Sunday, July 31, 2011

Back to reality

The return trip from a long bridge tournament is always sad. At NABCs (and most mid-Atlantic regionals) I can't keep still and rest. It's ten days of non-stop social activity and mental stimulation. Tomorrow resumes a much more mundane life but I still have a lot going on in August including 2 bridge tournaments and a tennis tournament.

Personal totals for the tournament:
26 sessions of bridge, including 8 midnight games
208 deals in matchpoint games
336 deals in imp scoring
32 masterpoints won (3 platinum, 22 gold, 7 red)
3 different partners (6 deals each with Josh and Shaz, the rest with Sean)
34 alcoholic drinks
5 visits to Chipotle
4 meals of Indian food

We managed 2nd place four times (in a bracketed KO and 3 midnight games) but did not win anything so did not come back with any of the maple syrup section top prizes.

A wise top-notch bridge player (jlall) has said that in matchpoints when the auction goes 2NT-P-P, you should double. When the opponents have 20hcp opposite a near yarborough, they go down much more often then they make because of having to lead from hand so often. In side games on the last day, I got a chance to try this theory out twice. Both times dummy hit with a nice 4-count and we wound up giving up an extra overtrick in desperation, scoring -1090 and -690. Maybe next time we'll get +800.

We now have at least one more person on board the Swedish Canape train. Yay.

Sent from my iPhone

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Mini-Spingold (under 5000)

I must say I am impressed with the competition in the mini-Spingold so far. It's clearly a tougher field than I thought it would be. The Whipple team, the heavy favorites to win, just squeaked through day 1 and lost in day 2. Our team, who I had high expectations for, narrowly lost in day 2 as well. The Lewis team including David Sokolow beat us by 17 and beat the lavee team (including a world champion and some other low-level pros) by 73 today. We had an incredibly fun match against them. Needless to say I am rooting for them to make it to the finals.

The other team I hope makes it to the finals is the Dezieck team (including my 4 new favorite bridge people Shaz Taslimi, Nicholas Smith, Alex Dezieck, and Josh Parks). They surprised a lot of people making it to the quarterfinals free beating the team that clobbered Alli Howard and Scott Stearns yesterday.

The results from the mini Spingold and all of NABC can be found at http://www.acbl.org/nabc/index.php?a=2011&b=Summer&c=daily_bulletins

I guess I'm playing the nabc fast pairs tomorrow and Friday. Sean and I will be doing something we've never done together before - play 2/1.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Crepes

Crepes are awesome. I wish more places in the US served them. I think I might wind up going to the crepe cafe more then chipotle while here in toronto.

I'm feeling weird for a few reasons but Toronto has been super nice. We didn't make the first cut of the open life master pairs so entered a KO with Cristal and Max and lost in the final in extra innings.

Here was the most awesome hand. You have K65432, -, A, AKT9xx. Partner opens 2C showing 11-16 with 4+ clubs, possibly with a longer major. I couldn't figure out how to exclusion in hearts but when I asked for more information, p bid 2H showing 5hearts and 4+ clubs: big surprise. At that point I bid minorwood and signed off in 6C when p showed 1. It was frigid. At the other table, they opened 1H and my hand bid 1S which was raised. At his point the opp in my seat jumped to 6S. Thankfully QT9x was offside so out gtesmmates got 2 trump tricks for win 14.
Tomorrow starts the spingold and we actually have high hopes. I'm sleepy.
Sent from my iPhone

Monday, July 18, 2011

Cancelling a 2/1 Game Force

Now that I have completed my service work for the summer, I feel justified in going to spend 10 days goofing off, sightseeing, drinking, but mostly playing some serious bridge in Toronto. Go here first and here next to read about my experiences as a volunteer and crew leader for the River of Life service project last week.

I head out Thursday afternoon to Toronto via bus from Macon to the Atlanta airport, flight to Buffalo, and then a bus to Toronto, and return home 10 days later. If all goes well, I'll be playing bridge 9 days straight in main events with Sean. If things don't go quite so great, I'm sure I'll find plenty of fun things to get into.

I did get to play bridge twice last week and at least one interesting question arose. We all know that you should have 26 points to bid major suit and NT games but 29 to bid minor suit games simply because you need 11 tricks instead of 10 or 9. So, when an auction starts 1H-2C and you eventually decide you can’t play 3NT and don’t have a major suit fit, can you cancel the game-forcing part of the 2C response? I mean, theoretically, you need some extra values for bidding 5C to be right so there should be some invitational bid even after you've game-forced. A minimum opening opposite a minimum game force is only about 25 points but it seems that most people nowadays say you have to go ahead and bid 5C because they prefer to use a 4m bid to be roman key card blackwood.

1H-2C; 2D-3C; 3D is the start of a sequence in question. Perhaps the only way to stop in 4C should be for responder to bid 3S over 3D (basically asking for a spade stopper) and opener retreat to 4C (with no spade stopper and no extras). But even then, there are a significant number of people who think 4C should be stronger than 5C. Does the game-before-slam principle apply here or are we in a slam try auction whether we want to be or not? If responder bids 4C over 3D, is that forcing or invitational? If we’ve determined that 4C in either auction is forcing, is it Minorwood or not? So that you don't have a misunderstanding, unless you have a chance to discuss all the little variations of sequences that lead to a 4C bid, it is probably best to treat a 2/1 as a game force without exception and a 4m bid as minorwood anytime you are in a game force.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Revokes and Claims

Claims are good because they speed up the game and allow us time for hands that still require thought. So, it's a good idea to claim when you are certain of how many tricks you will take. Another reason to claim is to keep from revoking. We may reach a point in a hand that we know we have all the tricks but it's still at trick 5 so and our opponents might not understand the claim so we play a few more tricks until maybe one hand becomes all winners. In the mean time, we begin thinking of other things since in our mind this hand is over and may revoke. This happened to Sean and I last weekend and cost us first in the flight A pairs. The revoke was not found until 2 or 3 tricks later so it was a clear penalty.

I saw it happen again today while directing at the club. Well not exactly the same. This one is somewhat debatable as to whether the revoke was established. LHO declarer led a diamond at trick 9, declarer trumped, and then faced her hand: the only 2 remaining trumps plus the ace-king of diamonds. At first I had a soft spot for this person and still allowed her to take the last 5 tricks that she clearly is entitled to. The defenders called me but didn't think there would be any change either. But then I looked up the ruling and a claim is considered playing to the next trick, thus establishing a revoke. So, I changed the result to down 2 instead of down 1, costing them exactly half a board. :/

Another interesting ruling I encountered today was when dummy plays the wrong card. sort of. Declarer had a suit AJxx opposite KTx and played the ace and low to the ten. Declarer and LHO thought she called for the T but dummy and RHO thought she called for the K. Dummy asked for clarification while having her hand on the K (but not pulling it out to the played position). Before declarer could respond, RHO followed low. Dummy then played the T and then continued with the K, to which RHO followed with the Q and declarer followed low. At this point LHO called me to the table. Dummy is not supposed to even touch a card unless it is a played card because it can suggest a play or mislead the opponents. RHO should have done more to protect herself. If she had called after she realized that the T was what was actually called from dummy (or even before following to the next trick), she would be allowed to take back her play and score the Q.

There was exactly one other loser in this 4H contract and I was inclined to give a split result: -480 for NS and +450 for EW since both were kind of at fault here. But I let it stand as -480.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Bridge Dreams

I was in charge of a bridge game at a country club and was expecting about 10 tables. However, people just kept coming and coming. By the 1pm game time, we had added a couple of tables outside in the pool area and started the game with 16 tables in play. By 1:10, that number had grown to 22.  But people kept coming in and we kept adding more tables all around the pool. I wound up starting a new game at 1:25 with another 18 table section, in addition to the 22 tables that were in the first section. And people were still walking in and wanting to play. At this point, if we were going to add more tables, they would have to be floating tables.

A couple of pairs did fall into the water and needed to be replaced. Fortunately, many of the really late arrivers stuck around in hopes of getting in the game.

If only a bridge club game (in a place other than south Florida, filled with tons of retirees) could actually garner that much participation...

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Squeezes are sexier than finesses but not when the squeeze is a 5% play

Time for some hands from the Atlanta sectional.

♠AJxxx Axx Kx ♣Q9x. IMPS, 3rd seat, white vs. red.
P-1♣-1♠-P; 2♠-3♣-P-P; X-P-P-P

What is partner doubling on? This isn't a classic maximal double (1S-P-2S-3H; X) since we can't be sure that it's our hand, but it is basically maximal - something bordering on a limit raise with tolerance for defending 3♣X if I have a defensive-oriented hand. Here it seems awfully aggressive since he's a passed hand opposite a one-level overcall. With this hand, I happily passed.

Dummy hit with a yarborough 3-5-3-2 hand. My spade ace lead gave declarer the spade king that he doesn't always deserve but we still managed to collect 800 via 2 diamonds, 2 hearts, a spade, and 2 diamond ruffs.

You are defending against the uncontested auction was 1NT-2♣-2-2NT-P. 2 showed 5 hearts. You hold ♠KTxx xx KJx ♣QJxx and lead a low spade.
Dummy has ♠QJxx x xxx ♣AT8xx. Dummy's Q wins trick one and he leads a low club to partner's K, then he leads a diamond to your J, then you play the K with declarer winning the ace. Declarer then leads the ♣9. Do you split the honors? My LHO did and it gave me the contract as I ducked and later finessed for the other club honor, and wound up with 3 club tricks, a diamond, 2 hearts, and 2 spades.

In the end game I had a chance to play for a straight up finesse for the K or play for a simple squeeze and endplay against the opening leader. At trick 11, with dummy to cash the last club, dummy still had ♠J and x while I had AQX left. Since I kind of knew that the opening leader's shape, that would require the opening leader to have started with Kx and RHO 5 small (or 5 to the T9 as the case may have been), clearly the anti-percentage play and not something worth trying in any situation, unless lho had bid. Recognizing this as a potential option and shooting it down is a sign of a good declarer.

One of our lose 10's was when we stayed out of game on these cards:
♠x Q9x AQTxx ♣xxxx
♠Qxxx AKJTxx xx ♣x
I opened a canape 1♠ so partner wasn't able to figure out that the spade singleton was a good thing. And it's not such a great contract if the opponents lead trumps and diamonds don't behave. They led trumps against me but with diamonds were 3-3 with KJ onside and hearts 2-2, I couldn't help but make 6. At the other table, they opened my hand with a weak 2 and I guess responder upgraded when the opponents overcalled and raised spades?

Monday, July 4, 2011

Recent director calls

You know your standards are high when 17 points for 6 sessions at a sectional is disappointing. That's what Sean and I did this weekend at the Atlanta sectional and over half of those points were from 2nd in the flight A pairs Friday.

Today's post, however, is about director rulings. I've seen several of them the last 2 days.
The auction goes 1C-P-1H-2H; X-P-P-P. 1C was alerted as bal 12-14 or any 17+. 1H was alerted as natural but canape-style. 2H was not alerted but after the auction it was apparent that it was natural. The director ruled that the auction can only be rolled back to responder over 2HX. Now, taking X as 17+ takeout rather than 3 card heart support (as it would be over a non-natural 2H), I, responder bid 3C. The ruling was correct but one of us should have figured out that defending 2HX was still our best spot. I mean, it is authorized information that opener has a support double so defending when we have 7 trumps and at least half the points couldn't be too bad. Unless I think my partner may have initially treated 2H as natural and actually has a strong takeout.

The second director problem really surprised me because both the director and my lho, a former world champ, didn't understand. P-1NT-P-P-2D-P-3S. 2D was alerted, opener looked at the properly filled out CC (which clearly says H+S), opener then asked and the explanation was look at the card because I wasn't 100% sure of the meaning but it is definitely on the card. After I bid 3S, my p went away so I could tell them that 2D shows the majors. The director then allows opener to take back her pass over 2D and change it to 3C. Why? What new information was gained and why were they entitled to that to begin with? They aren't and the director later admitted that there was noninfraction and the auction should have continued normally with no roll back. Perhaps a relatively new TD was intimidated by Eric's presence at the table?

One more that someone complained about today when I was directing: there are no penalties for revokes at trick 12. Just correct the illegally played card. If there is a revoke, there really isn't any choice of what to play instead or what to lead next and the main point of revoke penalties is to restore equity, which is easy to do at trick 12.