Moved to….

From this blog, but not from bridge!

December saw the National Handicap Teams Championship and the Youth Teams Championship. Reasonably successful in both, though I played very vastly different roles. Finished 3rd in the consols while captaining for the Handicap Teams, and finished 4th playing as the 5th player in the Youth Teams. 4th was a prize finish, though there were only 4 trophies so I was more than happy to let my teammates keep them.

My last game at SCBA was nearly a month ago. Since then, I haven’t played much at all. Why? I have still yet to finish 3 books (okay, one of them is a website) which I feel is essential for improving my level. Besides, there’s more to life than just bridge haha….

Well, I can say it was a good break. Shall resume bridge-playing soon, though I still have yet to finish 10% of the 3 books.

I started a thread on BBO forums a month ago, asking people why do they play bridge. The responses I received have mainly strengthened my own beliefs.

So why do I play? Firstly, Bridge took over the place of chess in my life, which used to be the choice of intellectual entertainment. Bridge has the added advantage of a more social element, and a quicker pace of play. And why did bridge take over chess in my life? I was improving faster, and learning better bridge, whereas I was always struggling in chess.

So what are my aims? To improve continuously and become a better player and partner. Simple as that. So, I should never consider myself as the finished product.

And of course, most importantly, to have fun. What’s the joy of playing if one doesn’t have fun? I’ve experienced it that at certain times with chess. I do not wish for it to happen with bridge.

I haven’t been updating again. Danen has been busy with stuff for the past 2 Fridays, so we chose to play last Thursday morning when both of us were on off/leave. And on Saturday I played the double 8 senior pairs with Mr David Chew. More on those in another post.

Last night we managed to play 2 8-board team matches. The first was Danen-Me, Jychee-JP vs Romulus-Desmond and Peiyi-Samantha. The second had a roughly similar lineup, except Danen was replaced by Andre and Samantha by Kelvin Ong.

The first board saw a 11-IMP swing.

Dealer N Vul - Scoring Imp Lead ♥5	♠ AKQ62 ♥ 82 ♦ 85 ♣ KQ72
♠ JT ♥ J965 ♦ K92 ♣ T853		♠ 874 ♥ Q74 ♦ AQJT64 ♣ 9
	♠ 953 ♥ AKT3 ♦ 73 ♣ AJ64

At my table the bidding went:

2NT was at least 3 card support, 10-12 or 16+, 3S showed a minimum hand and 3NT was to play.

I received a heart lead, to the Q and K. I then cashed 5 spade tricks (they broke 3-2) and 4 clubs, ending in hand leaving only AT3 in hearts. West (Romulus) discarded 2 hearts on my spades, so when I played hearts from the top that was 13 tricks.

Things proceeded differently at the other table:

This went one down for a 11 IMP Swing.

A slam-game swing occured on board 5:

Dealer N Vul N/S Scoring Imp Lead	♠ T93 ♥ 984 ♦ QT532 ♣ K5
♠ QJ4 ♥ A6 ♦ AKJ6 ♣ 9872		♠ K ♥ KQ532 ♦ 84 ♣ AQJT4
	♠ A87652 ♥ JT7 ♦ 97 ♣ 63

At our table:

1NT was forcing, 2C was 17+ or clubs.

After asking about the auction, I thought for a while about the lead. I finally decided on the Ace of Spades, which turned out to be the only lead to not give an overtrick.

At the other table, Peiyi sitting South decided to interfere with 2S:

9 Imps to them.

The next board was a double game swing:

Dealer E Vul E/W Scoring Imp Lead	♠ K7643 ♥ A ♦ AKJ865 ♣ 9
♠ T2 ♥ K6532 ♦ Q432 ♣ 43		♠ J95 ♥ QJT74 ♦ ♣ AKQJ6
	♠ AQ8 ♥ 98 ♦ T97 ♣ T8752

At my table, the auction was a bit confusing. Perhaps I should have doubled. As it was, the play was consistent with the bidding.

I lead the T of diamonds to the J and ruffed. Ace of clubs followed, then K of clubs, which partner made the mistake of not ruffing. Now declarer discarded his spades and the contract was made.

At the other table, the bidding proceeded similarly until the X. Samantha bid 4S instead of X which was passed out. This made for a double game swing.

So we lost the first 8 boards 30-14, of which 24 came from these 2 boards.

We lost the 2nd 8 19-0, but the only big swing came from board 6:

Dealer E Vul E/W Scoring Imp Lead	♠ QJT ♥ KQ84 ♦ AT8 ♣ K75
♠ 96 ♥ 9762 ♦ 9762 ♣ JT6		♠ 8732 ♥ AJT ♦ 5 ♣ AQ932
	♠ AK54 ♥ 53 ♦ KQJ43 ♣ 84

3NT+1 at our table.

A wheel or two came off in JP and Jychee’s canape. 5S went down 2 so that was 11 imps out.

This happened last Friday at SCBA when I was playing with Danen. I was sitting

Dealer W Vul - Scoring MP Lead ♥7	♠ AJ2 ♥ KJ97 ♦ 732 ♣ J93
♠ QT843 ♥ A8 ♦ JT984 ♣ 6		♠ 65 ♥ 653 ♦ AKQ6 ♣ AQ82
	♠ K97 ♥ QT42 ♦ 5 ♣ KT754

The bidding was terrible to begin with:

Surveying dummy, the first thing that crossed my mind was to strangle partner =). But to the task at hand, how to make 3NT? Or at least limit the damage? I ducked the heart lead and received a diamond back. Then I led a spade, won by the A, after another diamond return, I led a spade to the T and K. The club finesse worked so I took a heart, 5 diamonds, 1 spade and 2 clubs.

Confused? I reproduced the hand from the hand record sheet. In reality, the W and E hands were exchanged when we played them!

The Bermuda Bowl starts today. Pretty interesting match up for the first 3 rounds, with USA1 vs USA2 in the 1st round, followed by Italy vs Poland (!) in the 2nd, and now Italy vs China in the 3rd.

This happened in the USA1 vs USA2 match, Board 3

Dealer S Vul E/W Scoring Imp Lead	♠ Q2 ♥ AJ52 ♦ K2 ♣ T9832
♠ T75 ♥ K74 ♦ 976543 ♣ 7		♠ A964 ♥ T ♦ AJT8 ♣ QJ54
	♠ KJ83 ♥ Q9863 ♦ Q ♣ AK6

Both sides reached 4H. The lead was the 7C by West, ducked by East. The only way for declarer to make his contract is to take the first trick with either the K or A. Both declarers didn’t and went down.

The Italy vs Poland match was more exciting. Italy avoided an unmakeable slam in this board:

Dealer N Vul E/W Scoring Imp Lead	♠ A2 ♥ AK98752 ♦ Q32 ♣ J
♠ 63 ♥ J643 ♦ AJ98 ♣ 643		♠ KJT985 ♥ T ♦ 74 ♣ T952
	♠ Q74 ♥ Q ♦ KT65 ♣ AKQ87

Bocchi and Duboin were on their way to the small slam in hearts, when Jassem (W) doubled a 4D cuebid, thus putting the Italians off who stopped in 4H. The Polish NS pair didn’t even smell any slam.

The commentators were saying that the double was wrong, with 2 tricks and opponents looking for slam, it is better to keep quiet and let them bid it, instead of interfering and giving them a hint that the lie of the cards might be unfavourable.

Amazingly someone actually bugged me to update on BBO.

Actually due to some stuff happening lately, I am currently stuck in a state of ennui. (Not just restricted to bridge, I had totally no attention span to do anything today at all, even eating. Those who know me better might find more details on my LJ.) Hopefully this will pass soon.

Dealer N Vul E/W Scoring MP Lead	♠ J ♥ QJ532 ♦ Q4 ♣ 76532
♠ 8 ♥ T763 ♦ A952 ♣ 6543		♠ J2 ♥ Q92 ♦ T876 ♣ KQ72
	♠ AKQ73 ♥ KJ54 ♦ K3 ♣ AT

This happened on 7 Sep, a Friday night game which Andre and I won with 57.08%. This will be the last Friday night game of the year I am playing with Andre, as he is leaving this coming Saturday morning.

At our table, I sat North and wondered for a moment if I should open 2H. The factor that dissuaded me from doing so was the fact that EW were two U-21 team members who would be able to deal with the loss of space, and might even find a making slam. I thus passed and 3NT was declared by East, making 12 tricks.

After the session, my two opps and I were looking at the hand records with Poon Hua, when he told us he actually opened 2H on the North hand! Apparently he was allowed to play in 3H which gave a good score compared to all the 3NT contracts making.

A further interesting point is the hand plays better from East regardless of the denomination of the contract.

For personal reference.

1NT-2D then:
2H – accept
2S – super accept
then:
2NT – retransfer
3C/D – second suit

1NT-2H then:
2S – accept
2NT – super accept
then:
3C/D – second suit
3H – retransfer

With any 5-4 majors, bidding would proceed via stayman.

JP and Jychee have been joining Andre and I on Friday Nights at SCBA.

On the 10th I partnered Danen instead as Andre was not in town. We got a score of 49% and 6th out of 11 pairs.

On the 17th Andre and I had some bad luck and bad judgement and we got a bad score of 40% and 15th out of 17 pairs.

Yesterday we had a good game and we got 56% and 2nd out of 8 pairs. Only 2 outright bottoms: A misdefend by me on 6NT and Andre going down 1 in 4H.

The misdefend was a stupid mistake: I held up my Ace for one round too many. This is one of my common mistakes. Andre’s mis-declaring play was not entirely his fault as I placed the contract wrongly. The other 3 tables were in 3NT making 10 or 11 tricks. So even if we had just made 10 tricks, +620 would still give us a bottom compared to +630 or +660.

Interestingly on the previous hand, we made a top because opps pushed us out of 3NT into 4S. My hand was:

AT
AQTxxx
KQx
Q9

The bidding went something like (Andre opened): 1S(2C)2H-2S-3C*-3NT then 4C by my LHO. This was passed round to me. My choices were X and 4S. I was wondering if X would give us enough penalty as we were vul vs non-vul so 4CX would need to be down by 4 if our game as on. The AT suggested 4S to me and I bid it. 4S made with 1 overtrick and the best score among the other tables was 3NT+1.

Andre actually had Kxxx in clubs! LHO had raised to 4C with only 2 small clubs, much to the shock and amazement of her partner.

Matchpoint Bridge by Kelsey is a good read. My approach towards playing pairs has changed somewhat after reading it.

A bad weekend. I spent one whole day yesterday (Sunday) playing teams when I was sick, resulting in a poor result.

Friday was Open Pairs. Final result: 49.2%, 15th out of 26 pairs. Not too bad considering the field.

Andre and I were the sitting pair at table 11, so I sat North for the first 9 rounds, and West for the next 4.

Disaster struck on the first board we played, board 21:

Dealer N Vul N/S Scoring MP Lead ♥5	♠ KJT2 ♥ K942 ♦ 92 ♣ JT9872
♠ 3 ♥ J87 ♦ KQ8654 ♣ J87		♠ 97654 ♥ A63 ♦ T7 ♣ Q42
	♠ AQ8 ♥ QT5 ♦ AJ3 ♣ KT96

The disaster was in the auction:

Firstly, I answered the 2D feature ask wrongly – with a minimum I should just rebid 3C. Secondly, we were playing 1430 RKCB, so my answer was wrong again. Andre thought I had 3, so he bid 6NT, which went down 3.

We redeemed ourselves somewhat on the next hand.

Dealer E Vul E/W Scoring MP Lead 7S	♠ 7 ♥ AT92 ♦ KQT95 ♣ QJ8
♠ AK3 ♥ J87643 ♦ 4 ♣ T94		♠ QJT4 ♥ KQ ♦ J86 ♣ K753
	♠ 98652 ♥ 5 ♦ A732 ♣ A62

Opponents reached 4H after a contested auction, and I promptly wielded the X. This went down 2 for 500, which is good considering we have 5D our way.

The next few boards were not really interesting. Andre made a mistake on board 24, going down in game when he should have made, but board 26 saw him bring in a 1NT which was supposed to go down.

Board 3 was another bad board:

Dealer S Vul E/W Scoring MP Lead 3S	♠ J8 ♥ KT52 ♦ 753 ♣ Q764
♠ QT4 ♥ J9 ♦ JT62 ♣ KJ82		♠ K76 ♥ 8764 ♦ AKQ8 ♣ AT
	♠ A9532 ♥ AQ3 ♦ 94 ♣ 953

Opponents reached 3NT after 1NT-3NT. Declarer played the Ten of Clubs towards table after winning the spade lead. I misjudged the situation and held up the Q when a heart return after taking the Q would have set.

The next board was bad as well, Andre making a MP double of 5D which was making with an overtrick. No one else doubled so this was a zero for us.

Our next opponents had the luck of defending against two slams:

Dealer N Vul N/S Scoring MP Lead ♦J	♠ QJ72 ♥ JT42 ♦ Q6 ♣ AK8
♠ 954 ♥ Q98 ♦ 9542 ♣ JT5		♠ 863 ♥ K76 ♦ JT87 ♣ 972
	♠ AKT ♥ A53 ♦ AK3 ♣ Q643

The auction went 1NT-4NT-6NT at our table. Other tables mostly played the slam from South.

11 top tricks, how to get the 12th? Either clubs or hearts would have to provide the 12th. Clubs would require a 3-3 break, while hearts….I had no obvious solution. I played for the 3-3 break and was home.

Suggestion from partner was that I could have played a low heart towards hand to rectify the count.

(To be continued)