Friday at the Club

1. Always ask what the opponents discards are.
2. When there's only one way to make the contract, do NOT let opponents discards change your plan.

That is all.

How to Read Your Opponent's Cards

I simply can't say enough good things about this book.

One of my big falling down points as declarer was marginal hands - hands with lots of high cards out against me, and few controls.

This book gave me a methodology and approach, both to part score contracts and thin games, as declarer. It certainly won't apply to every hand out there, but the good habits picked up while working through the book can only help me going forward.

Now, I just need to play a bunch of hands, to reinforce good habits.

Next to be read, I think, is Thurston's 2/1 book. Time to stop "winging it".

Three From Saturday

I was back playing in the Saturday night IAC teams match. I was with a new partner who joined the team in January. We managed to eek out a 3 point win in a high scoring affair, 39-36, over 12 boards. Overall, I was generally pleased with our pair's play.

Hand 1:

♠ A3 ♥ ♦ QJ986 ♣ AKT765

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

The bidding caused partner some alarm, as she felt that she was competing, and not encouraging me. I could have let it hang at 1 heart, but felt that I might still have game on the cards. It turns out that 4 hearts had no play, off the AK of clubs, A of spades and with a 5-0 trump split. 5D had no play either, but only because diamonds were 4-1, if they'd been 3-2 I was cold.

This was a flat hand, as at the other table opponents wound up in 4 clubs down 1. (Good on our teammates for not bidding 4 hearts).

Hand 2:

♠ AT652 ♥ K532 ♦ 82 ♣ 65

♠ Q ♥ AQ4 ♦ AT53 ♣ AJT97

Thanks to a partnership misunderstanding (as I said, partner was new, and we'd only played a few hands together before), I wound up declaring the exciting contract of 2 Diamonds.

The lead was the 9 of spades, and I was already under the gun. While the 9 doesn't look like an underlead of the king, there is an opportunity to pick up a valuable trick here. However, I rose with the ace, which turned out to be right.

In my head, almost right away, was that I needed hearts to be 3-3. I didn't have a firm trick count, but that seemed right.

I ruffed a spade, cashed the ace of clubs, returned to the board via the king of hearts, and ruffed another spade. Now, I exited a club.

By now, defense was on to me, and a diamond was returned, as expected. Thank goodness I had the ace! Unfortunately, a club to dummy was overruffed, and trump was drained. But I had my 6, and now I had to hope that the remaining hearts were 2-2. They were, and 2!D making unexpectedly brought home 4 IMPs.

Hand 3:

♠ 63 ♥ JT2 ♦ Q763 ♣ Q976
	♠ J4 ♥ KQ852 ♦ 92 ♣ AT52

East opened 1NT, and played it. I led the 5 of hearts.

While I haven't been able to touch Lawrence's book in a day or two, this hand showed that I'm at least occasionally able to count out a hand. Let's see...

For starters, declarer had 15-17. I had 10, dummy 5, so partner was 8-10.

The ten of hearts won on the board, partner dropping the 3. Ergo, declarer started with Ax of hearts. The 6 of clubs came off the board, J, K, A. The King of hearts drew the Ace from declarer, as expected. The 4 of clubs went to the queen, partner discarding the 5 of spades, which looked like it might not be partner's lowest. I made a mental note to watch for the 2 of spades. I also noted that clubs were 4441 around the table.

The 3 of spades from dummy drew the queen from declarer, partner playing the 2. Aha. So partner had something. Maybe her king had just been finessed?

Declarer slapped down the ace of diamonds, and now declarer's hand was becoming clear. QS, AH, AD and KC had been played, for 13 points. If declarer had the AS, that was 17 points, and she was done.

However, declarer played the Jack of diamonds, which held. Clearly, declarer did not have the ace of spades! Had partner ducked from AK of spades?

All would be clear soon, as a club was led. I took my ten, and played 3 rounds of hearts. The spade jack was overtaken by partner's ace, and the King of diamonds in partner's hand was the setting trick.

Down 1 gained us another 4 IMPs. It also raised some fist pumping. It felt really good to know pretty much everything that was happening on this hand. If counting that carefully is that much fun, I may have to start doing it on every hand.

Book in Progress: How to Read Your Opponents' Cards

I'm about halfway through this book now, and I simply can't say enough good things about it. I've always read that Lawrence is one of the best bridge authors around, and now I know why. His presentation is simple, straightforward, and easy to understand. There's absolutely no question, though, that if I can adopt the habits he's preaching in this book, I will become a significantly better player.

Reading books on play is about a million times more fun than reading books on bidding!

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.