Down, but not out

The end of last week saw two back-to-back important events. The first took on somewhat less significance when Lessurl took ill, prompting my Dad to step in as my partner for Round 4 of the Phoenix Cup. Jim was also without regular partner Jun, so the competition between us was "off" as we wanted each other to occupy 1st and 2nd spots and knock the regular partnerships down. Unfortunately, we only managed two finish above two other regular partnerships, coming 3rd bottom. Jim kept his end of the bargain by coming top.

However, the important event was Phoenix Rising v Torphins on the Friday. It was not an ideal date for the match; I tried to plead with Jun to play but apparently the Open European Trials were more important. He and Jim did well, winning 5 out of 7 matches and qualifying for the Final Four. They couldn't really have done better than that for the first weekend. 009domino was also unavailable, and in total she was one of three players that were in the 17-3 loss to Banchory that dropped out of the team (owing to unavailability, not selection I might add) for this one. In came three juniors, one pair of which were extremely inexperienced having only started bridge in September. So Torphins were on a hiding to nothing. Anything less than 20 VPs for them would be an achievement for us.
  Lessurl had recovered from illness, thankfully, but we weren't playing together as one (very) inexperienced partnership was enough and we felt that the two other juniors should be partnered with experience, in the hope of creating three "reliable" partnerships. This was a particularly high challenge for my partner, who had herself been one of the least experienced players against Banchory, and we were now looking to her to help anchor the team. But with some of our best players missing, others have to step up to the plate, and she did just that.

On Board 1, I held:

A J 10 9
7
A 4 2
K J 10 9 7

I was sitting West. North opened 3 Spades, and after some deliberation, South raised to 4 on a void, which I doubled. Partner knew this could be nothing other than penalty, and we managed to scrounge six tricks between us, taking 500. A nice, good score to settle the nerves early on.

On Board 2, I held:

A K 3
A
K J 9 6
K 10 7 4 2

Partner is Dealer and passes. South passes, and I open 1 Club. North passes, and partner raises to 3 Clubs. South says 3 Hearts. What now?
I suspect slam might be a possibility, but with a new partner I was unsure how to go about it. We ended up settling for 5 clubs, and missed the 25 point slam. Partner held:

8
10 4 3
Q 7 3 2
A J 6 5 3

Both minor suits break nicely. Partner's 3 Clubs was a good one; she did all she could. In other words, I carry the can for not getting us to the right spot. Incidentally, if we're not going to find the slam, then cracking 3 Hearts is better. Another 500 is slightly better than 420, but at teams you are never going to double into Game.

On Board 3 (I'm not doing all the boards, honest!) I held:

K Q 10 9 8 5 2
A
7 3
Q 8 6

I bid spades three times, and in between, the opponents bid to a making 3NT. My third and final spade bid (reckless, over a silent partner) was 4 Spades, which was of course doubled. I expected that 3NT would make because for his bidding, North would probably hold AJx of spades. In fact my dummy was:

J 7 4
7 5 4 3
Q J 9 5 2
9

So, even though 3NT makes 4 Spades Doubled is too expensive as a sacrifice. If North-South can see all the cards before defending, they would take me for 800. Fortunately, they can't. North dutifully led a heart in response to partner bidding them, and I exited a club. I ruffed the heart return, and ruffed a club with the 4 of spades, before ruffing a heart with the 8. I then ruffed another club with the 7 and played the Jack, which got me to a total of nine tricks and -200, halving the deficit of 3NT.
  Sometimes experience counts, and sometimes it is luck. Our new pair, who sat the same way as us, were in the same doomed contract, but lost 800 for their troubles. One lesson they will have to be taught is to do as I say, and not as I do.

When all six of the first set of boards had been played, partner and I had gathered +1330, which was good going having missed the slam. (The par score if you find the slam is 1370). Unfortunately, the Torphins East-West pairs were merciless, and partner and I were the only pair on the team to achieve a plus.

Being the hosts, it was our pairs that rotated round the room, which meant we changed polarity for Round 2. This was unfortunate as East-West got all six of the hands; one of them a cold slam, four cold games and one part score. So -3000 would've been an achievement for us if you do the maths. However, partner and I didn't settle for that. We managed to find a good sacrifice against a making game (below the level of Game, but the opponents didn't bid it), and they didn't bid the slam either. We scored -2010, more than one thousand better than the double dummy "par" score, and the new pair also came in with a creditable -2470.
Unfortunately, our other 2 pairs didn't contribute such large plusses, so we were well on our way to 0 VPs at Half Time.

We were there by the end of Round 3. Board 14 was seriously unlucky. After some confused bidding where my partner felt obliged to continue after a 4 Heart sign-off, which was partly my fault for only partially explaining an ethical rule, I had this situation:

K 6
A Q 10 7
K 6
A K 5 3 2

9 5
J 9 8 5 4 3 2
8 5
J 8

Contract: 5 Hearts by the bottom hand; Queen of Spades led.

Both missing aces are offside, LHO has QJ of spades, and RHO has both the missing hearts. The result is that if my hand plays the contract, 4 Hearts can never make. Partner on the other hand can make, as partner's LHO is endplayed on the opening lead. The best lead would be a club; the Jack would be covered by the Queen and King, then Declarer can cash the Ace of Hearts, Ace of clubs and ruff a club, with the suit splitting 3-3. Declarer can then exit in hearts, to end play South again. The best South can do is cash the two aces and give up. A really unlucky situation where the hand that is most likely to bid hearts first wrong-sides the Game in doing so.
  There was more bad luck to come. We didn't touch a minor slam that was anti-percentage, but did make, opting instead for a major Game. Board 18 did at least yield a 100% slam that just required to be bid, and our overall score for the round was +1700, which is either 200-400 points better or 200 points worse than a debatable par, depending on what you take par to be. Still, we didn't expect what our team-mates provided (we were the only plus again), and we passed the 5000 point aggregate minus threshold.
  Unless we won Round 4, we were going to lose this match 20-0. It was Twenty Past Ten by the time we finished Round 3, so we felt it was in the best and fairest interests of all sixteen players to call time on the match then. A match in the afternoon I would have happily played another six boards against the odds, but we were getting very late, especially for youngsters.
  The Division 2 table does not make good reading. We are bottom with 3 VPs; Ellon are second bottom with 24. Some would say the situation is already hopeless. Indeed, I admit it is getting critical. However, I have faith in my team and there are a lot of positives we can take from this.

I am aware that with a statement like that, when on the face of it we were completely swept aside and outclassed, I look like a football manager trying to appease his team's fans after an embarrassing defeat. But there are some very promising signs and we still have three matches to get ourselves out of our admittedly sticky situation.

The first positive is the "team of four within the team of eight" scenario. Comparing Pair 1 and Pair 2's scores from the match against Banchory, they made a net gain which was good enough for a 15-5 win if pairs 3 and 4 had levelled out. Well, so we should, given the strength of Pairs 1 and 2 in that match. However, when doing so again for the Torphins match, Pairs 1 and 2 (who'd had two good players removed, and replaced with two lesser-experienced players), still came out ahead. This is very encouraging, because it is a sign that the experience of playing these matches is paying off and that our inexperienced players are getting better; learning to hold their own. The reason that it went so wrong against Torphins is that they can hold their own when they have some strong players to back them up and compliment their scores; they are not yet at a stage where they can help anchor a team.
  The second positive is our new pair. On the face of it, they were completely thrashed, but there's more to this than meets the eye. The game plan was that it would not be disappointing if they did slightly worse than they should have done; it was up to me and my partner to cancel that out with a good score. But in Round 2, between all the doubled contracts that spoiled their score card in Rounds 1 and 3, they actually did better than par, which is a real sign of progress and more than I could've asked them for. There's a lot of potential there, and when I look at their score card, what I find is that they were completely fearless, (as reckless as me in places but less inclined to get away with it), so they are standing in good stead for a positive future.
  Individual development is also a key area. My partner from the match in particular is coming on leaps and bounds and is not as far away from becoming a fully-fledged player as she thinks she is. Another player was back after a bit of a hiatus, and Lessurl informs me that not a lot went wrong in the bidding, which means he has retained quite a bit of the bidding theory that he has learned very well. Against Torphins, we fielded four partnerships that have never played in any competitive bridge event together, which means the team is learning to play with others.
  As a Captain, I am learning a lot about my team and my players, what they can and can't do and what they are capable of. Some of it I know beforehand, but there are some things you can only find out by experience, trial, error and observation.
  The team spirit is another factor which pleases me. After a start like this, it is easy for the heads to go down and players to blame themselves and ask whether they are good enough. But they are all up for it and ready to play their part in the recovery - and they will.
  We also have to remember that this was far from our best possible side. Two of last season's ever-presents and one international junior were not involved in this match. I chose players from my team pool. I could have tried drafting in substitutes instead - if I had been so desperate to win this match that I was willing to sacrifice team development. But this is a work-in-progress; a transitional phase as we look towards building a bigger and better junior team in the future. These players need games. They learn by doing.
  It is a shame that it is two of my clubs that occupy the bottom two positions of Division 2. But, sorry Ellon, there are no divided loyalties. The next match is a forty-pointer (the bridge equivalent of a football six-pointer) between Phoenix Rising and Ellon, and I certainly hope that we will be getting our first win of the season under our belts. I have of course been supporting Ellon in all of their matches so far this season, but they have my permission to lose the next match. It would be good if both teams could avoid relegation however.
  While it is still possible that we will escape relegation, we'll continue to play to do so. I don't mind if anybody writes us off; some people wrote off Division 2 as ours to win before the season started, and we proved them wrong. There is still a lot of bridge to be played, and I have faith that my team will come good. It is just a question of how quickly they do so.

I write this on Monday. This week sees a marathon of five (possibly six) days of bridge in a row, starting tonight. Still, if that happens, it won't be the first time - nor will it be the first time I have several events to blog about at once. Bring it on.