Month: May 2009

Hi all

Thought of the day: A mind without purpose will wander in dark places.

I’m working on an article for the ACBL magazine, covering my experiences and thoughts on the masterpoints matter. I will (probably) publish it here too when it’s finished.

Here’s a nice deal from Quick Tricks where I partnered Bruce B. I don’t remember a lot, except that we doubled about half a dozen partscores, and all of them made. But we compensated with some sensible auctions and a couple of fine decisions so we finished 4th, scoring 55% overall.

 
After Bruce opened 1 and a 1 overcall it’s my turn. I’m very light on values, but it sure itches to make a bid with this distribution. I’m glad we agreed to play all jumps as weak, so I entered the auction with 2 (completely ignoring the suit). LHO frowns and raises to 3, Bruce announces a skip bid… 4. Some reluctant passes follow. LHO leads a top and Bruce puts down a nice hand.

 
I enter a cross ruff and to my surprise the Queen comes tumbling down too (RHO held a doubleton Queen of ). This is the position after seven ruffs and both top :

 
The Ace of is of course my tenth trick, but I’m always hungry for an eleventh. I cash the Ace and play a , West has to follow suit and East ruffs with the Jack. East is down to just so I get to score a trick with my last trump too.

I gave up trump control by cashing the Ace, but it generated a trick because EW communication was destroyed. Is it a scissor’s coupe? Or a coupe en passant? I don’t know exactly what flavor it is, but it definitely got served with cream and cherries.

Hi all

Still no progress with the ACBL, but I’m pretty sure I can kiss GNT flight B 2009 goodbye. Sometimes I think of the Seinfeld “Serenity now”-episode. Serenity NOW!, and the anger and frustration with the ACBL just melt away. But I need to find an exhaust soon to release that bottled up rage.

Here’s a nice deal one of my bridge friends here in Berkeley showed me.

A very nice 20-count. But after pass – 1 you’re in trouble. My blog isn’t powered to make this a forum-like question, but I ask you, what would you do?

After some pondering, I answered him I would bid 1. Double and pass being viable alternatives. I thought 1 would lead to a plus score most of the times and I would blast to game if partner squeaked in some support bid.

Li-Chung then told me he had bid exactly the same. But things get better, what would you do if LHO passes and partner bids 2 (showing a good raise)?

I told him I would get to slam one way or another, partner surely is holding some prime cards and trumps with good distribution.

Partner did hold the prime hand for slam, you can cross ruff to twelve without problems. One thing struck me, if partner had bid a fitshowing 3 (instead of 2) I think I would have been more reluctant in bidding slam.