Strangeness in Bridge This Week

Monday and Tuesday nights, I did 3 things that I’m not sure I’ve ever done in bridge.

Monday, Joel and I were playing imp pairs online against Bob Heller and Emory. I held something like ♠xxx, ♥AKQxx, ♦x, ♣Qxxx. The auction was something like 1♣-1♥-X-2♥; 2♠-P-4♠-P; P-P so I was on lead against 4♠ and selected the singleton diamond. Joel dutifully won the ace and led one back for me to ruff. Obviously he didn’t lead a high spot for a heart suit preference, but with a singleton in dummy, I took a chance that he had the ♥J and led low from my heart honors for a second diamond ruff. It worked! Plays like that are so fun when they work, and that’s one of the few things I like about imps. When the opponents are in what seems to be a fairly easy game, you can take risks like this. In matchpoints, I probably would not underlead the hearts because I figure we may already be ahead of the field by getting the ruff.

Tuesday, playing with Emory, I held -, Axx, AKQJxx, AQxx and opened 1♦. Partner not surprisingly bid 1♠ and I jump-shifted to 3♣. Now he bids 4♥. I guess this is a splinter with club support, but wasn’t entirely sure. Not knowing what 4♠ or 4NT would mean here (there’s a reasonable case for both being natural), I tanked for at least a minute to mull over things. 5♠ exclusion to find out about the ♣K might be what I want to bid, but since that’s partner’s long suit, I’m not sure of that one either. Clubs may still not be a great spot if his clubs are only Kxxx as a 4-1 split could cause problems. Eventually I decided to jump to the diamond grand. If p has short hearts, he has to have some diamond support. Worst case scenario for this bid is for p to have ♠KQxxxx, ♥x, ♦xx, ♣Kxxx. With that, a trump lead would leave me needing a ruffing spade finesse and 3-2 clubs, but 7♦ is a cold if p has ♠Axxxx, ♥x, ♦xxx, ♣Kxxx – I can always score 2 heart ruffs and pitch the potential 4^th round club loser on the ♠A. His actual hand included 6 wasted hcp in spades: ♠KQJTx, ♥x, ♦xxx, ♣KJTx.

Later that night, I picked up ♠-, ♥xxxxx, ♦xxxx, ♣ATxx and at favorable vulnerability saw it go 1♣-X to me. Some days I might try 1♠ or 2♠ but Emory doesn’t take such jokes well and settled for 3♣ as my way to preempting. It didn’t work as LHO has a 7 card spade suit (I don’t think anything would have kept him from bidding 4♠), but this is the only time I can remember raising partner’s minor with 4 card support rather than bidding a 5 card major.

Gatinburg Squeeze/Endplay

I only made it to Gatlinburg for the weekend. I thought I had a reasonable plans for the weekend but all such plans somehow fell though and I would up playing the Saturday-Sunday KO with Jim, Wendy, and Tom, who kept me down in bracket 3 (out of 4). It’s kind of amazing how much attendance drops off – the KO that started Friday had 15 brackets but only 4 in the KO starting Saturday. The midnight games were fun as always as well and I was on the winning team both nights. I also enjoyed playing against a Quebecois couple thrice in full KO and found a new favorite liquor - Fireball (cinnamon whiskey). This was an interesting declarer play problem from Sunday.

Dealer: N Vul: None		North ♠ J8 ♥ T9xx ♦ Q ♣ KT98xx
		South ♠ KT7x ♥ QJ8x ♦ AKx ♣ Qx
West	North		East	South
—	Pass		2♠	Pass
Pass	3♣		Pass	3NT
Pass	Pass		Pass

Dummy wasn’t as promising as I expected but there’s still a play for 3NT. 4♥ has no play being off 4 tops plus a spade ruff and a possible club ruff. The play started with a low spade to the A, then ♠Q to my K with LHO discarding a discouraging diamond.

My ♣Q held trick 3 and LHO rose with the ♣A for trick 4 as RHO shed a spade. Next was a diamond to dummy, taking out the entry to the clubs. There appear to be 9 tricks via 2 spades, 2 hearts, 3 diamonds, and 2 clubs if I knock out the heart honors now. The last 2 hearts would provide the transportation to cash the ♣K in dummy and the pointed honors in hand. I can’t afford to cash any of those before the hearts are knocked out because that would set up the defense’s 5^th trick to go along with the ♠A, ♥AK, and ♣A. However, my HQ was allowed to win trick 6 so I have to arrange some sort of squeeze/endplay or have the good fortune of LHO having both heart honors and no 4^th diamond.

Not quite sure where I wanted to end up after the last heart, I played low to the T and RHO’s K at trick 7. She continued diamonds. Now I play LHO for the ♥A so cash the ♠T at trick 9. LHO is known to have to discard from ♠-, ♥A, ♦xx, ♣Jx. Obviously he can’t throw a heart but if he throws a diamond, I cash my last diamond and throw him in with a heart, forcing him to give dummy the last 2 club tricks. If he throws a club, I play HJ to throw him before taking the last diamond with the HT as an entry to the now-good clubs.

Traveling with Winter

Having Winter with me brought a new appreciation for the winter season. Obviously, Siberian Huskies love the cold weather and even though I do not, I could tell she was happy with the cold weather, often staying outside all night. Plus, she was easier to handle because I didn’t need to worry about leaving her in the car during dinner or a bridge game or a shopping trip and she would be fine. She certainly likes that better than being left home alone or in the crate at a hotel.

Winter is still coming with me on some bridge trips but simply coming along on day trips or while I run errands around town won’t be happening so much because of the heat. I have 1 week trips to regionals in Richmond regional at the end of May and 1 week at the Greenville SC regional in the middle June, and I plan to take Winter on both of those trips. I’m sure I will have other trips this summer but I haven’t planned those – I’m waiting to see what the actual days of the impending furlough will be and whether we will have any flexibility on when to take them.

As I think I have mentioned before, there are so many places I’d like to visit but most of them probably won’t happen this year. Things I haven’t mentioned are bridge festivals. Several European cities have tournaments with substantial cash prizes. I wish the ACBL or some other bridge organization would run more cash prize tournaments in the US. These tournaments have late starting times or sometimes only 1 session per day at about 4pm.  The one I’m looking at most is the one in Biarritz the first week of July.  Who wants to help pay my way to that?

The warm weather has reignited my desire to run and play tennis. Actually, the last time Winter escaped, about 4 weeks ago, I discovered a nice trail through the woods in my neighborhood. It’s down in a valley and shaded so should be good for a late afternoon 1.2 mile jog a few times per week. It certainly beats running on the street.

Bridge hands from Tuesday night!

In case there are eager readers who have been checking this site regularly awaiting a new bridge deal, the time has come. If you read this blog for the non-technical bridge articles, check back tomorrow - there will be something for you!

Last night I had some interesting problems. The most interesting to me was this defensive hand.

Dealer: N Vul: None			North ♠ AQJx ♥ T8x ♦ xx ♣ KQTx
West ♠ 543 ♥ AJ96 ♦ KTx ♣ 973						East ♠ KTxx ♥ K7 ♦ J9xx ♣ AJ8
			South ♠ xx ♥ Qxxx ♦ AQ8x ♣ xxx
West	North		East	South
—	1♣		Pass	1♦
Pass	1♠		Pass	1NT
Pass	Pass		Pass

I, west, started out with my 4^th best heart. I really wanted to lead a spade against this auction but decided to go with the field this time. Declarer only has 4 sure tricks – 2 spades, a club, and a diamond – and with best defense, that’s all he can take. However, we take the first 3 tricks in hearts while setting up declarer’s Q, so that’s 5 tricks for declarer. There’s no way to really know that south had 4 hearts rather than the suit being 4333. I would have held off playing the 3^rd round of hearts (with a sure diamond entry, there’s no way the ♥A could go away), but didn’t know which suit to lead next. At trick 3, on the ♥A partner played the ♦9. Well, that tells me not to lead a diamond but I don’t think I was going to do that anyway.

Now I guess to lead a club and select the 7. Dummy wins the K and comes off with the ♠Q. Partner takes this and fires a diamond through and my ten takes the trick. By now we both know declarer is at least 4-4 in the red suits and east “knows” that declarer has 3 clubs – my lead of the 7 could hardly have been from a 4 card suit and declarer’s spade play sort of implies that he has a doubleton. Anyway, now I put the ♣9 on the table, clearing up the club count, sort of. At least it guarantees that I have a 3^rd club or else I would have led the 9 first. Declarer finesses and when partner wins the J, it is tempting to cash the A. However, he can safely lead another diamond, knowing that he still has spades stopped and that I am kind of marked with another diamond honor. Plus, since I now am “known” to have 3 clubs, we’ll still be able to take the club later. I guess it could go away if declarer’s initial diamond holding was AKxxx because the early diamond discard now means declarer’s 4^th diamond would be a winner. But with that, he may have tried to set up diamonds on his own.

My second most interesting problem of the night was an opening lead against 2♠. RHO had opened a 15-17 1NT and LHO transferred to spades while my p stuck in a lead-directing double of 2♥. I held ♠QTx, ♥AJTx, ♦xx, ♣J9xx. Obviously I’m going to lead a heart and if partner has the KQ, it doesn’t really matter which heart I lead. However, if partner has only the K (say Kxxxx), it may be necessary to let p win the first heart trick so we can finesse declarer out of the Q and start tapping dummy. If I start with the ♥A, we may not be able to effectively make dummy ruff without setting up declarer’s Q. I will not even consider the possibility that partner does not have the ♥K – Kxxxx is the bare minimum for a lead-directing double at the 2-level (in fact, I actually think that suit is too weak but I won’t argue much against it).

So, the question is: will the J, T, or x be more likely to get partner to play the K at trick 1? I figured if I lead the J or T, he may let it go with K-empty, thinking we may not have adequate spots to be wasting 2 honors. If I lead low, at least it could be from the Q so he’ll surely play 3^rd hand high. So, I selected the small heart it was a revolting development when dummy tabled Qx and it went low, 8, 9.

My third interesting problem was what to do with QJxx, AQJ9xx, J, Jx after it went 1♠-2♦ to me. There are four reasonable options:

a) 2♥, planning to bid 4♠ next time (or 5♠ if they take an advance save).

b) 3♦, a limit raise or better, but then how do I know whether I have the right hand to move if partner just jumps to game.

c) 4♦, a splinter, putting things in partner’s hands.

d) 3♥, a fit-showing jump-shift. This is really the best option if you are playing a jump-shift this way. I’m not sure if Emory and I are or not so I didn’t bid it.

This is more of a bidding theory/style kind of problem – nothing interesting actually happened on this deal.

Saint Louis

So, St. Louis was as cold and miserable weather-wise as it was last time I was there, except for one day when it was sunny in the high 60’s. The quality of bridge pretty well mimicked that this time as well. We didn’t embarrass ourselves as we were close to qualifying in the NAP’s and after not qualifying in either that event or the Imp Pairs, we teamed with Meg and Chris to win a compact KO with relative ease. The semifinal match was kind of close but the other 3 matches were routs.

We had our chances in the imp pairs and probably were in decent position to qualify until Joe and Barbara came to our table half-way through the second session. Joel and I conspired to let Joe make a terrible 3NT contract. It would have been down 4 or 5 if I had made the obvious play of returning partner’s suit. He had preempted 3D with AQJxxx and his Q held trick 1. With 2 little both in dummy and my hand, he switched to something, then when I got in, I didn’t lead a diamond, thinking declarer had ducked with AKx and we had no future in the suit. We still could have beaten if by 1 but Joel sort of reasonably discarded the HK to try to get out of an endplay. I pitched another 25 imps on the next 4 boards and that was that. Except for those 5 boards, we were about average. 

Anyway, I was irritated that the Indian restaurants were not open on the weekend. I guess it’s my fault for not checking ahead of time and arranging my meals to include a lunch there during the week. I do highly recommend The Range, a cute burger joint with milk shakes and a huge beer selection. We celebrated Pi Day with pizza at Pi Pizzeria. The deal was the second pizza is $3.14 and we wound up taking over half of it back to the room. However, the pizza didn’t fit in the micro-fridge very well and after the maid came through the next day, half of our pizza was gone (the other half, which happened to be my half, was safely in the fridge). 

Meg, if you’re reading this, Joel says thanks!

So, it’s been awhile since I wrote on here. I promise it isn’t because I haven’t had anything interesting to write about – I’ve played quite a bit of bridge in the first 2 months of 2012, including parts of 2 regionals and the entirety of another regional but it has only amounted to 2.5 days of vacation. Things should settle down to normal sometime soon. There’s a big stack of score cards with hands jotted down and circles and squares and stars to help me find the blog-worthy or book-worthy deals. With a trip to Saint Louis for the NABC coming tomorrow, that stack will likely have to wait even longer.

What have I been doing? Working a lot. They’ve been encouraging us to work longer hours at work. I’ve obliged, plus I have spent a good bit of my free time learning about the D7 News and figuring out how I am going to do things different from (and how I’m going to do things the same as, and probably how I’m going to still need) Bob Heller now that I am in charge. The week of the Macon regional was really too much but it was all fun. While I had virtually nothing to do with the overall planning of the tournament, I had an incredibly busy week that included: 5 hours of work at my engineering job each week day, doing all the work for the daily bulletin, serving as caddy master, and playing 2 sessions of bridge every day (except the day we lost in the KO semis was only 1 session). And I must say, I performed very well on all fronts.

Bridge Big Squeeze

So, I’ve been playing on bridgebig.com a good bit lately – that new site where you play anonymously for money and the website takes 10% or so of the entry fees. It doesn’t seem to be gaining much popularity, especially not in the US. It’s a good idea in theory and I wish it would gain popularity. It seems that at most there are maybe 30 players online and it pretty much all ends around 7pm because most of the players on there are European.

One of the main problems with the setup is that there is a lack of agreements. I mean, there’s a convention card but it is missing a lot of detail that would even be on a regular ACBL convention card, like whether systems are on when they overcall over a 1NT opening and what continuations are over the 1M-2NT as a limit+ raise.

On this deal from a short matchpoint game, I had couldn’t figure out what my partner was doing after I opened 1NT. He has just a standard transfer and bid 3NT hand. Then if I correct to 4♥, you might consider making a slam try. However, he transferred to hearts and then bid 2♠. When I raised spades, he bid 3NT. When I corrected that to 4♥, he bid 4NT. Did he misclick and intend to Stayman instead of transfer? Did he misclick and intend to bit 2NT instead of 2♠? Did he decide his hand is worth a slam try with a 5-3 heart fit but not with a 4-4 spade fit? I didn’t know what he was doing so I passed 4NT. It’s matchpoints anyway, so I can just play it well and get a top that way. By the way, even though the tournaments are small, the “field” still has 20-30 results. I’m not sure where they get the deals and results to matchpoint against – maybe from other tournaments or from computer simulations.

Dealer: S Vul: NS	North ♠ A62 ♥ K7643 ♦ K95 ♣ AT
West ♠ J73 ♥ QJ98 ♦ QJ6 ♣ 864		East ♠ 84 ♥ T ♦ 87432 ♣ KJ932
	South ♠ KQT95 ♥ A52 ♦ AT ♣ Q75

North	East	South	West
1♣	1♥	1NT	2♥
3NT	Pass	Pass	Pass

Since hearts split badly, 5 was the limit is hearts so I needed to make only 5NT to get a near top. However, I didn’t find out the heart split until trick 12 so I put a lot of effort into making 6. It turns out there’s a pretty simple squeeze against west. West led a club, east won the K and returned a club. I won that, ran spades, pitching 2 spades from dummy. I played the ♦K, ♦A, ♣Q, pitching another heart. I was down to ♥A52 in hand and ♥K7 ♦9. West could not hold both a diamond and heart stopper so I made 6 for 97% of the matchpoints. The only higher score was 5♦X -5.