!
5. Sigh

A couple of people I get on well with opened the West hand at the one level and had no trouble reaching the game unaided.

Pushing them into wasn't all bad though. After winning the heart lead I sent back the J♦. Declarer won on the table and pulled a spade to the Ten. Don't know why.

Waiting for my sister to go with me to the farmner’s market this Saturday I logged on to BBO to catch a couple of boards of the TGR auction pairs.  The first board I saw was quite a douzy.   I am not giving names to protect the protaganists who were very fine players, most of the time.

North held this hand vulnerable against not.

 

North ♠ 103 ♥ Q8752 ♦ 4 ♣ J8432

On his right he heard 1♦ and his partner bid 3♣  preemptive.  It went 3♥  to him.  What now?  Do you like 4♣ ?  Maybe 5♣  is better but you do hate the vulnerability.  Pass of course is possible too.  Anyway he bid 4♣ . 

Now it was East’s turn.  East held

East ♠ AKQJ9 ♥ J9  ♦ Q107652  ♣ -

 Partner obviously has a good hand for his “free” 3♥  bid and the J9 of hearts look like help.  East also has a spade suit that can play opposite a doubleton small and six diamonds.  There are certainly many slams possible.  North-South are vulnerable and they are bidding clubs so it seems likely they have the club honors.  Partner could easily have most of the top red cards.  BUT, what to bid? You do have some heart support but you don’t want to commit to hearts.  Besides 4♥  is an underbid.  You could bid 4♦ but that “loses” the spade suit (at least for now).  4♠  should show 6-5 but may not suggest slam.  I understand this is a problem but I personally do not like the bid East chose which was …….. 5NT which was passed to West.

 Now here is West’s hand.

 

West ♠  842 ♥  AK1043  ♦  AKJ8 ♣  K

Let’s think about the auction from West’s perspective.  Remember the earlier part of the auction

 

West	North	East	South
		1♦	3♣
3♥	4♣	5NT	Pass
?

What does partner have for 5NT?  What does 5NT mean?  Obviously it is some sort of grand slam try.   Surely it is not just a grand slam bid in hearts saying bid the grand slam in hearts with two of the top three honors since partner is known to be missing the AK of diamonds too.   Partner must mean this as showing a great hand.  I can think of two possible reasons for this bid.  Partner has excellent heart support and wants to try for a grand in hearts.  Partner has moderate hearts and diamonds and wants to go responder a choice of slams.

Partner must have a first round control in clubs and since he is missing all these red suit cards top spades and most of the missing red honors.  Let’s try to imagine a hand that makes sense of this auction. 

A) Partner is trying for the heart grand

♠  AKQ
♥  QJxx 
♦  Qxxx
♣ Ax  

B) Partner wants responder to pick a slam

 ♠  AKx
♥  QJx 
♦  Qxxxxx
♣ A  

What if partner had bid 5♣  over 4♣ or even 6♣ over 4♥  what would that have been?  Somehow I think that with good heart support partner might cuebid clubs.  So I think hand B) is more likely.  Maybe your partnerhsip has discussed this – good for you!

But does West have to figure it out.  Whatever type of hand partner has a grand seems likely so if West bids 7♣ over 5NT he lets partner pick the grand. 

North passed and it was up to East now to sort out what to do over 7♣.  It seems to me that partner is giving you a chose of red suits since if diamonds or hearts was clearcut from his hand he would have bid it.  I personally would have bid 7♦ now.  If partner’s hearts are good enough he would have already bid 7♥  I think.  But then again who knows.  I am sweating here.  East had a different vision and bid 7♥ . 

Do you like all of this so far?  7♥  was passed to North who now made a really awful call.   I remember an expression we had in the old days, “I stood on my chair and passed”.  The opponents have arrived in one of the few contracts North KNOWS he can beat.  But he didn’t pass, he doubled.  Is this the effect of playing pairs?

East decided correctly that North had a heart stack abnd so he bid 7♠ . Beating this one was not so clear for North.  South passed and it looked like North had changed a great board into a terrible one.  But now West started to think.   I imagine it went along these lines.  If East’s spades were that good why didn’t he bid them?  We could be on a 4-3.  Partner surely has a club control and gee I hope it’s the ace??!  Yes, West bid 7NT and this one South who had the ♣A could double and this one went 7 down.

 Here is the whole deal and the auction.

 

 

Dealer: Vul:	North  ♠ 103 ♥ Q8752 ♦ 4 ♣ J8432
West ♠  842 ♥  AK1043  ♦  AKJ8 ♣  K		East   ♠ AKQJ9 ♥ J9  ♦ Q107652  ♣ -
	South ♠ 765  ♥ 6  ♦ 93  ♣ AQ109765

 

West	North	East	South
		1♦	3♣
3♥	4♣	5NT	Pass
7♣	Pass	7♥	Pass
Pass	DBL	7♠	Pass
7NT	Pass	Pass	DBL
All Pass

  

The only good news for East-West was that since this was pairs it was “just one board”.

Just in case you are not a disciple of the Aces on Bridge column, someone brought up the famous guidelines of the Dallas Aces 1968 “Seven Deadly Sins.”  Since everyone is so busy preaching and teaching on line, I thought you would enjoy the SDS, of which just about all of us are proclaimed guilty at some time or another, even at the highest levels:

1.  Bidding without values

2.  System violations

3.  Unilateral decisions

4.  No-Win declarer plays

5.  No-Win defensive plays

6.  Impulsive plays

7.  Mechanicals

West bids 1NT (14-16) and partner doubles. We play Multi-Landy and this shows an equal or better hand. East passes and I need to make a decision.  I squeak out a 2H bid because I can not leave the double in when the opponents probably have 23 points and a runnable club suit.  Partner goes into the tank a bit and emerges with a 4H bid which is passed out.

You get the lead of 7 diamond and this is the hand that comes down as dummy. How do you rate your chances? How do you play?

You need two entries into your hand to lead towards the hearts. The club ruff is one entry. The 10 of diamonds is your only other reasonable shot at an entry since the 7 is probably from a doubleton holding. If you played anything other than the Jack of diamonds at trick one, you will be down 1.

This is the full hand (Click Next to see the play):

<iframe height="600" src="http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?s=ST743HT985DT864C7&amp;w=SKJ82HAQ4D72CKJT6&amp;n=SA5HKJ632DAKJ5CA4&amp;e=SQ96H7DQ93CQ98532&amp;d=w&amp;v=o&amp;b=8&amp;a=1NDP2HP4HPPP&amp;p=D7DJDQD4D3DTD2D5HTHAH2H7S2SAS6S3CAC2C7C6C4C3H5CTH9H4H3D9H8HQHKC5DAC8D6CJDKC9D8CKHJCQS4S8H6S9S7SJS5SQSTSK" width="600"></iframe>

Needless to say, I didn't put the Jack up on trick one. Jeff Lehman would love this hand.

Frequently, our natural instincts are exactly what is needed for success at the bridge table.  Just do what comes naturally; that's the ticket!

Some hands, however, are just the opposite.  To achieve the result we want, we must fight the tendency to take our "natural" course.  Today, John Koch presents us with such a hand - in spades!

Download 258.NoTimeforBromides1

Check out her post and photos at her website!

The last few days have been quite exciting.  Today Ray and I bought a Mazda Miata convertible and drove it back to our Sarasota home.  The weather was perfect and Ray had some fun working out the 6 gears.  Yesterday we had a big group of beginner and intermediate bridge players in our first bridge classes at the Landings.

I was working with the beginners and I remembered just how much fun it was to teach a class LIVE as opposed to working with online students.  By the end of the class my students were doing really well at counting their losers, deciding whether to draw trump and making a plan.  Some of the questions were fairly insightful.  Is it better to play in a 4-4 fit or a 5-4 fit when you have both?  I showed them how a 4-4 fit could work out better on some occasions but recommended that they focus on finding the best fit.

In any case it was so wonderful to see so many people excited about bridge.  Ray had the beginners and he drew a few laughs when they discussed why husbands and wives have to work to be nice to each other when they play.  We had more phone calls today from more would-be bridge players.

The questions always make me think.  Today I mentored my student from Israel.  He just had a new grandson – a much more wonderful new baby. We had some bridge bidding to discuss.  One thing that came up is the problem of rebidding with 17 high card points a balanced hand and a good five card major if you DON’T open 1NT.  Then this deal came up

 

North ♠ K32  ♥ Q3  ♦ A54  ♣ K10862

South ♠ Q76  ♥ K10652 ♦ 6 ♣ AQJ3

South was dealer and opened 1♥ .  North bid 2♣  game forcing and South bid 3♣ .  What should North do?  North bid 3NT which seems pretty logical.  Should South bid?  Is South sure that the eleven trick club game will be better than notrump?

Maybe these day you just tough it out in notrump and hope for a spade lead.  Or as an old friend once said: playing in notrump means never having to say your sorry.  Any thoughts?

I was reminded of Peter Kay's iconic line from Phoenix Nights watching the Camrose on Saturday afternoon, when LOTG just typed "Strong Twos!!!" in the BBO chat to me. Regular readers will know that LOTG is a big fan of Acol Strong Twos and refuses to switch: the following hand has not helped my argument.


It does not look too difficult, but let's see how the teams fared. Names have been deleted to avoid embarrassment but you know who you are!

SBU v Ireland

<iframe height="200px" src="http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?&amp;b=19&amp;d=s&amp;v=e&amp;a=p4sppp&amp;wn=IRE&amp;en=IRE" width="200px"></iframe> <iframe height="200px" src="http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?&amp;b=19&amp;d=s&amp;v=e&amp;a=p1s2c2dp3cp3np4dp4sppp" width="200px"></iframe>


England v Scotland

<iframe height="200px" src="http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?&amp;b=19&amp;d=s&amp;v=e&amp;a=p3NT(good 4M)p4d(slam try)p4sppp" width="200px"></iframe> <iframe height="200px" src="http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?&amp;b=19&amp;d=s&amp;v=e&amp;a=2d(weak Multi)4sppp" width="200px"></iframe>


Northern Ireland v Wales

<iframe height="200px" src="http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?&amp;b=19&amp;d=s&amp;v=e&amp;a=p1sp2cp3sp4sppp" width="200px"></iframe> <iframe height="200px" src="http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?&amp;b=19&amp;d=s&amp;v=e&amp;a=p1c(strong)3cxp4sp4np5c(3 key cards)p5d(ask)p6d(SQ+DK)p7sppp" width="200px"></iframe>

Congratulations to Ciara Burns and John Murchan, Northern Ireland, for being the only pair in the solid grand slam.But strong twos would have made this hand simple. They are the future!

Life in LV for me is very active.   Besides housework, blogging, TV, hair dressers and nail salons, I play bridge three times a week and frequent the casinos with Bobby for half an hour each evening and then on to dinner. We don’t do much socializing because of Bobby’s hearing, but every Wednesday at noon when my dear friend Martha Beecher is not on one of her frequent Asian escapades, I meet her for brunch.   Today we were joined by my friends Carol Pincus and Jo Goldsmith (Jo — now married to Ben –  but the former wife of Bart Bramley).

She told a story at lunch that had us in stitches, although it had a sad ending.   Back in 1971, when married to Bart, on their honeymoon they visited the Southeasterns in Miami.  According to Jo .. at the First Table the director was called because of slow play by Bart; at Table Two Jo had the director called on her because she was sucking a lollipop.   By the time they reached Table Three, the director had already been summoned as a man had keeled over dead.  We have all experienced unusual directorial situations in our bridge careers, but you must admit this sequence is hard to equal.

Playing online with pickup partners, nearly all of our bad boards were the result of poor decisions.

The ebook version of my new book, Overcalling Opponent's 1NT, is now available at www.ebooksbridge.com.  Specifically, http://ebooksbridge.com/www/ebb/index.php?main_page=ebb_product_book_info&cPath=138_136&products_id=486.

THe print version should be available in a few days.

Today (Wednesday, January 11th) is the day when the Twin City Bridge Center celebrates Sharon Anderson's new position as President of the ACBL!

Hope you can make the game at 11AM and celebrate with Sharon!

Andy Caranicas is one of our Twin Cities players who has had success at the national level.  In 2009, Andy won the 0-1500 Mini-Spingold.  That win was followed the next year with a Grand National Flight B victory.

Like many of our competitors, Andy sometimes plays at Bridgebase to hone his game.  In this speedball tournament, Andy analyses an interesting hand - and ...  Well, I will let Andy explain it in his own words below!

You might also wish to check out what Bridge Master is.  Andy references it in his article, and I was not familiar with it.  Looks like a super tool!

Thanks, Andy!

Download BBO_Hand

I'm pleased to say that the Selection Committee has made no changes to the SBU team for the second Camrose weekend in East Kilbride in March. The Scotland team is also unchanged.

This gives both teams the opportunity to finish the job they've started and to build on good performances in Oxford. With all the local support I'm sure the teams will do well.

The SBU Team, Camrose Trophy 2012

Defence is hard, I'm sure I've mentioned that before. I messed up this hand in a big way and the worst thing was although I could see it coming I didn't put enough thought in to work out how to prevent it.

North	South
1♥	1♠
2♣	3N

	♠ A 8 6 ♥ Q 5 4 3 2 ♦ 2 ♣ A K T 2
♣ 5		♠ J 7 5 ♥ A T 9 7 ♦ T 9 7 6 5 ♣ 4

Partner leads a club; we lead 3^rds and 5^ths and I suspect this is a 5^th.

Rather oddly declarer hops up with the Ace dropping the 8 from hand and plays a diamond to the Queen and partners King.

Partner returns the ♣2 which runs to the Queen and you pitch the ♠7 (rev count). Now comes the ♦A, partner follows small, and the ♦J on which partner discards the ♣6 (dummy discards two hearts).

With your newly set up ♦T9 and the ♥A still an entry it's easy to feel pretty good about this hand. Declarer now leads out the ♥K, take it or leave it?

(Have a think, it won't hurt)

Decided?

If you have worked it out I'm sure you will agree that declarer isn't on form. Their hand must be 4252 shape which means that aside from bidding their suits out of order simply playing small to the first round of clubs would have secured the contract.

Regardless if you grab the ♥A and take you two rounds of diamonds you'll probably be looking at this:

	♠ A 8 ♥ Q ♦ - ♣ K T
♠ Q x x ♥ - ♦ - ♣ J x		♠ J 5 ♥ T 9 7 ♦ - ♣ -
	♠ K x x x ♥ x ♦ - ♣ -

From here it won't matter whether declarer has any idea what this position actually means. You'll play a spade to the table where maybe he'll first play the ♣K but sure as anything he'll cash the ♥Q and when that last round of hearts is played your partner is squeezed in the blacks.

If you duck the heart declarer has end play opportunities if he can guess the shape but we know that isn't happening.