Month: July 2011

Hi all

The streak has ended. In a pleasant and swingy match we were 4 imps short of making it to the Final Four. Bitter. But a bit sweet too, Michael and I had a good connection for a first time partnership and the overall experience was satisfactory.

Here’s a bright example of Michael operating delicately (I was sitting North):

1. 4+ , guaranteed unbalanced
2. Inverted
3. Splinter
4. Fast arrival
5. I’ve got a monster

Even though responding hand is so balanced, I felt alright about my inverted raise. Prime values, almost always a 9 card fit and with those empty Majors other calls were out of the question. Michael’s splinter didn’t hit the soft spot, so to say. Quite the opposite actually, so I fast-arrivaled to the game. Michael raised himself to slam.

West started with the Queen and this is what he saw:

Michael cashed both top pitching from his hand, then he ruffed the remaining with trump King. The Queen (unblocking the 8 from dummy) showed that West started with all three of them. Next came both top , and the 5 via the 6 for dummy’s 7. The ruffed with trump Jack and then cross to dummy while drawing the last trump to reach this position:

Strip complete and a to the Ten placed West: +920. The other table ended up playing NT scoring 11 tricks.

From left to right: Bill, Michael, me and Drew. Thanks guys!

Hi all

The Great Eight it is! Yesterday we beat a southern flavored team, thick accent, very chatty & a tad flaky. They had three kickback blunders, but were fortunate enough to stumble into making contracts. Their conservative approach served them well with a couple of significant pickups by staying in part scores when game values where present.

The match started with a pass-out in deal one. Immediately after that I get to test the waters, wild waters:

1. Gambling
2. Shooting the moon

It was a bit of a stab to jump to 6, I agree. I don’t remember what I was thinking at the time, but I envisioned loads and loads of tricks. Ruffing a with my tiny 2, my good suit that is so easy to set up with no direct entry. Carelessness at its prime. Anyway, this was the full deal:

At my table West decided to start the defence with the Ace. After a pause she shrugged and led a for me to ruff. Plain sailing from here, cross to the Ten (thank you, thank you, thank you!), draw trumps, and back to the Ace to discard every non-trump on my black winners.

Funny that at the other table the auction was the same, with one small exception: Bill (West) doubled. When he led the Queen his partner ruffed, back to the Ace and another . When South decided to ruff high that promoted the Jack to CEO for a super-sized pickup.

Hi all

We’re still in. We had a little bit of a slow start yesterday, down by 7 after the first quart, ahead by 18 after the second, lose a few so ahead by 7, but the finish was clean: +59. The Québécois opponents were pretty solid and competent, here’s an example.

1. Asking for a stopper

After the auction above I had a pretty good idea of what was happening. Sitting West I chose to lead my Ace, for the opponents have told me my partner has something complementary. This was the full deal:

Ace and the Ten (suit preference-ish) for partner’s King. Michael switched to a for my Ace and declarer ruffed my Queen. South quickly found out about the bad trump split, but because parity had been reached he didn’t have a lot of trouble visualizing and executing the trump coup (lead from dummy until East surrenders).

Had Michael continued instead of switching, declarer would have ruffed, but now the timing is different. A to the Ace, back to the King and then the bad news. Now if declarer plays a I can rise and play a fourth , Michael can sluff a and declarer is fatally tapped.

Hi all

We’ve made it to day 2 in the mini-Spingold. After the first 28 boards we were down by 51 imp and prospects were glum. Oops!, let me correct that, down by 48, because our opponents got a 3 imp “Zero Tolerance”-penalty for being rude to my teammates and the director. So we straightened our backs, started swinging a bit and behold, after three quarters of the match we were down by 13.

I’m on lead after this exchange:

1. Slam try
2. Cue (first round controls only)
3. Enough
4. No it’s not

I see that everything is breaking nicely for declarer. My holding looks terrible in front of the bidder, so that’s where I started my defence. I led a , trying to scare declarer into a less successful plan. Here’s the full deal, I’ll show you what happened next.

On the lead declarer had two quick losers so he had to play 3 rounds of to pitch his losing . Then when he turned his attention to I won the Ace and topped off the defence with a 4th . When my partner ruffed with the Jack in front of declarer my trump holding got stellar promotion. Victory dance!

On any other lead declarer can come home: win the lead in South, set up a trick, then pitch a on the third , and finally ruff out the using dummies trump honors as entries.

This and some magic by our teammates was enough to pull the match with a 2 imp margin. That “Zero Tolerance”-penalty must have tasted so bitter.

Hi all

After a hellish flight via DC, a missed connection and a sleepless sweaty night I have arrived in Toronto. Perfect preparations for decent bridge. So no stories today, but an announcement that Drew, Bill, Michael and I will participate in the 0-5000 Spingold (starting tomorrow). Michael and I still have to have a system discussion, and with Drew not in optima forma that’s enough of a challenge.

Here’s me and my friend Mary having a Black Metal Brunch in a bar called Graffiti. Very colorful the menu had an entry for “… and shit you can eat”. Cheers!

Hi all

I was playing with Sanne at the Pro-Am night at QT. I know we’re are partnership in all kinds of ways, but bridge honestly isn’t one of them. So I didn’t feel awkward or bad about it. That we royally won the event with almost a 4% margin to number two, well… let’s not get into puny details.

In the last round we had a lively auction:

1. A penalty double would have been justified
2. I was completely & utterly oblivious to what was happening
3. Let’s try to recover some of the points we missed out on

When West started with the Ace the rusty old lock that was my contract gave away the tiniest crunch. I ruffed and played a towards the King, West rising with the Ace. Desperately looking for a ruff he switched to a via the Queen for my Ace. Yes, I feel that lock slowly opening up to me.

Another to dummy and East follows suit with the Jack. On the King I see East pitching a and I follow his lead. Finally the lock yields to my vigor. So East is 1-2-6-4… the rest is easy as pie: to my hand, draw the outstanding trump and endplay East with the fourth . With just left he has to surrender a trick to my King. + 420

With another lead a clairvoyant South can manage to score five tricks in and three in . Setting up the same endplay as I did will bring in trick nine. East has to pay attention though, because any other exit than the Queen will give South ten tricks.

Too bad we missed out on a juicy penalty. South can score eight tricks in a contract: three , one and always four (West will bring them on a silver platter). Quite funny if the opponents have an eight card fit.