Swiss Team Success

We're not talking about the first 3 sessions of bridge at the San Diego NABC: 2 slightly below average sessions in the LM Pairs and losing by 1 imp in bracket 2 of a KO. The last 3 sessions, however, were pretty memorable and competition was much much weaker. Sean and I won the Saturday night side game and had 2 below average boards for the session. On one, we didn't bid a cold 4S with 14 opposite 9 hcp and nothing special in distribution. The other bad board was when Sean preempted 3D with AKQxxx and out, doubled and down 3. We got 1.5 out of 22 matchpoints on those two but bridge was easy otherwise despite consuming large amounts of rum throughout the session.

Sunday we played Swiss Teams with Giorgia and her partner. It got off to a very gloomy start, not unlike the last time Sean and I played in a Swiss game together with Megan and Patrick in Athens.

Board 1 was boring but on board 2 I picked up at none vulnerable: x, JT8xx, x, AKJxxx. I opened 1H, promising 4 and the auction proceeds 1S - X (3 card H support) - 2H; 4H - 4S - P - P; 5H - P - P - X; all pass. Probably not the best bidding in the world but I really thought 5H would be a good save over 4S. And it would have been good if I had just played for down 3. I got tapped out and lost trump control when I tried to draw a 2nd round of trumps. If I just play for hearts to split 4-1 and start running the clubs after the first round of trumps, I can never lose more than 3 hearts, a spade, and a diamond. But I was greedy trying to go down only 1 or 2 and wound up down going down 5 for -1100 against +420 at the other table. In matchpoints it's right to play a second trump as down 2 would be close to a top while down 3 or more would be basically a 0. But in imps, down 3 is only a 2 imp loss compared to a 3 imp gain for down 2 while down 5 as we saw was -12 imps.

On our third board, I picked up ATxx, x, xxx, AT9xx at favorable vulnerability. Partner opened a big club, rho bid 1S and I passed showing 0-7hcp or a trap pass. Partner, obligated to reopen with a double with almost any balanced or takeout double-shaped hand, did reopen with a double which I sat for. I think the chances of getting 500 or 800 are excellent and bidding/making slam are unlikely. Plus I was eager to make up for the previous board. But this bidding is not unreasonable at all and we would have had no trouble setting the contract 1 trick if I just led a minor suit card to start the tapping game. But I decided to start with my singleton heart and was unable to get enough heart ruffs to set the contract. Declarer was 6-4 in the majors. I don't totally disagree with partner's reopening double on J, xxx, AKQJxx, KQJ, but I probably would have just bid 2D. Anyway, we got desperate toward the end of the hand and allowed an overtrick for -360 while we are cold for 6 of a minor. So, 3 boards into it, we've blown at least 25 imps.

Fortunately, the rest of the day was smooth sailing and we finished 5th out of 67 with 134VPs out of a possible 180.