Vikings in Space

Hi all

In a week I’m of to DC to participate in the Spingold. I’m flying in some Dutch heavyweights for some over the top action. If I can get my hands on time and stable internet www.vikingsinspace.nl is your spot for live Spingold coverage.

Here’s a small pairs problem from a Piedmont club night.

After two passes you open 1, which could be as short as two. Your partner bids 1NT and you can trust that partner doesn’t hold a four card suit he could have mentioned on the 1-level. So partner has at least a four card fit in . Do you stay in the superb pairs contract of 1NT or do you wish to revert to ?

This was the full deal:

With the Jack onside South could rake together seven tricks for +90 after a lead. That didn’t score very well when the rest of the field scored +110 in partscores.

Now, about that suggestive title: Bikini bridge. Unfortunately it’s not about scantily clad beach babes at the bridge table. Sigh. No, it’s a synonym for "all-or-nothing bridge", particularly tops and bottoms. It cracked me up when I heard it the first time. Nice!

Hi all

I was playing a Piedmont pairs night with Elenalani about a week ago. This deal has been bugging me, like a fat fly on a very hot summer day.

I’m surprised by the jump to game by my LHO, and so is RHO I see from the corner of my eye. I figure there’s a lot of distribution involved, but that’s as far as I can get when assembling information. So I lead a top trump to prevent a complete crossruff. I certainly want to defend as passively as possible, right?

Wrong!

This was the complete deal.

Declarer had no problems establishing dummy’s suit to dispose of his . In the end East had only lost one trump and two . I can tell you +420 was a very, very lonely score on the score sheet.

The only effective defence is taking two top and then switch to a . Declarer can still develop the suit, but he lacks important tempo.

East can pitch only one loser on dummy’s winning , I get to ruff with my King and take the setting trick with my pointy Queen.

Could I foresee that West jumped to game on such a flat hand? Or should I just take take a deep breath, congratulate West with his insane bid and take my loss? I don’t know.

Hi all

Wednesday was my first day at school. With a packed lunch and my bag on my back I cycled down to Oakland. I’ve signed up to get Oracle Certified, and if there’s enough time I’ll add a Sun Programmer Certification to that. That must be worth something in the job market, because of the recent acquisition.

About the Sacramento regionals, I already mentioned we played the finals but we only scratched the surface there. It was an extremely tight match, and they beat us in the end by a skinny 3 imp margin. It was already close to midnight when we finished the last couple of boards.

This deal is from the semi finals. We played against very nice and humble opponents, but they gave us a good scare. They were on the right side of the score All… The… Time… In the end our experience, skills and longer breath toppled the match in our favor.

After the following auction I got to play 3.

1. Nebulous because of big

My flow was right. In mere seconds I visualized my path: take the lead… finesse in … if it loses then duck a to work towards an endplay.

So the finesse lost. I ducked the switch and took the second round. I drew the remaining trumps, eliminated and exited in , West gaining the lead. Without a moment’s thought she put the Jack on the table.

I think I’ve overanalyzed at the table. I asked for the Queen from dummy and suffered a one trick defeat when the Ten of proved to be on the unexpected side of the enemy spectrum.

What I did was with the odds, though. I knew East was holding a four card suit. My biggest mistake was projecting my flow on my opponents, regular opponents don’t play high cards smoothly if they don’t hold a sequence (at least not very often).

Hi all

Some random update: I’ve been thinking about going back to school. There’s a place nearby in Oakland where I can enter a program to become an OCP DBA. The idea that I’ll be learning new stuff and expand my Oracle skills is exciting, the crazy amount of money that’s involved gives me some gray hairs. Oh well, I have some other options as well, UCB Extension has some nice (and cheaper) summer programs I can sign up for.

Last week my team (Greg V, Mark M and Mike S) participated in the Sacramento regionals. Mental note to self, it really takes an hour and a half to get to Sacramento from Berkeley. We agreed to play in the top flight so Greg and I could use our relay tools. It’s funny, most people in the US are comfortable when you tell them you’re playing some exotic big system, but when you tell them you play a multi 2 they get confused. In Europe it’s the other way around.

Here’s a story from the finals. We played some darkhaired sponsor in tight pants, a guy with an army haircut and two Polish pro’s.

 
You’re red vs white. RHO opens 1 and you have an easy double. Slightly annoyed you double again when 4 comes back to you. Everybody is fine with that.

I started with a top and switched to my singleton trump, scared after seeing such a powerhouse come down.

We collect only +100 when Greg didn’t push in trumps twice more when he was on lead. So East has successfully psyched us out of our 4 game, even 5 has reasonable play.

What’s my problem, I hear you ask?

How would you like it if the opponents exchanged a couple of words in Polish between every board? For all you know they are informing each other about a pending psych. I cannot prove it, but there sure is a putrid smell to this deal.

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.

Hi all

No news regarding my ACBL/masterpoints problem. Tomorrow we’ll be heading to Yosemite park for a short break. Don’t be jealous, you can have our magnificent views on your screen too, here.

A week ago I played with my old Viking partner René at Quick Tricks in San Francisco. We didn’t play any Norsk gadgets, because we hadn’t played together in ages. But some of the old agreements were still very alive and present. We both remembered playing unleaddirecting doubles for a solid (but a little boring) top.

Here’s a nice little partscore:

 
West and North are silent but East opens a 11-15 NT in 3rd seat. I have to decide whether to double or show the natural way. I was a bit afraid partner might run (possibly to ) if I doubled so I bid 2 to clean up my own mess. Everybody is fine with that. West kicks off with the 9.

 
I ask for the  Ten in dummy and East wins with the Ace. Back comes a small trump and my King wins the trick. I don’t see any reason not to draw trump and my Queen loses to East’s Ace. East’s King of wins and I ruff the second round, making a mental note when West drops the Ace. I get a small shake when my Jack draws just one small trump, East showing out.

I ponder for a while, and then the solution hits me. West is 2-3-5-3 (or 2-2-5-4 if East is insane).

I play three rounds of to see what distribution West has. If he has four I can ruff a with my remaining small trump, thus scoring two tricks in + two ruffs + three tricks and the King of . If he holds only three I can try to ruff a , then if West overruffs he’s forced to play into my tenace for the same number of tricks.

I was happy with +90.

Hi all

People are investigating. I might go to Washington and play in the GNT this summer, or I might not.

I wanted to be honest and upfront with the ACBL about my bridge experience in The Netherlands. In return I get burdened with too many points, with the result I’m not eligible anymore for almost any tournament, except open ones. By the way, please ask me if I got a fair chance to appeal the decision of “awarding” me 5000 points.

Alright, enough sadness. I’m happy I can say that I have some very competent and aware people fighting for my case.

In this slam you can picture the play already during the bidding:

1. Big
2. 4441 with a red singleton, 8-11 or 15+
3. Relay
4. Singleton , 8-11 hcp
5. 1 Ace
6. 1 King (not King because of singleton)
7. No Queens
8. No need to play, I can almost claim this

From the bidding I have a clear picture of the play. Ruff three in dummy and then draw trumps with King and Ace. If they split we have everything.

This was the complete deal:

West led his stiff trump, solving the trump problem. Greg ruffed two in his hand and drew the other two outstanding trumps. Next he tried to apply some pressure by playing more trumps. This is the situation with one more trump to go:

A nice double squeeze for a fine +1010.