Reno!

The Reno NABC last month was in some ways great but in many ways a disappointment. The town and general atmosphere was kind of trashy. I played with 3 partners over 6 days, which is more variety than I like. I had never played with two of them before, and never played with Emory at an NABC. I was honestly happy playing with Emory, Mike, and Jessica, but the results weren’t as hot as they should have been.

The first two days with Jessica were pretty solid bridge except for two major flyers each session where one or both of us just totally screwed up a board. That led to four straight 53% games and a low overall place in the mixed pairs. Respectable, but we both thought we had a pretty good shot at winning. However, this event was unwinnable thanks to Jenni and Greg’s ridiculousness. Next year.

The next two days with Emory the expectations were a good bit lower, largely because the Silodor is noticeably stronger competition than the mixed. However, we didn’t make day two. The theme here was me not getting my diamond ruffs and other defensive blunders. We rebounded with a couple of pretty good sessions in the “consolation” regional pairs.

The final two days were maybe the most disappointing as Mike McNamara and I didn’t Q for day two of the Swiss. The theme with him was declarer play problems that we didn’t get right. I had several tough problems and got kind of screwed by the opponents on a few of them as it’s hard to get tough problems right when the opponents don’t have what they should have for their bids. As with Emory, we rebounded with a nice finish in the consolation regional Swiss.

I expect it won’t be the last time playing with these new partners.

Tx is a Stopper

This hand comes from the final of the Vanderbilt KO where at this table Chip Martel and Lew Stansby, 2 long-time American experts, are going against Michel and Tomas Bessis, a father-son pair from Paris. Michel and Tomas are fairly new to the big spotlight in bridge, but this hand helped seal their victory.

Tomas’s youth (and flare) really showed in the bidding as he took a chance on 3NT after a couple of weak responses from partner and lacking a stopper in the opponents’ suit. The whole match was being broadcast online on Bridge Base so I was able to see it from home along with thousands of other people.

Anyway, Martel led the 3 of spades (they lead 5th best) so Tomas was marked with 2 spades. Stansby thought surely one of his spades is the ace so he inserted the 9, losing to the 10. Tomas, now looking at 7 tricks needed something really good to happen to reach 9 tricks so he established a couple of club tricks by playing the AK and then another club, which Stansby won with the K. At this point, he has to figure out what’s going on with the spades. Did Tomas bid 3NT without a stopper or did Martel overcall on a 5 card suit headed by the jack. In the end, he believed the young Bessis and led back a low spade, thinking Tomas’s ace would pop up. This actually blocked the spade suit and allowed the defense to take only 2 spade tricks. If Stansby plays the K of spades, and then a low spade, Martel has 2 more spades to cash and the contract would go down 1.

Sometimes you get lucky and Tomas Bessis certainly did here, the defense would have had to do very well to beat him on the board. Given Martel and Stansby’s system, they could have gotten it right. According to their convention card, they play Smith echo, which means that at your first opportunity, you play a high spot card if you liked the opening lead and a low spot card if you disliked the opening lead. At Martel’s first opportunity, on the second round of clubs, he played the 8 of diamonds, followed by the 6 of diamonds to confirm that the 8 was high. That should indicate that his opening lead was from the ace instead of just the jack.

Reno recap and the impossible 2S bid

So much for getting caught up on sleep and playing midnight games with Dana, the two things I was looking forward to the most.

It was a very very frustrating time for several reasons, mostly surrounding the difficulties in getting along with dana and mila, our varying expectations and unclear communications, but it was very action-packed and I had many good times - just not the good times I was expecting. I remember when I used to be content just hanging out with my partner and/or parents for dinner and after the games and have only brief interaction with others during the bridge games. But it takes a lot more to satisfy me nowadays, which I tend to view as a good thing. I kind of want those days back instead of this sort of associating with lots of people but mostly being lonely.

I did play 2 midnight games and won them both and picked up another 7 or so points for the 64% session Mila and I had in the red ribbon pairs. The other 3 sessions of the Red Ribbons were pretty bad. In the next to last round of day 1 of the open Swiss with my dad, I picked up: Ax, T, KTxxxx, ATxx. Partner opens 1H and I start thinking "yay, i hope i get to use the impossible 2S bid here." Sure enough, he rebids 2D and I rebid 2S, showing basically a strong diamond raise.

What else could 2S be here? Anyway, it went all pass and partner came down with xx, KQJxx, Qxxx, Kx. They didn't lead a trump and I managed 6 tricks in the 2-2 fit for a push, against 3NT
down 2 at the other table.