Atlanta Regional 2009

Bridge tournaments make people fat. Even me. I went to the gym yesterday and I was a whole 6 pound heavier than the same time 5 days ago. And I only spent 3 days at the tournament over the weekend. In those 3 days, I had several big meals, at least 10 alcoholic drinks, 10 cans of mountain dew, 5 bowls of ice cream, and no exercise. So, for anyone who goes to a bridge tournament with me in the future, try to not let me do that. Help me stick to: only 1 big meal per day, drink water during the bridge sessions, go jogging or something like that in the morning or between sessions.

Now, on to some bridge from the Atlanta regional. I played with Bryan Delfs and we teamed with Emory Whitaker and Joel Haywood. We really thought we would bring Emory down to bracket 2 for the first time in decades. He has twice as many masterpoints as the other 3 combined. But, alas, 11800 for the team still got us in bracket 1 of the weekend KO. We survive the first 2 matches with relative ease and then none of us could do anything right in the 3rd round. I don’t remember many interesting hands from the first 2 days but in the Swiss team game Monday we had at least a couple of interesting hands.

My partner and I somewhat ambitiously got to 3NT both overbidding our 11 point hands (1D-1H-1NT-3NT) on the following hands:
Q97x
QJ8x
Q9x
Ax

KT
T9x
AKTxx
J98

LHO led the 6 of spades, east played the 8, I won the T and played the K back, east dropping the J. It was a fortunate spade position and one round of hearts was ducked and then west won with the A and led another spade. East won and played back a club to the 8, 10 and A. Now, with 3 spades, a heart, a club in the bag and the club suit now wide open, I need to collect 4 more tricks. Diamond ace, low to Q and E shows out. So about all I can hope for if the west’s original hand was xxxx, Ax, Jxxx, KQT. In which case I can put him in with a club and he will have to lead back a diamond into me at trick 12. they could have certainly defended better, and I suppose that once they ducked a heart, I should play a diamond to the 9 as a safety play for 4 diamond tricks, but still, I was glad I got the end situation right, for +13 imps.

On the last hand of the day, we picked up these hands:
Ax
AT
KJ9xxx
KQx

KQTxxxx
Jx
-
Axxx

At our table, Bryan opened 1NT, east showed a hand with a long minor or both majors, I transferred to 2S and then splintered 4D, and Bryan signed off in 4S. He casually made 5 after spades split 4-0 and clubs 5-1 for +650. At the other table, our teammates didn’t bid and they got to 6S by S after a 1D opening. 6S made at the other table, thanks to the AQ doubleton of diamonds with east. But you have to start right away by trumping a diamond at trick 2, after a heart lead, to maintain enough entries to ruff out the ace of diamonds. East was somewhat offshape for shoring both majors as he was 4-6-2-1. It’s all easy after you lead a diamond and the Q pops up for you to ruff. -13 imps for the somewhat lucky slam. A push would have gotten us a win in the last round and probably gotten to 6th or 7th overall. As it stands, we were just a bit above average in the A/X Swiss. It was a very fun 3 day weekend.