Hand Number One

I can sum up this blog in three or four simple sentences, if we count this one. Are you looking for a dedicated bridge blog written by an expert, contributed to by experts, with loads of fascinating hands and nuances to discuss, with regular updates? Then this is NOT the bridge blog for you. This is the blog and ramblings of a good (but not great), young Scottish bridge player, that will discuss anything to do with bridge at leisure, as I see fit. The reason? Well, I could just write a blog about my life. But as most dedicated bridge players will confirm, bridge takes over your life.

I will write about experiences at the table, interesting hands, competitiions - anything of note. A likely point of inspiration will be Phoenix Bridge Club in Aberdeen (the best club anyone could hope to play in, particularly if you are a junior and/or improving player), or any competition that you might find me in. I may also refer to hands or experiences drawn from Aberdeen Bridge Club or the "other" club, Ellon, which is where I learned to play and still do every week in the winter.

To get away from the preamble, it is with the latter club, Ellon, that I take my first hand - the cheapest of cheap shots. I'm not proud of it; I am so not-proud of my actions in this hand that I am posting it on the Internet for anyone to see. Hmm.

7 5 2
K 9 8 5 4
K 10 3
Q 8

The bidding goes Pass-Pass-? Is 1 Heart simply an overbid or a psyche?
Let me explain. It is the first hand of the night in a small, match-point field. It has gone Pass-Pass to me. The beginner-intermediate on my left must have the points. I'm not going to make life easy for her. So I throw in 1 Heart to see what happens. The idea is that nobody else is going to do this and hopefully it will prove to be a major spanner in the works. Partner is hardly going to go haring into 4 and if he does then I'll have to accept the consequences. Sure enough, LHO doubles and my partner raises me to 2 Hearts (weak competitive). RHO comes in with 2 spades, but we all pass. LHO makes 12 tricks in spades to get told by partner that she "simply cannot pass" 2 spades. My gambit earned us 6 Match Points - an outright top. Every other EW bid 4 Spades and make 11 or 12 tricks.
A couple of points arise from this. In answer to my question above I believe I have to err on the side of an overbid. I had the 5 hearts I promised; I just didn't have the points. Green against Red I'm happy to play 2 Hearts when the opposition have something their way. If I'm going to psyche, 1 spade is surely the psyche bid. Furthermore, it was done with a specific strategy in mind which worked to the letter.
The next question is: What of the 2 Spades? I would not expect that this shows extra values, since partner implies spades with the double. My RHO was right, I felt, that LHO should've gone on - but only because her hand was stronger than a simple opening bid. Holding 12-14 2 Spades is surely passable.
Finally, there is the ethical side of things. Against an opponent in her first year back in bridge after a long hiatus, is it really appropriate to play her for an error? I do not feel the quality of the bid should be in question - obviously it is a bad bid; I made the bid knowing as much and prepared to accept the consequences of my actions if a bad score resulted. My gut feeling is "yes", it is entirely appropriate. We were playing in a random field where anything can happen. My partner and I were leading the Championship at the time so we're playing to win. If we want to take a risk here and there then that's our lookout. The opponents in question regard us as a strong pair and would feel rightly aggrieved if they found out we weren't giving our all against them. Imagine getting the odd top against a good pair, thinking you've done really well, only to find out later they let you get it. How cheated would you feel? As much as there is an ethical question over making gambles, there is a definite ethical responsibility to try to win on each hand. After all, the other three EW pairs had something to thank us for, and the pair we played against managed a 2nd overall - a new high for them, if memory serves.

Here is a better "bridge" question:

Partner    East     You     West
Pass        1S       Pass      2S
X            Pass       ?

What I'd like to know is how many people would play North's double in this position as penalty? At least two people I know, and unfortunately, one of them was my partner when this hand came up on Monday. Double of 2 Spades is Doubling into Game. Given that, what hand can North possibly have that North can guarantee the contract is going down? To minimise the points, he might have K Q J 10 9 of spades and an outside Ace - 5 tricks, not 6. That's about as good as it can get. I felt that this shows a maximum pass and a takeout double, as (some of my) stronger regular partners have since confirmed. Not only are they stronger, they are also the ones I have had more discusiion about methods with. Coincidence? I think not.

To finish an entry titled "Hand Number One", I shall include - well, the third hand of the post. It was also the first hand of a bridge night - in this case, it was Round 4 of the District Teams of 4. My team had done well the first two rounds, with scores of 42 VPs (out of 60) on both nights. The third night had seen a disastrous total of 16, so the target now is a top half finish. One of our regular team-mates dropped out for Round 4, so we drafted in our substitute; an inexperienced but fearless 15 year old. Playing against two Grandmaster-captained teams and another strong team, we did not expect to do well. But that wasn't the idea.

Have you ever seen this auction:
North     East     South     West
1NT(1)  X(2)     2NT      All Pass

(1) 12-14
(2) Penalties
I can only assume my young partner (South) didn't fear the double was for penalties and invited me to 3. Given that I had actually overbid my hand just to control the auction and make life easy for partner (the response structure to 1NT being so straightforward) with a 4-3-3-3 eleven count, Green against Red, I couldn't believe my luck. Clearly partner's bid had duped the opposition. A heart was led and I faced this position:

Dummy
10 x x
K Q 7 x
x x x
A K Q x

A Q x
J x x
K x x
J x x
Hand

One wonders, if my partner trusted the bid, why he didn't raise to 3 (or pass, for a telephone number). 3NT shouldn't make, but after the lead the nine tricks were there.
  I covered the small heart lead with the 7, which forced out the ten and I won with the Jack, before leading a small heart to the Queen, which held. I returned to hand via the Jack of Clubs and played my last heart. East rises with the ace and exits his last heart. Now I run my three club tricks and take the QS finesse - as expected, East turns up with the King, but as expected, East is now endplayed. If he plays a small spade dummy's ten will hold, so he cashes the Ace of Diamonds and exits with a diamond. 9 tricks was enough for 6 IMPs.

Incidentally, if your answer to the question in my 2nd sentence was "yes", I highly recommend Paul Gipson's blog; The Beer Card. Not only is it a thoroughly good read in of itself, it also has links to a number of other good bridge blogs.