Bad Habit

I need to stop leading short suits when I have one or more natural trump tricks. Yesterday, this bad habit cost our partnership tempo, which in turn allowed the opponents to make a hopeless part score.

Another Book Down

Two books down now.

I bought this book because, while I'm I'm fairly familiar with the ACBL SAYC document, I wanted to make sure I had a full and complete understanding of modern SAYC. There are a lot of "extras" to the system that are nearly universal, and some truisms (such as that a 2/1 promises another bid) that are, well, less than explicit in the ACBL document.

Plus, SAYC really is the base for 2/1, so I wanted to take this one last step to make sure my foundation was firm before starting in on all the 2/1 books I've ordered.

System books, well, they're dense. This one contained, a bit surprisingly, some things that I wasn't familiar with (Jordan 2NT for example). Still, the book portrays itself as trying to describe the modern SAYC in use online, and I think it does an admirable job of doing so. I certainly did not absorb all of it in one read, but it will be a good reference, and if I'm still playing SAYC in a year or two, it maybe a good reread.

For my next read, I have chosen something a bit more...fun. Lawrence's How To Read The Opponents Cards. I can't wait.

Friday at the Club

I'm still really struggling with my stamina in long sessions at the club, which is disheartening given that I've run 3 marathons in my time. The longer a session goes, the more badly I fade out.

I played with a very good partner, but could only manage a 47%, breaking my streak of finishing in the points. It was a fair result, I think, as I certainly made my share of poor decisions.

Hand 1:

♠ AKxx ♥ Kxx ♦ Axxx ♣ Ax

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

My partner called me a chicken. Probably correct. As it turned out, he only made 3, but he assured me that he would find the right line if I pushed to 4.

Hand 2:

♠ QTxxxx ♥ 9 ♦ Ax ♣ AKQx

West	North	East	South
	1NT	p	2♥
p	2♠	p	4♥
p	5♦	p	6♠
p	p	p

Partner had Ax in spades, and spades were 4-1. Even the singleton king left no play. Partner liked the bidding this time, as he figured the slam was 50%.

Of course, in a weak field, this was a clear bottom.

Hand 3:

♠ JT9x ♥ Qxxx ♦ Txx ♣ AK

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

Unmitigated disaster, as they made 4NT. Dummy had 2 hearts - just enough to finesse my queen twice.

Hand 4:

	♠ xxxxx ♥ AJxx ♦ x ♣ Qxx
♠ ♥ ♦ ♣		♠ ♥ ♦ ♣
	♠ A ♥ KQxx ♦ AKJxxx ♣ xx

West	North	East	South
			1♦
p	1♠	p	2♥
p	4♥	p	p
p

I managed to go down on this one, when partner was afraid we were missing slam.

LHO cashed the AK of clubs. I ruffed the second round, went up to the Ace of hearts, LHO discarding the ten. When I came back to the King of hearts, LHO was out, and even a long think at the table, nor the diamonds being Qx on my left, could save me.

Maybe, if I think about this hand a little more, I'll see how everyone else made it comfortably.

Now, With Actual Cards

If I don't start including hands in this blog, it's going to quickly turn into an ego blog, not a bridge blog. Nobody wants that.

1. At the club yesterday, east bids 1 spade, west raises to 2. It's passed around to me.

♠ xx ♥ Jxx ♦ Kxx ♣ QJxxx

I bid 3 clubs, on the principle that I once heard an expert say that you should almost always balance. Somehow, this propelled opponents into an unmakeable 4 spade contract. Not sure my bid was smart or right, but it did work I guess.

2. Partner bids aggressively, and you end up in a 24 point 3NT. Dummy has AKQ64 in spades, with no outside entries after the opening lead. You have the doubleton 53 in hand.

I felt pretty smart in immediately ducking a spade. I probably only needed 4 tricks from spades, and only 3 was going to need a lot of luck/bad defense to bring it home. As it turned out, LHO refused to promote my king of diamonds in hand, so I needed exactly 4 spade tricks.

Alas, spades were 5-1, so I went down 1. Still, I was reasonably happy with my play.

3. An amusing story from the club, at my own expense I guess.

Holding 0445 and 11 HCP, I opted to open 1 club in first seat. LHO overcalled a spade. Partner bid 2 spades, which I took to be limit raise. 3 clubs got me 4 spades from partner.

LHO is a very good young player. I wondered if he was psyching. I decided that if he was, he had me. 4 spades makes most sense as 7 or 8 strong spades, but I didn't think partner would bid 2 spades with that.

Spades were 6700 around the table. My 5 club bid was doubled, and good for a bottom. (I *think* we can make 3 spades, despite the 6-0 split).

(Note - it's possible that 2 spades was undiscussed. Partner was an expert, but knew I was rookie-ish.)


I wish I could remember more of the hands I played yesterday (24 at the club, maybe 15 or so later, online). I know I had lots of questions and uncertainties, but one of the problems with club play is that I'm forgetting what happened by the time I get to the end.

Maybe I need to start carrying around a score card, and writing questions on it.

Swimming With Sharks

I've been playing a bit less and reading a bit more this week. Last night, one of my IAC teammates pointed me to an excellent 2/1 tutorial online. While it included Bergen raises, which I glossed over, it also taught me a thing or two about FSF (Fourth Suit Forcing) that I hadn't been aware of.

Of course, cramming knowledge into your head does not make for instant and flawless execution - just ask any college student.

Nonetheless, this Sunday was a special brunch and game at the club, celebrating the Rookie/Master win. My Master level partner, Jean, had even offered to play with me again for the game.

Until now, all I'd played at the club were the rookie/master and 199er games. Now, I was playing against some of the top club players around. There were going to be far less gifts than usual.

I was nervous early, and it showed. I missed making a reasonable 1NT answer after RHO overcalled. I found myself in more tough bidding spots, and didn't always get them right. We pulled in a few zeroes, including a table of 3 boards of 0, 0, 0.5.

That said, my expert partner pulled out some great competitive bids that seemed to score well. I was declarer a fair bit (more than I was comfortable with, maybe), and at least some of those ended well. The only strong feelings that I had were that the field was much tougher, and that my partner was quite good.

The last table was one of our better ones of the day, and as we were finishing the director dropped by to tell us that going into the last round, we were first east/west by a smidge. I was a bit surprised, but our last table made us clear top east/west, and second overall, for 2.5 masterpoints (a very big haul for the likes of me!)

I'm on a run of consecutive finishes in the money, and the masterpoints are fairly well rolling in right now. My confidence is rising, especially with Sunday's game, but I think I need a bit of perspective. My bidding is going a bit wonky, due to all this reading/thinking I'm doing , and my counting is getting a bit weaker, due to the lack of practice.

Maybe the best thing I can take from all of this is that I'm not totally out of place in the typical club game anymore. It'll be some time, though, before I'm truly at the level of the better club players.

Book Report: Improve Your Bidding Judgement (Kimelman)

When I woke up yesterday, my first thought was "I'll spend the day reading. I have all these bridge books I want to read!"

By dinner time, I had advanced by a whole chapter - maybe 6 pages. (Such is life. I traded reading time for family time.)

Nonetheless, in the evening I was able to largely finish the first of my bridge book order - Neil Kimelman's Improve Your Bidding Judgement. This book came recommended to me, as I was looking for a book that would help with judgement. The advice I was given was "Neil Kimelman's book is pretty advanced, but certainly would repay study".

I think I agree on both counts. The book generally focuses on bidding decisions in competition, which is exactly what I was looking for. Some of the auctions were a little over my head, and I wasn't exactly sure how to interpret the preceding auction. That will come with time, and rereading this book down the road will undoubtably open my eyes.

There were definitely a few points that were faitly accessible, including:
- takeout double vs overcall (one of these came up last night, and I think based on the book I made the wrong decision)
- opening NT vs opening 1M. (Not sure I agree, but I think his point is well made, and worth thinking about)

The high level double/pass/bid is something I certainly plan on revisiting as time goes on.

The problems/solutions at the back were useful, and I think illustrated that I have some ways to go before I fully grok the book.

This was the book I was most looking forward to reading. Hopefully I've learned something from it, and hopefully future rereadings will help even more.

I'm still waiting for Lawrence's 2/1 book, and I'm seriously debating picking up Thurston's. For now, I think that next up will either be Downey/Pomer's SAYC book (I think this is the book I have the best chance of breezing through), or Hardy's 2/1 book.

I'm hoping that working through some of the drudgery of bidding theory will help me when I get into the good stuff - the card play - later on.

ACBL

I've managed to play 3 ACBL games this week. I played online Monday and Thursday, online, and both times my partner and I managed to scrape into the points.

On Friday, I managed to get to the local club for the Friday morning 299er game. It was a bit of a strange set of cards, with partner declaring most of the first 12 boards, then very little after that. We were set very often in our contracts, but often wound up with a good score anyways.

Despite never having a very good feeling for how we were doing, we managed to top the session with a 61% game.

So three games, and I got points three times. I'm now probably a club master (whee!) None of which is to say, though, that I wasn't making mistakes. Both online games features discussion with my partner via email afterwards. I think I'm the type of player that really thrives on the post-mortem analysis. I certainly don't mind being told that I did something wrong, especially when it didn't feel right at the table.

There was less analysis in the Friday game, but I still caught myself making mistakes at the table. The most notable was forgetting which contract I was defending (they were in 2 hearts, I was trying to promote my long suit).

The other mistake was while defending 4 hearts. Dummy, on my left, held Kx in diamonds. I held AQxx. We took the first three tricks. Out of clubs, I thoughtlessly returned a spade to dummy, hoping to get 2 diamond tricks later. As soon as I led, I realized I had made a howler. Dummy's spades were KQJTx. Declarer ducked, and dummy won.

Fortunately for me, spades were now blocked, and declarer misplayed it badly. If she hadn't, declarer was going to throw all her diamonds on dummy's spades, and make an unmakeable contract.

I saw it all, but 2 seconds too late.

Meandering

I've been slowly expanding the circle of bridge blogs that I follow. One of the best, DoubleSqueeze, has led me to a few more, which have led me to a few more, including a local one, which is always nice to know about.

Part of this meandering led me to a couple of conversations between expert and world class players. I felt a bit like a kid in a candy shop, or maybe like a kid getting to see Babe Ruth or The Rocket in person. It rekindled in me the desire to become an expert at this game.

Of course, by the time I reach that level, I do sometimes wonder how many players will be left. There's a decent chance that all the ones younger than me will STILL be better than me, but what can I do? :)

My book orders have been slowly coming in. I'm now sitting surrounded by Kelsey, Lawrence, Hardy, Reese, and others. It may take some time, and more than one reading, but there's a lot I can learn here. I'm excited for what tomorrow will bring.