Combining Chances

The made us play a lot of bridge in the Swiss in Seaside on Sunday. Seven 8 board matches with a long lunch break and starting at 10:30 instead of the 10:00 that we are used to. So, instead of finishing between 4:45 and 5:00, finishing between 6:45 and 7:00 made travel afterward kind of a pain. Jim and Nancy booked an 8:30 flight out of Portland, roughly an hour and a half drive from the playing site, and had to skip the last match to catch their flight. We didn’t even know that we were playing 7 rounds until after lunch, just assuming it was six rounds of 8 like it typically is in the Mid-Atlantic. Anyway, we were able to get a pair to fill in who had played in the fast pairs and I was able to get another ride to the airport because my flight wasn’t until 10:55pm.

I said I would write about another failed slam, but really, this one – the last hand of the tournament – is more interesting, and I actually got it right.
 

Dealer: S Vul: NS	North ♠ xx ♥ KJxx ♦ KQ9xx ♣ xx
	South ♠ Qxxx ♥ Axxx ♦ Ax ♣ ATx

East	South	West	North
	1NT	Pass	2♣
Pass	2♥	Pass	4♥
Pass	Pass	Pass

1NT was 14-17. West led the ♠A, got a discouraging 9 from east, and shifted to a low club to east’s Q. It appears that this contract now depends on picking up hearts for no losers, meaning a 3-2 break with the Q onside is needed with. The contract has almost zero chance with a bad trump break so for now, let’s consider only 3-2 breaks. There is another option of cashing diamonds quickly to discard my two remaining clubs so I could then ruff dummy’s second club. This means taking the HAK first. If the Q falls, I draw the last trump. If the Q does not fall, I’ll start trying to run diamonds. This wins anytime the Q is doubleton (40% of the 3-2 splits), or anytime diamonds are 3-3 (36%), or when the person with only 2 hearts has JT doubleton of diamonds (negligible%). Combining the Qx chance with the 3-3 diamonds chance, it is 62% likely to make the contract (.40 + .36*.60). By taking just a heart finesse, it’s 50% because the defense would have 2 easy black kings to cash for the setting trick. The 62% and 50% numbers are based on an assumption that hearts are splitting 3-2.

In practice, the contract is makable on some 4-1 trump splits if diamonds are 3-3 because you'd still be able to pich all of south's clubs before they can trump in and lose only a heart and 2 spades. My line works when the singleton is the Q in either hand and 3-3 diamonds (.36*.28*.2 = .02). The heart finesse like works when Qxxx is onside or there's a singleton Q and 3-3 diamonds (.02 + .36*.28*.8*.5 = .04).
Overall, my line wins 43.5% of the time: .678*.62 + .02
The heart finesse wins 39.9%: .678*.5 +.02 + .04
Yeah, that covers all the possibilities.

When I made this play (it was Qx offside and diamonds were not 3-3 so this was the only way to make), I got a look of disapproval/dismay from my opponents that I often give when an opponent makes an anti-percentage play that works against me. Little did they know that this is the technically correct play.

Here’s the slam I referred to. Through 4 rounds we were right at average and felt like we were losing the 5^th match so Alli pushed a bit to bid this slam.

Dealer: S Vul: NS	North ♠ Txxx ♥ AQxx ♦ Jxxx ♣ J
	South ♠ A ♥ Txx ♦ KQT9 ♣ AKQ9x

East	South	West	North
	1♣	Pass	1♥
Pass	2♦	Pass	3♦
Pass	3♥	Pass	4♦
Pass	4♥	Pass	4♠
Pass	5♣	Pass	6♦
Pass	Pass	Pass

West led the ♠Q. Assuming 3-2 diamonds and the ♣T falling in 4 rounds, both pretty much necessary to have any chance at this, there are 11 tricks easy enough – 3 diamonds, 1 ruff, 1 heart, 1 spade, 5 clubs. Where is the 12^th trick coming from? It could be from ruffing 2 spades in hand, but there is big transportation problem with that. A 12^th trick could obviously come from a simple heart finesse but that’s not exciting and only a 50% shot, possibly even less given that east has the ♦A and ♠K?

Is there a line that is better than 50%? I don’t think so, but I pondered this for several minutes before eventually just drawing trumps and relying on a heart finesse, which lost. Mainly I was trying to calculate the odds of drawing 2 rounds of trumps, cashing the ♥A, then 4 rounds of clubs, discarding the rest of dummy’s hearts, then ruffing 2 hearts in dummy. That at least would require the person with 4 clubs to also have 3 diamonds and I that already puts it below 50%. Actually, that doesn’t work either because there still aren’t enough entries to do everything. I guess that one’s just not makeable… lost 12 imps and lost the match by 16.

updated at 9:15am 9/26 with more accurate percentages for the first deal.

Seaside Regional Awesomeness

So, the trip to Seaside, Oregon, was as fun as expected. I thoroughly enjoyed jogging on the boardwalk and playing with Alli and hanging out with all the people I met there. The cards and luck were there for us to rack up 60 or 70 points in 4 days but it took me half a session to get used to playing with Alli again so we didn't take full advantage of all the gifts we were given and finished the 4 days with almost 39 points.

Saturday we played in a bracket 1 compact KO. After winning the first match in a landslide, I found myself in 6NT on the last board of the second match, a match I thought we were slightly leading at that point.
 

Dealer: N Vul: NS	North ♠ AJxx ♥ QT ♦ AKJx ♣ QJx
	South ♠ Kxx ♥ AJ9x ♦ T9 ♣ AKTx

East	South	West	North
			1♦
Pass	1♥	Pass	1♠
Pass	3NT	Pass	4NT
Pass	6NT	Pass	Pass
Pass

West led a standard ♠T. There are 9 top tricks with at least 2 more available in hearts even if that finesse loses, and possibly an extra trick or two in diamonds or spades. Seems like a decent slam to be in and certainly one both tables will bid.

Against my better judgment, I put in the J at trick 1 – probably not the best play because west is more likely to have led from T9xx than QT9 but this time it is irrelevant. The J gets covered I you win the K. Next I cross to dummy with a club to take a heart finesse. It loses to the K and he plays another heart. It seems that I’ll have to take the diamond finesse for the 12^th trick but what other options are there?

After some thought, I realize that if the same person has the ♦Q and 4 spades, he can be squeezed. I apparently didn’t go through the calculations enough or else I would have reached the correct conclusion. After running the ♦A, ♠A, the hearts and clubs, the little spade in hand can be the spade threat while the ♦KJ in dummy poses a diamond threat. I find out that west had 4 hearts, 4 clubs, and at least 2 spades and east 3 hearts and 2 clubs and at least 2 spades. That already places east with more diamonds than west and therefore a more likely candidate to hold the crucial Q. In the two card ending south would be on lead with a small spade and a small diamond while dummy has ♦KJ left. Either the spade will be good or the diamond Q is now singleton... IF the same hand had the ♦Q and 4 spades. The question is whether that is more or less likely than a straight diamond finesse.

Given the heart and club splits, it puts east as a heavy favorite to have started with 4 spades and 4 diamonds. If east has 4 spades, it’s a 57% chance he has the ♦Q (he has 4 out of the 7 outstanding diamonds) and therefore a 57% chance the squeeze will work. But if spades are splitting 3-3 (east therefore being 3-3-5-2), there is no squeeze because either opponent can hold the spade guard. And if west had the Q, it would show up on the second round anyway, so there’s no reason to finesse even in that situation. Then there’s the unlikely scenario that west was 4-4-1-4 and east 2-3-6-2 in which case there is no chance.

Unfortunately, my counterpart was in 3NT making 5 so we lost 13 imps, the entire margin of defeat. The roll Alli and I were on after placing 2^nd and 4^th in the huge open pair games Thursday and Friday came to a halt - should have just played more open pairs. Despite being in an area where we knew very few players, people were noticing that we are good and wanted to play with us and Alli has a hard time saying no. Later, I'll write about another similar slam hand that I went down in at a critical juncture in the Sunday Swiss.

More focus on defense

It's about 8pm and I'm on a flight to Portland now with a lot on my mind but let's start with the most immediate annoyance. Airlines are making us pay to see movies and tv shows in flight? There's a decent selection of movies and tv reruns on this personal entertainment console but every time I try to watch something it asks me to pay. $1 for one rerun of a tv show or $6 for a movie. What a rip off. I want the overhead tvs back with a movie on. I'm not giving in. I'll just have to be content with writing this and email drafts and listening to music on my phone. I didn't even bother bringing my laptop which has a lot of entertainment even sans Internet - it is almost 4 years old and has a battery life of maybe 30 minutes.

Now for the bridge portion of this post.

When I play bridge, I estimate scores (at least in matchpoint games), and mark errors by myself or my partner.

When my partner is someone of comparable bridge skill to me, there might be 5 or 6 total errors on average. The majority of these probably go in the bidding category. And a lot the time we have intelligent discussions and realize that both the winning play and the chosen play were reasonable for various reasons. For some reason, there are fewer times experts get stumped in the card play than in the bidding. To put things in terms of matchpoints given lost by these errors, my research has shown only 20% of the lost matchpoints come from defensive errors while about half are from bidding.

However, as I've played with a lot of players who will someday be good players, I've kept the same kind of records. Their bidding is way more competent than their play and defense. I mark down on my score sheet all the errors, well into the double digits, about 60% of which are defensive, 20% declarer play and 20% bidding. I may only mention a small portion of the "errors" because many are simply beyond what they can handle or at bidding treatments they haven't learned. At the top levels there is more variance in the way players bid while at lower levels there's more variance in the way players play the cards. I'm sure part of this can be attributed the fact that experts have such complex bidding systems and therefore sort of have more options while card play always has the same finite set of options.

People want to learn conventions and fancy bidding systems when they still don't have a solid foundation for taking tricks. I feel like I already bombard my students with more defensive lessons than normal but at the same time they are all far weaker in defense than any other part of the game so I am thinking I need to focus on it even more.

A lot of times I ask the advancing beginners why they chose to play a certain card. It's not that i am trying to put them on the spot and don't necessarily expect them to have to right reason but having some reason to show they are thinking about bridge rather than just throwing cards around is worth a lot. I guess I'm saying faulty reasoning in someone trying to learm bridge is is better than no reasoning. Does that make sense?

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College football rankings

Well, my college football ranking and prediction program is finally up for 2012. Since my other blog is pretty much dead and this one still gets a lot of traffic, I'll post them on here. TCU takes the top spot so far but it's too early for these to mean much. Currently, in addition to the 3 weeks of games, other factors considered are recruiting rankings for this year's class, final ranking from last season, and some adjustments for off season happenings like coaching changes. By the end of week 6, all these will be phased out.

W	L		Team
2	0		TCU
3	0		ALABAMA
2	1		MICHIGAN
2	1		USC
3	0		Ohio
3	0		NOTRE DAME
1	1		BOISE STATE
3	0		CLEMSON
3	0		STANFORD
2	1		VIRGINIA
2	1		ILLINOIS
2	0		WEST VIRGINIA
3	0		OREGON
2	1		OKLAHOMA STATE
3	0		ARIZONA
3	0		LSU
2	0		BAYLOR
2	1		WISCONSIN
1	2		Arkansas State
2	0		OKLAHOMA
2	1		GEORGIA TECH
3	0		GEORGIA
2	1		NORTHERN ILLINOIS
1	2		ARKANSAS
2	1		VIRGINIA TECH

My computer is predicting for week 4:
Georgia Tech 42, Miami 18
Georgia 35, Vanderbilt 19
Florida State 30, Clemson 28
Notre Dame 27, Michigan 24

Failed Squeeze

Here's a hand from BBO a couple of nights ago when I was playing with Sean against Becca and Marianna.
Q
AJxx
97x
KQJxx

AJx
87x
K6xx
Axx

Against 3NT after I showed a weak NT with no 4 card major and Sean showed 4 hearts, Mar led a standard ST and dummy's Q held. Assuming clubs aren't 5-0, I have 8 tricks for sure and I could easily enough get a 9th by playing for the DA onside. Or I could try for something good in hearts or try to endplay someone. I then ducked a diamond into Mar, sort of leaving my options open for the time being. She won with the ten and led the H9. At this point, I trusted the 9 to be an honest card and decided to play Marianna for KT9xx, 9x, AQT, xxx. That would give me a nice squeeze-endplay: I duck that heart, win the next one with the ace, and run clubs. When I exit with a diamond, she will have to win 2 diamonds and lead a spade into my AJ at trick 12 for my 9th trick. Unfortunately, her actual hand was KT9xx, 9x, ATx, Txx so Becca was able to win one of the diamonds. It would have been sexy if it worked.

The winning defense is for Becca to overtake the heart and lead another spade, not all that easy to find, but then I wouldn't have gone down 2.

Junior teams in world championships

This year, the USBF refused to send a team to the world University Bridge Championships because it partially overlapped with the NABC. It was July 10-15 while the NABC was July 12-22. Instead, they sent 2 teams each in the U21 and U26 divisions of the World Youth Congress. I was not pleased with this and the people in charge got an earful (or rather, emails full) of complaints from me. Next year the world youth championships run concurrently with the summer NABC. Is the USBF going to refuse to send teams to that? Based on the logic they used in 2012, they absolutely would not but both events are in Atlanta so of course they're going to enter teams.

There really isn't enough depth in junior bridge for 4 teams plus a girls team. However the USA2 teams did respectably in China last month. The U21 USA1 team, comprised of 2 Zacks, 2 Adams and 2 Jengs, brought back a silver medal. Yay!

Then there's the team that competed in the girls division. Apparently no one is happy with how the teams were selected. There may or may not have been an online trial to choose the 6 players and it wound up being whoever had the most political pull. I mean, 4 of the 6 totally deserved to be on the team, albeit one of them only moved to the US a year ago Sonora debatable whether she should be eligible to compete for the USA. Mili Raina still is the best female junior bridge player that no one knows about. I guess if the selection process goes like this next time, I'll have to intervene and make sure the people in charge know that she (and Asya) deserve strong consideration.

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It seems that more and more, discussions at bridge tournaments have become more along the lines of who's sleeping with who and why? Even while I was trying to point out the pros in the room last week, it digressed into a gossip session on who is whose ex rather than who is known for what in bridge.

I'm sure I'm the subject of several of these talks when I'm not around given who my most regular tournament partners are - Sean, Alli, Meg, Mili. If you've heard any rumors surrounding me, they're probably untrue.
:/

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