Another catch-up

So, two and a half weeks since my last post makes another hiatus - so many things have happened since then, all of them worthy of their own post. But no; I haven't got round to writing, so a lot of subjects have to be covered. I'll start with the

Phoenix Cup

At the end of my last post, we'd just finished the first round. Last night was the second round. Lessurl and I are still hanging onto the coat-tails of the leaders, Jim and Jun. The gap has not widened any, as we tied for first place last night. But we will have extended the lead on those behind us - if only slightly in some cases. Whereas in the last round there was no point in looking back, this time I can't help it, since one more Match Point would've sufficed.

Qxx
Q8xxx
xx
Axx

Here is a decision I lived to regret. It was in the last round - the very round after a good round against Jim and Jun (or a round that seemed good but was in fact a draw, so I guess a fair result). Partner opened 1 Club (Better Minor) and bid 1NT over my 1 Heart reply. Initially I reckon 2 Hearts is my bid - gets across my five hearts and that I don't have a Game-going hand as I didn't Check Back. Then I remember it is Match Points, and NT should score better, given lessurl may not have any real support for hearts and should have a diamond stop. So I pass, and am thoroughly disappointed to see 5 diamond tricks cashed by RHO off the top. The eventual one down was a bottom.
  Never mind, there was still plenty good stuff. Not that I'll talk (boast?) about it here, but let's look at the first two hands we played, as they were quite interesting.

J x x x
A K Q x x
? ? ?
K

A Q x x x
J x x
? ? ? ?
A x

Yeah, first hand - long time ago, I can't remember the diamond position other than the fact that when the hand went down I had no losers there. This board was played 6 times. Half of the pairs our way played (justifiably) in 6 Spades. We were in 4 Spades (my hand, Declarer, bottom), and the spades broke 0-4. I couldn't avoid two losers although I do remember I deliberately ruffed the Ace of Clubs. It's one of those occasions when you're relieved to see a bad break against you.
  The second hand was a point of Match Point bidding. After two passes to me, I opened 1 Heart with 5 hearts and nine HCPs. This met with a 1 Spade overcall, thus initiating our special defence. Lessurl bid 3 Diamonds (alerted), and it is passed to me. I say 3 Hearts (minimum sign-off). LHO asks about the 3 Diamonds; I explain it is normally strong with 4 card support, but in this sequence must be a maximum pass with 4 card support. RHO throws in 3 Spades which is passed twice and gets a "pairs double" from Lessurl. The contract went down by 1 trick. The double was the difference between top and second top, as the only other plus score for our direction was a 50 for beating 3 Spades (undoubled) by one. In pairs we often talk about a narrow margin of error. There is a narrow margin of success equally.
  Although not favourites to be the "best pair" in the Phoenix Cup, we did win the Phoenix Summer Pairs trophy - I think largely thanks to turning up over the summer. Still, a trophy is a trophy and deserved too I feel. So we're going to keep up the chase in the Phoenix Cup. That will be possible if we don't have a night like the....

National Pairs

From our point of view, the less said about this, the better. Entries were slim; some of the reasons I accept and some of the reasons I don't. In most cases the reasons I do not know. The field was random. Don't get me wrong - most - but not all - players were accomplished players that are always difficult to beat. But some were there to throw in strange results to skew the scores somewhat. A complete underdog won the event, which I am pleased about. What I am not pleased about is that lessurl and I came in dead last, although anyone who had kibitzed our evening might well have concluded we were trying to do just that.

District Teams of 4

The Sybil Hay as we call it, is in a new format thanks to yours truly. Well, not really. We had 13 entries so we cut our cloth to suit. We wanted to keep the all-play-all format, but we didn't want people sitting out. Thus we are running a scrambled American Whist movement, so that we can have each team playing 2 complete matches a night. (If I was as good at bridge as I was at fixtures and movements, I'd probably be somewhat better...) Still, the increased length of matches (12 boards) has been generally well received. We had one win and one disappointing loss, above average overall. However, the 20-0 win was against the outright underdog, so we didn't emerge with too much credit.

District League Teams of 8

I wear two hats in this competition - Phoenix Rising Captain and League Convener. Both roles have been tested so far. Phoenix Rising have not yet played a match, and I am in the process of trying to get a team out to Fraserburgh on the 25th November. That is by far the most difficult match organisationally. I also have a match against Banchory to arrange. Meanwhile, in our league, Fraserburgh beat Ellon 13-7, and Bridge Club Tartan play against Torphins tonight. Yes, that's right - Torphins were promoted as well as us to Division 2. One team from last season's First Division withdrew and re-start in Division 3.
  The team may experience something of a "culture shock" (I don't think that's the term but I don't know what is). Last season the juniors could compete and our more experienced players could bring the team on and win matches comfortably. There is a gulf in class between Division 3 and Division 2, and this year we will do well if we avoid relegation. It doesn't help when certain individuals underestimate the strength of Division 2 teams and expect us to walk to promotion. We do not have strength in depth. Whilst it is true that our four best players would most likely beat the four best players from one of the other teams in a Scottish Cup match, our next four are nowhere near as experienced. Besides which, we are going to be fielding younger teams than we did last season (if possible). And how would we respond to defeat? Some of our players have never tasted defeat in the Teams of 8. (I have; I've played for Ellon).
  Being Convener is not without its challenges. Already I have had decisions to make that I did not expect, but all in all, things are running smoothly. I am quite happy to advise players and Captains on matters of rules etc, and have done so on a couple of occasions. There has been a minor "breach" of the rules, but, unforeseen circumstances applied and common sense will prevail. The rules I wrote allow for that; no harm has been done. On a couple of occasions I have seen the result on the website before receiving the Match result sheet; again, no problem there as long as the Match result Sheet arrives. There may be an interesting season ahead.

That's the blog all caught up again. I'll try to write in a week's time or less as there is another couple of big events coming up - one which I'll definitely be involved in and one which I hope to be involved in. Also, at the weekend, Jim and Jun are competing in the final stage of the trials. I'm rooting for them and will be delighted if they make the top 6. So I'll be keeping a keen eye on that too.

Ellon season begins

From here on through to March, I know what I'm doing on Monday nights. It's time for a new season at Ellon Bridge Club. It is no secret that I do not particularly enjoy my bridge there; who wants to play Match Pointed pairs of less than 30 boards in a small field which produces almost completely random scores? (Not that THAT should discourage any new members... my views are entirely my own and certainly not the views of Ellon Bridge Club, otherwise we obviously wouldn't be playing Match-Pointed pairs.) With my regular partner from last season not available to be regular this season, I made it clear that with no regular partner (and therefore no chance of winning the championship), I had no interest in returning. As it happens, a lapsed player was keen enough to return to the game, so there I was last night, at it all over again.
  Our recruitment drive has not been a great success. We might have one or two new partnerships appearing, but there is a worry we will lose just as many if not more. One of our long standing members had spent most of last season insisting that she would not play at Ellon on the Mondays any more; that last season was indeed her last season. That is a loss of one whole partnership if true. One of the other pairs will only manage 3 of every 4 Mondays - and last night was the 1 in 4 they can't play. With one of the other regular/almost-regular players away on holiday, last night was expected to be a melting pot of the regular partnerships who are gunning for the title, one or two regular partnerships who, with the best will in the world, I don't expect to mount a title challenge, and one-off partnerships having a bounce game. Not that this was particularly a randomising factor - how do you randomise a random field? Perhaps insert an expert player, of which we have none. In actual fact, the last type never turned up, so there were 7 regular partnerships plus us, who hope to be regular.
  But you can say what you like about Ellon. The Ellon Club Championship (or Advertiser, as we still call it) trophy is still prestigious and still very much a trophy I want to get my hands on. It is, very much, difficult to win. That's because you cannot play so well that you can guarantee yourself first place, which means in turn it is also difficult to win consistently at Ellon. I attack the standard of the club constantly (again, all the more reasons for new players to JOIN - we have no sharks), and it is no surprise that the (or at least most of the) pairs in the running for the Championship include one of the club's three players that are also members of Phoenix. Although, it remains to be seen whether I'll be part of the title hunt this year. It'll depend on how much I can bring on my new partner and how quickly I can do so. IF you include myself and my partner in the running for the Championship, I think it could be a four horse race - although I'm open to the possibility that there will be a dark horse that emerges. But that is like a football pundit saying the Premier League will be won by either Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool or Man City - but that Tottenham or Arsenal might be a dark horse. For those of you who want a slightly bolder prediction: Okay, I'm pretty sure the winning partnership will include a Phoenix player. What's that? You think that because I used the horse analogy I should make an on-the-nose bet? Okay then. Mike and Morton. You heard it here first.
  Now, I have a slight confession to make. Since it takes me a considerable length of time to write these blog posts, I actually started writing this post on Monday - before I actually went to Ellon. I have come this far without knowing what the first night was like. Why am I admitting to this? Simply because, since I made a few predictions in the last paragraph, I wanted to be clear that they were made without the benefit of last night's results. (Although, since I do the scoring, I guess I could've just written this blog before doing the scoring... sigh) It doesn't really matter if Mike and Morton came bottom last night (which is actually this evening... er, ahem - just to be clear: No butterflies were harmed during the making of this blog post) I am at least committing myself, by continuously saying "last night", to actually coming back and concluding this tomorrow.
  Where was I? Oh yes, I remember... it hasn't been a day since I was working on this; honest! (No, seriously, it hasn't - it's still Monday; still me typing some random stuff about an event that hasn't actually happened yet...) Yes, there are up to four (maximum five) pairs that are title contenders, I expect an actual title race, but maybe between two and not three (depends how well my particular horse does) to go all the way - the title race might still be a race right on up til the final night and it certainly won't be done and dusted (mathematically anyway) before February. I know where I was: the predictions. Actually, I'd just finished that. If I was a real expert pundit, I'd run through all the horses and say how I rated them and what their individual strengths were (just the positive stuff), but since (a) I'm not an expert pundit, (b) I don't really want to talk about all of them on the Internet, even though I'd only say good things, and (c) I generally can't be bothered, I'm not going to.
  I have just opened up the Excel file from last season for an interesting look back. It is interesting to note that as far as I am concerned, last year's Champions are not my favourites to win this season (just as in the Phoenix Cup). As a matter of fact, Mike finished 10th last season, but then he switched partners mid-way through the season which made that rather inevitable - he'd been in the race until then. I expect last season's Champions to finish 2nd, with myself and partner finishing anywhere between 3rd and 10th, depending on various factors. I don't expect it will be as close as last season, since it was very close at the end - my Dad and Kathleen getting only half a point more than us. The eventual 3rd and 4th pairs from last season are dark horses but nothing more.
  The Championship works thus: 12 points to the winner, 11 points to 2nd and so on (two pairs get 12 in Mitchell Movements). The total throughout the season is recorded, and the three lowest scores dropped. This is because it is near impossible to guarantee perfect attendance, so a good pair can keep themselves in the running even if they have to miss three nights. (Obviously, if you do have perfect attendance, you can give yourself a slight advantage, because you can afford 3 bad nights - very useful in the Ellon field.) We all start at 0 - bring on the race to the 200 points it'll take to bag the Championship. Note that figure is a guesstimate based on last year's winning score being 170. The Champions had 195.5 points in total, but were ever-presents so 3 scores didn't count.
  The stage was set when a full four tables - 8 pairs - turned up to play. As it was the first night, we played a Howell movement of 21 boards. A 28 board Mitchell would've been preferable, but never mind. I was also called into action as the TD for the first time of the season, for failure to play a major penalty card - nice and interesting. I also made a faced opening lead out of turn (must remember to teach partner the "no questions" procedure) and partner made an inconsequential revoke. Even by Ellon's standards, that's eventful.
  Partner and I were handed a baptism of fire. First up were my Dad and Kathleen (incumbent champions), followed by Mike and Morton (Champions elect). But then I certainly contributed to said fire. On the very first board, RHO opened a strong 2 Diamonds. With a long heart suit headed by KJ10, I bid 4 Hearts. This was doubled, and went 2 off for -500. As our opponents were also vulnerable and could make 3NT with room to spare, this was an outright top. I then made 3NT+1 when partner didn't correct to 4 Spades holding AQJxxxx - certainly a teething trouble. We won the head to head against my Dad and Kathleen (not that we had any idea at the time), and proceeded to get a bottom on the first board against Mike and Morton when we stumbled into a 4 Spades when we really should have got out of the auction much lower. Then I was presented this play problem.

With my partner and I not having agreed any methods, I had to take the 3 Spades bid as natural. Indeed it was. I got a spade lead.

  Initial prospects are all right. I seem to have 3 spade tricks and I can hopefully find the heart ace onside if they attack hearts. That just leaves the clubs to figure out. LHO is more likely to hold the queen so the finesse is odds against. The ten of spades holds the first trick. I therefore cash my Ace and King of clubs, and when the queen does drop on my left I have no qualms about preserving my Jack and playing up to it. Now then. 1 spade and 3 clubs are safely in the bag, and I can cash out two diamonds and 3 more clubs for nine tricks. But hang on – it is Match Points. With reasonable chances of the heart ace on my right, should I not establish two more spade tricks first? Dilemma.  Teams instinct demands I take the nine tricks and run. But I go for it. I play a spade and the ace appears. This turns out to be a bad decision – LHO has the ace of hearts. Thankfully, RHO did not switch to hearts, electing instead for a diamond – 11 tricks and an outright top were mine; 9 tricks would’ve been a top equal. The match is tied, and we win it when the opponents bid a 4 spade contract that comes 2 down.

  On the first board at the next table (I skip one bad round delicately here as the 2^nd and 3^rd rounds were played at the same table), RHO opens 1 Diamond and I hold:

X x

H H x x x x

K x x x

X

I lay a trap with 3 Hearts, which works like a charm. LHO bids 4 Diamonds, partner  4 Hearts, RHO 5 Diamonds and I double. I lead a club to partner’s ace. I get a ruff and we take enough tricks off the top for a good score. Declarer made it better for us by miscounting trumps and the contract went 5 down for 1100.

  All these hands, by the way, appear on the first half of the night, during which partner and I barely have a clue what we are doing! Even scores that we thought were bad were Ok when we opened the ticket; all in all, we did rather well – especially considering we’d never met before last night. In the end, we had to settle for 56.35%, which was only good enough for third. Still, we will take that, as six of the eight pairs scored above 50%. Mike and Morton finished 1^st, Dad and Kathleen second – never mind the bridge; my predicting seems spot-on.

  My initial thoughts are not bad. I don’t expect we shall mount much of a title challenge, but in so doing we might have some fun.  And if we can do that at Ellon, I’m actually looking forward to it. The season has only just begun.