I am pretty disgusted with my own bridge at the moment. How fortunate I have something else to talk about - the Junior Camrose and Peggy Bayer 2013. One of my favourite events to follow on BBO, not that I'll be doing much of that this year (not through choice).
2 rounds were played before I could log on and my hopes were not high for Scotland. I had plenty faith in the players, but I accept that the teams are in transition just now and I wasn't placing any expectations on them. Given that, I was rather pleased to hear that the Peggy Bayer team had won their first match and that Jake and Ian had achieved a winning draw in their debut match. I entered viewing with the scores as:
JUNIOR CAMROSE
Scotland 15-15 Northern Ireland
England 25-5 Republic of Ireland
Scotland 8-22 England
Republic of Ireland 4-25 Northern Ireland
PEGGY BAYER
Scotland 25-2 Northern Ireland
England 25-1 Republic of Ireland
Scotland 6-24 England
Republic of Ireland 25-4 Northern Ireland
The feature match for Round 3 was the Junior Camrose match Northern Ireland v England - the two early front runners for the trophy. England had to be favourites, so I was rooting for Northern Ireland. It might also be something to do with knowing some of their team. I watched Corry/Clegg v Macintosh/O'Connor.
Northern Ireland made a solid start to the match with a 4 Hearts and 2 Hearts making on the nose. They over-stretched on the next board, the result of which would not be known for some time as they started with the last three boards to bring in comparisons.
On the first comparison, Corry/Clegg didn't find a sacrifice worth 3 IMPs, and when the next two boards saw the Irish pairs take it in turns to bid games that didn't make, the IMP score was 0-14. Not good.
Board 28 was an interesting one.
Q109
J5
KJ973
AQ6
2
AK8743
Q4
K1054
These were the Irish hands (NS) with NS Vul, West Dealer.
At the other table, Atchison went 3 down in 4 Spades (undoubled). Here, West opened 2 Diamonds as a bad weak 2 in a major. Clegg doubled, and East jumped to 3 Hearts. Corry now bid 4 Hearts, intended as natural but treated as a cue. North therefore bid 5 Diamonds, East now said 5 Spades and Corry doubled. Things were looking up for Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, North pulled to 6 Diamonds (which is reasonable given what he thinks partner has), and the no-play Slam went 2 down for an 8 IMP swing out.
After Nothern Ireland got their first IMP in a part score, I watched Dan McIntosh play this 3NT hand:
AJ3
K8652
AK6
A4
Q95
109
QJ105
K1052
3NT by the bottom hand, small spade led.
Dan let the spade run to his nine (RHO had the King but ducked), and ran the 9 of hearts. RHO won with the Jack and returned a spade, the queen winning. Dan then ran the 10 of hearts to the queen, and RHO cleared the spades. The King of hearts cleared the suit, and since the ace was with North, Dan claimed 10 tricks for 10 IMPs as the same contract wasn't made at the other table.
The IMPs continued to go one way as the same doomed contract was not Doubled when the English pair played it, and the score was 1-37. As I watched the next baord, an IMP came to England on Board 35 and England were now in maximum territory. More so when the other table wrapped up with another 3 IMPs to England.
There was finally some joy for Northern Ireland as they scored a part score swing on the last board. Somerville made 2 Spades at one table while Clegg was allowed to play in 1NT making an overtrick. That scored 6 IMPs for 7-41 and stopped England from getting the maximum 25, although leaving them comfortably out ahead in first place nonetheless.
When the results were updated, I found myself editing the above scores as both English teams seemed to gain VPs from an earlier match. In fact, as I write this, everything seems to be constantly changing, so if you don't want to know the score, you're all right. Even the above match turned into a 25 for England. But there was good news too: Scotland got another 25 in the Peggy Bayer, this time against Northern Ireland. Meanwhile, Scotland got a 23 in the Junior Camrose.
This meant that having been round the lap once, Scotland were establishing themselves as strong contenders for 2nd place in the Peggy Bayer, and seemed to be fighting it out for 3rd place in the Junior Camrose.
Thoughts at this point: Scotland doing well. Jake and Iain seem to have taken to the International scene very well. (They've never even been in a Peggy Bayer before - they are straight in at the deep end), with one win and one draw so far. Just because Scotland are the holders of the Junior Camrose trophy doesn't make them favourites to win it this year (far from it), and if they manage to pip Northern Ireland to 2nd place, it will be a job very well done.
I am just as impressed with the Peggy Bayer team. This team has four debutants and is well ahead of third place, losing only to red hot favourites England so far. I hope they are enjoying themselves because they are doing their country proud.
I'm working tomorrow so probably won't get to see any matches, which is a shame because it seems I'm missing out.
Showing posts with label Teams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teams. Show all posts
Saturday, 16 February 2013
Monday, 11 February 2013
Take a picture, quick!
So last Friday was the penultimate round of the District Teams of Four. You may recall that in the last round I more or less wrote off our chances of winning the trophy. After the events of Round 4 I am obliged not to do so. Why? Because we have suddenly found ourselves in first place - just when we weren't expecting it.
Lessurl and I started the night with a match against USHER. The Captain himself was not playing; he rotates a team of six for this event. We had the other two pairs to contend with. 009domino had never conceded defeat in this event, and was adamant we still had a title shot. But to keep that hope alive we knew what was needed against a team that was currently sitting 8th. As ever, there was a difference between knowing what is needed, and being able to do it.
The first three boards were snore bores - a 3NT+2 against us, a 2NT+1 against us and then a 1H+2 by Lessurl, during which I dashed away to collect the table money. As if trying to win at bridge wasn't a big enough ask, I was also running this event.
Next up was a 2 Spades by me, in which both I and Lessurl had 4-3-3-3 distributions, so there was nowhere to get rid of my six losers and I went one down. This was followed by another cold 11 tricks against us in No-Trump for -660.
So, we get to board 6 and the auction qualifies for the most interesting thing to happen thus far. I hold:
Kx
AKQJxx
Axx
Hxx
I open this 2 Clubs. LHO overcalls 2 Spades. Lessurl passes, showing no aces, so I bid 3 Hearts. This was a bad bid - I should have bid 4, and play there. Because I don't, we end up in 5 Hearts as I try to investigate a remote slam. The Ace of Spades lead helps greatly, and I canter to eleven tricks. Even though this was a non-vulnerable Game, I really don't think we could've penalised 2 Spades for a better score, though it is always a tempting thought.
+690 on the next board was more likely to yield 3 IMPs than a Slam Swing out, and -170 on the next board looked like a small chance of a swing if our team-mates had a route to the thin Game. I played a 4 Heart contract that rolled in, watched as a 5 Diamond contract rolled to 12 tricks against us on the penultimate board, and then this board to finish:
xx
K10x
xxx
QJ7xx
AKxx
AJxxx
Qx
Kx
Contract: 4 Hearts by the bottom hand, King of Diamonds led.
I am Dealer at Game All, with the bottom hand. I open 1 Heart. LHO doubles.
Lessurl now bids 2 Clubs, which I alert as it shows 6-9 points with 3 card heart support and probably something in clubs (almost certainly in this case). With a reversing strength hand I bid 2 Spades, even though I know there is no fit there - it is just the best way to show my strength. Lessurl bids 3 Hearts, which suggests he is bottom of the range, but I take a view and bid 4, mainly on basis of feeling we need a swing to stay in the competition and also that I know where a lot of the points are.
LHO takes the first two tricks with the King then Ace of Diamonds. A third round of diamonds is ruffed in hand with RHO showing the Jack.
This is a tricky situation. There is a threat of losing trump control - especially if they break 4-1. I probably won't get the time to ruff 2 spades in dummy, so clubs need to be set up. And the key question is where is the Queen of Hearts? I don't know the answer to that one, but in the mean time, I may as well play LHO for the Ace of Clubs and get a count of the hand - he surely doesn't have Axxxx. As it happens, the King holds a round, and when I play a small up to dummy, the Ace appears, followed by another club. A good attempt from LHO - he knows not to give me a ruff and discard and can't risk giving me the distribution by playing on spades. He has held up a round in the hope of getting partner a ruff, but at the expense of beating an honour with the Ace. This means I have no dilemma on the third round, and as it happens, the Jack holds, and I can pitch 1 Spade. That brings me to this position:
xx
K10x
---
Q7
AKx
AJxx
---
---
The location of the Queen of Hearts is a genuine guess. I don't have everything I need to be sure, but I must get it right as I need to play trumps for no losers and rid myself of a spade loser along the way. There are two options. Option A is play for Qxx on my left: small heart to the ace, small heart towards the K10, stuffing LHO, and drawing trumps in 3 rounds before pitching a spade on a club. Option B is to play for Qx(x) on my right: King of hearts and a small heart from dummy to trap RHO, before cashing two rounds of spades and ruffing a third and requiring the remaining heart to be on my right.
Option A seems to be the intuitive line: it picks up more heart distributions and places the Queen with the hand that doubled. I didn't pick this. LHO has shown 11 points already and is unlikely to have both major queens. He has played three diamonds and had an original holding of three clubs. Since his double implies length in spades, I am placing him with 4 of these, leaving room for three more red cards. Given his partner played the Jack of Diamonds, I think it more likely that he has another diamond, meaning that his partner rates to have longer hearts than him. It is the Theory of Available Spaces in action. In other words, if I correctly place Queen of Hearts on my right, I will be given the "luck" of RHO having three. So all that remains is to place that sodding queen. I place it on my right. Of the two major queens, I think LHO more likely to hold the Spade, since that is likely his suit and I held Ace-King. So I take Option B. This works, and the contract makes.
I could cross my fingers this would grant us a swing, but overall, the match looked too mundane for a score. Wrong. Only three flat boards as our team-mates did not have a boring set at all. On the first, 009domino also played in 3NT but took the lot. Unfortunately, they passed out the next board and we were losing 2-4. Lessurl's 9th trick gained us an IMP on the third, and my -50 gained another 2 as our counterparts had played in 3 Spades. Then came the first board that was actually flat. Still only 5-4 at this stage.
My 5 Hearts making was the first swing - our counterparts were also in 5 Hearts and coming 2 off. -2 and +3 followed before 2 flat boards saw us edging the match 19-6 with two to score up. Our team-mates were the heroes on the next board, finding the thin but making 6 Hearts to gain us 11 more IMPs. The above 4 Hearts gained us a further 10, and that was enough to see us fall 1 IMP short of the maximum win, settling for 19-1.
Before we scored that match we had a match to play against McGUIRE. This was a team that beat us heavily last year, or at least part thereof, as it is actually a merger of two teams. Having lost one match already, we couldn't afford a repeat result. Fortunately, it seemed to us the only potential big swings were going to be in our favour.
After a "flat" first board in which we lost an IMP, Lessurl and I had these hands:
J10xx
AQJx
KQx
xx
AKxxx
xxx
A
AQJ10
As Dealer with the bottom hand, I open 1 Spade. Lessurl responds a Jacoby 2NT. I bid a positive 3 Spades, explained at the end of the auction as such and denying a singleton or void. I am denying my diamond singleton - I don't show a singleton Ace as such. Lessurl bids 4 Spades, which tells me he was only interested in Game when he bid 2NT. I put on my rose tinted specs and bid 4NT. However, I cannot justify a slam when the auction continues 5C (one Key Card) - 5D (QS?) - 5H (No) - 5S (I give up) So Five Spades is the contract.
How to play this on a heart lead? There are two options. Finesse and hope that either this makes, or that I only have 1 loser in the black suits if it fails. Or, I could rise with the Ace and play the spades for no losers (before or after unblocking diamonds depending on how I want to play spades) and get back to dummy with a spade to discard hearts. Hmm.
Lucky I don't have this dilemma - I get a diamond lead. I win, cash AK of spades, failing to drop the queen, then cash the Ace of hearts and pitch two hearts on the KQ of diamonds. The club finesse fails, so 11 tricks is spot on.
I would not want to be in 6 Spades here, which is exactly what our counterparts were in (also with a diamond lead). The line for attempting to make 6 is the same as for 5, so we gained 13 IMPs here. It is a fine line though - Declarer can make 13 tricks if he can see where all the cards are at Trick 1.
On the next board, my RHO passed a reverse bid. It was a judgement call that backfired when her partner was maximum. So, three boards in we had built up a comfortable 19-1 IMPs lead. By 10 boards, we had increased this to 31-1. This consisted of a gift of an extra trick, a part score battle that we won, and our opponents bidding a Game that didn't make. Unfortunately, we shipped 8 IMPs on the penultimate board to win the match 17-3. Still, 36 was a very good nights' work; the best score we've ever had in one two-match round of the District Teams of Four.
We didn't think it would be enough to put us on top, however. But MOWAT beat ROSS, so the current top 4 looks like this:
1. A. McLeod 122
2. Ross 120
3. Hay 115
4. Mowat 95
This is where the seeding system does its stuff. These were the top 4 seeds (though not in that order). We, as well as HAY (the top 2 seeds) have to play two of the top four seeds on the final night. We have the worst of it I think as we face HAY and ROSS. At least it could be argued that destiny is in our own hands, but I can't place us as favourites given our run-in. In my opinion, ROSS is in the better situation, only 2 VPs off the lead, with the leaders to play plus another match against a lower seed (6th). HAY is still very much in the mix and has a good chance of retaining the title. They also have the advantage of having "got the T-shirt" in terms of having won the event, being winners since - well, longer than I know. MOWAT complete the top 4 and the list of teams that still has a mathematical chance of winning. But they will need to win big (including in a match against HAY) and get other results in their favour. I'm not saying it can't or won't be done; only that a bookmaker should offer reasonable odds on a team outside of the current top 3 winning the event this season.
All in all, everything is in place for a great final night. I don't remember the contest ever being this close at this stage - usually it is a two horse race or less. I know which horse I want to win, but I'll be happy as long as we don't fall at the final hurdle.
Lessurl and I started the night with a match against USHER. The Captain himself was not playing; he rotates a team of six for this event. We had the other two pairs to contend with. 009domino had never conceded defeat in this event, and was adamant we still had a title shot. But to keep that hope alive we knew what was needed against a team that was currently sitting 8th. As ever, there was a difference between knowing what is needed, and being able to do it.
The first three boards were snore bores - a 3NT+2 against us, a 2NT+1 against us and then a 1H+2 by Lessurl, during which I dashed away to collect the table money. As if trying to win at bridge wasn't a big enough ask, I was also running this event.
Next up was a 2 Spades by me, in which both I and Lessurl had 4-3-3-3 distributions, so there was nowhere to get rid of my six losers and I went one down. This was followed by another cold 11 tricks against us in No-Trump for -660.
So, we get to board 6 and the auction qualifies for the most interesting thing to happen thus far. I hold:
Kx
AKQJxx
Axx
Hxx
I open this 2 Clubs. LHO overcalls 2 Spades. Lessurl passes, showing no aces, so I bid 3 Hearts. This was a bad bid - I should have bid 4, and play there. Because I don't, we end up in 5 Hearts as I try to investigate a remote slam. The Ace of Spades lead helps greatly, and I canter to eleven tricks. Even though this was a non-vulnerable Game, I really don't think we could've penalised 2 Spades for a better score, though it is always a tempting thought.
+690 on the next board was more likely to yield 3 IMPs than a Slam Swing out, and -170 on the next board looked like a small chance of a swing if our team-mates had a route to the thin Game. I played a 4 Heart contract that rolled in, watched as a 5 Diamond contract rolled to 12 tricks against us on the penultimate board, and then this board to finish:
xx
K10x
xxx
QJ7xx
AKxx
AJxxx
Qx
Kx
Contract: 4 Hearts by the bottom hand, King of Diamonds led.
I am Dealer at Game All, with the bottom hand. I open 1 Heart. LHO doubles.
Lessurl now bids 2 Clubs, which I alert as it shows 6-9 points with 3 card heart support and probably something in clubs (almost certainly in this case). With a reversing strength hand I bid 2 Spades, even though I know there is no fit there - it is just the best way to show my strength. Lessurl bids 3 Hearts, which suggests he is bottom of the range, but I take a view and bid 4, mainly on basis of feeling we need a swing to stay in the competition and also that I know where a lot of the points are.
LHO takes the first two tricks with the King then Ace of Diamonds. A third round of diamonds is ruffed in hand with RHO showing the Jack.
This is a tricky situation. There is a threat of losing trump control - especially if they break 4-1. I probably won't get the time to ruff 2 spades in dummy, so clubs need to be set up. And the key question is where is the Queen of Hearts? I don't know the answer to that one, but in the mean time, I may as well play LHO for the Ace of Clubs and get a count of the hand - he surely doesn't have Axxxx. As it happens, the King holds a round, and when I play a small up to dummy, the Ace appears, followed by another club. A good attempt from LHO - he knows not to give me a ruff and discard and can't risk giving me the distribution by playing on spades. He has held up a round in the hope of getting partner a ruff, but at the expense of beating an honour with the Ace. This means I have no dilemma on the third round, and as it happens, the Jack holds, and I can pitch 1 Spade. That brings me to this position:
xx
K10x
---
Q7
AKx
AJxx
---
---
The location of the Queen of Hearts is a genuine guess. I don't have everything I need to be sure, but I must get it right as I need to play trumps for no losers and rid myself of a spade loser along the way. There are two options. Option A is play for Qxx on my left: small heart to the ace, small heart towards the K10, stuffing LHO, and drawing trumps in 3 rounds before pitching a spade on a club. Option B is to play for Qx(x) on my right: King of hearts and a small heart from dummy to trap RHO, before cashing two rounds of spades and ruffing a third and requiring the remaining heart to be on my right.
Option A seems to be the intuitive line: it picks up more heart distributions and places the Queen with the hand that doubled. I didn't pick this. LHO has shown 11 points already and is unlikely to have both major queens. He has played three diamonds and had an original holding of three clubs. Since his double implies length in spades, I am placing him with 4 of these, leaving room for three more red cards. Given his partner played the Jack of Diamonds, I think it more likely that he has another diamond, meaning that his partner rates to have longer hearts than him. It is the Theory of Available Spaces in action. In other words, if I correctly place Queen of Hearts on my right, I will be given the "luck" of RHO having three. So all that remains is to place that sodding queen. I place it on my right. Of the two major queens, I think LHO more likely to hold the Spade, since that is likely his suit and I held Ace-King. So I take Option B. This works, and the contract makes.
I could cross my fingers this would grant us a swing, but overall, the match looked too mundane for a score. Wrong. Only three flat boards as our team-mates did not have a boring set at all. On the first, 009domino also played in 3NT but took the lot. Unfortunately, they passed out the next board and we were losing 2-4. Lessurl's 9th trick gained us an IMP on the third, and my -50 gained another 2 as our counterparts had played in 3 Spades. Then came the first board that was actually flat. Still only 5-4 at this stage.
My 5 Hearts making was the first swing - our counterparts were also in 5 Hearts and coming 2 off. -2 and +3 followed before 2 flat boards saw us edging the match 19-6 with two to score up. Our team-mates were the heroes on the next board, finding the thin but making 6 Hearts to gain us 11 more IMPs. The above 4 Hearts gained us a further 10, and that was enough to see us fall 1 IMP short of the maximum win, settling for 19-1.
Before we scored that match we had a match to play against McGUIRE. This was a team that beat us heavily last year, or at least part thereof, as it is actually a merger of two teams. Having lost one match already, we couldn't afford a repeat result. Fortunately, it seemed to us the only potential big swings were going to be in our favour.
After a "flat" first board in which we lost an IMP, Lessurl and I had these hands:
J10xx
AQJx
KQx
xx
AKxxx
xxx
A
AQJ10
As Dealer with the bottom hand, I open 1 Spade. Lessurl responds a Jacoby 2NT. I bid a positive 3 Spades, explained at the end of the auction as such and denying a singleton or void. I am denying my diamond singleton - I don't show a singleton Ace as such. Lessurl bids 4 Spades, which tells me he was only interested in Game when he bid 2NT. I put on my rose tinted specs and bid 4NT. However, I cannot justify a slam when the auction continues 5C (one Key Card) - 5D (QS?) - 5H (No) - 5S (I give up) So Five Spades is the contract.
How to play this on a heart lead? There are two options. Finesse and hope that either this makes, or that I only have 1 loser in the black suits if it fails. Or, I could rise with the Ace and play the spades for no losers (before or after unblocking diamonds depending on how I want to play spades) and get back to dummy with a spade to discard hearts. Hmm.
Lucky I don't have this dilemma - I get a diamond lead. I win, cash AK of spades, failing to drop the queen, then cash the Ace of hearts and pitch two hearts on the KQ of diamonds. The club finesse fails, so 11 tricks is spot on.
I would not want to be in 6 Spades here, which is exactly what our counterparts were in (also with a diamond lead). The line for attempting to make 6 is the same as for 5, so we gained 13 IMPs here. It is a fine line though - Declarer can make 13 tricks if he can see where all the cards are at Trick 1.
On the next board, my RHO passed a reverse bid. It was a judgement call that backfired when her partner was maximum. So, three boards in we had built up a comfortable 19-1 IMPs lead. By 10 boards, we had increased this to 31-1. This consisted of a gift of an extra trick, a part score battle that we won, and our opponents bidding a Game that didn't make. Unfortunately, we shipped 8 IMPs on the penultimate board to win the match 17-3. Still, 36 was a very good nights' work; the best score we've ever had in one two-match round of the District Teams of Four.
We didn't think it would be enough to put us on top, however. But MOWAT beat ROSS, so the current top 4 looks like this:
1. A. McLeod 122
2. Ross 120
3. Hay 115
4. Mowat 95
This is where the seeding system does its stuff. These were the top 4 seeds (though not in that order). We, as well as HAY (the top 2 seeds) have to play two of the top four seeds on the final night. We have the worst of it I think as we face HAY and ROSS. At least it could be argued that destiny is in our own hands, but I can't place us as favourites given our run-in. In my opinion, ROSS is in the better situation, only 2 VPs off the lead, with the leaders to play plus another match against a lower seed (6th). HAY is still very much in the mix and has a good chance of retaining the title. They also have the advantage of having "got the T-shirt" in terms of having won the event, being winners since - well, longer than I know. MOWAT complete the top 4 and the list of teams that still has a mathematical chance of winning. But they will need to win big (including in a match against HAY) and get other results in their favour. I'm not saying it can't or won't be done; only that a bookmaker should offer reasonable odds on a team outside of the current top 3 winning the event this season.
All in all, everything is in place for a great final night. I don't remember the contest ever being this close at this stage - usually it is a two horse race or less. I know which horse I want to win, but I'll be happy as long as we don't fall at the final hurdle.
Saturday, 3 November 2012
District Teams of Four Round 2
Being just 1VP behind the leaders after Round 1, and playing against the team we were tied 2nd with, this was always going to be a crucial round for us. We needed to keep up the pace if we were to have any hope of lifting the Sybil Hay trophy at the end of the season. CAMPBELL is a sound and steady team that beat us quite comfortably last year, so a change in the winds was needed. Lessurl and I took them on over our first 12 boards of the night.
Last year, Lessurl and I had taken back a score card that we were pretty sure was a losing one. Things started reasonably this time round as I made a very pushy invite to 4 Hearts, which was (for once) not accepted, gaining 140 points. We then beat 4 Hearts when I cashed 1 trick in partner's suit before switching to a short suit for a ruff on Trick 4. Continuing partner's suit would have let the contract make; hence the importance of Count signals. This board made for a 6-0 lead, but when our opponents bid and made a Cold Game on the next board, that was enough for 6-10. We then missed a thin Game (which we'd have found had our opponents interfered), so we were happy enough to lose just 1 more IMP. A part score swing made it 10-11. Lessurl and I then had the following sequence:
1C-(X)-1D-(P)-2S-(P)-3D-(P)-3H-(P)-3NT
After a Better Minor followed by a Reverse, I asked for a Heart stop which Lessurl confirmed with 3NT. This raised the question of "When is a Stop not a Stop?" Lessurl held Ax doubleton in hearts, which was not enough when RHO had an outside entry. He consequently came 4 off, and when our counterparts played in 3 Clubs, we were losing 10-20.
We were not to be denied however, and from having half of the IMPs of our opponents with 6 boards out of 12 played, we turned it around with two Game swings and a couple of other good boards to finish 42-21 on IMPs when the music stopped, a much needed 17-3 win.
The second of our matches was against WATSON. This is the only 100% Ellon team in the competition, and their current bottom place belies a formidable resilience. They showed their capability last year when they beat the number 1 seed (and eventual winners). Although we would start as favourites for this one, the win would not be handed on a silver platter and I have to admit I couldn't see where it was coming from. This was mainly because I was picking up some really terrible hands - I was not getting my share of the HCPs. Three of the first five were cold Games against, and the other two were cold part scores for -110 and -120. This did not make for good reading.
On board 6, we managed to take my LHO two off in 4 Hearts, which was a conversion to an 11 IMP gain, not that we knew it yet. Another part score battle in our favour made the score 19-10 with 8 of 12 played. On board 9, both EW pairs missed a 21-25% Game. Board 10 was flat. This board secured a 15-5 win:
QJxxx
xx
Jxxx
xx
A10
AQxx
Q10x
AQxx
Sitting with the bottom hand, after my LHO opens and RHO responds, I bid 1NT. I hold more than 17 HCPs, but I think this is the best description of my hand. I'm surprised Lessurl didn't transfer to 2 Spades, but never mind.
The Ace of Diamonds is led, and I sense an opportunity. I play low from both hands. If LHO continues with the King, I play low from dummy and the queen from hand. The best thing LHO can do at that point is play a small diamond. I can then win with the ten (no point winning with the Jack when spades are not set up) and set up spades by playing Ace and another. When LHO has the King of Spades (which is likely given she opened), she is endplayed. Playing a pointed suit allows me to cash three spades and a diamond in dummy; whereas playing a rounded suit gives me a trick. By winning as cheaply as possible and cashing the other honour before exiting that suit, I can hope to endplay LHO again.
As it happens, LHO switches to a club, so I win with the queen and play Ace of spades and another. If LHO ducks, I'll overtake with the queen and play a small spade from dummy, playing for a 3-3 break. LHO does not duck; she wins with the King and now plays a heart. When I win, I play the queen of diamonds and LHO obliges by playing the King. 9 tricks for 6 IMPs.
There is something to be said for playing the queen of diamonds under the ace at trick 1. With the King onside, this guarantees a diamond entry to dummy. However, LHO would continue diamonds at Trick 2, so the dummy entry would not come when I wanted it.
The team were rather happy with 32 from Night 2. We have now established a gap of some 13 VPs over 3rd place, but have not climbed to first with ROSS still exactly 1VP ahead of us. It is far from a two-horse race however; 13VPs is hardly anything at this stage. CAMPBELL is the third placed team and holders HAY are up to 4th. MCLEOD (Senior) holds 5th despite only one win. I'm happy to see him there but something has to give with the McLeod derby match on Night 3. His narrow losses against some of the bigger teams thus far show how difficult it will be for us to emulate our result of last season. McGUIRE and MOWAT sit 6th and 7th respectively, and they are still title contenders. From our point of view, out of all the title contenders, we are the only ones that are capable of dropping out on Night 3. All the others are capable of winning after a bad night, but the way see it, a bad night for us is too much ground to recover. At least so far we are earning our Seeding of 2. A month to recover then, and then we will enter the fray a third time...
Last year, Lessurl and I had taken back a score card that we were pretty sure was a losing one. Things started reasonably this time round as I made a very pushy invite to 4 Hearts, which was (for once) not accepted, gaining 140 points. We then beat 4 Hearts when I cashed 1 trick in partner's suit before switching to a short suit for a ruff on Trick 4. Continuing partner's suit would have let the contract make; hence the importance of Count signals. This board made for a 6-0 lead, but when our opponents bid and made a Cold Game on the next board, that was enough for 6-10. We then missed a thin Game (which we'd have found had our opponents interfered), so we were happy enough to lose just 1 more IMP. A part score swing made it 10-11. Lessurl and I then had the following sequence:
1C-(X)-1D-(P)-2S-(P)-3D-(P)-3H-(P)-3NT
After a Better Minor followed by a Reverse, I asked for a Heart stop which Lessurl confirmed with 3NT. This raised the question of "When is a Stop not a Stop?" Lessurl held Ax doubleton in hearts, which was not enough when RHO had an outside entry. He consequently came 4 off, and when our counterparts played in 3 Clubs, we were losing 10-20.
We were not to be denied however, and from having half of the IMPs of our opponents with 6 boards out of 12 played, we turned it around with two Game swings and a couple of other good boards to finish 42-21 on IMPs when the music stopped, a much needed 17-3 win.
The second of our matches was against WATSON. This is the only 100% Ellon team in the competition, and their current bottom place belies a formidable resilience. They showed their capability last year when they beat the number 1 seed (and eventual winners). Although we would start as favourites for this one, the win would not be handed on a silver platter and I have to admit I couldn't see where it was coming from. This was mainly because I was picking up some really terrible hands - I was not getting my share of the HCPs. Three of the first five were cold Games against, and the other two were cold part scores for -110 and -120. This did not make for good reading.
On board 6, we managed to take my LHO two off in 4 Hearts, which was a conversion to an 11 IMP gain, not that we knew it yet. Another part score battle in our favour made the score 19-10 with 8 of 12 played. On board 9, both EW pairs missed a 21-25% Game. Board 10 was flat. This board secured a 15-5 win:
QJxxx
xx
Jxxx
xx
A10
AQxx
Q10x
AQxx
Sitting with the bottom hand, after my LHO opens and RHO responds, I bid 1NT. I hold more than 17 HCPs, but I think this is the best description of my hand. I'm surprised Lessurl didn't transfer to 2 Spades, but never mind.
The Ace of Diamonds is led, and I sense an opportunity. I play low from both hands. If LHO continues with the King, I play low from dummy and the queen from hand. The best thing LHO can do at that point is play a small diamond. I can then win with the ten (no point winning with the Jack when spades are not set up) and set up spades by playing Ace and another. When LHO has the King of Spades (which is likely given she opened), she is endplayed. Playing a pointed suit allows me to cash three spades and a diamond in dummy; whereas playing a rounded suit gives me a trick. By winning as cheaply as possible and cashing the other honour before exiting that suit, I can hope to endplay LHO again.
As it happens, LHO switches to a club, so I win with the queen and play Ace of spades and another. If LHO ducks, I'll overtake with the queen and play a small spade from dummy, playing for a 3-3 break. LHO does not duck; she wins with the King and now plays a heart. When I win, I play the queen of diamonds and LHO obliges by playing the King. 9 tricks for 6 IMPs.
There is something to be said for playing the queen of diamonds under the ace at trick 1. With the King onside, this guarantees a diamond entry to dummy. However, LHO would continue diamonds at Trick 2, so the dummy entry would not come when I wanted it.
The team were rather happy with 32 from Night 2. We have now established a gap of some 13 VPs over 3rd place, but have not climbed to first with ROSS still exactly 1VP ahead of us. It is far from a two-horse race however; 13VPs is hardly anything at this stage. CAMPBELL is the third placed team and holders HAY are up to 4th. MCLEOD (Senior) holds 5th despite only one win. I'm happy to see him there but something has to give with the McLeod derby match on Night 3. His narrow losses against some of the bigger teams thus far show how difficult it will be for us to emulate our result of last season. McGUIRE and MOWAT sit 6th and 7th respectively, and they are still title contenders. From our point of view, out of all the title contenders, we are the only ones that are capable of dropping out on Night 3. All the others are capable of winning after a bad night, but the way see it, a bad night for us is too much ground to recover. At least so far we are earning our Seeding of 2. A month to recover then, and then we will enter the fray a third time...
Sunday, 1 July 2012
Scotland at the White House
I am back in Aberdeen and have returned from the biggest event of my bridge life so far - the White House Juniors 2012. It was every bit as exciting, enjoyable, industrious, exhausting and nerve-racking as I expected it to be. It was a great experience and one that I'm very grateful to have been able to get. I feel that I learned a lot (at least I hope I did), and hopefully I'll be able to take that forward to new opportunities in times to come.
Things started in earnest bright and early on a Sunday morning (3am on the morning the clocks came forward!), as I was woken by my alarm so that I had enough time to get up, get ready to go and see to last minute details before meeting up with Jun at the airport just after 4am. Of course, we had prepared for this, hadn't we? Surely we went to be about tea time to make up the hours of sleep? Well, no. Best laid plans and all that...
Still, we had an International tournament to look forward to, so neither of us were particularly feeling it. After a routine, but turbulent, flight, we landed in Schipol just after 8am local time. After the smoothest Arrival ever (by the time we had walked the length of the Arrivals Lounge and gone through security - the only two to go through at that particular time - our bags had already come round the carousel and we picked them up almost without breaking stride), we had the task of finding our way to the hotel.
We had an address, and we had an idea how to get there, but where we fell down was that we were largely reliant on my non-existent photographic memory of Google Earth. We settled on taking one train to Amsterdam Central, followed by another to Amstel, where we got off knowing that the hotel was just on the other side of the river. Uhoh. Which one of these waterways is the river? Neither of us had learned to read Dutch in school, and we had only one point of reference. (You need at least two points of reference when navigating to have any hope). After walking completely the wrong way to get our bearings, we crossed the Amstel and walked past the hotel (which was one block over), but a local was able to point us in the right direction and we eventually found it.
Dutch people (or those in Amsterdam particularly) are brilliant linguists. I have been to the Netherlands twice in my life and the only person I met that wasn't fluent in English was about seven years old. I'm a firm believer in "when in Rome...", but I doubt my Dutch will ever be up to scratch. One of the English team has actually lived in Amsterdam for 18 months and as far as I'm aware hasn't picked up the language at all. I tend not to take this brilliance for granted and never fail to be impressed. Netherlands, I salute you.
After a quick rest and change of clothes (we now had to don our Scotland shirts), it was time to get lost all over again. We found our way to the tram easily enough, and we got off at the right stop. I had remembered Google Earth well enough this time, but still did not know where the White House actually was. This was probably mainly to do with the fact that I was under the impression that Der Witte Huis was a hotel, and not, in fact, a tennis club. Despite this, another local knew exactly where it was and we got there in enough time for the event.
Above is a picture of the main playing area in the White House. It is taken from the upper level, which housed some of the tables (four on each wing). Most of the tables are not in view.
My partner for the week was Falco. No, that's not his real name, but I didn't ask if I could use his name in this, so I'm not going to use it. (Even if it has been used in other on-line articles already.) "Falco" and I had done a lot of preparation for the event, by using BBO, but the first time I actually met him was a couple of minutes before play started in the pro-am Sunday tournament. Although we wanted to do well, Falco and I were treating this one-day event as no more than a "warm-up" for the week to come, as we hadn't played any "real" bridge together. It was a chance to iron out any systemic wrinkles.
Things started well, however. On the very first board, as West, I picked up:
AQJ83
Q985
3
1084
North passed, and partner opened 1 Diamond. South overcalled a Weak 2 Spades. I smoothly passed this, and waited for a re-opening double from partner. Falco obliged, feeling his hand was worth a take-out double, and I penalty passed. North could do nothing, so we took down 2 Spades Doubled, not by as much as it could have been, as we didn't defend optimally, but it was a start.
When all said and done, in a tournament that invited coaches, professionals and sponsors to play, we finished 8th out of 24 - much higher up the pecking order than we'd have thought possible. After two big wins mid-way, we were actually sitting 2nd. But we couldn't allow ourselves to finish THAT high; it might give away the fact that we were planning to not actually come last in the main event.
24 boards was not abnormal for me (or any of us), so we took that in our stride. But for me, the White House Tournament was to be an altogether different affair.
On Sunday evening they erected the screens (which can be clearly seen in the above picture), and playing with screens was a new experience for me. Although I have only heard positive things about them, they still take some getting used to, and I was very nervous when I sat down to play our first match - against Denmark.
The first day consisted of a group stage of five ten board matches. I posted previously the group, and my reservations about the seeding. However, you can only play what is put in front of you, so we just had to do what we could.
The nerves were not a good thing. They caused me to misbid on Board 2, and we missed a Game, and before I had entirely calmed down I found myself playing 4 Spades on Board 4. Faced with a holding of AKJ10984 opposite 62 in dummy in the trump suit, I miscounted, Played the Ace and then took a finesse, which turned out to be the only play to get twelve tricks as the queen was onside. Who said nerves are a bad thing?
One board later, we lost 16 IMPs, and although I again chalked this up to nerves, on reflection the opponents were in a cold Game so the swing didn't happen at our table. Denmark kept up the good work and took the maximum 25 VPs. Somehow late in the match we took 10 IMPs on an innocent looking board, to get some VPs and look onwards and upwards.
The second match was against Israel. Just what you need after a thrashing by the team that came 3rd last year: a match against the reigning Champions. Nonetheless, I was looking forward to this one. This was what I had come here for. The screens were already my new best friend and my nerves had evaporated. All I wanted to do was put the first win on the board for Scotland, and I didn't care who was standing in my way. Unfortunately, Israel didn't co-operate with this plan, and beat us 21-9. This was adjusted to 23-7 after they called the Director, which we had to accept because there was no appeals committee, which was something of a surprise.
However, there had been a marked improvement from Round 1 to Round 2, and with two of the big teams out of the way it was time to see what we could do against one of the host teams - Netherlands Orange. We were still looking for our first win, and effectively it came in the first three boards of the match. On Board 21 (the first board) we gained an IMP when we held 4 Spades to ten tricks. On boards 22 and 23, we bid routine 3NT contracts, making 9 and 11 tricks respectively. Our team-mates must've done something spectacular because on both boards we gained 13 IMPs, putting 27 IMPs on the board - the only 27 IMPs we gained in the match, which we won 18-12.
That doesn't mean we did all the work on those boards. The match is ten boards long, and there were four flat boards, and it is not always easy to stop the IMPs leaking out. For example:
A872
KJ5
KJ53
62
All Vul and Dealer, I open this 1 Diamond. (Better Minor). LHO overcalls 1 Spade and partner doubles. The auction gets as far as 3 Spades by our opponents. In a Bridge Club, 3 Spades would ordinarily be the contract. However, one of us (I forget which one) managed to find a Double. Doubling into Game is not something you do unless you have an absolute guarantee of beating the contract. We certainly didn't seem to have that looking at the hand record. However, we did defend accurately, and consequently beat the contract by 1 for +200 - a flat board, because the same thing happened at the other table. It was to be a theme of the week - International Bridge is mostly about not shipping. You have to play well to get a flat board, as was evidenced by match 4.
I'm sitting playing against Kopecky - a name I recognise, and no wonder. Although a Junior, he has played in the Czech Open team. He was also part of the Japan-Czech team that won the Junior World Internationals a couple of years ago. And he happens to be my screen-mate for 10 boards.
The first half of the match has gone well - I think we're ahead (but I don't know.) Then board 6 comes along, and the opponents, starting with LHO, have the following auction:
1H 2D
2H 4C
4D 6H
7H
The bids are natural until 4 Clubs, which is a splinter. 4 Diamonds is a cue bid. My partner holds:
J652
J
A83
109872
Falco has a serious problem here. His LHO clearly has long diamonds, and for RHO to bid 7, the cue bid looks for all the world like a void. Leading the Ace, which I will grant you many club level players will do without thinking, could set up the suit in dummy and be disastrous. Falco made a quick decision here, and led the Ace - which HELD. Nice bluff by South, matched by an excellent Call from partner. As it happens, without the ace lead, 7 Hearts does not have much play and will come down, but Falco gave it no chance. Things did not get better for Czech Republic; this was our score-card for boards 6-10:
6: 7 Hearts -1 by South, +50
7: 2 Spades +1 by North, -140
8: 4 Spades -3 by North, +150
9: 4 Spades -1 by South, +50
10: 2NT -1 by Opponent, +100
Board 7 we are hoping for a flat board, but on the rest we are hoping for a gain - including a slam swing. My only concern was that I had not Doubled Kopecky on Board 8. I'd a long spade suit myself, but had not wished to reveal that fact to him by Doubling - a decision our team-mates would agree with later. So, having had a great match from our perspective, we looked forward to scoring this up.
Boards 6 to 10 were all flat boards. Thus underlining just how hard it is to gain at this level. This was the one match of the tournament where we left the table confident of a win - a win not provided by very swingy boards. In fact, we had to make a MISTAKE (of sorts) to win.
The match was won on Board 3:
J62
A10752
10653
J
I held this hand, and LHO opened 1 Club. This is either natural, or 19-20. Partner has overcalled 2 Clubs. We have no prior agreement on this, so I have to decide whether I think this is natural or not (and Kopecky wants to know). I think that it is Michaels, because if the 1 Club isn't natural, partner probably doesn't want to overcall a strong hand. However, I am not 100% sure, so I bid 2 Hearts. South bids 2 Spades, and partner now says 3 Clubs - I guess it was natural then. Kopecky and I pass, and push the tray through. The tray appears back with a double from South. Kopecky pulls this to 3 Spades, I pass, and the tray goes back through. The next time we see it, partner has bid 4 Clubs. This goes round to South, who doubles again and this time it is left.
Partner held:
Q8
8
K8
AKQ98532
The Ace of Diamonds was onside, so he made an easy ten tricks for +710. That contributed 11 of our total of 13 IMPs, and we won the match 17-13. That was probably our "giantkilling" match.
The last match of the first day was against Bulgaria Green. In this match we took what we got, and what we got was enough. The first swing came on Board 12, where we gained 12 IMPs when partner made a 5 Spade Contract that looks reasonably safe double dummy. Then on Board 14 we gained 14 IMPs. South opened 1 Spade. Falco held:
86532
-
AKQJ10752
-
Falco bid 4 Diamonds with this. In the post mortem it was agreed that 5 Diamonds would be better, but the point was he bid something. North bid 4 Hearts over him, which we took down. For reasons best known to himself, Falco's counterpart passed 1 Spade, and our team-mates found their way to a Club Slam, which they made.
So ended our first day at the White House. It had been a successful day by any account. The match against Denmark was a write-off which was hardly a surprise with two new partnerships. We then competed against Israel before winning our remaining three matches. We couldn't have hoped for better.
Placings in the group stage affected starting positions in the Swiss, which would be played over the next two days. We started on Tuesday against Croatia. I believe the WordPress site mentioned in my last post has a report on that, so I will pass over this 12-18 defeat to move onto Round 7. Here we were up against Ireland.
Those who watch the Camrose (Junior Camrose/ Lady Milne etc) will be used to seeing Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland as two different teams. In these Home Nations events, this is what happens - the two countries send their own teams, which are usually competitive and one or other (or both) can be in with a shout of winning. However, in all other events, the two combine to send an IRELAND team, and this was what we were facing - the best of both, as it were. This was no Junior Camrose match. Ireland had their best team and we had a new team. Ireland were strong favourites.
Not to worry. Board 1 provided our first slam of the tournament, and despite it being a virtual laydown, it gained us 11 IMPs. That set us on our way, and in a tight match, we did scrape a 3, a 2 and two 1s to add to the 11, and losing 11 on the penultimate board was not enough to stop us winning 18-14 on IMPs, 16-14 on VPs. (Our second slam of the tournament also rolled in on this match, but it was flat). Although small gains can sometimes be just as interesting as large, I'll resist the temptation to analyse in full as this is already becoming an essay.
Round 8 was against Poland, which I don't have hand records for, but we won 16-14.
Onto Round 9. This was against Germany, and more importantly (from my point of view) it was on Vugraph. For the uninitiated, Vugraph is the feature by which BBO is able to screen live bridge matches. Anyone on BBO can watch. The biggest events draw thousands of spectators. Knowing that anyone, anywhere, can be watching you as you try to decide which of the thirteen cards you should play, or the various bids you can make, would surely strike the nerves of anyone. And I had never done it before. That sort of pressure can easily affect decisions - and has. I have been a spectator as a player has completely crumbled under the pressure - it isn't nice. Now it was my turn to try and cope.
The nerves I felt for the first few boards of this match were second only to the first five boards against Denmark. However, I was pleased to find I coped somewhat better, and things certainly became easier after they bid to a 6 Clubs which didn't make. By that time we had also (completely unbeknown to us) accrued another big swing by bidding a routine 3NT when our counterparts bid 5 Diamonds coming off.
That's not to say things didn't go wrong. I misread a situation in 3NT and went off with a chance to make it, and we got an 800 in the minus column too. Vugraph crashed with a few boards to go, and although we played on oblivious, some of our supporters were left under the impression we lost the match. My Dad was actually told Scotland had "snatched defeat from the jaws of victory", when in fact we did gain 11 IMPs on the last board to win the match 16-14.
As for my Vugraph experience, I made mistakes, which I had been dreading, but this had a positive effect. For a start, I was not nervous by the time the match ended - I had partner to thank for that. I was rather annoyed when he hadn't found the defence I'd been looking for on one board, but to my delight I found that I could not be annoyed and nervous at the same time. I promptly told myself I was annoyed for the rest of the match, and managed my nerves rather well. As for my mistakes, it made me feel like I wasn't showing myself properly - and that was a good thing. Next time I'm on Vugraph (if there is one), there will be a determination to show what I can do which should keep the nerves at bay. I certainly won't be dreading it like I was this match.
The eagle eyed will have noticed that this was our third 16 in a row. If nothing else, we were grinding matches out. This is a quality that every International Bridge team wants to have in its locker in case things don't go well, so we were pleased to prove that we could do it. It didn't occur to me at the time, but we had at this point won 6 of the last 7 matches - something that would have been unthinkable before play started, and certainly far in excess of expectations.
What my Dad had been told actually applied to our next match, against Austria. We were winning comfortably at one stage, but then we contrived to throw it away on the last two boards by looking for a slam that wasn't there and one major misunderstanding. We lost 14-16. In fairness, one major misunderstanding in the space of 261 boards, for a partnership that had never met, and only one month to prepare for an International tournament, is an excellent return, even if it costs a match. We would both have bitten the hand off anyone that offered us that before the tournament.
We finished the day with a disappointing 8-22 against Netherlands Blue. I think this was one of those matches where our luck just was not there. Netherlands Blue played really well, leaving us no margin for error, and capitalised on a few Scottish mistakes. It was disappointing, but not unexpected - it was our first single-figure VP score since the match against Israel, which was pretty good going.
Wednesday started with a match against another Dutch team - the White team. Nothing interesting happened at our table, except maybe one hand that Falco won't thank me for posting, and we lost the match 13-17.
Onto Round 14 (not 13; we had a bye), and a match against Finland. We only had two minus scores on the card - a solid Game and a -300. We had pushed to 3 Diamonds, which they found a double for. I can't post the hand as I can't remember how we (me, I think) contrived to come down 2, and this contributed to 9 IMPs out - the only board we lost IMPs on in the match. However, in a very flattish match, it was hard to pull back this loss over 9 boards, in a match we were hoping to win.
Boards 12-15 were flat, a fact I will accept with good grace given we did have a +170, followed by a 2, a 1, and another flat board. On Board 19, after a competitive auction I played and made 3 Hearts - the optimum result, but my counterpart didn't make (I don't know much about what happened at my team mates' table), and the match was level. It swung our way on Board 20 when our opponents attempted a thin 3NT that turned out to be way too thin. We took it two off for 200, gaining 3 IMPs and yet another 16 VPs.
In Round 15, we lost 7-23 to Norway. I certainly didn't think our performance in the match merited such a heavy defeat, but I can't produce evidence from hand records (because I don't have them for this round) to back this conviction up.
In Round 16, we were a bit unlucky I thought. On the second board, I doubled a 5 Club Contract which made with two overtricks, which is absolutely fine as long as our team mates find the Slam their way (I wouldn't expect them to find the 50% Grand which happens to make). That would have turned an 11-19 defeat into another 16-14 win. We did have our biggest swing in during this match: 15 IMPs for 4 Spades Doubled making, when combined with our team mates' score.
Our last match of the Swiss was against the England Under 25 team. As they were flying quite high at the time and we weren't, this was a bit of a surprise. We'd scored a maximum (or nearly) against the Under 20s on the Sunday, but this was a different prospect. We would be doing well to hang on to their coat tails. We did, though; Falco and I holding our own but we came out just on the wrong side of things - a narrow 13-17 defeat, which we felt was less than we deserved.
At this point, the teams were divided into Groups of 4 for the Thursday Finals (or Semi Finals, for those in the top 4). Each team would play against every other in their group, in 14 board matches. We were in the second bottom group, which we were happy with (the worst we could finish was 20th and that would still be better than expected), but we were not happy to see Ireland in our group. (Or at least I wasn't). What were they doing in 17th place? Also in our group were Finland and Norway. This did not bother me - I wanted another crack at them.
Unfortunately, 14 boards is not long enough when you miss a Slam and your team-mates miss a Game. Those were the two big swings of the match against Finland, and despite the team playing well for the other 12 boards, we could not recoup the deficit. We lost 10-20.
On to the rematch against Norway. Starting with the second half, my first hand was Board 22:
-
AJ875432
6
AK63
You open 2 Clubs with this. (Five losers; this is worth a GF in International Bridge). Apparently I couldn't make this bid in England - the 16 point rule. That deserves a separate rant, and this post is not about ranting (or raving).
Partner says a negative 2 Diamonds. You have strong options because you do not allow a "2D relay" in your system. You bid 3 Hearts, which is a self-agreement. Partner says 3 Spades (Italian Cue), you say 4 Clubs (Italian Cue) and partner says 4 Spades (Italian Cue).
For the uninitiated, partner has shown the Ace of Spades (or a void, but the odds favour the ace). He has not denied the King, nor has he shown it. He has no diamond controls. What is your call?
The auction went very wrong for us. As a result, we gained 13 IMPs. We lost an IMP on the next board (again, we don't know the score as we play), before Falco made 10 tricks in 3NT for +11 IMPs. We then lost 23 IMPs over the next two boards - partly our fault for making a phantom sacrifice. We'd set a target of getting 30% of judgement decisions right. I think over the week we got at least that and probably better, but against Norway we hardly got any right.
Case in point: Board 27 - arguably. Do you want to be in 3NT or 5 Clubs here?
J92
AQ9
A103
AKJ2
K10
J1054
52
Q10953
My hand is the bottom hand.
3NT is in danger on a diamond lead if they are not 4-4. You will then require the heart finesse. 5 Clubs requires the same finesse and a good guess in spades. Add into the equation neither opponent has bid. 3NT is the superior contract. Even a 5-3 diamond split could be okay if the suit blocks.
I'm playing... you guessed it. 5 Clubs. And the 8 of Hearts is led.
I think this is a reasonable standard play problem. But I would anticipate most, if not all, Declarers at the White House getting it right.
My line:
Up with the Ace of Hearts. The King is almost certainly on my right after the lead. There is no point losing this finesse now; I have a chance at another one to make the contract and can concede the King of Hearts at a more convenient time. I play two rounds of clubs, starting with small to the 9 and small to the King. LHO shows out on the second round, so I cash the Ace.
The contract depends on "guessing spades right". The guess is, in fact, non-existent. Nothing I do will make a difference. If either opponent has Ace and Queen of spades, I cannot win. LHO has two natural tricks when he holds them, and the contract will come 2 off because of it. RHO can keep the queen to cover the third round of spades, so unless he has AQ doubleton, I can ill-afford them to be there, either. What about split honours? Again, unless RHO holds Qx, I won't win. One opponent will win either the first or second round of spades; and the other will hold their honour until round 3 if required, so I can't pitch a diamond. The bottom line: unless RHO has exactly two spades, one of which is the Queen, I am going down.
Since the odds on that are not good, I am playing for every chance I can get. I play the Jack from dummy, in the hope that RHO will feel obliged to cover holding Qxx(x)(x)(x). I feel vindicated when I see the Queen - all of a sudden, this contract is making. I cover with the King; Ace wins. The best defence is a diamond switch - I have to win, play the 2 of spades to the ten, play the ten of clubs to the Jack and play a spade to pitch a diamond, before giving up a heart. As it happened, I didn't get that defence and the contract rolled in, and 11 IMPs along with it.
But perhaps my favourite board for subversive reasons was Board 17:
A106
987
K98
A754
K9
AK653
A7642
9
I hold the bottom hand, and am playing 4 Hearts. I get the Queen of Spades lead (from a hand that overcalled spades), which I win with the King. This contract seems innocent enough. I cash Ace and King of Hearts, and LHO shows out on the King. I have two heart losers instead of just 1 as I'd hoped. If I could have seen all the hands, of course I could've gone to dummy and ran the 9. Now I have an issue with trump control. If RHO wins a heart and plays a club, I'm going to have to tread carefully. So I look for another option than directly drawing trumps. I could draw the trumps by running diamonds once they are out - but there is a danger there too. If RHO is void in diamonds, then I may lose a trick I expect to win. However, I'm pretty sure that's not the case, because then LHO has a different overcall. So I play a small diamond to the King. Then I play the 9. RHO could be out of them by now, but if he ruffs in I have a plan. He can lead a black suit (clubs is the best choice, obviously), and I will win and play a diamond. That ensures I only have one diamond loser. Or, he could cash the heart first to make sure I don't do that. But I can still come to four heart tricks, a club, two diamonds and three spades, because I can finesse the spades through LHO. In fact, RHO has another diamond - the ten. I duck, because it is valuable that I preserve communication. LHO is forced to win with the Jack and he fires a club through. I win with the ace and play the 8 of diamonds off table. RHO could discard on this, but I will play the ace, and then run diamonds until he does ruff. In fact, he ruffs in, and now I see an opportunity developing as I pitch the 6. Not to make the contract - that is already seen to.
RHO returns a club, and I ruff. I now have two trumps left compared to RHO's one. I give him a chance to take his remaining trump trick when I play the Ace of diamonds. Nothing doing, so I now play up to the Ace of spades and exit dummy's last heart. This forces RHO to win his last trump now, on trick eleven. He only has black cards left. He selects one, and I ruff. My last remaining card is not only a winner - it is the seven of diamonds - the beer card. I knew playing for Scotland brought out the best in me.
That board was flat, of course, but the next board provided a swing when our opponents didn't bid a 23 point Game. This was yet another match where big swings were important, but this time it was to our favour. Although Norway scored on seven of the fourteen boards and we scored on 5, all five of our swings were significant and we won by 51 IMPS to 29 - or 20-10 on VPs.
Beer cards might be like busses - I've waited many years to score one, and then I do so in two consecutive matches. Board 1 of our final match - against Ireland - and I did it again, although as the diamond suit was a 9 card fit, it lacked the panache of the first. Sadly that was one of few good moments in the match against Ireland. Although Falco and I did well enough (I thought), for the team this match did not go well at all and we lost heavily - 8-22 on VPs.
That was enough to see us finish bottom of our final group. Time for us to take stock of how we did over the tournament as a whole.
In my opinion we did really well. There were no aspirations for us going into the tournament. We were probably favourites for last place. The odds were stacked against us. For a start, we were a team of four. That meant every one of us played every single board. That was a significant disadvantage over the teams of six (or the Dutch, who predominantly had teams of 8), whose players could rest for the odd match. Which gives the winners of the tournament, Netherlands Red, even more credit as they played four-handed. But then, they are four World Class Juniors. We were a team of two experts and two advanced players. Not only that, but neither of our partnerships had played together before. I think our team mates had one practice session on BBO. Falco and I practiced intensively on BBO but only met just before play started. The other three had experience of intense junior International competition, but I hadn't. Although I thrived on it for the most part, I had plenty of new things to get used to. My two most nervous matches were Denmark and Germany, without a doubt. I learned important lessons in those matches - one of the most important ones being how to handle nerves. I won't be nealy as scared of appearing on Vugraph for a second time (if that ever happens) as I was for my first.
We also lacked an NPC (more on this below).
Then the draw was unkind to us. Our starting group was a Group of Death. We didn't always get the luck of the draw in the Swiss. And then Ireland somehow managed to find their way into the E-Final along with us. I wouldn't have minded so much if they'd done to Finland and Norway what they did to us.
Yet what did we do? We somehow emerged from the Group of Death with three victories and two defeats. This included the major scalp of the Czech Republic. We strung together some 16-14 victories on the second day. We ensured before the last day even started we couldn't finish in the bottom four by getting into the E-Final with some room to spare. If anyone had predicted we'd do what we did, they'd be up there with the big-time psychics like Paul the Octopus.
So what was the key? How did a team of such little prospect achieve so much? I think there are several reasons.
Firstly, we had an excellent Captain. We were originally going to be accompanied by Jim Hay, who is a top class coach. Any team's chances improve when they get Jim on board. We had the blow of losing him as NPC, and Alex took up the mantle as Playing Captain. And boy, did he do a good job. His leadership, knowledge of the game, advice and humour played a significant part in punching above our weight.
Then there was the team spirit. This is an often under-estimated factor, but I think Scottish juniors are very good at maximising their strength here. For the amount of work we put into the week, we were as laid back as possible and generally enjoyed our time there. Analysis was always constructive, and disagreements about system etc were handled with patience and understanding. Certainly I feel that it was not just the understanding that Falco and I had, but the lack of misunderstanding, that speaks volumes for our partnership as a whole. You certainly wouldn't have caught us at the "shouting match" antics of some of our opponents.
Also, I think the underdog tag suited us. We had not been given any demands from the SBU about how far up the field we had to come. So we just took each match one at a time and tried to win where we could. If we played well, we had the element of surprise. We were an unknown entity to most of our opponents.
Overall, it was a very successful trip. I have waited a long time to get back on International duty and I was glad to go and fly the flag with the others. And fly it we did. If an under-strength Scotland team can even compete at the White House, then maybe it won't be too long before we can really make waves at an International event. Well, we can live in hope.
Things started in earnest bright and early on a Sunday morning (3am on the morning the clocks came forward!), as I was woken by my alarm so that I had enough time to get up, get ready to go and see to last minute details before meeting up with Jun at the airport just after 4am. Of course, we had prepared for this, hadn't we? Surely we went to be about tea time to make up the hours of sleep? Well, no. Best laid plans and all that...
Still, we had an International tournament to look forward to, so neither of us were particularly feeling it. After a routine, but turbulent, flight, we landed in Schipol just after 8am local time. After the smoothest Arrival ever (by the time we had walked the length of the Arrivals Lounge and gone through security - the only two to go through at that particular time - our bags had already come round the carousel and we picked them up almost without breaking stride), we had the task of finding our way to the hotel.
We had an address, and we had an idea how to get there, but where we fell down was that we were largely reliant on my non-existent photographic memory of Google Earth. We settled on taking one train to Amsterdam Central, followed by another to Amstel, where we got off knowing that the hotel was just on the other side of the river. Uhoh. Which one of these waterways is the river? Neither of us had learned to read Dutch in school, and we had only one point of reference. (You need at least two points of reference when navigating to have any hope). After walking completely the wrong way to get our bearings, we crossed the Amstel and walked past the hotel (which was one block over), but a local was able to point us in the right direction and we eventually found it.
Dutch people (or those in Amsterdam particularly) are brilliant linguists. I have been to the Netherlands twice in my life and the only person I met that wasn't fluent in English was about seven years old. I'm a firm believer in "when in Rome...", but I doubt my Dutch will ever be up to scratch. One of the English team has actually lived in Amsterdam for 18 months and as far as I'm aware hasn't picked up the language at all. I tend not to take this brilliance for granted and never fail to be impressed. Netherlands, I salute you.
After a quick rest and change of clothes (we now had to don our Scotland shirts), it was time to get lost all over again. We found our way to the tram easily enough, and we got off at the right stop. I had remembered Google Earth well enough this time, but still did not know where the White House actually was. This was probably mainly to do with the fact that I was under the impression that Der Witte Huis was a hotel, and not, in fact, a tennis club. Despite this, another local knew exactly where it was and we got there in enough time for the event.
Above is a picture of the main playing area in the White House. It is taken from the upper level, which housed some of the tables (four on each wing). Most of the tables are not in view.
My partner for the week was Falco. No, that's not his real name, but I didn't ask if I could use his name in this, so I'm not going to use it. (Even if it has been used in other on-line articles already.) "Falco" and I had done a lot of preparation for the event, by using BBO, but the first time I actually met him was a couple of minutes before play started in the pro-am Sunday tournament. Although we wanted to do well, Falco and I were treating this one-day event as no more than a "warm-up" for the week to come, as we hadn't played any "real" bridge together. It was a chance to iron out any systemic wrinkles.
Things started well, however. On the very first board, as West, I picked up:
AQJ83
Q985
3
1084
North passed, and partner opened 1 Diamond. South overcalled a Weak 2 Spades. I smoothly passed this, and waited for a re-opening double from partner. Falco obliged, feeling his hand was worth a take-out double, and I penalty passed. North could do nothing, so we took down 2 Spades Doubled, not by as much as it could have been, as we didn't defend optimally, but it was a start.
When all said and done, in a tournament that invited coaches, professionals and sponsors to play, we finished 8th out of 24 - much higher up the pecking order than we'd have thought possible. After two big wins mid-way, we were actually sitting 2nd. But we couldn't allow ourselves to finish THAT high; it might give away the fact that we were planning to not actually come last in the main event.
24 boards was not abnormal for me (or any of us), so we took that in our stride. But for me, the White House Tournament was to be an altogether different affair.
On Sunday evening they erected the screens (which can be clearly seen in the above picture), and playing with screens was a new experience for me. Although I have only heard positive things about them, they still take some getting used to, and I was very nervous when I sat down to play our first match - against Denmark.
The first day consisted of a group stage of five ten board matches. I posted previously the group, and my reservations about the seeding. However, you can only play what is put in front of you, so we just had to do what we could.
The nerves were not a good thing. They caused me to misbid on Board 2, and we missed a Game, and before I had entirely calmed down I found myself playing 4 Spades on Board 4. Faced with a holding of AKJ10984 opposite 62 in dummy in the trump suit, I miscounted, Played the Ace and then took a finesse, which turned out to be the only play to get twelve tricks as the queen was onside. Who said nerves are a bad thing?
One board later, we lost 16 IMPs, and although I again chalked this up to nerves, on reflection the opponents were in a cold Game so the swing didn't happen at our table. Denmark kept up the good work and took the maximum 25 VPs. Somehow late in the match we took 10 IMPs on an innocent looking board, to get some VPs and look onwards and upwards.
The second match was against Israel. Just what you need after a thrashing by the team that came 3rd last year: a match against the reigning Champions. Nonetheless, I was looking forward to this one. This was what I had come here for. The screens were already my new best friend and my nerves had evaporated. All I wanted to do was put the first win on the board for Scotland, and I didn't care who was standing in my way. Unfortunately, Israel didn't co-operate with this plan, and beat us 21-9. This was adjusted to 23-7 after they called the Director, which we had to accept because there was no appeals committee, which was something of a surprise.
However, there had been a marked improvement from Round 1 to Round 2, and with two of the big teams out of the way it was time to see what we could do against one of the host teams - Netherlands Orange. We were still looking for our first win, and effectively it came in the first three boards of the match. On Board 21 (the first board) we gained an IMP when we held 4 Spades to ten tricks. On boards 22 and 23, we bid routine 3NT contracts, making 9 and 11 tricks respectively. Our team-mates must've done something spectacular because on both boards we gained 13 IMPs, putting 27 IMPs on the board - the only 27 IMPs we gained in the match, which we won 18-12.
That doesn't mean we did all the work on those boards. The match is ten boards long, and there were four flat boards, and it is not always easy to stop the IMPs leaking out. For example:
A872
KJ5
KJ53
62
All Vul and Dealer, I open this 1 Diamond. (Better Minor). LHO overcalls 1 Spade and partner doubles. The auction gets as far as 3 Spades by our opponents. In a Bridge Club, 3 Spades would ordinarily be the contract. However, one of us (I forget which one) managed to find a Double. Doubling into Game is not something you do unless you have an absolute guarantee of beating the contract. We certainly didn't seem to have that looking at the hand record. However, we did defend accurately, and consequently beat the contract by 1 for +200 - a flat board, because the same thing happened at the other table. It was to be a theme of the week - International Bridge is mostly about not shipping. You have to play well to get a flat board, as was evidenced by match 4.
I'm sitting playing against Kopecky - a name I recognise, and no wonder. Although a Junior, he has played in the Czech Open team. He was also part of the Japan-Czech team that won the Junior World Internationals a couple of years ago. And he happens to be my screen-mate for 10 boards.
The first half of the match has gone well - I think we're ahead (but I don't know.) Then board 6 comes along, and the opponents, starting with LHO, have the following auction:
1H 2D
2H 4C
4D 6H
7H
The bids are natural until 4 Clubs, which is a splinter. 4 Diamonds is a cue bid. My partner holds:
J652
J
A83
109872
Falco has a serious problem here. His LHO clearly has long diamonds, and for RHO to bid 7, the cue bid looks for all the world like a void. Leading the Ace, which I will grant you many club level players will do without thinking, could set up the suit in dummy and be disastrous. Falco made a quick decision here, and led the Ace - which HELD. Nice bluff by South, matched by an excellent Call from partner. As it happens, without the ace lead, 7 Hearts does not have much play and will come down, but Falco gave it no chance. Things did not get better for Czech Republic; this was our score-card for boards 6-10:
6: 7 Hearts -1 by South, +50
7: 2 Spades +1 by North, -140
8: 4 Spades -3 by North, +150
9: 4 Spades -1 by South, +50
10: 2NT -1 by Opponent, +100
Board 7 we are hoping for a flat board, but on the rest we are hoping for a gain - including a slam swing. My only concern was that I had not Doubled Kopecky on Board 8. I'd a long spade suit myself, but had not wished to reveal that fact to him by Doubling - a decision our team-mates would agree with later. So, having had a great match from our perspective, we looked forward to scoring this up.
Boards 6 to 10 were all flat boards. Thus underlining just how hard it is to gain at this level. This was the one match of the tournament where we left the table confident of a win - a win not provided by very swingy boards. In fact, we had to make a MISTAKE (of sorts) to win.
The match was won on Board 3:
J62
A10752
10653
J
I held this hand, and LHO opened 1 Club. This is either natural, or 19-20. Partner has overcalled 2 Clubs. We have no prior agreement on this, so I have to decide whether I think this is natural or not (and Kopecky wants to know). I think that it is Michaels, because if the 1 Club isn't natural, partner probably doesn't want to overcall a strong hand. However, I am not 100% sure, so I bid 2 Hearts. South bids 2 Spades, and partner now says 3 Clubs - I guess it was natural then. Kopecky and I pass, and push the tray through. The tray appears back with a double from South. Kopecky pulls this to 3 Spades, I pass, and the tray goes back through. The next time we see it, partner has bid 4 Clubs. This goes round to South, who doubles again and this time it is left.
Partner held:
Q8
8
K8
AKQ98532
The Ace of Diamonds was onside, so he made an easy ten tricks for +710. That contributed 11 of our total of 13 IMPs, and we won the match 17-13. That was probably our "giantkilling" match.
The last match of the first day was against Bulgaria Green. In this match we took what we got, and what we got was enough. The first swing came on Board 12, where we gained 12 IMPs when partner made a 5 Spade Contract that looks reasonably safe double dummy. Then on Board 14 we gained 14 IMPs. South opened 1 Spade. Falco held:
86532
-
AKQJ10752
-
Falco bid 4 Diamonds with this. In the post mortem it was agreed that 5 Diamonds would be better, but the point was he bid something. North bid 4 Hearts over him, which we took down. For reasons best known to himself, Falco's counterpart passed 1 Spade, and our team-mates found their way to a Club Slam, which they made.
So ended our first day at the White House. It had been a successful day by any account. The match against Denmark was a write-off which was hardly a surprise with two new partnerships. We then competed against Israel before winning our remaining three matches. We couldn't have hoped for better.
Placings in the group stage affected starting positions in the Swiss, which would be played over the next two days. We started on Tuesday against Croatia. I believe the WordPress site mentioned in my last post has a report on that, so I will pass over this 12-18 defeat to move onto Round 7. Here we were up against Ireland.
Those who watch the Camrose (Junior Camrose/ Lady Milne etc) will be used to seeing Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland as two different teams. In these Home Nations events, this is what happens - the two countries send their own teams, which are usually competitive and one or other (or both) can be in with a shout of winning. However, in all other events, the two combine to send an IRELAND team, and this was what we were facing - the best of both, as it were. This was no Junior Camrose match. Ireland had their best team and we had a new team. Ireland were strong favourites.
Not to worry. Board 1 provided our first slam of the tournament, and despite it being a virtual laydown, it gained us 11 IMPs. That set us on our way, and in a tight match, we did scrape a 3, a 2 and two 1s to add to the 11, and losing 11 on the penultimate board was not enough to stop us winning 18-14 on IMPs, 16-14 on VPs. (Our second slam of the tournament also rolled in on this match, but it was flat). Although small gains can sometimes be just as interesting as large, I'll resist the temptation to analyse in full as this is already becoming an essay.
Round 8 was against Poland, which I don't have hand records for, but we won 16-14.
Onto Round 9. This was against Germany, and more importantly (from my point of view) it was on Vugraph. For the uninitiated, Vugraph is the feature by which BBO is able to screen live bridge matches. Anyone on BBO can watch. The biggest events draw thousands of spectators. Knowing that anyone, anywhere, can be watching you as you try to decide which of the thirteen cards you should play, or the various bids you can make, would surely strike the nerves of anyone. And I had never done it before. That sort of pressure can easily affect decisions - and has. I have been a spectator as a player has completely crumbled under the pressure - it isn't nice. Now it was my turn to try and cope.
The nerves I felt for the first few boards of this match were second only to the first five boards against Denmark. However, I was pleased to find I coped somewhat better, and things certainly became easier after they bid to a 6 Clubs which didn't make. By that time we had also (completely unbeknown to us) accrued another big swing by bidding a routine 3NT when our counterparts bid 5 Diamonds coming off.
That's not to say things didn't go wrong. I misread a situation in 3NT and went off with a chance to make it, and we got an 800 in the minus column too. Vugraph crashed with a few boards to go, and although we played on oblivious, some of our supporters were left under the impression we lost the match. My Dad was actually told Scotland had "snatched defeat from the jaws of victory", when in fact we did gain 11 IMPs on the last board to win the match 16-14.
As for my Vugraph experience, I made mistakes, which I had been dreading, but this had a positive effect. For a start, I was not nervous by the time the match ended - I had partner to thank for that. I was rather annoyed when he hadn't found the defence I'd been looking for on one board, but to my delight I found that I could not be annoyed and nervous at the same time. I promptly told myself I was annoyed for the rest of the match, and managed my nerves rather well. As for my mistakes, it made me feel like I wasn't showing myself properly - and that was a good thing. Next time I'm on Vugraph (if there is one), there will be a determination to show what I can do which should keep the nerves at bay. I certainly won't be dreading it like I was this match.
The eagle eyed will have noticed that this was our third 16 in a row. If nothing else, we were grinding matches out. This is a quality that every International Bridge team wants to have in its locker in case things don't go well, so we were pleased to prove that we could do it. It didn't occur to me at the time, but we had at this point won 6 of the last 7 matches - something that would have been unthinkable before play started, and certainly far in excess of expectations.
What my Dad had been told actually applied to our next match, against Austria. We were winning comfortably at one stage, but then we contrived to throw it away on the last two boards by looking for a slam that wasn't there and one major misunderstanding. We lost 14-16. In fairness, one major misunderstanding in the space of 261 boards, for a partnership that had never met, and only one month to prepare for an International tournament, is an excellent return, even if it costs a match. We would both have bitten the hand off anyone that offered us that before the tournament.
We finished the day with a disappointing 8-22 against Netherlands Blue. I think this was one of those matches where our luck just was not there. Netherlands Blue played really well, leaving us no margin for error, and capitalised on a few Scottish mistakes. It was disappointing, but not unexpected - it was our first single-figure VP score since the match against Israel, which was pretty good going.
Wednesday started with a match against another Dutch team - the White team. Nothing interesting happened at our table, except maybe one hand that Falco won't thank me for posting, and we lost the match 13-17.
Onto Round 14 (not 13; we had a bye), and a match against Finland. We only had two minus scores on the card - a solid Game and a -300. We had pushed to 3 Diamonds, which they found a double for. I can't post the hand as I can't remember how we (me, I think) contrived to come down 2, and this contributed to 9 IMPs out - the only board we lost IMPs on in the match. However, in a very flattish match, it was hard to pull back this loss over 9 boards, in a match we were hoping to win.
Boards 12-15 were flat, a fact I will accept with good grace given we did have a +170, followed by a 2, a 1, and another flat board. On Board 19, after a competitive auction I played and made 3 Hearts - the optimum result, but my counterpart didn't make (I don't know much about what happened at my team mates' table), and the match was level. It swung our way on Board 20 when our opponents attempted a thin 3NT that turned out to be way too thin. We took it two off for 200, gaining 3 IMPs and yet another 16 VPs.
In Round 15, we lost 7-23 to Norway. I certainly didn't think our performance in the match merited such a heavy defeat, but I can't produce evidence from hand records (because I don't have them for this round) to back this conviction up.
In Round 16, we were a bit unlucky I thought. On the second board, I doubled a 5 Club Contract which made with two overtricks, which is absolutely fine as long as our team mates find the Slam their way (I wouldn't expect them to find the 50% Grand which happens to make). That would have turned an 11-19 defeat into another 16-14 win. We did have our biggest swing in during this match: 15 IMPs for 4 Spades Doubled making, when combined with our team mates' score.
Our last match of the Swiss was against the England Under 25 team. As they were flying quite high at the time and we weren't, this was a bit of a surprise. We'd scored a maximum (or nearly) against the Under 20s on the Sunday, but this was a different prospect. We would be doing well to hang on to their coat tails. We did, though; Falco and I holding our own but we came out just on the wrong side of things - a narrow 13-17 defeat, which we felt was less than we deserved.
At this point, the teams were divided into Groups of 4 for the Thursday Finals (or Semi Finals, for those in the top 4). Each team would play against every other in their group, in 14 board matches. We were in the second bottom group, which we were happy with (the worst we could finish was 20th and that would still be better than expected), but we were not happy to see Ireland in our group. (Or at least I wasn't). What were they doing in 17th place? Also in our group were Finland and Norway. This did not bother me - I wanted another crack at them.
Unfortunately, 14 boards is not long enough when you miss a Slam and your team-mates miss a Game. Those were the two big swings of the match against Finland, and despite the team playing well for the other 12 boards, we could not recoup the deficit. We lost 10-20.
On to the rematch against Norway. Starting with the second half, my first hand was Board 22:
-
AJ875432
6
AK63
You open 2 Clubs with this. (Five losers; this is worth a GF in International Bridge). Apparently I couldn't make this bid in England - the 16 point rule. That deserves a separate rant, and this post is not about ranting (or raving).
Partner says a negative 2 Diamonds. You have strong options because you do not allow a "2D relay" in your system. You bid 3 Hearts, which is a self-agreement. Partner says 3 Spades (Italian Cue), you say 4 Clubs (Italian Cue) and partner says 4 Spades (Italian Cue).
For the uninitiated, partner has shown the Ace of Spades (or a void, but the odds favour the ace). He has not denied the King, nor has he shown it. He has no diamond controls. What is your call?
The auction went very wrong for us. As a result, we gained 13 IMPs. We lost an IMP on the next board (again, we don't know the score as we play), before Falco made 10 tricks in 3NT for +11 IMPs. We then lost 23 IMPs over the next two boards - partly our fault for making a phantom sacrifice. We'd set a target of getting 30% of judgement decisions right. I think over the week we got at least that and probably better, but against Norway we hardly got any right.
Case in point: Board 27 - arguably. Do you want to be in 3NT or 5 Clubs here?
J92
AQ9
A103
AKJ2
K10
J1054
52
Q10953
My hand is the bottom hand.
3NT is in danger on a diamond lead if they are not 4-4. You will then require the heart finesse. 5 Clubs requires the same finesse and a good guess in spades. Add into the equation neither opponent has bid. 3NT is the superior contract. Even a 5-3 diamond split could be okay if the suit blocks.
I'm playing... you guessed it. 5 Clubs. And the 8 of Hearts is led.
I think this is a reasonable standard play problem. But I would anticipate most, if not all, Declarers at the White House getting it right.
My line:
Up with the Ace of Hearts. The King is almost certainly on my right after the lead. There is no point losing this finesse now; I have a chance at another one to make the contract and can concede the King of Hearts at a more convenient time. I play two rounds of clubs, starting with small to the 9 and small to the King. LHO shows out on the second round, so I cash the Ace.
The contract depends on "guessing spades right". The guess is, in fact, non-existent. Nothing I do will make a difference. If either opponent has Ace and Queen of spades, I cannot win. LHO has two natural tricks when he holds them, and the contract will come 2 off because of it. RHO can keep the queen to cover the third round of spades, so unless he has AQ doubleton, I can ill-afford them to be there, either. What about split honours? Again, unless RHO holds Qx, I won't win. One opponent will win either the first or second round of spades; and the other will hold their honour until round 3 if required, so I can't pitch a diamond. The bottom line: unless RHO has exactly two spades, one of which is the Queen, I am going down.
Since the odds on that are not good, I am playing for every chance I can get. I play the Jack from dummy, in the hope that RHO will feel obliged to cover holding Qxx(x)(x)(x). I feel vindicated when I see the Queen - all of a sudden, this contract is making. I cover with the King; Ace wins. The best defence is a diamond switch - I have to win, play the 2 of spades to the ten, play the ten of clubs to the Jack and play a spade to pitch a diamond, before giving up a heart. As it happened, I didn't get that defence and the contract rolled in, and 11 IMPs along with it.
But perhaps my favourite board for subversive reasons was Board 17:
A106
987
K98
A754
K9
AK653
A7642
9
I hold the bottom hand, and am playing 4 Hearts. I get the Queen of Spades lead (from a hand that overcalled spades), which I win with the King. This contract seems innocent enough. I cash Ace and King of Hearts, and LHO shows out on the King. I have two heart losers instead of just 1 as I'd hoped. If I could have seen all the hands, of course I could've gone to dummy and ran the 9. Now I have an issue with trump control. If RHO wins a heart and plays a club, I'm going to have to tread carefully. So I look for another option than directly drawing trumps. I could draw the trumps by running diamonds once they are out - but there is a danger there too. If RHO is void in diamonds, then I may lose a trick I expect to win. However, I'm pretty sure that's not the case, because then LHO has a different overcall. So I play a small diamond to the King. Then I play the 9. RHO could be out of them by now, but if he ruffs in I have a plan. He can lead a black suit (clubs is the best choice, obviously), and I will win and play a diamond. That ensures I only have one diamond loser. Or, he could cash the heart first to make sure I don't do that. But I can still come to four heart tricks, a club, two diamonds and three spades, because I can finesse the spades through LHO. In fact, RHO has another diamond - the ten. I duck, because it is valuable that I preserve communication. LHO is forced to win with the Jack and he fires a club through. I win with the ace and play the 8 of diamonds off table. RHO could discard on this, but I will play the ace, and then run diamonds until he does ruff. In fact, he ruffs in, and now I see an opportunity developing as I pitch the 6. Not to make the contract - that is already seen to.
RHO returns a club, and I ruff. I now have two trumps left compared to RHO's one. I give him a chance to take his remaining trump trick when I play the Ace of diamonds. Nothing doing, so I now play up to the Ace of spades and exit dummy's last heart. This forces RHO to win his last trump now, on trick eleven. He only has black cards left. He selects one, and I ruff. My last remaining card is not only a winner - it is the seven of diamonds - the beer card. I knew playing for Scotland brought out the best in me.
That board was flat, of course, but the next board provided a swing when our opponents didn't bid a 23 point Game. This was yet another match where big swings were important, but this time it was to our favour. Although Norway scored on seven of the fourteen boards and we scored on 5, all five of our swings were significant and we won by 51 IMPS to 29 - or 20-10 on VPs.
Beer cards might be like busses - I've waited many years to score one, and then I do so in two consecutive matches. Board 1 of our final match - against Ireland - and I did it again, although as the diamond suit was a 9 card fit, it lacked the panache of the first. Sadly that was one of few good moments in the match against Ireland. Although Falco and I did well enough (I thought), for the team this match did not go well at all and we lost heavily - 8-22 on VPs.
That was enough to see us finish bottom of our final group. Time for us to take stock of how we did over the tournament as a whole.
In my opinion we did really well. There were no aspirations for us going into the tournament. We were probably favourites for last place. The odds were stacked against us. For a start, we were a team of four. That meant every one of us played every single board. That was a significant disadvantage over the teams of six (or the Dutch, who predominantly had teams of 8), whose players could rest for the odd match. Which gives the winners of the tournament, Netherlands Red, even more credit as they played four-handed. But then, they are four World Class Juniors. We were a team of two experts and two advanced players. Not only that, but neither of our partnerships had played together before. I think our team mates had one practice session on BBO. Falco and I practiced intensively on BBO but only met just before play started. The other three had experience of intense junior International competition, but I hadn't. Although I thrived on it for the most part, I had plenty of new things to get used to. My two most nervous matches were Denmark and Germany, without a doubt. I learned important lessons in those matches - one of the most important ones being how to handle nerves. I won't be nealy as scared of appearing on Vugraph for a second time (if that ever happens) as I was for my first.
We also lacked an NPC (more on this below).
Then the draw was unkind to us. Our starting group was a Group of Death. We didn't always get the luck of the draw in the Swiss. And then Ireland somehow managed to find their way into the E-Final along with us. I wouldn't have minded so much if they'd done to Finland and Norway what they did to us.
Yet what did we do? We somehow emerged from the Group of Death with three victories and two defeats. This included the major scalp of the Czech Republic. We strung together some 16-14 victories on the second day. We ensured before the last day even started we couldn't finish in the bottom four by getting into the E-Final with some room to spare. If anyone had predicted we'd do what we did, they'd be up there with the big-time psychics like Paul the Octopus.
So what was the key? How did a team of such little prospect achieve so much? I think there are several reasons.
Firstly, we had an excellent Captain. We were originally going to be accompanied by Jim Hay, who is a top class coach. Any team's chances improve when they get Jim on board. We had the blow of losing him as NPC, and Alex took up the mantle as Playing Captain. And boy, did he do a good job. His leadership, knowledge of the game, advice and humour played a significant part in punching above our weight.
Then there was the team spirit. This is an often under-estimated factor, but I think Scottish juniors are very good at maximising their strength here. For the amount of work we put into the week, we were as laid back as possible and generally enjoyed our time there. Analysis was always constructive, and disagreements about system etc were handled with patience and understanding. Certainly I feel that it was not just the understanding that Falco and I had, but the lack of misunderstanding, that speaks volumes for our partnership as a whole. You certainly wouldn't have caught us at the "shouting match" antics of some of our opponents.
Also, I think the underdog tag suited us. We had not been given any demands from the SBU about how far up the field we had to come. So we just took each match one at a time and tried to win where we could. If we played well, we had the element of surprise. We were an unknown entity to most of our opponents.
Overall, it was a very successful trip. I have waited a long time to get back on International duty and I was glad to go and fly the flag with the others. And fly it we did. If an under-strength Scotland team can even compete at the White House, then maybe it won't be too long before we can really make waves at an International event. Well, we can live in hope.
Thursday, 22 March 2012
Build Up to the White House
It's official. The old adage is true as I have discovered this week. I have pretty much concentrated on nothing else this week. You have a life, then you get involved with bridge; bridge takes over your life. It might also be evidenced by the fact that I haven't managed to post anything on here in almost a month. I just haven't been able to.
And there has been PLENTY to blog about had I got round to it. Cue the roller-coaster run through.
Bridge Club Tartan v Phoenix Rising
We won this match 17-3. And I am a gracious winner; I am saying no more. End of.
Sybil Hay District Teams of Four
There was too much to do, in the end. We started the final night in fourth, and with the top teams playing each other, there MIGHT have been a chance. But no. Jim HAY and his team left us no chance; he beat the teams in 2nd and 3rd place to score 34 on the night, enough to win the tournament by a comfortable margin.
Congratulations to Jim Hay, Jun Nakamaru-Pinder, Lindsay Herbert, Bill Innes and their twice substitute Steve Pomeroy for another successful campaign. Their unbeaten record was taken from them this year; losing to McGUIRE, my team and the plucky WATSON team from Ellon. But when they're good, they're very good and their victories were more than enough to compensate.
My team did well on the final night, an 18 and a 15 giving us 33 and seeing us finish in 2nd - a best-ever finish in this competition for everyone in my team, as far as I am aware. It didn't help that I was Convener of the final night; I'm pretty sure that cost us 1 VP.
Phoenix Perfect Teams
Or "Pivot" teams if you prefer. The format: Multiple Teams twice over, where you partner each of your team mates for a certain amount of boards on each night. Three board matches made the scores pretty wild, but I think we played solid throughout. We won the first night, but Jim Hay (him again!) and his team beat everyone in their path (except us) on Night 2, to overtake us and win by two VPs.
An interesting system point arose early on, on the second night.
LHO Partner RHO You
Pass 1 Club X 1 Heart
2D Pass Pass 3 Clubs
3D Double Pass ?
What do I do? Is the Double (from a non-regular partner) take-out or penalty?
I have not posted my hand, which is not to make things harder. The answer, as far as I am concerned, should be pretty straight-forward.
I have shown hearts on the first round; I should have at least 5 of them. Second time round, I re-opened with Three Clubs. So I have support for partner's suit.
If partner does not want the opposition to play in 3 Diamonds, he will choose a suit now. He knows which two we can play in, and he is the one with the information to decide. Spades are not an option. Neither of us have suggested we have spades; they are pretty well marked with RHO. I pass. +200.
One board can make all the difference. We should have had 500 from that and our team-mates could've done better their way, and that would've won us the Perfect Teams.
Am I disappointed? Me? Well, maybe just a little bit.
But I always say it never rests on just one board. So from that point of view, it is encouraging that we are just one board worse than Jim's team in these big events. With just a bit more concentration, work and discipline, we can go one better.
The thing was, in both the Sybil Hay and Phoenix Perfect Teams (both rounds), we beat Jim. So getting the wins isn't the difficult part, as barmy as that sounds. It is winning over and over again; consistency is the key. That's what separates winners from - well, us.
Aberdeen did not do so well in various junior competitions this year. I'm going to say that's because Aberdeen puts up so much of the entry, the Aberdeen teams knock each other out of the running. Certainly that was the case in the Frischmann, where more than half of the players were based in Aberdeen, so they were all taking points off each other left, right and centre. Especially given most of the boards had doubled and/or redoubled contracts flying around, your opponents really had to go the extra mile to give you a top.
Still, an Aberdeen team did win the schools' MiniBridge Championship (again), so we still have tangible success.
WHITE HOUSE JUNIORS 2012
And so we come to the big event. The White House Juniors. This has been dominating my time and my plans for the last month. I have spent the last five years or so striving to improve my game and hopefully get on to the Scotland Under 25 team. Somewhere, sometime, I did something right because I have at the twilight of my junior days managed to achieve that ambition. I am part of the Scotland team that will be going to Amsterdam in... yikes! Less than 3 days!!
So, cue a whole load of things to see to: Practice, sorting out insurance, practice, child protection etc, practice, plane tickets, practice, hotel, practice, convention cards, practice, sort out Euros and expenses, practice, other bridge stuff and practice! It's a marathon and we haven't even got there yet. I will be playing with someone that I have played against online for years, but never met in the flesh. We have been working on our system and agreements whenever we can. Will it be enough? I hope so.
In addition to the workload playing for Scotland produces, we have unfortunately lost our NPC (Jim yet again, getting some recognition it seems), as he is unfortunately unable to travel. His presence will be missed, but undoubtedly will still be felt as he gives us all the help he can from sunny Aberdeen.
So, how do we make a tough job even tougher? How about giving us THIS group to start with:
Pool A
Israel
Denmark
Bulgaria Red
Czech Republic
Scotland
Netherlands Orange
On the plus side, we know who we are getting beaten by on Monday.
Of course, the preferable answer to that is: Nobody. We are a learning team with everything to gain, nothing to lose and a good team spirit. We have received good wishes from so many quarters that we want to bring back some VPs in return. Where there's a will, there's a way and all that...
However, starting off in a group including the reigning Champions (Israel), a host team (almost inevitable, there are 5 of them) and a host of household Junior names beside that is not what you'd call an easy start.
Anyway, our Dutch hosts have asked that we publicise the event as much as possible; I will certainly oblige:
White House Blog
I also have to remind anyone reading this that the event will be covered on BBO and you can find out when the various matches are played by looking at the Vugraph schedule. I don't expect we will be on Vugraph, something that I'm quite happy about, but at least if we are it will probably be because we are doing rather well at the time.
Normally I try and cover via this blog interesting International events. Since I'm actually getting to play in one, that might not happen this time, but our hotel has wireless facilities so I'll see what I can do.
And, back to the preparation...
And there has been PLENTY to blog about had I got round to it. Cue the roller-coaster run through.
Bridge Club Tartan v Phoenix Rising
We won this match 17-3. And I am a gracious winner; I am saying no more. End of.
Sybil Hay District Teams of Four
There was too much to do, in the end. We started the final night in fourth, and with the top teams playing each other, there MIGHT have been a chance. But no. Jim HAY and his team left us no chance; he beat the teams in 2nd and 3rd place to score 34 on the night, enough to win the tournament by a comfortable margin.
Congratulations to Jim Hay, Jun Nakamaru-Pinder, Lindsay Herbert, Bill Innes and their twice substitute Steve Pomeroy for another successful campaign. Their unbeaten record was taken from them this year; losing to McGUIRE, my team and the plucky WATSON team from Ellon. But when they're good, they're very good and their victories were more than enough to compensate.
My team did well on the final night, an 18 and a 15 giving us 33 and seeing us finish in 2nd - a best-ever finish in this competition for everyone in my team, as far as I am aware. It didn't help that I was Convener of the final night; I'm pretty sure that cost us 1 VP.
Phoenix Perfect Teams
Or "Pivot" teams if you prefer. The format: Multiple Teams twice over, where you partner each of your team mates for a certain amount of boards on each night. Three board matches made the scores pretty wild, but I think we played solid throughout. We won the first night, but Jim Hay (him again!) and his team beat everyone in their path (except us) on Night 2, to overtake us and win by two VPs.
An interesting system point arose early on, on the second night.
LHO Partner RHO You
Pass 1 Club X 1 Heart
2D Pass Pass 3 Clubs
3D Double Pass ?
What do I do? Is the Double (from a non-regular partner) take-out or penalty?
I have not posted my hand, which is not to make things harder. The answer, as far as I am concerned, should be pretty straight-forward.
I have shown hearts on the first round; I should have at least 5 of them. Second time round, I re-opened with Three Clubs. So I have support for partner's suit.
If partner does not want the opposition to play in 3 Diamonds, he will choose a suit now. He knows which two we can play in, and he is the one with the information to decide. Spades are not an option. Neither of us have suggested we have spades; they are pretty well marked with RHO. I pass. +200.
One board can make all the difference. We should have had 500 from that and our team-mates could've done better their way, and that would've won us the Perfect Teams.
Am I disappointed? Me? Well, maybe just a little bit.
But I always say it never rests on just one board. So from that point of view, it is encouraging that we are just one board worse than Jim's team in these big events. With just a bit more concentration, work and discipline, we can go one better.
The thing was, in both the Sybil Hay and Phoenix Perfect Teams (both rounds), we beat Jim. So getting the wins isn't the difficult part, as barmy as that sounds. It is winning over and over again; consistency is the key. That's what separates winners from - well, us.
Aberdeen did not do so well in various junior competitions this year. I'm going to say that's because Aberdeen puts up so much of the entry, the Aberdeen teams knock each other out of the running. Certainly that was the case in the Frischmann, where more than half of the players were based in Aberdeen, so they were all taking points off each other left, right and centre. Especially given most of the boards had doubled and/or redoubled contracts flying around, your opponents really had to go the extra mile to give you a top.
Still, an Aberdeen team did win the schools' MiniBridge Championship (again), so we still have tangible success.
WHITE HOUSE JUNIORS 2012
And so we come to the big event. The White House Juniors. This has been dominating my time and my plans for the last month. I have spent the last five years or so striving to improve my game and hopefully get on to the Scotland Under 25 team. Somewhere, sometime, I did something right because I have at the twilight of my junior days managed to achieve that ambition. I am part of the Scotland team that will be going to Amsterdam in... yikes! Less than 3 days!!
So, cue a whole load of things to see to: Practice, sorting out insurance, practice, child protection etc, practice, plane tickets, practice, hotel, practice, convention cards, practice, sort out Euros and expenses, practice, other bridge stuff and practice! It's a marathon and we haven't even got there yet. I will be playing with someone that I have played against online for years, but never met in the flesh. We have been working on our system and agreements whenever we can. Will it be enough? I hope so.
In addition to the workload playing for Scotland produces, we have unfortunately lost our NPC (Jim yet again, getting some recognition it seems), as he is unfortunately unable to travel. His presence will be missed, but undoubtedly will still be felt as he gives us all the help he can from sunny Aberdeen.
So, how do we make a tough job even tougher? How about giving us THIS group to start with:
Pool A
Israel
Denmark
Bulgaria Red
Czech Republic
Scotland
Netherlands Orange
On the plus side, we know who we are getting beaten by on Monday.
Of course, the preferable answer to that is: Nobody. We are a learning team with everything to gain, nothing to lose and a good team spirit. We have received good wishes from so many quarters that we want to bring back some VPs in return. Where there's a will, there's a way and all that...
However, starting off in a group including the reigning Champions (Israel), a host team (almost inevitable, there are 5 of them) and a host of household Junior names beside that is not what you'd call an easy start.
Anyway, our Dutch hosts have asked that we publicise the event as much as possible; I will certainly oblige:
White House Blog
I also have to remind anyone reading this that the event will be covered on BBO and you can find out when the various matches are played by looking at the Vugraph schedule. I don't expect we will be on Vugraph, something that I'm quite happy about, but at least if we are it will probably be because we are doing rather well at the time.
Normally I try and cover via this blog interesting International events. Since I'm actually getting to play in one, that might not happen this time, but our hotel has wireless facilities so I'll see what I can do.
And, back to the preparation...
Saturday, 25 February 2012
Operation Lazarus
As is the norm with bridge in my life, certain bridge events get fired at great speeds around the LHC (Large Hadron Calendar) to form collisions that involve several important, or interesting events all happening at around the same time. The main focus in my mind this week was the Phoenix Rising match at home to Ellon. This was despite another round of the Phoenix Cup the day before, and two other sessions of bridge during the week. That is not to mention the keen interest I have in the SBU European Open Trials, as Jim and Jun are competing and, naturally, I am rooting for them. Writing late on Saturday night, they have won their Semi-Final match, with the final to come tomorrow. I am so glad of that and I hope that they, Douglas Piper and Alex Wilkinson manage to qualify after the Final tomorrow. (Thanks be to Paul Gipson and his blog for his coverage of the event).
Round 5 of the Phoenix Cup did not go too well. Lessurl and I did not play badly, but we did not get the rub of the green required to come out on top. This was despite getting 1700 on one board. This was not even the highest aggregate score of the round, as a stone cold 7NT was going around, which our opponents bid against us on the very last board. Unfortunately, less than half of their counterparts did.
Phoenix Rising v Ellon
This was not necessarily a "must-win" match for us, but it was certainly a "must not lose heavily." After 3-17 and 0-20 in the first two matches, to fail to take something from this match would spell relegation well and truly.
By "us" I mean Phoenix Rising. Naturally, I have a vested interest in the welfare of both teams. But my first loyalty has to be to the Phoenix Rising project and my team-mates would expect no less than 100% commitment. So, I was to give it my all against my other club, Ellon. If we won, would I feel maybe just a little bit guilty at dragging another of my clubs into the relegation dogfight? Well, no. Ellon's destiny is well and truly within their own hands and I don't need to worry about them.
Furthermore, being Captain, if anyone is going to come up with a master plan to save us from relegation, it is me. I have therefore invoked "Operation Lazarus". To be fair, it would have happened regardless of our league position (perhaps without the cheesy name), but it will be a vital part of the battle to stay up.
One would think part of this operation would involve drafting in better players. Yes and no. We really need to get our best (junior) team playing. But unfortunately, that was not possible for last Friday's match against Ellon. In fact, we were to field what was on paper our weakest side of the season. Given that last time out, we were swept aside by Torphins, who in turn had been beaten by Ellon, we could have had little hope. This match was Ellon's to throw away before it even started, but we were not going to lie down.
The team was up for it. We had trained hard, and only one was a complete newcomer to the Division 2 league scene. I also made a tactical change. Our least experienced pair, who had shown they were capable of producing a nice surprise with the boards against them, sat the opposite way from Me and my partner this time. The plan was we would maximise the plusses our way, (lessurl doing the same with our new player), and the other two pairs would hold firm and not lose too much. This was a gamble, because it would back-fire hugely if the boards were against us. But I felt it was the most sensible choice and that, if we were going to win this match, we would need a great deal of luck.
We weren't without it. Things did not start well for partner and I. She passed what was intended as a forcing bid (although this might have saved her from playing an unclear 3NT), and a Game got through that might not have done. But then, partner found a 4 Spades Opening bid, which went two down but stopped our opponents finding their 5 Clubs Game. Still, we'd have hoped for better and we were down 750 after Round One.
Round 2 was a lot better, but it could have been better still had I taken the right view here:
Partner West Me East
1D 1S 2H P
3H 3S 4H All Pass
x x
K x x
A K Q 10 x x
x x
K x x
A J x x x x
x x
x x
4 Hearts by the bottom hand, AS led.
After LHO cleared the spades, I played a small heart and noted the ten on my left. The King won, and I played a small heart. East followed, and I play...?
My gut feeling was that it is right to play for the drop. Two guess theories are in my favour: Available Spaces and Restricted Choice. But what swings it for me, in addition to these facts, is that even if the drop is wrong, I will still make the contract when diamonds behave. Any 3-3 break or Jack doubleton will do. Unfortunately, when I played to the Ace, RHO ruffed and cashed AK of clubs.
880 in our plus column helped the team swing 150 in Round 2, leaving us 600 behind at Half Time.
Round 3 saw partner and I facing McLeod Senior; clash of the Captains. It was difficult to say who came out better from this, but this (for me) was the pick of the play contracts:
x x
K J 10 x
x
A Q x x x x
A Q J
Q x x
A Q J 10 x
J x
Contract: 3NT by the bottom hand; small spade led.
I have two spade stops and they are going to disappear soon. The first thing that springs to mind is to play on hearts. This sets up three tricks, and safe-guards the contract when LHO holds the ace. Even when RHO has it, things look hopeful since the club finesse will be into the safe hand (RHO will have no spades by the time I take it). The problem is this only guarantees 8 tricks. Nine are most likely, as only a bad club break will defeat it. With hindsight I believe this was the best play, but I played the Jack of Clubs at trick 2. This lost to the King with RHO, who fired through a spade, and I held up my ace until the third round, RHO showing out. Clubs broke for me, so I cashed them out. This required careful discards; after the clubs were gone I left myself this position:
-
K J 10
x
-
-
Q x
A Q
This was the right position to play for in the circumstance, as LHO had discarded two spades on the clubs, confirming that I was about to make this. I played the ten of hearts off table, and the ace appeared on my right. I promptly dropped the queen and won the diamond return with the ace, laying down a heart to claim ten. Had the ace been with LHO, she would have been endplayed in diamonds. Then again, had the ace of hearts been with LHO, I should have put her into an unforced triple suit end play at trick 2.
Things did not go well for us overall however, and we lost 310 to go into the last round 910 behind. This was not disastrous news. A 13-7 loss would still leave us in a position where we had a chance of recovering in the last two matches. But there was no margin for error. We couldn't allow the aggregate minus to go into quadruple figures. The team were tired; they had come from nowhere to keep us in the match after 18 boards. (By this point a supposedly stronger team had been wiped out by Torphins).
Partner and I scored quite well on the last set; +540 which I thought was round about par. One pair sitting the opposite way reported -30 - we had made up more than half the difference. However, our least experienced pair had some bad news: they had doubled a making part score into Game, subsequently losing 980 overall. That really did look like a killer. However, there was one more score to come in, and lessurl and our newcomer had something in store: +1100.
That made for a 12-8 win for Ellon. It was a great match. The progress of the juniors is clear to see. In a matter of WEEKS they have gone from Cannon Fodder to having a tangible chance of staying in Division 2. It is still unlikely, but improvement on that scale might just be enough. 8 VPs was by no means a win, but it was enough to keep our destiny in our own hands. However, winning will not be enough. We need to win big - winning our remaining matches 11-9 would relegate us. It is no lie to say that we could have won last night. If one pair had been clearer on the meaning of doubles and when to use them, we might well have won. But am I disappointed? No. A 12-8 win would not have left us in a much greater stead than the 12-8 loss. That means that I can look at the team's performance objectively and appreciate just how well they did. Our newcomer played out of his skin; it is one thing to say he was carried by Lessurl; in truth that doesn't ever happen unless the second player carries some of the weight.
The Ellon team I am sure will have mixed feelings. A win is a win, first of all. They have risen to third in the league table and play against Banchory for 2nd Place on the 16th March. This can only be a good thing. Furthermore, I note that their impressive Away record continues. But, they are also prudent and smart enough to know that they are not mathematically safe from relegation - something they had a chance to see to last night and didn't. Phoenix Rising are going to give it their best shot and we don't care who goes down instead of us.
Personally, I am satisfied that two of my teams managed to play each other where both sides were the winners. Ellon got the victory and a good league position. You can't say fairer than that. Phoenix Rising's gain is one of progress and potential. They were never going to keep themselves up with this match - the best they could do was stop themselves going down. In other words, both sides got what they wanted out of the match, and of that I am glad.
Round 5 of the Phoenix Cup did not go too well. Lessurl and I did not play badly, but we did not get the rub of the green required to come out on top. This was despite getting 1700 on one board. This was not even the highest aggregate score of the round, as a stone cold 7NT was going around, which our opponents bid against us on the very last board. Unfortunately, less than half of their counterparts did.
Phoenix Rising v Ellon
This was not necessarily a "must-win" match for us, but it was certainly a "must not lose heavily." After 3-17 and 0-20 in the first two matches, to fail to take something from this match would spell relegation well and truly.
By "us" I mean Phoenix Rising. Naturally, I have a vested interest in the welfare of both teams. But my first loyalty has to be to the Phoenix Rising project and my team-mates would expect no less than 100% commitment. So, I was to give it my all against my other club, Ellon. If we won, would I feel maybe just a little bit guilty at dragging another of my clubs into the relegation dogfight? Well, no. Ellon's destiny is well and truly within their own hands and I don't need to worry about them.
Furthermore, being Captain, if anyone is going to come up with a master plan to save us from relegation, it is me. I have therefore invoked "Operation Lazarus". To be fair, it would have happened regardless of our league position (perhaps without the cheesy name), but it will be a vital part of the battle to stay up.
One would think part of this operation would involve drafting in better players. Yes and no. We really need to get our best (junior) team playing. But unfortunately, that was not possible for last Friday's match against Ellon. In fact, we were to field what was on paper our weakest side of the season. Given that last time out, we were swept aside by Torphins, who in turn had been beaten by Ellon, we could have had little hope. This match was Ellon's to throw away before it even started, but we were not going to lie down.
The team was up for it. We had trained hard, and only one was a complete newcomer to the Division 2 league scene. I also made a tactical change. Our least experienced pair, who had shown they were capable of producing a nice surprise with the boards against them, sat the opposite way from Me and my partner this time. The plan was we would maximise the plusses our way, (lessurl doing the same with our new player), and the other two pairs would hold firm and not lose too much. This was a gamble, because it would back-fire hugely if the boards were against us. But I felt it was the most sensible choice and that, if we were going to win this match, we would need a great deal of luck.
We weren't without it. Things did not start well for partner and I. She passed what was intended as a forcing bid (although this might have saved her from playing an unclear 3NT), and a Game got through that might not have done. But then, partner found a 4 Spades Opening bid, which went two down but stopped our opponents finding their 5 Clubs Game. Still, we'd have hoped for better and we were down 750 after Round One.
Round 2 was a lot better, but it could have been better still had I taken the right view here:
Partner West Me East
1D 1S 2H P
3H 3S 4H All Pass
x x
K x x
A K Q 10 x x
x x
K x x
A J x x x x
x x
x x
4 Hearts by the bottom hand, AS led.
After LHO cleared the spades, I played a small heart and noted the ten on my left. The King won, and I played a small heart. East followed, and I play...?
My gut feeling was that it is right to play for the drop. Two guess theories are in my favour: Available Spaces and Restricted Choice. But what swings it for me, in addition to these facts, is that even if the drop is wrong, I will still make the contract when diamonds behave. Any 3-3 break or Jack doubleton will do. Unfortunately, when I played to the Ace, RHO ruffed and cashed AK of clubs.
880 in our plus column helped the team swing 150 in Round 2, leaving us 600 behind at Half Time.
Round 3 saw partner and I facing McLeod Senior; clash of the Captains. It was difficult to say who came out better from this, but this (for me) was the pick of the play contracts:
x x
K J 10 x
x
A Q x x x x
A Q J
Q x x
A Q J 10 x
J x
Contract: 3NT by the bottom hand; small spade led.
I have two spade stops and they are going to disappear soon. The first thing that springs to mind is to play on hearts. This sets up three tricks, and safe-guards the contract when LHO holds the ace. Even when RHO has it, things look hopeful since the club finesse will be into the safe hand (RHO will have no spades by the time I take it). The problem is this only guarantees 8 tricks. Nine are most likely, as only a bad club break will defeat it. With hindsight I believe this was the best play, but I played the Jack of Clubs at trick 2. This lost to the King with RHO, who fired through a spade, and I held up my ace until the third round, RHO showing out. Clubs broke for me, so I cashed them out. This required careful discards; after the clubs were gone I left myself this position:
-
K J 10
x
-
-
Q x
A Q
This was the right position to play for in the circumstance, as LHO had discarded two spades on the clubs, confirming that I was about to make this. I played the ten of hearts off table, and the ace appeared on my right. I promptly dropped the queen and won the diamond return with the ace, laying down a heart to claim ten. Had the ace been with LHO, she would have been endplayed in diamonds. Then again, had the ace of hearts been with LHO, I should have put her into an unforced triple suit end play at trick 2.
Things did not go well for us overall however, and we lost 310 to go into the last round 910 behind. This was not disastrous news. A 13-7 loss would still leave us in a position where we had a chance of recovering in the last two matches. But there was no margin for error. We couldn't allow the aggregate minus to go into quadruple figures. The team were tired; they had come from nowhere to keep us in the match after 18 boards. (By this point a supposedly stronger team had been wiped out by Torphins).
Partner and I scored quite well on the last set; +540 which I thought was round about par. One pair sitting the opposite way reported -30 - we had made up more than half the difference. However, our least experienced pair had some bad news: they had doubled a making part score into Game, subsequently losing 980 overall. That really did look like a killer. However, there was one more score to come in, and lessurl and our newcomer had something in store: +1100.
That made for a 12-8 win for Ellon. It was a great match. The progress of the juniors is clear to see. In a matter of WEEKS they have gone from Cannon Fodder to having a tangible chance of staying in Division 2. It is still unlikely, but improvement on that scale might just be enough. 8 VPs was by no means a win, but it was enough to keep our destiny in our own hands. However, winning will not be enough. We need to win big - winning our remaining matches 11-9 would relegate us. It is no lie to say that we could have won last night. If one pair had been clearer on the meaning of doubles and when to use them, we might well have won. But am I disappointed? No. A 12-8 win would not have left us in a much greater stead than the 12-8 loss. That means that I can look at the team's performance objectively and appreciate just how well they did. Our newcomer played out of his skin; it is one thing to say he was carried by Lessurl; in truth that doesn't ever happen unless the second player carries some of the weight.
The Ellon team I am sure will have mixed feelings. A win is a win, first of all. They have risen to third in the league table and play against Banchory for 2nd Place on the 16th March. This can only be a good thing. Furthermore, I note that their impressive Away record continues. But, they are also prudent and smart enough to know that they are not mathematically safe from relegation - something they had a chance to see to last night and didn't. Phoenix Rising are going to give it their best shot and we don't care who goes down instead of us.
Personally, I am satisfied that two of my teams managed to play each other where both sides were the winners. Ellon got the victory and a good league position. You can't say fairer than that. Phoenix Rising's gain is one of progress and potential. They were never going to keep themselves up with this match - the best they could do was stop themselves going down. In other words, both sides got what they wanted out of the match, and of that I am glad.
Sunday, 19 February 2012
Junior Camrose and Peggy Bayer 2012 Results
So, my belief that the Junior Camrose could be won by anyone was proved right in my absence. I saw a little bit of NIBU v England, but had to leave to watch Aberdeen v St. Johnstone at Pittodrie, which was a disappointing 0-0 draw. You don't get 0-0 draws in junior bridge, and I returned to see that CBAI were 3-0 up on England in Round 8, with the table after Round 7 thus:
Scotland: 122
England: 102
CBAI: 101
NIBU: 95
Although I did not know the match scores, England had clearly had a terrible time of it, and CBAI were the biggest improvers: not only did they get the most VPs in Rounds 6 and 7, they did so without playing England. Scotland had opened up a 20 VP lead, but this was nothing, as they were losing to the currently bottom NIBU. So, I pick up mid-way through...
CBAI v England
K J 7 5
Q J 4
A 9 7 6 2
6
8 3
7 6 5
4
A K Q x x x x
Ireland were well ahead when this board came up.
The Irish South opened this a gambling 3NT. His team mates had already gone down, doubled in 1NT in the other room, so he needed some luck here. West doubled, and when it came back round to South, he trusted his partner's pass to such an extent that he Redoubled. This would have worked had the defence established a major trick for him, but unfortunately they took one heart, got the position, and knocked out the diamond. This swing set England on their way to a win; a win I didn't watch owing to playing in a tournament. A 19-11 win for England kept them in second place on 121. Scotland had almost made a fightback, losing 16-14 to NIBU, which put them 15 ahead going into the last round.
So, any double-figure VP score would do for Scotland, apart from maybe 10 as I don't know what the tie-splitting procedure was. It was the NIBU v England match on Vugraph, however, and I was invited to play elsewhere.
So, it was a race to the finish. England did all they could on boards 28 to 31, gaining all 37 of their match IMPs here. Two big swings came through bidding slams that the Irish didn't bid; one came through making a Game the Irish played but didn't make. It was all to no avail, however, as a 20-10 win was not enough. Scotland matched it with a 20-10 win of their own, so even a maximum for the English would not have done.
The full results were:
JUNIOR CAMROSE
Scotland 156
England 141
CBAI 122
NIBU 121
PEGGY BAYER
England 182
Scotland 167
NIBU 102
CBAI 77
Congratulations to the winning teams. The Scotland Under 25 team did well to emerge ahead when the music stopped in a very tight Junior Camrose field where every team beat every other team at least once (at least by my reckoning). It was especially tough given they were doing it four-handed.
The England Under 20 squad were red-hot favourites for the Peggy Bayer, but they still had to do the job. It looks like perhaps Scotland gave them a run for their money, since England finished only as far ahead of them as Scotland were against England in the Junior Camrose.
All in all, I'm glad I spent the vast majority of my weekend sitting in front of my computer on BBO. The juniors don't disappoint with exciting and quality bridge, and I look forward to a couple of weeks' time, when the Full Internationals play the second weekend.
Scotland: 122
England: 102
CBAI: 101
NIBU: 95
Although I did not know the match scores, England had clearly had a terrible time of it, and CBAI were the biggest improvers: not only did they get the most VPs in Rounds 6 and 7, they did so without playing England. Scotland had opened up a 20 VP lead, but this was nothing, as they were losing to the currently bottom NIBU. So, I pick up mid-way through...
CBAI v England
K J 7 5
Q J 4
A 9 7 6 2
6
8 3
7 6 5
4
A K Q x x x x
Ireland were well ahead when this board came up.
The Irish South opened this a gambling 3NT. His team mates had already gone down, doubled in 1NT in the other room, so he needed some luck here. West doubled, and when it came back round to South, he trusted his partner's pass to such an extent that he Redoubled. This would have worked had the defence established a major trick for him, but unfortunately they took one heart, got the position, and knocked out the diamond. This swing set England on their way to a win; a win I didn't watch owing to playing in a tournament. A 19-11 win for England kept them in second place on 121. Scotland had almost made a fightback, losing 16-14 to NIBU, which put them 15 ahead going into the last round.
So, any double-figure VP score would do for Scotland, apart from maybe 10 as I don't know what the tie-splitting procedure was. It was the NIBU v England match on Vugraph, however, and I was invited to play elsewhere.
So, it was a race to the finish. England did all they could on boards 28 to 31, gaining all 37 of their match IMPs here. Two big swings came through bidding slams that the Irish didn't bid; one came through making a Game the Irish played but didn't make. It was all to no avail, however, as a 20-10 win was not enough. Scotland matched it with a 20-10 win of their own, so even a maximum for the English would not have done.
The full results were:
JUNIOR CAMROSE
Scotland 156
England 141
CBAI 122
NIBU 121
PEGGY BAYER
England 182
Scotland 167
NIBU 102
CBAI 77
Congratulations to the winning teams. The Scotland Under 25 team did well to emerge ahead when the music stopped in a very tight Junior Camrose field where every team beat every other team at least once (at least by my reckoning). It was especially tough given they were doing it four-handed.
The England Under 20 squad were red-hot favourites for the Peggy Bayer, but they still had to do the job. It looks like perhaps Scotland gave them a run for their money, since England finished only as far ahead of them as Scotland were against England in the Junior Camrose.
All in all, I'm glad I spent the vast majority of my weekend sitting in front of my computer on BBO. The juniors don't disappoint with exciting and quality bridge, and I look forward to a couple of weeks' time, when the Full Internationals play the second weekend.
Saturday, 18 February 2012
Junior Camrose and Peggy Bayer 2012 (Part 3)
NIBU v CBAI
Of course this was going to be the Vugraph match for Round 4, having not got the nod ahead of England v Scotland first time round. For a reason that I am sure is perfectly valid but unknown to me, the North and Republic teams generally go by their respective Union's names in these events - Northern Irish Bridge Union and Contract Bridge Association of Ireland respectively. NIBU were certainly due a Vugraph match, so I was looking forward to this one.
Things did not start quietly. On Board 1, the Northern Irish NS got a bit mixed up (by the look of it; it is possible they knew exactly what they were doing), and the Contract was 2 Hearts Doubled by North. Their team mates at least made 4 Spades +1 in the other room, so -500 when the dust cleared only lost 2 IMPs. I feel my theory of "confusion" is strengthened by Board 2, where a scrambling 2NT was not used to good effect and South played 3 Spades in a 5-2 fit, two off. 6 more IMPs to CBAI for Board 2. NIBU got off the mark on Board 3 by making an overtrick in 3NT by North.
The next two boards brought part score battles and 1 IMP to CBAI. Then NS held this:
A
J 9 5
J 7 6 5 3 2
6 4 2
K
K 10 3
A K 9 4
A K 10 8 7
Getting rid of one of two losers here is just too much to do, so when the CBAI pair bid to 6 Diamonds, a 10 IMP swing to NIBU was on its way; the first double-figure swing of the match making it 11-9. The underdogs were in the lead for the first time.
Here is one where both Declarers played the same contract:
A K J 2
A 4 2
K J 8 6 3
K
Q 9 7 5
J 8
10 5
A J 5 4 3
The contract was 4 Spades by South. I'm not sure how the Declarer for CBAI went down (the movie being inconclusive), but Somerville made it look easy. He got the same lead: the 3 of Hearts. He rose with the Ace of Hearts and unblocked the club suit by playing the King to the 9-3-2. He then exited in hearts, West winning with the King. West kept hearts going, ruffed in hand. Now Declarer laid down the 5 of diamonds, and West, holding AQ74, rose with the Ace. West returned a diamond, but Somerville guessed right and let the diamond run. He then cashed the Ace of clubs, played a small spade to the Jack, ruffed a diamond with the 9 of spades and cashed the queen, claiming 11. That was 13 IMPs to NIBU, but CBAI answered back, finding a killing defence against 4 Spades that their team mates managed to make. It was getting very hard to keep up with this swingy set. The next board was a flat 3NT, although there was play. The score with three quarters of the match played was 24-20 to the NIBU.
Board 10 was something I don't see every day. It looked to me like NS had 4 Hearts on and EW had 5 Diamonds on. The CBAI pair got the contract in both rooms; 3 Hearts making 11 and 4 Diamonds making on the nose, though for my money 11 was there. However, I could see all the cards and it is very difficult to factor that in sometimes, so I cannot be 100% sure what the "par" score was.
It was at this point that it was brought to my attention that one of the scores might have been wrong. The standing score was 28-24 to CBAI, but apparently they were about to lose 8 IMPs; it seemed that the contract that had been "allowed to make" was not 4 Spades at all. So, apparently, it was virtually 24-20 to the NIBU, the score that it was before the part score swing.
And there were still two boards of bridge to be played! On Board 11, the NI West made a safe 4 Hearts Contract. His team-mates "sacrificed" in 5 Clubs after Somerville opened 4NT showing both minors. He somehow managed to get out for -2, so the sacrifice was a brilliant one. 27 plays 28 or 20. Board 12 wrapped up an exciting match when both NS pairs couldn't get to a 20 point Spade Game. That went flat, so NIBU scored 27 IMPs and there was a wait to see if CBAI scored 20 or 28.
Scotland v England
There was no Vugraph of this match, but naturally I was keeping an eye on the running scores. Scotland took an early lead, and increased it to a point where they were in 1st place. The dreaded fight-back did come, and England closed the gap to 4 IMPs. Scotland pulled away again and after what was clearly a very twisty match, as exciting as the Irish match, Scotland won 18-12. That was not quite enough to overtake England, but it was still a big step in the right direction.
Northern Irish Bridge Union v Scotland
If memory serves me correctly, a 9:50pm start for this match is one of the latest I have seen. This is unintelligible to me when there are 9 rounds of twelve boards to be played, and it is clearly a knock-on from the start of the first round being 12:35pm. Being a reasonable person, I am forced to assume there were serious issues that prevented play being scheduled for Saturday morning, but I have to say I don't know what they were.
Because of the lateness of the hour, I didn't manage to see the start of the match. On boards 23 and 24, NS and EW traded Games with a certain amount of overtricks, the effectiveness of which would surely be examined around about 11pm when the other table came to them.
Board 13 brought the first comparison and it was not good from a Scots point of view: Both Scottish pairs were in Games that did not make, one doubled, and it was 9-0 to the NIBU. Scotland looked on their way to their second defeat by this team and third in the tournament. Damage was double with England taking an early lead against CBAI.
Time to highlight some more Declarer play from Frazer Morgan
K J 6
A J 6 3 2
7 4
K 10 6
A 10 8 7 4
Q
A K 10 8 2
8 7
He was in 4 Spades by the bottom hand. Dummy's counterpart had already made 11 on a favourable lead.
The 9 of hearts was led, and that showed 0 or 2 higher cards. Frazer correctly played for 2, and ran to the queen, winning. He then cashed AK of diamonds, and LHO showed the 4 of hearts on the third round which he ruffed. He played the Ace of Hearts, and would not have been too disappointed to see RHO ruff with the 2 of spades. He over-ruffed with the 4 and ruffed a diamond with the Jack. He ruffed a heart, then a winning diamond, then another heart - the safest line for ten, not knowing he needed overtricks. He cashed the Ace of spades, and then claimed 12, presumably laying down another spade to endplay whoever won in clubs, as the Ace was with LHO.
Scotland were off the mark, but unfortunately Frazer's next line was unsuccessful, and Scotland found themselves 20-1 down.
K J 5
6 4
A K Q J 10 8 4 3
---
With the above hand, Alex Wilkinson called an 8 card suit trump and bid 5 Diamonds with his first turn to speak. This was doubled, and should come down, but he was allowed to make. The Irish pair went to 6, doubled course and two down. Scotland had 14 more IMPs all of a sudden. 4 IMPs quickly followed when an Irish pair went for a Game that didn't make. 20-18.
Then a phantom sacrifice for Northern Ireland, which was interesting but beyond my tiredness drained skills to write up, gave Scotland 11 IMPs and a 29-20 lead.
A flat 3NT+2 followed, where the key point was for East to be the first person to bid NT after South's weak 2 Spades Opener to right-side the 3NT contract. Phil Morrison demonstrated this by jumping straight to 3NT after 2S-P-P.
Good news followed for Scotland as the other table caught up to board 23. A game swing put the Scots 42-20 ahead. Meanwhile, the table I was watching played out another flat 3NT board, this time by NS.
With 3 comparisons to come, there was still plenty time for it to go horribly wrong. On Board 21, the Scots NS found themselves in a no-play 3NT, while the Scots West kept NS away from that fate by making a weak jump overcall that was left by his partner, who had 0 card support. That cost 6 IMPs, so I was happy to see the other table finish with another IMP for Scotland.
I took a breath, and looked at Board 22. Okay, the Scots South made 11 for 450 in spades. Looks okay. There is no slam (double dummy), Scotland should close this out. Phil and Frazer started the campaign by bidding their heart fit, which didn't stop Corry and Connolly finding 4 Spades. Unfortunately, it did stop Morgan spotting the best lead, a hard find, and NIBU gained 2 IMPs. A 43-28 win for Scotland. Enough to win 19-11.
The Junior Camrose standings after Day 1:
England 92
Scotland 84
NIBU 64
CBAI 60
The Peggy Bayer Standings after Day 1:
England 99
Scotland 78
NIBU 69
CBAI 48
Of course this was going to be the Vugraph match for Round 4, having not got the nod ahead of England v Scotland first time round. For a reason that I am sure is perfectly valid but unknown to me, the North and Republic teams generally go by their respective Union's names in these events - Northern Irish Bridge Union and Contract Bridge Association of Ireland respectively. NIBU were certainly due a Vugraph match, so I was looking forward to this one.
Things did not start quietly. On Board 1, the Northern Irish NS got a bit mixed up (by the look of it; it is possible they knew exactly what they were doing), and the Contract was 2 Hearts Doubled by North. Their team mates at least made 4 Spades +1 in the other room, so -500 when the dust cleared only lost 2 IMPs. I feel my theory of "confusion" is strengthened by Board 2, where a scrambling 2NT was not used to good effect and South played 3 Spades in a 5-2 fit, two off. 6 more IMPs to CBAI for Board 2. NIBU got off the mark on Board 3 by making an overtrick in 3NT by North.
The next two boards brought part score battles and 1 IMP to CBAI. Then NS held this:
A
J 9 5
J 7 6 5 3 2
6 4 2
K
K 10 3
A K 9 4
A K 10 8 7
Getting rid of one of two losers here is just too much to do, so when the CBAI pair bid to 6 Diamonds, a 10 IMP swing to NIBU was on its way; the first double-figure swing of the match making it 11-9. The underdogs were in the lead for the first time.
Here is one where both Declarers played the same contract:
A K J 2
A 4 2
K J 8 6 3
K
Q 9 7 5
J 8
10 5
A J 5 4 3
The contract was 4 Spades by South. I'm not sure how the Declarer for CBAI went down (the movie being inconclusive), but Somerville made it look easy. He got the same lead: the 3 of Hearts. He rose with the Ace of Hearts and unblocked the club suit by playing the King to the 9-3-2. He then exited in hearts, West winning with the King. West kept hearts going, ruffed in hand. Now Declarer laid down the 5 of diamonds, and West, holding AQ74, rose with the Ace. West returned a diamond, but Somerville guessed right and let the diamond run. He then cashed the Ace of clubs, played a small spade to the Jack, ruffed a diamond with the 9 of spades and cashed the queen, claiming 11. That was 13 IMPs to NIBU, but CBAI answered back, finding a killing defence against 4 Spades that their team mates managed to make. It was getting very hard to keep up with this swingy set. The next board was a flat 3NT, although there was play. The score with three quarters of the match played was 24-20 to the NIBU.
Board 10 was something I don't see every day. It looked to me like NS had 4 Hearts on and EW had 5 Diamonds on. The CBAI pair got the contract in both rooms; 3 Hearts making 11 and 4 Diamonds making on the nose, though for my money 11 was there. However, I could see all the cards and it is very difficult to factor that in sometimes, so I cannot be 100% sure what the "par" score was.
It was at this point that it was brought to my attention that one of the scores might have been wrong. The standing score was 28-24 to CBAI, but apparently they were about to lose 8 IMPs; it seemed that the contract that had been "allowed to make" was not 4 Spades at all. So, apparently, it was virtually 24-20 to the NIBU, the score that it was before the part score swing.
And there were still two boards of bridge to be played! On Board 11, the NI West made a safe 4 Hearts Contract. His team-mates "sacrificed" in 5 Clubs after Somerville opened 4NT showing both minors. He somehow managed to get out for -2, so the sacrifice was a brilliant one. 27 plays 28 or 20. Board 12 wrapped up an exciting match when both NS pairs couldn't get to a 20 point Spade Game. That went flat, so NIBU scored 27 IMPs and there was a wait to see if CBAI scored 20 or 28.
Scotland v England
There was no Vugraph of this match, but naturally I was keeping an eye on the running scores. Scotland took an early lead, and increased it to a point where they were in 1st place. The dreaded fight-back did come, and England closed the gap to 4 IMPs. Scotland pulled away again and after what was clearly a very twisty match, as exciting as the Irish match, Scotland won 18-12. That was not quite enough to overtake England, but it was still a big step in the right direction.
Northern Irish Bridge Union v Scotland
If memory serves me correctly, a 9:50pm start for this match is one of the latest I have seen. This is unintelligible to me when there are 9 rounds of twelve boards to be played, and it is clearly a knock-on from the start of the first round being 12:35pm. Being a reasonable person, I am forced to assume there were serious issues that prevented play being scheduled for Saturday morning, but I have to say I don't know what they were.
Because of the lateness of the hour, I didn't manage to see the start of the match. On boards 23 and 24, NS and EW traded Games with a certain amount of overtricks, the effectiveness of which would surely be examined around about 11pm when the other table came to them.
Board 13 brought the first comparison and it was not good from a Scots point of view: Both Scottish pairs were in Games that did not make, one doubled, and it was 9-0 to the NIBU. Scotland looked on their way to their second defeat by this team and third in the tournament. Damage was double with England taking an early lead against CBAI.
Time to highlight some more Declarer play from Frazer Morgan
K J 6
A J 6 3 2
7 4
K 10 6
A 10 8 7 4
Q
A K 10 8 2
8 7
He was in 4 Spades by the bottom hand. Dummy's counterpart had already made 11 on a favourable lead.
The 9 of hearts was led, and that showed 0 or 2 higher cards. Frazer correctly played for 2, and ran to the queen, winning. He then cashed AK of diamonds, and LHO showed the 4 of hearts on the third round which he ruffed. He played the Ace of Hearts, and would not have been too disappointed to see RHO ruff with the 2 of spades. He over-ruffed with the 4 and ruffed a diamond with the Jack. He ruffed a heart, then a winning diamond, then another heart - the safest line for ten, not knowing he needed overtricks. He cashed the Ace of spades, and then claimed 12, presumably laying down another spade to endplay whoever won in clubs, as the Ace was with LHO.
Scotland were off the mark, but unfortunately Frazer's next line was unsuccessful, and Scotland found themselves 20-1 down.
K J 5
6 4
A K Q J 10 8 4 3
---
With the above hand, Alex Wilkinson called an 8 card suit trump and bid 5 Diamonds with his first turn to speak. This was doubled, and should come down, but he was allowed to make. The Irish pair went to 6, doubled course and two down. Scotland had 14 more IMPs all of a sudden. 4 IMPs quickly followed when an Irish pair went for a Game that didn't make. 20-18.
Then a phantom sacrifice for Northern Ireland, which was interesting but beyond my tiredness drained skills to write up, gave Scotland 11 IMPs and a 29-20 lead.
A flat 3NT+2 followed, where the key point was for East to be the first person to bid NT after South's weak 2 Spades Opener to right-side the 3NT contract. Phil Morrison demonstrated this by jumping straight to 3NT after 2S-P-P.
Good news followed for Scotland as the other table caught up to board 23. A game swing put the Scots 42-20 ahead. Meanwhile, the table I was watching played out another flat 3NT board, this time by NS.
With 3 comparisons to come, there was still plenty time for it to go horribly wrong. On Board 21, the Scots NS found themselves in a no-play 3NT, while the Scots West kept NS away from that fate by making a weak jump overcall that was left by his partner, who had 0 card support. That cost 6 IMPs, so I was happy to see the other table finish with another IMP for Scotland.
I took a breath, and looked at Board 22. Okay, the Scots South made 11 for 450 in spades. Looks okay. There is no slam (double dummy), Scotland should close this out. Phil and Frazer started the campaign by bidding their heart fit, which didn't stop Corry and Connolly finding 4 Spades. Unfortunately, it did stop Morgan spotting the best lead, a hard find, and NIBU gained 2 IMPs. A 43-28 win for Scotland. Enough to win 19-11.
The Junior Camrose standings after Day 1:
England 92
Scotland 84
NIBU 64
CBAI 60
The Peggy Bayer Standings after Day 1:
England 99
Scotland 78
NIBU 69
CBAI 48
Junior Camrose and Peggy Bayer 2012 (Part 2)
CBAI v England
It was no surprise that this match got top billing for Round 2, as with 16 and 19 VPs respectively, they were the top two. I was late to start viewing this match, as I was finishing up my previous post, and when I came in, North and South held these cards on Board 14:
5 4
A 7 3
Q 5
K Q 6 5 3 2
K Q J 10 7
Q
A J 8 4
A J 7
The diamond finesse is onside, so 6 Clubs is the optimum spot. 6NT by North is reasonably good on the lie, as East would have to find the lead of King from K J 9 4 in hearts to beat it. But do you want to be in a 50% slam? Personally, I want to be in a 50% slam only on the 50% of occasions that it works. England went to Five Clubs with an Overtrick, where Gormally and Synnott went to 3NT and made 3 overtricks for 2 IMPs. They were the only 2 IMPs scored at that point, and with six boards played and four comparisons made (one table having played boards 23 and 24 first), the score was still 2-0 to the Contract Bridge Association of Ireland.
The boards were looking a bit flat, with no IMPs scored at all in the other match, and it required someone to take action in the bidding to cause more IMPs to flow. The Irish East-West found themselves in 2 Spades one off on Board 17, but after the same 1 Club opening from East, Gormally (South) held this:
A K
10 3
K 9 7 5 4 3
9 7 4
He found a bid of 3 Diamonds. This was well judged, as it might make, and it caused the English pair to try their luck in 3NT. Their luck was out; they came four off, and CBAI took a 6-0 lead. That remained the score after six comparisons out of 12, and we were looking at a low scoring match. Boards 23 and 24 looked flat too (though you can never tell, and when I say "you", I do of course mean: "me"). On Board 18, an English Declarer in a superior contract to his counterpart went two down, losing three more IMPs. I won't post that one here. Not long after, the Irish gained an IMP on Board 23 (the other table clearly slightly ahead of time), and it was 10-0. Both England and Ireland played well enough to flatten Board 20 at 630 to North-South. Ireland did well on Board 24 to get a 15-0 lead with one table having two boards to play, but then came the "swing" board.
Q 8 6 5
A K J 10 4
A 8 5
4
K 10 4
Q 5
K 7 4 3 2
Q 10 8
These were the North and South hands. The English North played in 4 Hearts, making exactly. Gormally was in 3NT, and he had no chance of making it when West led from K J x x x in clubs. Suddenly, with one board to go, it was 15-13. That was hard lines on Ireland, on a set where one bad board can finish you off. And if your luck is out, it's out.
On the final board, Ireland gained an IMP in generally confusing circumstances, which I won't go into here. However, the 16-13 result was not necessarily final, as the English East-West called the Director to ask for an adjusted score. The result at 4:11pm British time was 16-14 to CBAI.
Scotland v CBAI
This started off as Bottom versus Second Top. Scotland had thrown away a narrow lead in a very short space of time against Northern Ireland, to find themselves headed for a 19-11 defeat at one stage, having to battle back to a 16-14 loss. CBAI were second by one VP, but had won two out of two matches.
As is my want, I watched the table that started with Board 35, so that I would see the comparisons. So for Board 35 I found myself casting a virtual IMP to Scotland, as Ireland made a 4 Heart contract without the possible overtrick. On Board 36, Scotland bid to 3NT without a diamond stop, and took 8 tricks. Therefore, I made a mental note to deduct x amount of IMPs from Scotland's score. The next question that arose was how do you get to the optimum contract here:
A K Q 4
10 9 8 6 4 2
6
A 4
J 6 3
K
A 5
K Q J 9 8 7 2
The Irish North-South did not manage, and I was left to assume the Scottish pair did, assuming because the running scores said Scotland were 11-0 up, but BBO had completely frozen. I tried closing it down and logging back in, but that maybe wasn't a good idea. For some reason BBO was suddenly running at dead slow and stop.
So, I took a break for supper, and returned to find that the Scots had indeed bid the slam and built up a 29-0 lead in my absence. That was with 7 boards played and 5 comparisons made. On board 30, Wilkinson took a wrong guess in 2 Clubs, but did enough to make the contract and flatten 1NT making 7 to retain the 29 IMP lead.
Board 31 was a sore missed opportunity for Scotland.
Q J 2
6 4 3
Q 9 7
A K Q 2
K 10 6 5 3
2
A K 5 4 3
10 5
The other table had already played the board; the Irish pair coming down in 4 Spades. I was keen for the Scottish pair to get to the same contract. After 2 Hearts from West, raised to 3 Hearts from East, South doubled at unfavourable vulnerability. North pondered and bid 4 Clubs, and South bid 4 Diamonds. North went into the tank again, and eventually bid 5 Diamonds. Gormally led his singleton ace of spades and played partner in with a heart to generate a ruff; flat board.
On Board 32, the same contract was played at both tables; 2 Spades by North. The Scottish East was unlucky that his choice of lead was a disaster that allowed the contract to sail to ten, whilst Alex Wilkinson had to play carefully just to make 8. There was a double dummy route to 9, but not a line that an International player is going to find, or even look for, when he doesn't have the benefit of seeing all the cards. Ireland were off the mark with 2 IMPs. Almost immediately, the IMP in reserve appeared for Scotland from Board 35. Whilst writing that up, Wilkinson found an inspired trump lead on the next board to flatten it.
I was happy to see Board 36 going flat, meaning that the other table had finished and we just had to see what happened on Board 34. The Scottish EW bid and made 3 Spades. Gormally found himself in the same contract, and NS always have four tricks (cashed off the top), so the match ended with a 22-8 VP win to Scotland.
Meanwhile, England won by the same VP scoreline to retain their lead at the top. The table after the first round robin:
England: 55
Scotland: 47
CBAI: 40
NIBU: 38
This brought it to supper time for the players.
I shall conclude with a bit of unfinished business - the hand I left at the end of my Retaining the Reid post. The "answer" is that the player who held that hand made a well-judged bid of 6 Clubs. Jun held:
K Q 5
K 10 7 4 3 2
A Q 3
Q
He raised to 7 Clubs, making.
It was no surprise that this match got top billing for Round 2, as with 16 and 19 VPs respectively, they were the top two. I was late to start viewing this match, as I was finishing up my previous post, and when I came in, North and South held these cards on Board 14:
5 4
A 7 3
Q 5
K Q 6 5 3 2
K Q J 10 7
Q
A J 8 4
A J 7
The diamond finesse is onside, so 6 Clubs is the optimum spot. 6NT by North is reasonably good on the lie, as East would have to find the lead of King from K J 9 4 in hearts to beat it. But do you want to be in a 50% slam? Personally, I want to be in a 50% slam only on the 50% of occasions that it works. England went to Five Clubs with an Overtrick, where Gormally and Synnott went to 3NT and made 3 overtricks for 2 IMPs. They were the only 2 IMPs scored at that point, and with six boards played and four comparisons made (one table having played boards 23 and 24 first), the score was still 2-0 to the Contract Bridge Association of Ireland.
The boards were looking a bit flat, with no IMPs scored at all in the other match, and it required someone to take action in the bidding to cause more IMPs to flow. The Irish East-West found themselves in 2 Spades one off on Board 17, but after the same 1 Club opening from East, Gormally (South) held this:
A K
10 3
K 9 7 5 4 3
9 7 4
He found a bid of 3 Diamonds. This was well judged, as it might make, and it caused the English pair to try their luck in 3NT. Their luck was out; they came four off, and CBAI took a 6-0 lead. That remained the score after six comparisons out of 12, and we were looking at a low scoring match. Boards 23 and 24 looked flat too (though you can never tell, and when I say "you", I do of course mean: "me"). On Board 18, an English Declarer in a superior contract to his counterpart went two down, losing three more IMPs. I won't post that one here. Not long after, the Irish gained an IMP on Board 23 (the other table clearly slightly ahead of time), and it was 10-0. Both England and Ireland played well enough to flatten Board 20 at 630 to North-South. Ireland did well on Board 24 to get a 15-0 lead with one table having two boards to play, but then came the "swing" board.
Q 8 6 5
A K J 10 4
A 8 5
4
K 10 4
Q 5
K 7 4 3 2
Q 10 8
These were the North and South hands. The English North played in 4 Hearts, making exactly. Gormally was in 3NT, and he had no chance of making it when West led from K J x x x in clubs. Suddenly, with one board to go, it was 15-13. That was hard lines on Ireland, on a set where one bad board can finish you off. And if your luck is out, it's out.
On the final board, Ireland gained an IMP in generally confusing circumstances, which I won't go into here. However, the 16-13 result was not necessarily final, as the English East-West called the Director to ask for an adjusted score. The result at 4:11pm British time was 16-14 to CBAI.
Scotland v CBAI
This started off as Bottom versus Second Top. Scotland had thrown away a narrow lead in a very short space of time against Northern Ireland, to find themselves headed for a 19-11 defeat at one stage, having to battle back to a 16-14 loss. CBAI were second by one VP, but had won two out of two matches.
As is my want, I watched the table that started with Board 35, so that I would see the comparisons. So for Board 35 I found myself casting a virtual IMP to Scotland, as Ireland made a 4 Heart contract without the possible overtrick. On Board 36, Scotland bid to 3NT without a diamond stop, and took 8 tricks. Therefore, I made a mental note to deduct x amount of IMPs from Scotland's score. The next question that arose was how do you get to the optimum contract here:
A K Q 4
10 9 8 6 4 2
6
A 4
J 6 3
K
A 5
K Q J 9 8 7 2
The Irish North-South did not manage, and I was left to assume the Scottish pair did, assuming because the running scores said Scotland were 11-0 up, but BBO had completely frozen. I tried closing it down and logging back in, but that maybe wasn't a good idea. For some reason BBO was suddenly running at dead slow and stop.
So, I took a break for supper, and returned to find that the Scots had indeed bid the slam and built up a 29-0 lead in my absence. That was with 7 boards played and 5 comparisons made. On board 30, Wilkinson took a wrong guess in 2 Clubs, but did enough to make the contract and flatten 1NT making 7 to retain the 29 IMP lead.
Board 31 was a sore missed opportunity for Scotland.
Q J 2
6 4 3
Q 9 7
A K Q 2
K 10 6 5 3
2
A K 5 4 3
10 5
The other table had already played the board; the Irish pair coming down in 4 Spades. I was keen for the Scottish pair to get to the same contract. After 2 Hearts from West, raised to 3 Hearts from East, South doubled at unfavourable vulnerability. North pondered and bid 4 Clubs, and South bid 4 Diamonds. North went into the tank again, and eventually bid 5 Diamonds. Gormally led his singleton ace of spades and played partner in with a heart to generate a ruff; flat board.
On Board 32, the same contract was played at both tables; 2 Spades by North. The Scottish East was unlucky that his choice of lead was a disaster that allowed the contract to sail to ten, whilst Alex Wilkinson had to play carefully just to make 8. There was a double dummy route to 9, but not a line that an International player is going to find, or even look for, when he doesn't have the benefit of seeing all the cards. Ireland were off the mark with 2 IMPs. Almost immediately, the IMP in reserve appeared for Scotland from Board 35. Whilst writing that up, Wilkinson found an inspired trump lead on the next board to flatten it.
I was happy to see Board 36 going flat, meaning that the other table had finished and we just had to see what happened on Board 34. The Scottish EW bid and made 3 Spades. Gormally found himself in the same contract, and NS always have four tricks (cashed off the top), so the match ended with a 22-8 VP win to Scotland.
Meanwhile, England won by the same VP scoreline to retain their lead at the top. The table after the first round robin:
England: 55
Scotland: 47
CBAI: 40
NIBU: 38
This brought it to supper time for the players.
I shall conclude with a bit of unfinished business - the hand I left at the end of my Retaining the Reid post. The "answer" is that the player who held that hand made a well-judged bid of 6 Clubs. Jun held:
K Q 5
K 10 7 4 3 2
A Q 3
Q
He raised to 7 Clubs, making.
Junior Camrose and Peggy Bayer 2012 (Part 1)
For me, this is a “must-watch” event – two events, in fact. The only
reason that I would not have watched them as much as possible on BBO would be
if I was actually there. For the uninitiated, the Junior Camrose is the Camrose
Trophy for – well, juniors. It is played for by the Under 25 players of
England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, and Wales. The Peggy
Bayer is likewise for Under 20s.
This year’s event is being held
in the Bewleys Hotel, Dublin Airport. Unlike the Full International
counterpart, the entire competition is played over one weekend. I don’t expect
(m)any of the Peggy Bayer games to be screened, so the event I’ll be watching
is the JC. For both events, Wales have declined/ are unable to send a team, so
both events are being contested by four teams in a triple round-robin format.
This presumably means each team gets seating rights against a particular
opponent once, with the draw for the third round of matches made “blind”.
This event did not even get its own coverage last year, so I shall try to atone for that this year with better coverage. So I shall start as I mean to go on with the first match:
England v Scotland
This event is open for all four teams to win,
and it is difficult to call. In previous years, Scotland have won five
out of eight and finished bottom, won the event, and then gained more VPs than
they did to win it the previous year and come second. The dynamic constantly
shifts and although the event over the years has been dominated by England, the
other teams are always intent on upsetting the apple cart. Straight off the
bat, we have a clash between the auld enemies – a good way to start. It is
always a match that generates a lot of interest. It is the only fixture that
gets a chance of being screened in the Peggy Bayer.
Straight away, we had Board 11 and this hand:
9 8 5 4
A 10 9
J 7 6 5 2
2
Partner opens a strong NT and you...?
Pass? It might be the most obvious action to some of us, but the
English North, Myers, made a good decision to bid 2 Clubs here, passing his
partner’s 2 Hearts response. This is safe as if Opener responds 2 Diamonds,
Pass will find partner with a minimum of two, with odds-on for more. The point
is that a suit contract plays better than 1NT.
The Scottish North did not get the chance. His RHO made a weak 3 Clubs
bid, which he then Doubled. This was left in. What do you lead to beat 3 Clubs
Doubled?
So, -580 after one board was not a good start for Scotland and I was
fearing the worst at this point. How pessimistic am I? Well, perhaps I had a
right to be when my hopes were dashed on Board 1. This was the contract Frazer
Morgan faced:
10 5 4
8 5 3 2
A 6 5 3
A 2
A K 8
A K 6
Q 7 2
Q 9 7 6
3NT by you; the bottom hand.
LHO opened a weak 2 Spades; you bid 2NT and after 3C-3N play in 3NT.
There are only six top tricks and it is not doesn’t take a lot of
looking to surmise that only a series of correct guesses (and in all
likelihood, sheer luck) will allow you to make this contract.
Frazer got the 6 of spades led, and chose the 10 of spades as a shot to
nothing. RHO won with the Jack, which he ducked, having placed him with a singleton.
The four of hearts was returned, and Frazer ducked this too, LHO winning with
the ten and exiting with the Jack to the 3-7-A. Now came an important, but
correct guess. He played the 2 of diamonds to the nine, Ace and four. He then
played the three, and when RHO played the 8, the queen held, collecting the
ten. So far so good, but what now? Do either of the red suits break? Will clubs
behave? Of course, I could see the answers double-dummy and was pleased to see
Frazer exit a diamond, finding the 3-3 break, RHO winning with the King. RHO
then cleared the heart suit, North playing the 9 of spades. It looks like
Frazer should play on clubs now, but he calmly cashed the Ace of Spades first,
noting the 4 of clubs discard from RHO. Now he played the six of clubs to the
three-Ace-five. That brings him to this position:
5
8
6
2
A
-
-
Q 9 7
Six Tricks Won; Three Lost.
There is only one layout on which this will make. Given that he has to
lose the King of Clubs, Frazer knows he goes down if RHO holds it. Therefore,
he needs LHO to have started with K3 doubleton. That is what he plays for, and
it succeeds. LHO is obliged to allow him back in with the spade, and he makes
the contract. What a shame the board was flat. But of course it was. Such an
interesting board to me is a warm-up for the likes of these junior
Internationals.
Morgan and Morrison then competed well to 3 Hearts making on Board 2,
and their team mates picked up 500 in the other room for 3 Spades Doubled. 11
IMPs went to England when one Scots pair failed to find a killer club lead or
switch against 3NT. Morgan and Morrison then bid to a shapely 5 Diamonds, which
(after another good view, this time by Morrison) made 12 tricks and gained 10
IMPs when not bid in the other room. England gained a part score swing when
they defended on both tables on Board 7, and Scottish hopes were finally killed
off when North and South held these respective cards:
A Q 6 2
Q 10 4
J
Q J 9 6 2
8 5
A K 6 5
K Q 5 4
A K 5
Myers and Thrower bid to 6NT on this. Unfortunately, East decided to
lead from K J 9 7 3 in spades, giving England a slam swing as South played it
without a hope in the other room. Before analysing this hand I looked at the
hands in isolation and concluded that my regular partner and I should finish on
4NT on this board. But don’t take my word for it; I’ll ask him as I generally do
with bidding queries.
So, after the first match, Scotland sit bottom with 11 VPs, as CBAI emerged slightly ahead in a twisty match with Northern Ireland to win 16-14. Still, the trophy is not decided after Round 1 and there will be time for Scotland to come back. I shall try to keep dedicated coverage over the weekend, and hope to post an update around late Supper Time.
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