A True Barometer

I was playing a BBO Hornets tournament with a new partner yesterday. One hand struck out in my mind.

I was east, and dealer, white vs red:

West	North	East	South
		1♣	1♦
X	p	2♣	p
2♠	p	2NT	p
3NT	p	p	X
p	p	p

The king of diamonds was led, and I saw this:

♠ 842 ♥ JT94 ♦ 86 ♣ QJT6

♠ A53 ♥ 63 ♦ KQT32 ♣ A85

Once I lose the ace of spades, I have 8 tricks - 4 spades, 3 hearts and a diamond. I can pick up a 9th if hearts are 3-3, if south breaks clubs for me, or if dummy's diamond spots can be promoted. (One thing I didn't really look at at the table was promoting a club, but the defense is likely to get a spade, a diamond, and at least 3 clubs - maybe more if they don't break well).

I played a low diamond from the board, and north discarded the 8. One of the best things that can happen, I think, is if north has the T or Tx of diamonds. Well, scratch the singleton ten, but the lead is where I want it, so I duck the opening round.

Now, a continuation in either minor (assuming south has the Queen of diamond) gives me the contract. South wisely switched to the heart 6, which I won in hand, to preserve entries to the spades.

First thing I needed to do was deal with spades. South ducked the king but played the ace over the 9, saving me a decision as to whether or not to overtake. Back came another heart, north following.

Time to think.

Both opponents have shown up with 2 hearts and 2 spades. I've given them a chance to give me the 9th trick, and it hasn't happened yet. South seems to have the ace of clubs, based on his continued resistance to leading dummy's void in notrump.

It all seems to be coming down to the heart split, but I can't see how it could hurt to run out spades first. Maybe defense will make a discarding error.

Both opponents follow on the first spade (NOT the suit I needed to be 3-3). North threw the Queen of clubs on the second, South discarding a low diamond. (Poor North must be really dying for a club lead by now.) The last spade takes my 3rd club discard, along with 2 more diamonds. Alas, north did NOT throw the 10 (it was the 6).

No help there.

In hindsight, I think the contract was now cold (assuming I played it properly). At the table, I wasn't certain, but I definitely saw a rough outline of an extra chance.

The key play came next, as I unblocked diamonds by cashing the Ace. South threw the 10 - I hadn't stopped to count, but I did now and it seemed right. Now, I led the 5 of hearts.

Alas, south played the 5 of clubs. No heart split.

I took the queen of hearts, and exited a diamond to south's queen. South was left with the A8 of clubs, and had to give me the king of clubs for my 9th trick.

Looking it over, south had to discard a club on one of my spades. In this way, he could have kept a threat against my J9 of diamonds. (GiB double dummy analysis agrees.)

The two things that I really enjoyed about this hand were how well I kept count, and how I kept giving myself chances to make.

Of course, having gotten this far, I should point out that I played the whole hand wrong, right from the start. Given the indicated lie of the cards, the hand was stone cold, and I blew it.

The correct play is to take the first trick with the ace of diamonds, and immediately play a low diamond towards the jack. So long as south has the queen (and 5 diamonds, I guess), this will always take 9 tricks.

Here's the full deal:

Dealer E Vul N/S Scoring MP Lead ♦K	♠ 842 ♥ JT94 ♦ 86 ♣ QJT6
♠ QJT76 ♥ J974 ♦ AQ87 ♣		♠ K9 ♥ K52 ♦ A5 ♣ K87432
	♠ A53 ♥ 63 ♦ KQT32 ♣ A85

So there you have it - some decent counting and card awareness, missed with blissful ignorance. THAT is where my bridge game is right now.

Bitter

Playing in 3NT, opponents silent.

♠ QJT86 ♥ KJT ♦ A852 ♣ A

♠ 73 ♥ A74 ♦ Q6 ♣ KQT872

Of the 6 tables playing 3NT by south, 4 had a heart lead. At all tables, the heart was ducked to east's queen. I am the only one who ducked the queen.

Where is the justice in the world? The most straightforward way to make is if clubs are 3-3, which in this case they are, but how exactly are the souths who rise with the ace of hearts on trick 1 expecting to return to their hands?

Every south except me got overtricks. Me, I decided to test spades first, seeing that I can also make if spades are 3-3, but clubs are not. Every other south lucked into a diamond entry to hand and 3-3 clubs. Sure, I got 3-3 clubs, too, but out of the 11 hands plyaing 3NT, I was the only one without overs.

But I'm not bitter, really....

Hand of the Year candidate?

For all of us who occasionally play total points or rubber bridge....

I was kibitzing my mentor on Christmas day, when his partner was dealt this:

S AKQJT9862
H
D
C KQ92

Over a third seat 2 diamond bid, the holder bid 6 spades. Partner has the AJxx of clubs, and an outside ace, which was of course entirely wasted. :)

Nice hand to get in a 4-hard total points tourney. Santa delivers to bridge players, too, I guess.

Sane or Insane?

Maybe someday I'll look back and answer my own question.

The bidding goes:

West	North	East	South
		p	1♥
p	1♠	2♣	2♥
2♠	p	3♥	p
3♠	p	3NT	p
p	p

I held:
A4
AQ8543
Q97
85

What to lead?

Well, here was my reasoning. First of all, there are a lot of points around the table. Partner rates to be a bare minimum, with possibly as few as 4 spades, and 0-1 heart. Opponents seem to have a nice club fit, and thus a decent source of tricks.

As for the defense, well, it's hard to imagine partner having a useful 5-7 card holding. If his strength is in the minors, then maybe there's not much I can do to help him.

Certainly, a heart lead can't help. Declarer (east) rates to have the king. It's also very hard to tell if leading partner's spades will bear fruit.

What I chose was to play partner for KQxx in spades, and to lead the ace. Alas, dummy came down with QJxx in spades, so that dream was dead, and with it likely our chances of defeating the contract.

(In reality, maybe an immediate diamond or a diamond switch after the first trick would have worked. Partner was 4171, with 4HCP, including the king of spades and JT of diamonds.)

I'm not sure if my reasoning was sound or overly optimistic, but I think I was asking the right sort of questions, at least, on this problem.

Best of Times/Worst of Times

Hand earlier today. I end up with the boss trump (spades), boss diamond. Dummy has running clubs, and declarer knows I'm out of hearts. Declarer can only lose one more trick when he leads a low heart to the board.

I duck, and watch as my diamond loser goes away. I was honestly yelling, "I am an idiot!"

Later,

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

♠ 6 ♥ AKJ5 ♦ J9854 ♣ AK6
	♠ AT84 ♥ Q7642 ♦ ♣ Q954

Ace of hearts won on the board. Declarer runs a diamond to his hand, winning with the 7. Back comes the king of spades.

Only 3 of the 8 diamond slams that were bid made. While I'm no expert on fsf auctions, this time I knew partner was out of hearts. Win 9.3 IMPs, and a tiny bit of redemption.

Honestly, though, I have SO FAR to go.

BBF Indy

I played in the BBF Indy today. I hoped to finish above dead last, but fell just short in my quest.

As usual, it's not the scores that bother me, it's my dumb mistakes. Here are my notes:

1. I wans't sure if this was a good sac or not. Turns out that the result was an average hand. (50%)
2. Once the opponents reach 3NT, they're always going to make 430 I think. (20%), but only because more people weren't in 3NT.
3. I *think* the key reason I went down where others made is the opening lead. Most souths led low from QJ53 of hearts, but at my table kenberg (who won the whole thing) led the Q, which held me to 2 heart tricks instead of 3 when I held AK8 opposite dummy's T94. (33%)
4. One table held N/S to only 8 spade tricks. Defenses who break hearts for declarer, not unsensible, will allow 9. Unfortunately, our opponents were one of the 3 pairs to stop below game, rather than one of the two who bid game. (17%)
5. I was just an observer on this one. E/W make 13 tricks in either black suit. (50%)
6. Opponents bid an unmakeable game. An extra 10% was available if I played carefully and discarded properly. Chalk this one up to lack of counting. (80%).
7. This hand was cold for a top at one point, but partner misread the heart spots. Sometimes it's an easy game when you're dummy. Then again, nobody else was making game, so maybe we shouldn't have even been there.
Is this auction forcing? I thought it might be, but in retrospect, 3C is available as a forcing bid.

West	North	East	South
			p
p	1♠	p	1NT
2♣	3♥	p	?

(0%)
8. Another "what was I thinking?" moment. That said, I think I can pass 2 hearts here, which would still be losing:

West	North	East	South
p	1♠	2♦	p
p	2♥	p	?

(25%)
9. Not sure why we didn't come in here, but we let opps steal one (0%)
10. Supporting with AQx of spades seems to be a winner on this hand. A support double might have helped over the overcall, if I played them.
That said, my opening lead/followup was absolutely horrible. I led A, then Q from AQx, when declarer falsecarded holding the King. /sigh (17%)
11. We got gifted an overtrick here. Still, spades play better, and I think I need to play partner for 5 and bid 4 spades rather than 5 clubs. I did have a question, though.

West	North	East	South
			p
p	1♣	p	1♦
p	1♠	p	1NT
p	2♠	p	3♣

I wonder whether I've shown anything more than a minimum yet. I guess maybe by not passing 1 spades I showed something more than minimum? (50%)
12. We miss a 9 card heart fit here. Partner was the only north who didn't bid, but maybe I need to be balancing here?

West	North	East	South
1♣	p	1♠	p
1NT	p	p	?

I held T542 A8654 A9 Q5.
13.

West	North	East	South
	1♦	p	5♦
?

T63
AQJ532
v
KJT8
Double, right or wrong, netted me a passout, and +800 for 83%.
14. I blew 50% on one trick, not taking my good king. I think I thought I was playing notrump or something. I can blame it on stamina, maybe, but I seriously need to slow down and think before each play. This was not hard, and I could have had 83% instead of 33%.
15. By now I was playing way too fast. We wound up in a hopeless 26 point 3NT, but rather than just flip cards as the losers went by, I should have watched discards closely. I turned down 1 into down 2, and ~50% into 8%.
16. A defensive disaster. We took fully 3 less tricks against 1NT than anyone else. I think partner leading low from AJTxx in clubs may be partially to blame, though I may have missed an upside down signal in spades, holding AQJ98. (0%)

Rust

Well, we've moved - and I promptly got sick.

During my convalescence, I snuck in a few hands. This one stuck out.

♠ AQ8 ♥ QT875 ♦ AKQT ♣ K

♠ K9752 ♥ K9 ♦ J3 ♣ AT83

West	North	East	South
p	1♥	p	1♠
p	3♦	p	3NT
p	4♠	p	4NT
p	5♠	p	6♠
p	p	p

I was ok with the auction. Looking it over, slam should make on a 3-2 trump split. If trumps are 4-1 and the Jack or Ten falls, I can probably make the right inference and make.

So I won the 4 of diamonds, and cashed the Ace of spades - 6, 2, 3. The queen of spades drew a discard from west. Down 1.

Well, I would have been, except that in my vacant-headed exuberance, I "remembered" to unblock clubs before my brilliant plan of running diamonds and throwing my hearts on the diamonds. Only the plan was not so brilliant, as RHO had discarded 2 diamonds on trump by that point, so the chances of east going 4 rounds of diamonds were basically nil.

The first lesson was to pay attention to the discards!

I think there were 2 better lines (obviously excluding the club play - as I'm always going to have entry to my hand). Both rely on the ace of hearts being with west.

The first is to run a low heart to the queen. If it holds, I only need to discard one heart on a diamond, and I can do that on the 3rd round - meaning I only need diamonds to be 5-2 or better. The problem is that I'm not so sure many defenders will duck the first round against a slam contract - especially at IMPs.

Maybe the better line is simply to concede the 4th round of spades. If east does not have the ace of hearts, she has to guess the right suit to return. Maybe I'll get a club return, and I'll be free to run diamonds, discarding my hearts.

Interesting hand.

Moved!

My bridge play has been curtailed over the last weeks, due to the impending move. We're in the new house, now, though, and once the unpacking gets underway I foresee a lot of bridge in my future.

Plus, there are 11 days to go until bridge book day. :)

I'm starting to get some feedback on my posts, and I have to say I really appreciate it. I don't mind making an idiot of myself in bridge or in blogging (how else will I improve?), and it's nice to have my errors pointed out to me.

Beyond Point Count

A hand I kibitzed yesterday, in a team match:

	♠ K84 ♥ 8 ♦ QT4 ♣ AKQJ92
♠ T3 ♥ KQJT3 ♦ 9852 ♣ 73		♠ 765 ♥ 962 ♦ K63 ♣ T864
	♠ AQJ92 ♥ A754 ♦ AJ7 ♣ 5

This hand has excellent play for 7 Spades. Both 5-0 spade splits can be picked up, and 13 tricks can be had if clubs are 4-2 or better, OR if the king of diamonds is with East.

The harder part is bidding the grand. If you're a slave to point counts, the 31 points will probably suggest to you that you would do well to make a small slam.

In the teams match, at one table, south bid 4NT, and finding all the key cards present, bid 6 spades. At the other table, north bid 4NT, and finding all key cards present, jumped to 7 spades. Win 11.

The key, I think, is north has a huge source of extra tricks in clubs. While I'm not sure that I would have found the right bid at the table, this hand is a clear lesson, I think, in looking beyond point count.

Interregnum

The next few weeks promise to be busy, as we'll be packing up and moving. Hopefully, on the far side of this, I'll be rewarded with some extra time to read and play.

My play this week has been solid but not outstanding. My counting/concentration has not been very deep at all, and I look forward to rectifying that.

In the meantime, I've been planning out the books I'd like to read next. Here's my shorlist:

Bidding Systems
Standard Bidding with SAYC book (Downey and Pomer)
Two over One Game Force (Max Hardy)
Workbook On The Two-Over-One System (Mike Lawrence)

Bidding Judgement
Improve Your Bidding Judgment (Neil Kimelman)

Declarer Play
Off-road Declarer Play. (David Bird)

Defense Play
Killing Defense at Bridge (Hugh Kelsey)
Eddie Kantar Teaches Modern Bridge Defense (Eddie Kantar)
Eddie Kantar Teaches Advanced Bridge Defense (Eddie Kantar)

General Play
Countdown to Winning Bridge (Bourke/Smith)
Master Play in Contract Bride (aka The Expert Game) (Terence Reese)
Bridge Odds for Practical Players (Kelsey & Glauert)
How to Read your Opponents Cards (Mike Lawrence)

Even one or two of these books would probably help my game. Plus, they're bound to be more exciting than Watson, which I still haven't finished. :(