A busy first weekend

Happy New Year.
I signed off my last entry looking forward to Round 3 of the Sybil Hay District Teams of 4. As scheduled, this clashed with the SBU Winter Congress in Peebles, so we postponed it and Round 3 was played on the 4th January 2013. This clashed with the first weekend of the Camrose, of course, but nobody from the North is involved in that, save for the interest of watching it. Pity we can't record it on Sky+. Nor would there be (for me) any time to watch on Saturday, as I was a chapperone-slash-player at the Junior Trials in Stirling - just one of the things new SBU Junior Co-ordinator Jenny Cooper is doing to get a look at the current crop of Juniors coming through and take the setup forward, which I have every confidence she will. I also had bridge to play on Sunday, but I'm not going to blog about that.

District Teams of Four Round 3

This was a big night for us and in many ways the toughest challenge yet. Having finished both Rounds 1 and 2 sitting 1VP behind First Place, we were determined to finish Round 3 on top. The feeling was that if we didn't, we could forget about the trophy. It would not be easy - PETERS and N. MCLEOD are both scoring better than last year, although, I doubt they will be at all offended if I suggest they are not title contenders. We were under no illusions about how difficult it would be to win, and of course, anything can happen in McLeod v McLeod. No other team has the uniqueness of a "family derby" to contend with in this competition. Although this lacks the ill-feeling of Hearts v Hibs (thankfully), McLeod Senior and I know each other's games very well and a tangled web may be weaved as we try to out-think, as well as out-play, the other. Entering this match, I had the edge against teams involving my Dad in this competition, but I couldn't tell you the score as I don't keep score and anyway, this was the first time (in the Sybil Hay, anyway) that we had faced each other as Captains. His new look team started the night flying higher than ever, and I had a feeling that this was going to be one heck of a match.

Before that, Lessurl and I had twelve boards to play against Edith PETERS and partner. This team had already demonstrated the fallacy of their bottom seeding, which was based entirely on last season's finish (it could hardly have been based on anything else). They started Round 3 in ninth place on merit. If you offered me before the match a repeat of last season's result - a 19-1 win - I would have bitten your hand off. But since Bridge doesn't work like that, we had to hope that we could play well and get the wind in our sails.

In fact, we got the complete opposite. Things started well enough - I made a ludicrous 1NT bid and managed to make it. But things went against us from there on in. First of all, I was deceived by the underlead of an Ace against a suit contract - that can happen and has been duly noted. A reasonable 4 Spades contract met with bad breaks, although on Board 29 (the fifth), both of our partnerships scored + 170 for 8 IMPs. With the match poised on a knife edge, I picked up:

KJxx
Ax
Jx
AQxxx

I opened 1 Club (Better Minor). Lessurl responded 1 Heart. Now I have a tough decision - reverse or not? I opted for 1 Spade, and when Lessurl said 2 Clubs, there seemed to be no more to say. The diamond suit looked odds-on to be wide open, so No-Trumps was out and 5 Clubs was surely a stretch too far. 2 Clubs +2 was as good as we could do. Unfortunately, the same 10 tricks are available in Hearts. Our counterparts at the other table apparently misbid their way to it, and picked up 11 IMPs for their trouble. There was nowhere left that we could generate a swing, and when our team-mates had a board to forget to round off with, we slipped to a 6-14VP defeat.
  This is a result that epitomises what I have said previously. Anyone can beat anyone in this event and the tag of favourites is not coveted. I maintain that no matter who you play, skill and hard work can only get you so far. There will always be an element of luck in bridge and, as far as I am concerned, it is the worst area of my game.

Of course, as we headed into the McLeod derby, we did not know (although we did suspect) that the first match was a loss. So there were no title aspirations riding on this match, especially as it was clear from our opponents' demeanour they had just suffered a heavy loss at the hands of ROSS. That was not to say there was nothing riding on the match - pride, if nothing else, was at stake.
  The first board was a bog standard push. On the second I have this hand:

xxx
AKxx
109xx
85

LHO (McLeod Senior) opens 1 Club, and the bidding proceeds, with Lessurl and I passing: 2NT-3H-3S-3NT-4S

As stated above, my father and I know each other's game well, and I understood this auction. The 1 Club is an Asking Club, denying 5 cards in diamonds, hearts or spades and showing opening points. The 2NT is 11+, forcing, and asking for Opener's 4 card suit. 3 Hearts is the answer. 3 Spades was a little unexpected at this point, but must be spades. 4 Spades must really be spades.

Since I know where 4 of the missing hearts are, I lead the King for a Count signal - it is really important to me which of the other players has a doubleton. Lessurl plays the 2 on Trick 1, so it isn't him. In fact he must have exactly 3. I am seeing this dummy:

A
QJxx
Hxxxx
AJx

Now I switch to the 8 of clubs, which is allowed to run to Lessurl's King. This is when he has to find the killer continuation. It must be tempting to play a heart, and he did think for a bit before producing another club. Declarer wins with the Queen and plays a small spade to the Ace. He now plays the Ace of Clubs and pitches a heart, with me ruffing. I switch to a diamond and Lessurl produces the Ace. The contract eventually goes 2 off as Lessurl also has a trump to get. Our team-mates matched our +200 on this to score 9 IMPs. On to Board 31 and this Declarer situation:

---
K932
KQJ84
A1053

AJ875
J6
A1062
K7

After finding out about the diamond fit, I rejected it in favour of 3NT, which I hoped would be the easier contract. A small diamond was led.
I let this run to the 10, and there are 8 top tricks. The best chance of establishing one more without losing too many seems to be the heart suit. So, I play a small one from hand, cover the 8 with the 9, and hallelujah, it holds. RHO has the ace, but it will do him no good to take it, as the King will be established. End of story. Not for RHO who pointed out to McLeod Senior that, holding Q108, he should have contributed the 10. RHO is right, but it won't stop me making the contract on the lie. I will duck the play of the 10, and the only hope for the defence is for LHO to lead away from K9432 of spades. I can duck two rounds of spades, and after winning the third, I will play the Jack of Hearts. This can run to the Ace, or LHO can cover with the Queen and after the King and Ace cover, the 9 is promoted. RHO will then not have a spade to return, and I will have my ninth trick.
That board completed a run of 38 IMPs without reply. Unfortunately, on boards 33, 34 and 35 there was a reply to the tune of 19 IMPs. That was enough to take the edge off a big win - but there was still Board 36.

K10x
AQ10
109xx
Q9x

My RHO opened 1 Spade. I pass, and LHO says 2 Spades. There are two passes back to me. I don't like defending two level contracts if I can help it, so I pull out a protective Double. This gets Lessurl into a 3 Club Contract which he - just - manages to make. Combined with our team-mates' spade part score, we gathered 7 IMPs to make the final score 18-2.

Junior Trials

So, with getting home from the above-mentioned bridge on the Friday night, it was an early start in the morning again for the Junior Trials. 2013 will be absoloutely-most-definitely my last year as a - sniff - as a junior - excuse me while I go and cry - although I thought 2012 would be so if I get to do anything "as a junior" from here on in, I will jump through hoops to do so.

I have met Jenny Cooper on a couple of occasions since she took over as Junior Co-ordinator. She has the nigh-on impossible mantle of taking over the reins from the excellence of Joan Mercer, but if anyone can do it, it's Jenny. She has brought a fresh approach to the role and is turning her previous inexperience with the set-up to an advantage as she looks with new eyes at everything and I am sure will improve root, branch and twig if she possibly can. The juniors (including myself) are 100% behind her and will doubtless play their part whenever and wherever they can.

The idea of the Junior "Trials" was not to pick teams based on result, but for Jenny to get as good a look as possible at as many of the current crop of juniors as she could. Some of us are getting too old for this, and a big part of Jenny's remit is to find and then nourish the new blood coming through.

I was officially an adult for this event, being that I was a chapperone for the Aberdeen contingent, but once all ten of us were safely at the Stirling and Union Bridge Club, I wanted to play as much as anyone else. Jenny alternated with Laura Middleton as my partner (who would want to sit opposite me for 39 boards?), so we were certainly ineligible to "win", but as there was no prize on offer anyway, I was not in the least bit bothered about that. I just wanted to play.

For some inexplicable reason, I decided that I would sit South and West, as opposed to my usual North and East. This was a bad decision for my ambition to play, as I was dummy more often than not, so there is no abundance of interesting deals to write up. One bidding problem that I would like opinions on is this hand:

KQ92
AK974
Q9
AK

Playing Standard American style 5 Card Majors (Better Minor), 15-17NT, I open this 1 Heart. Partner says 1 Spade. Now what? This hand is that unique thing - too strong for a reverse. If I bid 3 Spades, there is a danger that partner holds a 6 count and passes. If a reverse in this position is GF, then it is an option, but failing that agreement, what to do? Naturally, the devil on my shoulder fervently whispers: "Invent a bid!", but that could go horribly wrong and I would suggest usually does. So I reason that 4 Spades is the sensible choice. I can't have a bog-standard opening count for this bid as partner may only have six points. I can't have a bog-standard reverse either. I haven't splintered, so then, can partner pin me with the exact shape 4-5-2-2? With a regular partner it should depend on agreement, and failing that, yes. Jenny got the gist anyway, because she bid 4NT and we sailed into the solid cold 6 Spades.

A Declarer hand next.

A82
A3
J7
QJ9874

K975
KQJ10
Q932
3

3NT by South, Queen of Spades led.
There is no reason not to win this with the King of Spades and play a club. I can't afford to let them have a spade trick when they have four immediate minor tricks to cash. The success percentage of this contract is low enough already. On playing the club, LHO follows with the 2. What card to call for from dummy?
At first the answer is obvious: the 7. A finesse against the 10 is a 50% chance compared to a finesse against AK2, AK62, AK52 or AK652. But this intuitive thought is flawed, because it will only really gain against the possible holdings of 1062 and 1052. If LHO started with 102 doubleton, then playing the Jack will also work, and if he started with H10xx, playing the 7 will force out an honour as planned but I will still have a total of three losers in the suit. In any case, something someone taught me sometime must have paid off, because I instinctively called for the Jack without pause for thought. This brought out the King.
A spade is returned to the ten from LHO and Ace from dummy. Again I can't duck, so am playing for an exact distribution: one defender has to have all the missing minor honours, and the other the bare ten of clubs and remaining spades. The Queen is not covered by RHO, but does drop the ten from LHO, so now I call for the 9 - this time the Ace appears. I pitch a heart from hand - I cannot pitch a diamond and at this point do not know about the spade break.
I am still coming down unless RHO has no spades and both Ace and King of Diamonds - which she does. However, she correctly surmises that all she will succeed in doing by cashing them is to set up the Queen, and that may be my 9th trick. Having seen my heart pitch, it is unlikely I have 4 tricks there, so an exit in the rounded suits makes sense. Of course, it does not work - I cash three clubs, pitching diamonds, and then cash out hearts ending in hand. That leaves me with 97 of spades. Fortunately for me, LHO had held onto two spades, so my 7 was promoted for an overtrick.

That's a bidding and Declarer scenario in, how about a lead problem?

984
AJ104
A
A9653

This was played against one of Scotland's new partnerships for the Under 25 team. As Dealer, I opened 1 Club (Better Minor). This is passed to RHO, who bids 1NT (Strong). I pass, LHO says 2 Clubs (Stayman), partner passes, RHO says 2 Diamonds (denies a 4+ card major), and ends up in 3NT. What should I lead?

I suspected that my clubs were not going to amount to much, so I looked for the 2 other tricks elsewhere. RHO has at maximum 3 hearts, he could also have KQ. What if I can get three heart tricks by leading the Jack? I decide to find out. That presents my RHO with this play problem:

K1075
K632
1053
Q10

AJ
Q98
KQ87
KJ84

I think Declarer can be allowed to assume that I have all three missing Aces. He starts by winning with the Queen. Looking at this double dummy, Declarer can score by playing the 9 of hearts, which will pin the 7 whatever I do. But is this likely enough to try? Declarer played a small club to the ten, and when he followed with the queen, I won with the ace and returned a club. Declarer plays the King of Diamonds, bringing out my Ace, but I force out his last club. Now he cannot take enough tricks to make the contract before giving me my Ace of clubs.
  There seems to be a large communication problem on this hand. Three club tricks need to be set up, but not before my red aces are driven out. Since Declarer cannot afford to break diamonds so early, I think the idea of running the 9 of hearts shades it. But that only gets us as far as what to do on Trick 2. It is still going to be difficult to establish and cash 9 tricks. Deep Finesse makes this contract (obviously!), but in the real world you don't get to know where all the cards are and even then, this is a tricky double dummy problem.

At the end of the day this pair were top of the juniors, with me and Laura/Jenny finishing 1st. As previously stated, that doesn't really mean anything; it was of far more interest for Jenny et al to see the juniors coming through and establish a plan for the future. I enjoyed meeting and playing against the next generation - for that's what they were; no less than 6 players at the "trial" were selected for the Junior Camrose and Peggy Bayer in February. One can only hope that the other hopefuls will break into the teams in time. Events like these are crucial to building and maintaining strength in depth. The day was proof, if proof were needed, that Scottish junior bridge is going in the right direction and, looking at where we are now, we can focus not on immediate, but long term success.

As previously mentioned, I was otherwise engaged on Sunday as well, which means that I did not get to see any of the first weekend of the 2013 Camrose. My understanding, gathered pretty much exclusively from Paul Gipson's blog post, is that Scotland were rather unlucky to find themselves in 5th at this, the half-way stage.

11th European Youth Pairs Championships

The 11th European Youth Pairs Championships, an Olympiad event, took place at the Hotel Vingsted, near Vejle in Denmark. Its my final year as a Junior, and I am keen to get as many events under my belt as possible, so at great personal expense I flew to Denmark to take part. The SBU funded some of the costs, notably the entry fees, but beyond that we were on our own. The royal "we" here meaning myself and my Scottish partner, R. What happened to Falco? He couldn't make it.
  The event opened on a Sunday, but we didn't go then, obeying the religious Scottish law of "Thou shalt not spend money un-necessarily", arriving on the Tuesday instead. The first two days of play (Monday-Tuesday) were given over to a Mixed Pairs event. R is not a girl, (and wearing a kilt wasn't going to convince anyone otherwise), so we weren't taking an earlier flight for an event we couldn't take part in. On the Tuesday afternoon, there was an invitational event for those who couldn't play in the Mixed, and we gladly signed up for that, keen for a warm-up before the main event starting on the Wednesday.

It was an honour to be competing alongside the cream of European Youth Bridge. Never did we imagine we would do so well in the Invitational. We made a slow start, but picked up after the first few rounds. The first hand I will give is this one:

8643
A94
Q874
AQ

AKJ
KQJ105
AK6
102

I am North (the top hand). My RHO is Dealer, and when the tray comes through from the other side of the screen, there is a Pass on it. Playing 12-14 1NT (a major compromise; see my follow up post), I open this 1NT. My LHO passes, and I push the tray through. When the tray comes back, I find that my partner has emptied the bidding box onto the tray - 7NT is his bid. Brave or foolish? Who knows.

A priori, we have 11 top tricks. A slam will make if diamonds are 3-3, or if there is a successful guess in a black suit. I need TWO of these three things to happen for me to make 7NT - about 25% for a Grand Slam; not one we should be in.
The good news is that I get a club lead. RHO rises with the King, and I win with the ace. It may be said that the lead gives away nothing, as I could take the working finesse anyway, but who is to say that would present itself in the play? I now cash five top hearts. After the lead I could see 12 top tricks from Trick 1 - now I just need to find the thirteenth in a pointed suit. Time for a pseudo-squeeze.
On the extra two hearts I am pitching two spades. So does RHO, who started with three hearts. LHO discards three clubs. I am now at this position:

Hand
86
---
Q874
Q

Dummy
AKJ
---
AK6
10

My plan is to cash the Ace of Spades, and then cash the Ace of Diamonds to the 4, King of Diamonds to the 8, then 6 of diamonds to the Queen. If diamonds are 3-3, I play a small spade to the King, return to hand with a club and take the last trick in hand for what would have been a spectacular beer. If diamonds do not break, then instead I cash the Queen of Clubs and play up to the King-Jack of spades, hoping to have a count that allows me to determine where the Queen is.
  Unfortunately, for RHO, he has scuppered that plan. When I play the Ace of spades, he shows out. So now I cash my top three diamonds ending in hand, lay down the Queen of clubs followed by the 8 of spades and claim on the marked finesse. I was pleased with the outright top, but spare a thought for all the unfortunate North-South pairs who stayed in Small Slam and got a minus MP score. It's where they should be, yet one pair was Doubled and two pairs went to 7 Hearts, which also made, thus punishing those who were in the right contract.

That was in the 6th Round, and in the 7th round R kept up the cavalier bidding, and I kept on vindicating him.

K92
KQ43
AK86
J4

103
98
9532
K9865

LHO (East, my screen-mate), opens 1NT, which he alerts. I ask him the meaning and he tells me 12-14. His bid does not require an alert, but his alert did not do any harm (a massive advantage of playing with screens), so I'm not fussed. There are two passes to me, and with 16 points (I am the top hand again), I double - penalties.
  This is passed, but R is understandably not confident holding only 3 points, and pulls to his 5 card suit with 2 Clubs. This is running to the most convenient spot, bidding suits up the way. I cannot know he has 5, so with 2 good 4 card suits myself, I bid 2 Diamonds.
  Then the fun begins. My LHO Doubles for penalties. Knowing an 8 card fit, I think most of my partners would pass smoothly and hope for the best. But R, knowing that 2 Diamonds is not doubled into Game, finds the bid of 3 Diamonds. If they're doubling 2, they have to double 3 - and they do. 3 Diamonds Doubled is the contract.

I get the Jack of Diamonds lead. I play the 2 from dummy and RHO plays the Queen. So I win with the King and take stock. I appear to have four losers - three aces and inevitably a diamond. I am worried diamonds will break 4-1 and sink me. I can cash a diamond now in the hope of a 3-2 break, but that could spell disaster if an opponent wins with an ace and leads a diamond. So, I need to set things up. I play the 4 of clubs. Quick as a flash, LHO rises with the Ace and continues clubs with the 10 - surely he started with A10 doubleton for this play. So, I rise with the King, but what now?
  I am resigned to giving LHO a ruff - happy to, in fact. I know he didn't start with a singleton (he opened 1NT), and I have to lose a diamond some time. What matters to me is that I don't lose two. I can run the 9 of clubs now, which will win if LHO started with three diamonds and 3 aces - entirely possible. Of the three missing queens, I know that RHO has two of them. Were he to have the third, LHO really should have all 3 aces and could still have them even if he held the Queen of Spades. However, running the 9 of clubs will fail if RHO holds an ace, and LHO ruffs and leads to it.
  My other legitimate line is to play up to the King of Hearts. If RHO holds the ace, he can take it and give his partner a ruff, but can't get back in to give him another. If LHO holds it, he will think it better to beat my honour and keep hearts going. He is no longer interested in a ruff, because he needs a diamond stop later.
  I took a view and played the 9 of clubs. RHO played the 7 (a little too fast), and I pitched a spade. I lost to a ruff as expected, and my view was wrong. LHO can kill this contract with a spade switch, but he played Ace and another heart. I won with the King and laid down the King of diamonds, drawing trumps. Now I ruff a small heart, ruff a club, ruff another small heart and pitch the 9 of spades on my last (winning) for a total of 9 tricks and an outright top.

There did come a point where the cavalier bidding asked too much of my limited Declarer skills, but by then we'd given ourselves a margin for error over the bulk of the field, finishing a very pleasing 4th at the end.

Onto the main event. We had quite a clear target for the qualifiers - 49th place. In other words, don't come bottom. That was an extremely difficult task. Several things counted against us:
1. System. We were playing an absolutely diabolical system, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. There is little chance of R being offended by this, as he knows full well my opinion. We were about the only pair (apart from our opponents above) playing a 12-14NT, and my feelings about 12-14NT are a matter of public record. The system around it was basic and ill-equipped for the rigours of International competition. We were hoping the simplicity would compensate, and in fairness, at times, it did.
2. Preparation. We were in a completely different scenario from when I played at the White House. R and I hadn't been able to practice nearly as much. All in all there was little time to get anything but the basics sorted; the White House system and the Denmark system are chalk and cheese.
3. Prepared methods. We had none. Absolutely criminal at International level. But again, it was a matter of time, and the lack of it that we had.
4. Experience. Both of us had played at this level before, but not together. Establishing a partnership style was something that could only be done the more boards we played.
5. Luck. Yes, we were desperately unlucky in the qualifiers and I won't hear otherwise. I'm not saying bad luck ruined our card, but I am saying we could comfortably have achieved our target with room to spare had our share of the luck been an equal one. In the 8 sessions, 4 Grand Slams were on. We were on the defending side each time - and our opponents bid them, even on one occasion where it relies on a working finesse.
I could continue the list; you get the idea.

Here was the first judgement decision for me:

---
A J 10 5 3
A 5 2
A K 10 7 6

LHO     Partner     RHO     Me
Pass       Pass         1S        2H
3S          Pass         4S        5C
Pass       5H           5S          ?

Opps Vulnerable
If anyone can advise me how I should have gone about getting this call right, I'd be very happy to listen (not least because I got it wrong, as is my want).

There were other interesting scores in Session 1 - one of which I am saving for my next post (it was a bottom). We had an outright top on the very next board, which was pleasing in terms of resilience but in all fairness, it was a result of a hideous misjudgement from our opponents rather than anything we did. There's nothing else worth writing up.

I'll give one board from session 2, a hand that I "got wrong" but at least have a decent argument that I "played right".

J 10 4 3
A 9 8 2
10 8 6
Q 7

K Q 2
K Q 7 5
9 4
A K 9 2

I have the top hand again, playing 4 Hearts.
LHO leads the King and then Jack of Diamonds, his partner following with the 5 and 2. On Trick 3, he plays the Queen.

I have lost two tricks and I'm surely going to lose a spade. So I cannot afford to lose a heart trick. I am almost certain that RHO has no diamonds left, so the question is what card do I ruff with?
Gut instinct is telling me to ruff with the Queen. RHO probably has either the Jack or the Ten. But let's work this out, I tell myself. There are two options.

Option A: Ruff with the Queen. I now need to drop J10 doubleton with RHO or find LHO with a singleton Jack or Ten. Note that J10 doubleton with RHO is no good to me. Whilst it is true that I could still catch it by cashing King and Ace, I'm not going to. After cashing the King, if I see LHO play the 10 or Jack, I will finesse through RHO. There are three reasons for this. Firstly, Theory of Restricted Choice dictates that after I see LHO play Jack or Ten, the other is with RHO. Secondly, Theory of available spaces suggests longer hearts with RHO. And thirdly, J10 doubleton offside is a distribution that will be picked up by ruffing with the 7. Mathematically the success of this line is just below 10%, plus a bit more weight by Theory of Available Spaces.

Option B: Ruff with the 7. I now need J10x offside in hearts. A priori odds for two specific cards being offside is 25%. But arguably that's not the way I should calculate it - West will have exactly 3 cards in hearts (I can't afford him to have 4) 33.91% of the time. However, only 3 of the ten possible holdings are any good to me, so that is 11.73%.

It's a close one. Obviously at the table I can't remember the percentages to two decimal places - and how do I factor in Theory of Available Spaces? In the end I took the line that was technically right but felt wrong - Option B. LHO had the singleton Jack of Hearts. Grr.

This brought us to lunch-time on Wednesday, with us already down to 49th place - in other words, we had no margin for error in terms of achieving our target. Onwards and (we hoped) upwards.

Things started well in session 3 - I made a 3NT contract for 68.75% on Board 1. Board 2 brought a shockingly bad 10.42% when we bid and made 6 Clubs, played by R. 13 tricks makes if your name is Deep Finesse, but given an offside 4-1 trump split, I don't know how so many people can make 7 Clubs. Nor do I know how they make slam in another denomination (if that's what happened) - Deep Finesse says it can't be done, so it must be true. And the less said about the rest of the session, the better.

Session 4 saw four doubled contracts, resulting in scores of 200, 300 and two 800s for the defenders. We were the defenders on just one of the four occasions unfortunately. And that was the 200. The -300 I thought was a reasonable attempt - 5 Clubs Doubled is a save against 4 Spades the other way. Granted, 4 Spades doesn't make IF (and only if) West leads from Kx doubleton in hearts.

So, overnight we were sitting bottom. That was bad news. But if there was good news to be had, it was that we were bottom early - being bottom now as opposed to later gave us a chance to change our tactics and time to escape the bottom. At least, I'm going to claim there was a change of tactics - and yes, of course the master plan to get off bottom was all my idea. (If it hadn't worked I wouldn't have said that).

Board 5 was one of the most banal sessions of International Bridge imaginable. 50% would have been a reasonable return, but we don't get reasonable returns, so we got 36.04% - 45th out of 50 for the session and still 50th overall. At this point I wonder if anything can be done to save us. One only has to look at board 6 - a bog standard 3NT played by me that can make no more than 11 tricks - until I get a favourable lead and make 12. That was enough for 4 out of 48 Match Points. I mean what?

Session 6 I don't have hand records for, but again it was a case of playing okay and scoring badly. This set did include yet another Grand Slam that we happened to be sitting against. So we were still sitting bottom with two sessions to go.

Session 7 did not start great. What bid would you make with R's hand here?

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

You are Red v Green.
LHO is Dealer, and opens 2 Spades (weak, 5+ spades, 4+ minor)
Your partner bids 3 Diamonds. RHO says 3 Spades. Your bid.

R and I had a "difference of opinion" on this board, but before we started the next board, we were in agreement. On board 7, West (we were NS) can make 12 tricks in NT, so we were disappointed that -690 was a bad score. Of course, it is a lot easier to defend 6NT than 3NT (more likely to make a costly lead against 3), and I imagine that those who went to 6 came down, as it does require the DF goggles.

Then I'm in 3NT (from the bottom hand, for a change)

Q J 9
7
K Q 9 7 3
K 9 6 4

K 10 5 3
K 10 9 8 6 4
4 2
A

Red against Green, Jack of Hearts led. I really wish I could remember the play of this hand, because I made 9 tricks for an outright top. If it comes back to me, I'll edit this.

When the dust settled on Session 7, we still couldn't get a >50% session, but we were 33rd in the round which put us 49th overall. Having been less satisfied with our play in Session 7 than I was in Session 6, I was happy with that. But had we "peaked" too soon? We still had another session to go. But 33rd was the highest placing we'd had for one session in the event, so there was room for some optimism.

Onto session 8, and here was the first hand we picked up (me North, R South)

A K 9 3 2
J 10 9 2
---
A Q J 4

Q 10 5
A 4
Q 10 2
K 10 8 6 2

R decided to Pass as Dealer. I opened 1 Spade, and partner said 2 Clubs. This does not deny 3 spades, but I can see a 9 card fit in clubs as opposed to at best an 8 card fit in spades. This looks like a hand where ruffs will be important. For better or worse, I chose 4 Diamonds. R bids 4 Hearts (Italian Cue). If I bid 4 Spades now, R will definitely say 5 Clubs, which is no use to me. I could say 4NT, but playing 1430, R would be committed to saying 5 Diamonds (and thereby as far as 6 Clubs) with 0 Key Cards - which there is just room for him to have. I bid 6 Clubs.
13 tricks are there on the lie of the cards. I couldn't count them out in the bidding though, and R did only make 12 tricks, so I'm happy with the 72.92% we got for 6 Clubs=. The next board got us 89.58% - a 1NT contract by our opponents that couldn't make.
After that solid start, I was hopeful of holding out for at least 50% and staying off bottom. This board didn't help:

J 8 5
A K 10 9 7 6 5 2
10 2
---

A 4
Q 8 4
A Q 5 4
A K 5 2

Which hand did I have this time? Neither of these! Our Polish opponents bid 7NT by the bottom hand with this. Declarer can pseudo squeeze to his heart's content, but the bottom line is always going to be the diamond finesse - which works.
It may seem churlish of me to bemoan this 50% Grand when I had a lesser one earlier. But then, I wasn't the one that bid that. R was the one whose job it was to go get the results sheet. I went for the big screen - and was relieved to see that we had actually moved up another place to 48th. That was a much better finish than it had been looking like for some time.

The plan was that we would be more competitive in the President's Cup. The standard of opposition was still as high as in the Qualifiers, but the "better" players would be playing in the finals, which in theory would give us slightly more of a chance.

In session 1 , the pick of the boards as far as I can see was this:

A Q 5 4
9 4
Q 10 8 3
Q 6 5

K 7
10 8 3
A K 9
A J 4 3 2

R holds the bottom hand and he plays this in 5 Clubs, Queen of Hearts led.
This isn't too good a contract. There are two clear heart losers. So R must somehow not lose a club. If he was on lead, then he would have an obvious play for this (even if it doesn't work), but the opening lead is made by the opponents.
North leads the Queen of Hearts. South holds the following hand:

10 9
A K J 7 6 5 2
J 5
A 10

It is easy to work out what South should do at Trick 1 - overtake. When that holds, he should cash another heart. As it happens, he will see his partner pitch. Now what?
The key is in the club suit. Declarer surely has AJxxx. When Declarer gets in, therefore, he will make all the club tricks - a finesse of the Jack followed by the Ace, dropping the King. There is nothing South can do if Declarer holds the 9, but he has a chance if not. If he plays another club now, Declarer will have to ruff in dummy. Declarer can take the finesse and drop the King, but if North had 9xx he will make the 9, as the queen must also fall under the ace. I'm sure there's a technical name for this, but I'll just say trump promotion.
When South failed to find this defence, R made 11 tricks and 95.16% on the board.

We finished the 1st session with a whopping 54.56%. It was the first time (apart from the Tuesday Invitational) that we had gone a session above average and this gave us hope that we could actually do quite well here. Unfortunately, the wheels came off in Session 2.

We started by missing a solid Slam. The surprise was that we got as much as 41% for that. We then followed it up with a good board by doing - nothing. The board was passed out, which accumulated 91% for us. Granted, there was a lot in the session we were not happy with (I can't really go into any constructive detail), but there was misfortune as well - 41% on a board does not seem a reasonable return for our opponents missing a solid 3NT contract. All in all, this one bad session cost us dearly, putting us 55th out of 60.

Onto session 3. and we started against a very impressive young Danish pair. They were aged 11 and 9(!) years old. Two players playing on an International stage at an age that I had not even started to play - and I think most bridge players across the world will be able to say that. They could be future World Champions in the making (you heard it here first), and if so our first board against them will be one to tell the Grandchildren when they are - well, the age these boys are now. By the way: Yes, I have their names, and No, I am not going to publish them on a publicly viewable blog.
This was my hand (All Vul):

---
K 9 8 5 2
9 7 4 2
A 8 7 2

Second in, I pass. LHO opens 1 Spade. R overcalls 1NT. Having seen his hand, I don't agree with this bid, but never mind. RHO passes, so I bid 2 Diamonds, and R completes the transfer to 2 Hearts. This is passed around to my LHO, who enquires about a spade stop - via the intermediary of his English speaking partner (this event did not have screens). On finding out R has at least one stop, he bids 2 Spades. R bids 3 Hearts now. RHO enters the fray with 3 Spades, which is passed around to R, who now bids 4 Hearts. I now expect one of our opponents to double - the auction practically demands it. In so doing, they'll wander straight into a trap. More on that later. But RHO bids 4 Spades. We decide enough is enough and double.
  R leads the 10 of Clubs. Dummy is:

J 9 8 4
6 3
J 3
Q 9 6 5 3

The 9 year old Declarer plays the 3 from dummy, and I rise with the Ace. Declarer plays the King. What now? First, I start placing the points. R has to have the two major aces. He has no points in clubs, which probably means a tenace in the diamonds - that looks more likely than a spade tenace. The plan develops. Has R led from a singleton, despite his 1NT bid? Or is it doubleton? If it is a singleton, I need to give him a ruff now, get back in with the King of Hearts, and switch to a diamond to play through Declarer. If Declarer has a second heart, we will come to 7 tricks - a club, club ruff, 2 hearts, 2 diamonds and a natural spade trick. Giving a second ruff instead of the diamond switch would endplay partner. If the lead is from a doubleton however, I need to switch to the 9 of diamonds now, as I will need the King entry to give a club ruff after R sets it up.
I play the 8 of clubs. R does get his ruff. He trusts my suit preference signal and plays a low heart, getting me in ASAP just in case Declarer has a singleton. Declarer does of course drop the Jack. I make the diamond switch and R gets his two diamonds. Unfortunately, he is fooled by Declarer's false card and does not cash a heart trick, meaning he never gets it. We had to settle for 800 instead of 1100. There was some nice play from Declarer - unblocking the King of Clubs with K J 4, which might also have succeeded in fooling East into misreading the club situation. Then the Jack of Hearts false card, which fooled nobody except the intended victim.
4 Hearts Doubled would have collected a neat +1190 for us. For those of you who know your contract scores, you will know that means there were actually 12 tricks available for us in hearts - we'd missed a Slam. Of course, I thought I was sitting opposite a balanced 15-17 hand with wasted values in spades, so we're not getting there, but on another day the smooth pass of 2 Hearts works a treat. Of course, one has to be confident that one's opponents will re-open. But these particular opponents took the not-very-obvious sacrifice. Well done boys, with the benefit of hindsight you deserved more than the 12.9% you scored on that board.
The second board against them:

A 9 7 6 5
A J 5 2
A Q J 2
---

As Dealer with this hand, I open 1 Spade. There are two passes then 2 Clubs on my right. A perfect opportunity for me to bid 2 Hearts, showing my hand. LHO bids 3 Clubs, which is passed around to me. A perfect opportunity to bid 3 Diamonds. I wonder if R has got the message yet? One of the opponents bids 4 Clubs, R still shows no interest in bidding and I am obliged to pass now, having got the opponents to a Contract of Death.
I get my 3 aces and R has the King of Diamonds to take it one off for +50 and thank you very mu- wait a minute... let me see your hand R:

J 8 4 2
9 8 7 4
K 5 4
6 4

Yep, 4 Spades is an easy make. On the lie of the cards, not even I could have messed it up. Add that to our list of missed Games. The third round continued with nothing to report except another missed Game - by the opponents, and we seemed to be hitting the optimum spots. I fail to see how we only got 43% for a session that seemed to go very well. At least we went up two places overall.

Round 4 started badly, with R going to 3 Hearts unsupported and getting doubled for -200. But then a good (yet boring) result on the next board gave us hope. On to boards 3 and 4 - two boards against Kelan O' Connor and Richard Boyd of Ireland. It was a tale of two 3NT contracts, and of some deceptive defence by R.

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

K Q 5 3
K 8 7
K J 10 6 2
10

Richard is playing 3NT by the bottom hand, with me on his left and R on his right. The bidding started with Kelan and went: 1C-P-1D-1S-X-2H-3NT-End. I lead the Jack of Hearts.

Declarer needs to assume he'll get the diamond guess right and reel in 5 tricks there. The difficulty is making 4 elsewhere. The clubs seem to be the best bet. A good club guess will set up a total of 4 club tricks on the actual lie. The next thing to sort out is the hearts. Initially playing the Queen to knock out the ace and block the suit looks the way to play, but Richard looks deeper. R bid hearts on the second round missing the King, Queen and Jack. It is quite likely he has 6. So, if he ducks in dummy and wins with the king, he creates a second heart trick if R ever plays them. And if I don't have any hearts, I'll be endplayed whenever I get in.
  Richard decides on this line. He wins with the King and runs the ten of clubs, which holds. I have ducked with AJ8 in the hope he'd rise with the King and give me two club tricks instead of one. But no, Richard plays the Jack of diamonds, overtakes with the ace and plays a small diamond. R plays the queen, so now he can run diamonds. After that, he has to exit a spade. Unfortunately for him, I hold a second heart, which I play after I cash my two black aces, taking the contract 2 off.

9 8
Q 7
Q 8 3 2
A K J 5 3

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

Kelan is playing 3NT by the bottom hand (no opposition bidding this time). The 3 of spades is led, to the 8, King and 7. I return the 5, which goes through to R's Jack. R cashes his ace, with me unblocking the 6 with a diamond pitch from Kelan, followed by another round of spades. Kelan pitches a club from dummy and from hand. As I actually held 4 spades, we have 4 tricks - one short of our target.
  R switches to the 10 of clubs. Kelan certainly doesn't need to risk a finesse now, as he can hope for 4 hearts and 3 diamonds. So he rises with the King, cashes the AK of diamonds and crosses to the Queen of hearts. He plays a heart, hoping they will run, but I show out, so he cashes his Ace and King to come to this position:

---
---
Q
K J

---
10 3
---
7

He plays the 7 of clubs, obviously. R plays the 9. Now he is on a guess. Did R lead the ten of clubs from 109x or Q109? Normally it is top of nothing, but R may be trying to fool him into thinking that is what he has so that he wrongly plays for the drop. After all, if R had 109x, he should still be playing the 9 on the second round to make it hard.
Kelan gets it right - he finesses and makes 9. This was still a good board for us as 4 Hearts is the superior contract despite the bad trump break.
If only Kelan had cashed the Queen of diamonds before playing back to his hearts, he wouldn't have had to guess. R started with 4-4-2-3. The Queen of Diamonds would have caught him in a Guard Squeeze. If he pitches a heart, he unguards them, thus losing them all. Or he can pitch a club and the queen will drop when Kelan is forced to play them. However, that is a post-mortem analysis. It wasn't too likely I had 5 diamonds so he won't usually learn anything by cashing the Queen.
Credit to Richard for giving a doomed contract his best shot, and well done Kelan. I'm sure there is a phrase that would be appropriate to sum up the fortunes of people from Ireland on these boards...

As we ended the fourth session, we promised our Slovenian opponents (who we'd already got to know) that we'd meet them in the bar (for more bridge... of sorts). We wouldn't want anyone thinking all we did over there was play bridge and nothing else, would we? Neither R nor myself drink alcohol ("what kind of Scottish people are you?" was most definitely asked of us), but we joined in with the party atmosphere anyway. After all, its all very well going to a big competition and learning from the best juniors Europe has to offer, but it was important to mix with them and make friends as well.
  That said, apparently I am more well known than I believed. Kelan brought this to my attention on the Thursday night when he asked about my Interchange system (any readers from Ellon and a few that are not may be familiar with that name!). R and I bid with Interchange in the bar on Friday night, which went rather well considering he doesn't know it and I don;t remember it.

And if the SBU asks for a report, it was a success story. We did better than could reasonably be expected of us (honest), and we definitely boosted the reputation of Scotland as a country. I can't speak for R, but I certainly picked up a number of tips and ideas for my game going forward. I would share photos of the event, but R has them all - or most. If anyone has a photo of Yves Aubry, the President of the European Bridge League, standing with a tall guy in a kilt and a smaller guy in a brown top, could you please forward a copy to us?

Happy new Blog(?)

Perhaps I know what my New year resolution can be - update this properly. This is going to be yet another whistle-stop tour of everything I've done in the bridge world since November 4th, over two months ago. Oops. I had intended writing in late December, but never got there, and sank into bridge hibernation as Christmas and New Year passed. Eventually, last Tuesday, I raised my head out of the burrow to indulge in bridge once more, and won the session, playing with McLeod senior, with a score of 65%, which I was pleased with given some gross mistakes along the way.
  But enough of that. Let's go back to the start.

We are still hangers on in the Phoenix Cup, having finished 5th = in Round 3 whilst the leaders took 3rd place. I haven't done the mathematical workings, but I am fairly sure we are still 2nd in the running. However, there is no margin of error, and we are moving towards the outside lane. It is difficult to get this particular pair of favourites to surrender the lead once they have it.

DISTRICT TEAMS OF FOUR


Rounds 2, 3 and 4 have been played. For Round 2, we drafted in a substitute to replace one of our players who unfortunately had to cancel out at the last minute. This made an already quite difficult task much harder. Our Round 2 opponents were HAY and WATSON - last year's winners and this year's only Ellon entry respectively.
  As East-West, Lessurl and I played against the HAY team first. Last year, Jim Hay, who I credit as a coach and important influence on my bridge career, had a team that went through the entire competition unbeaten. Most of this team has still had some participation in this season, so his team were installed as favourites by the Conveners (half of whom is me). This year, however, there are chinks in the armour. They scored 26 out of a possible 40 in Round 1, losing their unbeaten run. Lessurl and I had a reasonable match against the North-South pair (Jim and Jun being out counterparts), although it might have been better had I taken the right view in a slam contract. In the end, we scraped 11 VPs.
  We were firm favourites for our second set of twelve boards, against WATSON. This team finished 15th of 16 last season, and were seedings to be used throughout, would've been seeded 12 of 13 this time round. Obviously I have a soft spot for them as I know them from Ellon. Of course, there is a difference between being favourites and getting an "easy" match. The problem, as any "top dog" will tell you, is when the underdogs play a solid game. Certainly, they did not seem to be giving away anything spectacular. What was important was that we matched their solidity, and eventually wore them down. Things went right for us and we eventually did squeeze every IMP we could, taking a 20-0 win.

Round 3 was a mixed/mediocre affair. We won the match in which we were underdogs 17-3, but lost the other match (in which we were still underdogs, but not by as much) 16-4. I don't think we played well or badly; not much to write home about. After this we were 6th.

Round 4 was last night. Lessurl was given the night off, for happy reasons that I won't go into here. Thus I played with our second substitute of the season, and we had a lot of fun, trying to work out what each other's bids meant. This was especially evident in the first match we played, against USHER. Quite a few times we couldn't explain what partner intended, but we did at least manage to find the optimal spots, save for one Game that was just a stretch too far. We managed a thin Semi Slam and also picked up an 800 and 200 courtesy of tempting our opponents to go too high and bringing out the red card. Our team mates went rather overboard, bidding three slams, but at least they made one of them, and when the dust cleared we collected 18 VPs.
  Our second match was against this season's leaders. Here, our bidding frailties were shown up and when we missed a slam, and then a Game, on consecutive boards, we were 13 IMPs behind with half the boards played. Cue the comeback.
  After RHO opened 1 Diamond (third in), I made a takeout double based on my 4-4-1-4 shape as it was NOT based on my points. I felt this was safe as both LHO and partner were passed hands; my plan was to pass whatever partner bid. In fact he chose 2 Clubs, which suited me holding KQxx. RHO then got across his hand with a 4 Diamond bid. Pass-pass-? Partner thought a little bid, and eventually produced a double. I will remember to ask my regular partner how we play this, as I am not 100% sure and certainly wasn't sure with a first time partner. I was leaning towards penalties, simply because now is a strange time to look for another suit, when I have taken no action after my initial takeout double, and if he wants to play 5 Clubs, he has the option of bidding it. But I never had a dilemma. RHO now bids 5 Diamonds, worried that we are about to find our heart fit. It is a phantom sacrifice, as LHO has 6 hearts. When the bidding comes round to West, my somewhat surprised partner makes another double. Everyone knows this is business. Three off for 500 does nicely.
  We then bid to a Game that wasn't there, so shipped out 7. After I opened 1 Spade on the next board, and responded to 1NT with a forcing 3 Spades which was passed, that really did look like the killer. I made 12 tricks for +230. Imagine my surprise when we scored that one up and gathered 7 IMPs. Thank you, team-mates, you've bailed us out again. A flat Game was next, followed by an unexpected +3. My partner was not happy with how he played a 1NT contract on that board, and the upshot was, completely unknown to us, going into the last board the match was tied at 24 IMPs each.
  Partner opens 1 Heart (5cM). I hold:

x
x
Q 10 x
A K Q 10 9 7 x x

2 Clubs is my bid. (That was easy).
Partner makes a reverse bid of two spades. Hmm, I think I'll bid 3 Diamonds 4sf.
Partner bids 3 Spades. What now?

Have you worked out what your bid would be? This is not a test; I'm just interested how many people would've done what I did here. (I realise a fair number may not have agreed with my first two bids). My bid was... Six Clubs. Ace of diamonds lead; here is dummy:

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

I could not have really asked for better. If this was a play problem, the question would be: how do you play once LHO switches to a club at trick 2?
Instead, LHO continued a low diamond. I ruffed with the Jack in dummy, cashed the ace of spades and ruffed a spade with the 9. I claimed: draw trumps in as many rounds as necessary, cross to the ace of hearts and pitch the diamond on the king. 10 IMPs here got us 14 VPs.

When the results are all accounted, we see there is something of a gap in VP totals between 8th and 9th - in other words, the top 8 and the bottom 5. Some will argue that any of the top 8 are still in with a chance of winning. Since we were playing the best team in the bottom five, who are more or less guaranteed a 9th place finish the way things are going, and the team that has led from the outset (although they were 1st= after round 1), we consider 32 a great night's work. We currently lie 5th; not high enough to trouble the leaders I feel, but what else is there to play for?
The aforementioned WATSON and HAY played each other last night, with a 13-7 win for WATSON. Congratulations to them; that is the biggest shock that I can remember in this competition. I will say I know nothing about the match or how the result came about. Others will say I could've stopped after the first six words of that last sentence.
Things are certainly interesting. It still remains in MOWAT's hands. Their grip may have slipped a little with a defeat last night, but we are the only team that has managed to beat them so far, and every other team has lost more than one match so far. We are one of only three teams that have only lost two matches. The resurgent ROSS team has come back from a disastrous 6/40 in Round 1 to climb into second place with scores of 37, 38 and 35. HAY sits 3rd and will play MOWAT and ROSS on the final night. McGUIRE, who hammered us 17-3 on the first night, still have title aspirations, and we sit 5 behind them. Don't get me wrong - I intend to win the Sybil Hay District Teams of Four one day. But I'm not putting money on it being this year.

HIGHLAND BRIDGE CONGRESS; COYLUMBRIDGE

This Congress is already a favourite of mine - perhaps because of everything that comes with it. (The company, etc, etc). It really deserved a blog post of its own, but unfortunately I never got round to it, and giving hands from it now seems just a wee bit off - although there are plenty good ones.
  Having missed out on the Pairs Final by one place last year, we made sure of it this time, qualifying as First in our section. Our bridge was solid for the first two thirds of the evening, and it seemed that was enough. By the time McLeod Senior broke free of the reins and took some actions that I'd rather he didn't, we must've been in the Final.
  We even started the Final pretty well, but before we reached the half way stage, partner suddenly decided he wanted to play in a Slam missing an ace and three kings and came crashing down. Now we all know that playing Match Points, all you do is get back up and carry on. But a combination of bad luck and bad bridge ensured we never really did that, or by the time we did, we finished just shy of the top 3rd. Apparently this was just high enough to get 2 reds, which I gratefully accept. Phoenix pair Bill Ross and Emily Garden were Runners-Up for the 2nd year running.
  The teams went well too. I thought we had a predominantly good card, and whether right or wrong about that, we qualified for the final. We raised our game for the final, and were rewarded with a 3rd place finish.

LEAGUE TEAMS OF EIGHT

So far, not so good for Phoenix Rising this year. It has been a hard battle just getting the matches organised, not to mention actually playing them. We agreed 18th December to play Banchory, and despite snow finally hitting Aberdeen on that day, we played the match. We fielded our youngest ever team and, in fairness, it showed. Division 2 is a step up in class from Division 3, one that some of our players were not quite ready for. We lost 17-3, and are rooted to the bottom of the table. For avoidance of doubt, our season's objective is to stay up.
  On the plus side, we have a match in hand over most teams. Our match with Fraserburgh has been postponed until the spring. There is still a lot to play for. Our next match is against Torphins, and I will field as young a team as I can for that one too.

PHOENIX TEAMS OF FOUR

This is the Phoenix Club's premier event, and two rounds of three have been played since I last checked in. It is run as a Double Elimination event, with sixteen board matches. The first round was a random draw, and as we were drawn against one of the possible favourites, one win and one draw was the best we could hope for. It was close - the one win was by 2 IMPs; we scraped into Section B for Round 2.
  This was slightly different. One potential winning team was in our section, but the other team we were up against was an outright underdog. Lessurl and I did not cover ourselves in glory, but somehow (I think with a lot of thanks to our team mates), we won the match comfortably. While Lessurl and I played the underdogs, there was a change to the team line-up of the other team, which suited us as it turned out. We won both matches on the night and therefore qualified for the Semi-Finals in Round 3.

CAMROSE

I write this with three of five matches completed in the first weekend of the Camrose. Scotland emerged on top in the battle between themselves and the SBU, although I understand it went right to the wire. Both Scottish teams got a crack at England today. SBU led by more than thirty IMPs half way through, but eventually lost convincingly. Scotland were down at Half time, but could (and should) have grabbed a draw in the second half.
  This morning, Scotland found themselves 41 IMPs behind Wales before all of us were wide awake and ready to watch. The deficit was shortened by the end of 32 boards, but Wales still took the spoils. They followed that up with the aforementioned narrow defeat to England, so I'm crossing my fingers that they fire on all cylinders against both Irish teams from the outset tomorrow.
  As for the SBU, they finished the day by grabbing their first win, against ROI, so hopefully the improvement continues into Sunday.
  Bottom line: Neither Scottish side are doing well right now, but there is still time for that to change completely. Fingers crossed.

So, Happy New Year.
I hope 2012 is very prosperous.
As for the Bridge, I live in hope. We (my Dad & I) followed up our Tuesday win with a win at Phoenix on Thursday, with significant help from our team-mates. Coupled with last night, it seems I'm unbeaten in 2012, so long may that continue. After all, it's the final of the Rayne next week.

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.