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.
Showing posts with label To8. Show all posts
Showing posts with label To8. Show all posts
Saturday, 25 February 2012
Monday, 30 January 2012
Down, but not out
The end of last week saw two back-to-back important events. The first took on somewhat less significance when Lessurl took ill, prompting my Dad to step in as my partner for Round 4 of the Phoenix Cup. Jim was also without regular partner Jun, so the competition between us was "off" as we wanted each other to occupy 1st and 2nd spots and knock the regular partnerships down. Unfortunately, we only managed two finish above two other regular partnerships, coming 3rd bottom. Jim kept his end of the bargain by coming top.
However, the important event was Phoenix Rising v Torphins on the Friday. It was not an ideal date for the match; I tried to plead with Jun to play but apparently the Open European Trials were more important. He and Jim did well, winning 5 out of 7 matches and qualifying for the Final Four. They couldn't really have done better than that for the first weekend. 009domino was also unavailable, and in total she was one of three players that were in the 17-3 loss to Banchory that dropped out of the team (owing to unavailability, not selection I might add) for this one. In came three juniors, one pair of which were extremely inexperienced having only started bridge in September. So Torphins were on a hiding to nothing. Anything less than 20 VPs for them would be an achievement for us.
Lessurl had recovered from illness, thankfully, but we weren't playing together as one (very) inexperienced partnership was enough and we felt that the two other juniors should be partnered with experience, in the hope of creating three "reliable" partnerships. This was a particularly high challenge for my partner, who had herself been one of the least experienced players against Banchory, and we were now looking to her to help anchor the team. But with some of our best players missing, others have to step up to the plate, and she did just that.
On Board 1, I held:
A J 10 9
7
A 4 2
K J 10 9 7
I was sitting West. North opened 3 Spades, and after some deliberation, South raised to 4 on a void, which I doubled. Partner knew this could be nothing other than penalty, and we managed to scrounge six tricks between us, taking 500. A nice, good score to settle the nerves early on.
On Board 2, I held:
A K 3
A
K J 9 6
K 10 7 4 2
Partner is Dealer and passes. South passes, and I open 1 Club. North passes, and partner raises to 3 Clubs. South says 3 Hearts. What now?
I suspect slam might be a possibility, but with a new partner I was unsure how to go about it. We ended up settling for 5 clubs, and missed the 25 point slam. Partner held:
8
10 4 3
Q 7 3 2
A J 6 5 3
Both minor suits break nicely. Partner's 3 Clubs was a good one; she did all she could. In other words, I carry the can for not getting us to the right spot. Incidentally, if we're not going to find the slam, then cracking 3 Hearts is better. Another 500 is slightly better than 420, but at teams you are never going to double into Game.
On Board 3 (I'm not doing all the boards, honest!) I held:
K Q 10 9 8 5 2
A
7 3
Q 8 6
I bid spades three times, and in between, the opponents bid to a making 3NT. My third and final spade bid (reckless, over a silent partner) was 4 Spades, which was of course doubled. I expected that 3NT would make because for his bidding, North would probably hold AJx of spades. In fact my dummy was:
J 7 4
7 5 4 3
Q J 9 5 2
9
So, even though 3NT makes 4 Spades Doubled is too expensive as a sacrifice. If North-South can see all the cards before defending, they would take me for 800. Fortunately, they can't. North dutifully led a heart in response to partner bidding them, and I exited a club. I ruffed the heart return, and ruffed a club with the 4 of spades, before ruffing a heart with the 8. I then ruffed another club with the 7 and played the Jack, which got me to a total of nine tricks and -200, halving the deficit of 3NT.
Sometimes experience counts, and sometimes it is luck. Our new pair, who sat the same way as us, were in the same doomed contract, but lost 800 for their troubles. One lesson they will have to be taught is to do as I say, and not as I do.
When all six of the first set of boards had been played, partner and I had gathered +1330, which was good going having missed the slam. (The par score if you find the slam is 1370). Unfortunately, the Torphins East-West pairs were merciless, and partner and I were the only pair on the team to achieve a plus.
Being the hosts, it was our pairs that rotated round the room, which meant we changed polarity for Round 2. This was unfortunate as East-West got all six of the hands; one of them a cold slam, four cold games and one part score. So -3000 would've been an achievement for us if you do the maths. However, partner and I didn't settle for that. We managed to find a good sacrifice against a making game (below the level of Game, but the opponents didn't bid it), and they didn't bid the slam either. We scored -2010, more than one thousand better than the double dummy "par" score, and the new pair also came in with a creditable -2470.
Unfortunately, our other 2 pairs didn't contribute such large plusses, so we were well on our way to 0 VPs at Half Time.
We were there by the end of Round 3. Board 14 was seriously unlucky. After some confused bidding where my partner felt obliged to continue after a 4 Heart sign-off, which was partly my fault for only partially explaining an ethical rule, I had this situation:
K 6
A Q 10 7
K 6
A K 5 3 2
9 5
J 9 8 5 4 3 2
8 5
J 8
Contract: 5 Hearts by the bottom hand; Queen of Spades led.
Both missing aces are offside, LHO has QJ of spades, and RHO has both the missing hearts. The result is that if my hand plays the contract, 4 Hearts can never make. Partner on the other hand can make, as partner's LHO is endplayed on the opening lead. The best lead would be a club; the Jack would be covered by the Queen and King, then Declarer can cash the Ace of Hearts, Ace of clubs and ruff a club, with the suit splitting 3-3. Declarer can then exit in hearts, to end play South again. The best South can do is cash the two aces and give up. A really unlucky situation where the hand that is most likely to bid hearts first wrong-sides the Game in doing so.
There was more bad luck to come. We didn't touch a minor slam that was anti-percentage, but did make, opting instead for a major Game. Board 18 did at least yield a 100% slam that just required to be bid, and our overall score for the round was +1700, which is either 200-400 points better or 200 points worse than a debatable par, depending on what you take par to be. Still, we didn't expect what our team-mates provided (we were the only plus again), and we passed the 5000 point aggregate minus threshold.
Unless we won Round 4, we were going to lose this match 20-0. It was Twenty Past Ten by the time we finished Round 3, so we felt it was in the best and fairest interests of all sixteen players to call time on the match then. A match in the afternoon I would have happily played another six boards against the odds, but we were getting very late, especially for youngsters.
The Division 2 table does not make good reading. We are bottom with 3 VPs; Ellon are second bottom with 24. Some would say the situation is already hopeless. Indeed, I admit it is getting critical. However, I have faith in my team and there are a lot of positives we can take from this.
I am aware that with a statement like that, when on the face of it we were completely swept aside and outclassed, I look like a football manager trying to appease his team's fans after an embarrassing defeat. But there are some very promising signs and we still have three matches to get ourselves out of our admittedly sticky situation.
The first positive is the "team of four within the team of eight" scenario. Comparing Pair 1 and Pair 2's scores from the match against Banchory, they made a net gain which was good enough for a 15-5 win if pairs 3 and 4 had levelled out. Well, so we should, given the strength of Pairs 1 and 2 in that match. However, when doing so again for the Torphins match, Pairs 1 and 2 (who'd had two good players removed, and replaced with two lesser-experienced players), still came out ahead. This is very encouraging, because it is a sign that the experience of playing these matches is paying off and that our inexperienced players are getting better; learning to hold their own. The reason that it went so wrong against Torphins is that they can hold their own when they have some strong players to back them up and compliment their scores; they are not yet at a stage where they can help anchor a team.
The second positive is our new pair. On the face of it, they were completely thrashed, but there's more to this than meets the eye. The game plan was that it would not be disappointing if they did slightly worse than they should have done; it was up to me and my partner to cancel that out with a good score. But in Round 2, between all the doubled contracts that spoiled their score card in Rounds 1 and 3, they actually did better than par, which is a real sign of progress and more than I could've asked them for. There's a lot of potential there, and when I look at their score card, what I find is that they were completely fearless, (as reckless as me in places but less inclined to get away with it), so they are standing in good stead for a positive future.
Individual development is also a key area. My partner from the match in particular is coming on leaps and bounds and is not as far away from becoming a fully-fledged player as she thinks she is. Another player was back after a bit of a hiatus, and Lessurl informs me that not a lot went wrong in the bidding, which means he has retained quite a bit of the bidding theory that he has learned very well. Against Torphins, we fielded four partnerships that have never played in any competitive bridge event together, which means the team is learning to play with others.
As a Captain, I am learning a lot about my team and my players, what they can and can't do and what they are capable of. Some of it I know beforehand, but there are some things you can only find out by experience, trial, error and observation.
The team spirit is another factor which pleases me. After a start like this, it is easy for the heads to go down and players to blame themselves and ask whether they are good enough. But they are all up for it and ready to play their part in the recovery - and they will.
We also have to remember that this was far from our best possible side. Two of last season's ever-presents and one international junior were not involved in this match. I chose players from my team pool. I could have tried drafting in substitutes instead - if I had been so desperate to win this match that I was willing to sacrifice team development. But this is a work-in-progress; a transitional phase as we look towards building a bigger and better junior team in the future. These players need games. They learn by doing.
It is a shame that it is two of my clubs that occupy the bottom two positions of Division 2. But, sorry Ellon, there are no divided loyalties. The next match is a forty-pointer (the bridge equivalent of a football six-pointer) between Phoenix Rising and Ellon, and I certainly hope that we will be getting our first win of the season under our belts. I have of course been supporting Ellon in all of their matches so far this season, but they have my permission to lose the next match. It would be good if both teams could avoid relegation however.
While it is still possible that we will escape relegation, we'll continue to play to do so. I don't mind if anybody writes us off; some people wrote off Division 2 as ours to win before the season started, and we proved them wrong. There is still a lot of bridge to be played, and I have faith that my team will come good. It is just a question of how quickly they do so.
I write this on Monday. This week sees a marathon of five (possibly six) days of bridge in a row, starting tonight. Still, if that happens, it won't be the first time - nor will it be the first time I have several events to blog about at once. Bring it on.
However, the important event was Phoenix Rising v Torphins on the Friday. It was not an ideal date for the match; I tried to plead with Jun to play but apparently the Open European Trials were more important. He and Jim did well, winning 5 out of 7 matches and qualifying for the Final Four. They couldn't really have done better than that for the first weekend. 009domino was also unavailable, and in total she was one of three players that were in the 17-3 loss to Banchory that dropped out of the team (owing to unavailability, not selection I might add) for this one. In came three juniors, one pair of which were extremely inexperienced having only started bridge in September. So Torphins were on a hiding to nothing. Anything less than 20 VPs for them would be an achievement for us.
Lessurl had recovered from illness, thankfully, but we weren't playing together as one (very) inexperienced partnership was enough and we felt that the two other juniors should be partnered with experience, in the hope of creating three "reliable" partnerships. This was a particularly high challenge for my partner, who had herself been one of the least experienced players against Banchory, and we were now looking to her to help anchor the team. But with some of our best players missing, others have to step up to the plate, and she did just that.
On Board 1, I held:
A J 10 9
7
A 4 2
K J 10 9 7
I was sitting West. North opened 3 Spades, and after some deliberation, South raised to 4 on a void, which I doubled. Partner knew this could be nothing other than penalty, and we managed to scrounge six tricks between us, taking 500. A nice, good score to settle the nerves early on.
On Board 2, I held:
A K 3
A
K J 9 6
K 10 7 4 2
Partner is Dealer and passes. South passes, and I open 1 Club. North passes, and partner raises to 3 Clubs. South says 3 Hearts. What now?
I suspect slam might be a possibility, but with a new partner I was unsure how to go about it. We ended up settling for 5 clubs, and missed the 25 point slam. Partner held:
8
10 4 3
Q 7 3 2
A J 6 5 3
Both minor suits break nicely. Partner's 3 Clubs was a good one; she did all she could. In other words, I carry the can for not getting us to the right spot. Incidentally, if we're not going to find the slam, then cracking 3 Hearts is better. Another 500 is slightly better than 420, but at teams you are never going to double into Game.
On Board 3 (I'm not doing all the boards, honest!) I held:
K Q 10 9 8 5 2
A
7 3
Q 8 6
I bid spades three times, and in between, the opponents bid to a making 3NT. My third and final spade bid (reckless, over a silent partner) was 4 Spades, which was of course doubled. I expected that 3NT would make because for his bidding, North would probably hold AJx of spades. In fact my dummy was:
J 7 4
7 5 4 3
Q J 9 5 2
9
So, even though 3NT makes 4 Spades Doubled is too expensive as a sacrifice. If North-South can see all the cards before defending, they would take me for 800. Fortunately, they can't. North dutifully led a heart in response to partner bidding them, and I exited a club. I ruffed the heart return, and ruffed a club with the 4 of spades, before ruffing a heart with the 8. I then ruffed another club with the 7 and played the Jack, which got me to a total of nine tricks and -200, halving the deficit of 3NT.
Sometimes experience counts, and sometimes it is luck. Our new pair, who sat the same way as us, were in the same doomed contract, but lost 800 for their troubles. One lesson they will have to be taught is to do as I say, and not as I do.
When all six of the first set of boards had been played, partner and I had gathered +1330, which was good going having missed the slam. (The par score if you find the slam is 1370). Unfortunately, the Torphins East-West pairs were merciless, and partner and I were the only pair on the team to achieve a plus.
Being the hosts, it was our pairs that rotated round the room, which meant we changed polarity for Round 2. This was unfortunate as East-West got all six of the hands; one of them a cold slam, four cold games and one part score. So -3000 would've been an achievement for us if you do the maths. However, partner and I didn't settle for that. We managed to find a good sacrifice against a making game (below the level of Game, but the opponents didn't bid it), and they didn't bid the slam either. We scored -2010, more than one thousand better than the double dummy "par" score, and the new pair also came in with a creditable -2470.
Unfortunately, our other 2 pairs didn't contribute such large plusses, so we were well on our way to 0 VPs at Half Time.
We were there by the end of Round 3. Board 14 was seriously unlucky. After some confused bidding where my partner felt obliged to continue after a 4 Heart sign-off, which was partly my fault for only partially explaining an ethical rule, I had this situation:
K 6
A Q 10 7
K 6
A K 5 3 2
9 5
J 9 8 5 4 3 2
8 5
J 8
Contract: 5 Hearts by the bottom hand; Queen of Spades led.
Both missing aces are offside, LHO has QJ of spades, and RHO has both the missing hearts. The result is that if my hand plays the contract, 4 Hearts can never make. Partner on the other hand can make, as partner's LHO is endplayed on the opening lead. The best lead would be a club; the Jack would be covered by the Queen and King, then Declarer can cash the Ace of Hearts, Ace of clubs and ruff a club, with the suit splitting 3-3. Declarer can then exit in hearts, to end play South again. The best South can do is cash the two aces and give up. A really unlucky situation where the hand that is most likely to bid hearts first wrong-sides the Game in doing so.
There was more bad luck to come. We didn't touch a minor slam that was anti-percentage, but did make, opting instead for a major Game. Board 18 did at least yield a 100% slam that just required to be bid, and our overall score for the round was +1700, which is either 200-400 points better or 200 points worse than a debatable par, depending on what you take par to be. Still, we didn't expect what our team-mates provided (we were the only plus again), and we passed the 5000 point aggregate minus threshold.
Unless we won Round 4, we were going to lose this match 20-0. It was Twenty Past Ten by the time we finished Round 3, so we felt it was in the best and fairest interests of all sixteen players to call time on the match then. A match in the afternoon I would have happily played another six boards against the odds, but we were getting very late, especially for youngsters.
The Division 2 table does not make good reading. We are bottom with 3 VPs; Ellon are second bottom with 24. Some would say the situation is already hopeless. Indeed, I admit it is getting critical. However, I have faith in my team and there are a lot of positives we can take from this.
I am aware that with a statement like that, when on the face of it we were completely swept aside and outclassed, I look like a football manager trying to appease his team's fans after an embarrassing defeat. But there are some very promising signs and we still have three matches to get ourselves out of our admittedly sticky situation.
The first positive is the "team of four within the team of eight" scenario. Comparing Pair 1 and Pair 2's scores from the match against Banchory, they made a net gain which was good enough for a 15-5 win if pairs 3 and 4 had levelled out. Well, so we should, given the strength of Pairs 1 and 2 in that match. However, when doing so again for the Torphins match, Pairs 1 and 2 (who'd had two good players removed, and replaced with two lesser-experienced players), still came out ahead. This is very encouraging, because it is a sign that the experience of playing these matches is paying off and that our inexperienced players are getting better; learning to hold their own. The reason that it went so wrong against Torphins is that they can hold their own when they have some strong players to back them up and compliment their scores; they are not yet at a stage where they can help anchor a team.
The second positive is our new pair. On the face of it, they were completely thrashed, but there's more to this than meets the eye. The game plan was that it would not be disappointing if they did slightly worse than they should have done; it was up to me and my partner to cancel that out with a good score. But in Round 2, between all the doubled contracts that spoiled their score card in Rounds 1 and 3, they actually did better than par, which is a real sign of progress and more than I could've asked them for. There's a lot of potential there, and when I look at their score card, what I find is that they were completely fearless, (as reckless as me in places but less inclined to get away with it), so they are standing in good stead for a positive future.
Individual development is also a key area. My partner from the match in particular is coming on leaps and bounds and is not as far away from becoming a fully-fledged player as she thinks she is. Another player was back after a bit of a hiatus, and Lessurl informs me that not a lot went wrong in the bidding, which means he has retained quite a bit of the bidding theory that he has learned very well. Against Torphins, we fielded four partnerships that have never played in any competitive bridge event together, which means the team is learning to play with others.
As a Captain, I am learning a lot about my team and my players, what they can and can't do and what they are capable of. Some of it I know beforehand, but there are some things you can only find out by experience, trial, error and observation.
The team spirit is another factor which pleases me. After a start like this, it is easy for the heads to go down and players to blame themselves and ask whether they are good enough. But they are all up for it and ready to play their part in the recovery - and they will.
We also have to remember that this was far from our best possible side. Two of last season's ever-presents and one international junior were not involved in this match. I chose players from my team pool. I could have tried drafting in substitutes instead - if I had been so desperate to win this match that I was willing to sacrifice team development. But this is a work-in-progress; a transitional phase as we look towards building a bigger and better junior team in the future. These players need games. They learn by doing.
It is a shame that it is two of my clubs that occupy the bottom two positions of Division 2. But, sorry Ellon, there are no divided loyalties. The next match is a forty-pointer (the bridge equivalent of a football six-pointer) between Phoenix Rising and Ellon, and I certainly hope that we will be getting our first win of the season under our belts. I have of course been supporting Ellon in all of their matches so far this season, but they have my permission to lose the next match. It would be good if both teams could avoid relegation however.
While it is still possible that we will escape relegation, we'll continue to play to do so. I don't mind if anybody writes us off; some people wrote off Division 2 as ours to win before the season started, and we proved them wrong. There is still a lot of bridge to be played, and I have faith that my team will come good. It is just a question of how quickly they do so.
I write this on Monday. This week sees a marathon of five (possibly six) days of bridge in a row, starting tonight. Still, if that happens, it won't be the first time - nor will it be the first time I have several events to blog about at once. Bring it on.
Sunday, 22 January 2012
Third Time Lucky
This week saw three major events, not including a session at Ellon. I say major - I only really gave a brass monkey about two of them; the first was just A-N-Other tournament to compete in. Were these events not played out on consecutive nights, they may have merited a blog post of their own. But having played Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I was not going to find time to blog in between.
Here, they come, in order.
Norvite Simultaneous Pairs
This event I had no aspirations for. It is a simultaneous pairs event played throughout the North District. All the hands are pre-dealt, that is to say, fixed. The Convener spends all year finding/composing hands to use, so I'm reliably informed. This is a major departure from Simultaneous competitions run by the SBU, where the computer dealt boards may seem fixed, but they are not. The second difference is that scoring is by aggregate, with a limitation on penalties in place. This requires more of a Teams mentality. Played on a Wednesday night, I was playing with McLeod Senior again. The partnership harmony didn't last long, although in fairness it never does.
A K J 3
10 8 5
5 3 2
9 8 5
Playing the Asking Club (if you know it), Partner opens a Strong 2 Diamonds - 20+ points or a hand as good as, with at least 5 Diamonds. What is your bid here?
My bid (and my subsequent claim that I will do the same again) caused my partner to state that we are going to stop playing together. Which is why I'd like to know if I'm the only person in the world who'd bid what I did here? (Do not guess at what I bid; give me YOURS).
The response structure (for those that want to advise what I should've done in this situation) is as follows:
Bid a 5 card suit or
Bid 2NT to show cover in the other three and some values, and wrong-side 3NT.
Bid 3 Diamonds to show support with no extra values.
4 Clubs is Gerber
Partner had:
5 4 2
---
A K Q J 10 7 4
A Q 2
What do you think partner's rebid should be?
Next up; your hand is:
K
J 7 6 3
A Q 8 6 4 3
7 5
RHO opens 1 Spade, and you intervene with 3 Diamonds. LHO says 4 Clubs, and after RHO agrees clubs, RHO ends up in 6 Spades. What do you lead?
I reckoned our score was a paltry +1000 at the end of the night, but I can't count.
Phoenix Teams of Four Finals
The Phoenix Teams of Four is the club's most prestigious event. Going into the Semi-Finals, we were third, which meant we played 1st place in a knock-out sixteen board match - the unbeaten ROSS team. I think Lessurl and I can be pleased with our efforts.
Things didn't start well; our opponents stopped well in a 3 Heart contract for 140. We traded "misplayed" (or Mis-defended at the other table) game contracts for a +12 and -12 on consecutive boards. 12-17. The next board was flat; my Counterpart and I both made 13 tricks in 4 Spades when the defence didn't cash two top tricks. Then we took over.
Do you want to be in 7 Hearts when you have nine solid tricks from trumps and the minors (trumps drawing easily and no chance of a ruff against you), and your spade holding is J x x x opposite A K 10 x? Thought not. We were, but the queen was singleton (offside), so we got away with +1510 and 11 IMPs.
On the next board, RHO intervened with 4 Diamonds while Lessurl and I were bidding to solid vulnerable Game. We were red, they were White. Bidding 4 Diamonds for a lead might've seemed like a good idea to RHO at the time, but unfortunately for him, his partner sacrificed in 5 Diamonds and we collected 1100.
Next, I made one more trick than I was entitled to in 3NT, giving us a 34-17 lead after seven, eight and nine boards. A mutual disaster for our team saw that lead cut to 34-30 on board ten, and then another -5 and a missed Game cost us dearly, leaving the score at 34-45.
Board 14, in my view, was the crucial board. I held:
A J x x x
A K Q x x
---
x x x
Do I open this 1 Heart or 1 Spade? I opted for 1 Spade. LHO overcalled 2 Diamonds, and partner raised to 4 Spades. RHO bid 5 Diamonds. I considered 5 Hearts, but opted for 5 Spades, which was crucial. It went one down, for -10 IMPs. Had I opted for 5 Hearts, I would have found partner with J 10 x x x x of Hearts, and I'd have made 5. However, our team-mates should have bid and made 6 Diamonds, so our -100 should've been enough to win the match. We lost 40-63.
The other Semi-Final (which played the same sixteen boards) was between the 2nd placed HAY team, and the only twice-beaten team in the Semis, the revamped POMEROY team, sporting a substitute pair. On paper, the Pomeroy team had been weakened, but on paper only. After what I'm sure was a fascinating match, they drew 40-40. It was decided the fairest thing to do, in the spirit of the tournament, was play a two board play-off, which the Pomeroy team won.
Only 73 IMPs were shed in the Third Place Play-Off, as opposed to 103 in our Semi. After taking a 500 and 100 for two beaten Game contracts (the first Doubled), on boards 22 and 23, I would've thought, with reasonably tight play, that would've been enough. Unfortunately, our team-mates had a disaster on Board 24, and in the end we lost by 9 IMPs.
In the end, I'm happy with 4th place. (Disappointed in that it was the worst we could've done going into the last night, but we weren't among the top 4 seeds.) We exceeded expectations, and hope to be regular semi-finalists/ finalists/ winners; one day.
The final was keenly contested. ROSS took the title by the margin of ONE IMP. What a great advert for the Phoenix Club; it is going from strength to strength.
Bridge Club Nova v Phoenix II
The playing of this match went into some doubt as both teams struggled to field teams, and in the end neither side could play eight players from their own pool. (Long live the new substitution rules!) Lessurl and I, having played once for Phoenix II already, were eligible for one more match, and the Captain required it to be this match. I sincerely hope the team does not need subs for their remaining two fixtures.
Bridge Club Nova needed a substitute too, and called in - my Dad. It so happens that one of his pick-up partners is in Nova. My Dad was, of course, happy enough to help, when the phone call came, so both McLeods were subbing for opposite sides.
Boards 1, 2 and 3 (the first three boards we played, although not in sequence) all saw the same contract - 1NT. Lessurl thought he was in 2 and made 8; I ran for 7 in mine, and RHO came down in his. Lessurl and I were not in charitable mood. So, we were edging ahead, and then I had this 3NT:
Q x x
K 7 x x
10 9 x
A x x
A K x x
A 9
A Q x x
x x x
I got a small diamond led, and I tried the 9 from dummy. LHO had indeed led from KJxx, so it held. I next tried three rounds of spades, finishing with the queen, so I could lead away from the ace of clubs, but the spades broke 2-4. LHO pitched a heart on the queen of spades and won my club, returning a heart. I won with the ace and cleared the suit, RHO getting in with a heart. For reasons best known to himself, RHO decided not to cash his two hearts and a spade, and played the Queen of clubs. This I won in dummy after seeing the card LHO played, and ran the ten of diamonds. LHO won with the Jack, but now holds this:
---
---
K x
K
All he can do is cash the club before giving me the AQ of diamonds. 9 tricks.
By all accounts, the boards were against us in the first set, so our team-mates were delighted when we offered +760, leaving us a little over 1700 ahead after six boards.
The second set was not as productive. The boards were against us here too, and our opponents were apt to cash in. They bid two good games. One was solid and the other needed a trump lead to beat it, which I don't blame Lessurl for not finding. We also had the dreaded +170 on a vulnerable board, although I'm not saying Game was cold there. The team was 1190 up at half time.
Playing at Table 3 all night, the third round was against the Nova Captain and his partner, one of Lessurl's regular partners. They started well, bidding a thin but cold vulnerable Game. I then failed to make a 4 Spades which wasn't there. This was the turning point:
K x x x
J
K
K Q 10 9 7 x x
A x x x
K Q x x
x x x x
2
Contract: 4 Spades Doubled by the bottom hand; AC lead.
This was the situation Lessurl faced. Immediately he knows he is hoping for a mis-defence. He gets it. His LHO, looking for the big penalty, leads a small heart to trick 2, underleading the ace. After overcoming his surprise when the Jack holds, Lessurl cashes the Ace and King of spades, with both opponents following both times. He now ruffs a small club - a necessary precaution as LHO led from a singleton. He plays the King of hearts, covered by the ace, and ruffs. He can now run clubs until the final spade appears, collecting +590, and +260 on the set overall.
It is always satisfying to get a plus score for a set where the boards are against you. However, this always requires luck. This was especially true on the last set, where the boards were so skewed against us that "par" would probably have been around the -2000 mark. But Lessurl managed to tempt a mistake from his RHO when playing a 4 Spades contract, and I played the following collection in 3NT:
K x
A 9 x x
x x x
J 9 7 4
A J 6 x
K 10 x
x x
A 6 5 2
You might well ask what on earth we are doing in 3NT. My RHO (McLeod Senior) opened 1 Spade (5 card suit), and Lessurl made a protective double. I failed to deduct 3 points from my hand, and blasted 3NT.
LHO dutifully led a spade, and I beat my Dad's queen with the ace. I have to take the view that if they find a diamond switch at any stage, I'm dead, so I better play as if they're not going to. I play the ten of hearts to set them up, as a minimum of three tricks are required from this suit. LHO plays small, and to my surprise, the ten holds the trick. So that's three spade tricks and three hearts now. I need three from clubs. I cash ace and another heart, and then play the 9 of clubs. Queen appears on my right. I cover with the ace and collect the three from LHO. I now play the 2, and the 8 appears from LHO. I play the 7, and the King comes down. RHO now plays a spade, and I have nine tricks.
My Dad felt that we'd been very "lucky" all night. Yes and no. Yes, there were some clear errors from his side. But then, we had to get ourselves in position to take advantage. That's what people mean when they say good players make their own luck. Mind you, I suppose the addage it is better to be lucky than smart also applies.
Not that we got it all our own way. Going into the last board of the night with a double game swing in the bag, we had +930. We were hoping to offer another "plus that should've been a minus". Unfortunately, our opponents bid the solidest of solid slams, so no such luck. We were -440, our Table 1 team-mates somehow were -190, which meant we were destined for a massive swing. It was enough to win 18-2.
That's it for Lessurl and me playing for Phoenix II this season. Next week, it's back to Phoenix Rising. But, as Lessurl joked, "we should have kept Phoenix II away from relegation". Phoenix I and II sit happily at 1st and 2nd place in Division 1 respectively. Certainly it was our most successful (and luckiest) night of the three.
Here, they come, in order.
Norvite Simultaneous Pairs
This event I had no aspirations for. It is a simultaneous pairs event played throughout the North District. All the hands are pre-dealt, that is to say, fixed. The Convener spends all year finding/composing hands to use, so I'm reliably informed. This is a major departure from Simultaneous competitions run by the SBU, where the computer dealt boards may seem fixed, but they are not. The second difference is that scoring is by aggregate, with a limitation on penalties in place. This requires more of a Teams mentality. Played on a Wednesday night, I was playing with McLeod Senior again. The partnership harmony didn't last long, although in fairness it never does.
A K J 3
10 8 5
5 3 2
9 8 5
Playing the Asking Club (if you know it), Partner opens a Strong 2 Diamonds - 20+ points or a hand as good as, with at least 5 Diamonds. What is your bid here?
My bid (and my subsequent claim that I will do the same again) caused my partner to state that we are going to stop playing together. Which is why I'd like to know if I'm the only person in the world who'd bid what I did here? (Do not guess at what I bid; give me YOURS).
The response structure (for those that want to advise what I should've done in this situation) is as follows:
Bid a 5 card suit or
Bid 2NT to show cover in the other three and some values, and wrong-side 3NT.
Bid 3 Diamonds to show support with no extra values.
4 Clubs is Gerber
Partner had:
5 4 2
---
A K Q J 10 7 4
A Q 2
What do you think partner's rebid should be?
Next up; your hand is:
K
J 7 6 3
A Q 8 6 4 3
7 5
RHO opens 1 Spade, and you intervene with 3 Diamonds. LHO says 4 Clubs, and after RHO agrees clubs, RHO ends up in 6 Spades. What do you lead?
I reckoned our score was a paltry +1000 at the end of the night, but I can't count.
Phoenix Teams of Four Finals
The Phoenix Teams of Four is the club's most prestigious event. Going into the Semi-Finals, we were third, which meant we played 1st place in a knock-out sixteen board match - the unbeaten ROSS team. I think Lessurl and I can be pleased with our efforts.
Things didn't start well; our opponents stopped well in a 3 Heart contract for 140. We traded "misplayed" (or Mis-defended at the other table) game contracts for a +12 and -12 on consecutive boards. 12-17. The next board was flat; my Counterpart and I both made 13 tricks in 4 Spades when the defence didn't cash two top tricks. Then we took over.
Do you want to be in 7 Hearts when you have nine solid tricks from trumps and the minors (trumps drawing easily and no chance of a ruff against you), and your spade holding is J x x x opposite A K 10 x? Thought not. We were, but the queen was singleton (offside), so we got away with +1510 and 11 IMPs.
On the next board, RHO intervened with 4 Diamonds while Lessurl and I were bidding to solid vulnerable Game. We were red, they were White. Bidding 4 Diamonds for a lead might've seemed like a good idea to RHO at the time, but unfortunately for him, his partner sacrificed in 5 Diamonds and we collected 1100.
Next, I made one more trick than I was entitled to in 3NT, giving us a 34-17 lead after seven, eight and nine boards. A mutual disaster for our team saw that lead cut to 34-30 on board ten, and then another -5 and a missed Game cost us dearly, leaving the score at 34-45.
Board 14, in my view, was the crucial board. I held:
A J x x x
A K Q x x
---
x x x
Do I open this 1 Heart or 1 Spade? I opted for 1 Spade. LHO overcalled 2 Diamonds, and partner raised to 4 Spades. RHO bid 5 Diamonds. I considered 5 Hearts, but opted for 5 Spades, which was crucial. It went one down, for -10 IMPs. Had I opted for 5 Hearts, I would have found partner with J 10 x x x x of Hearts, and I'd have made 5. However, our team-mates should have bid and made 6 Diamonds, so our -100 should've been enough to win the match. We lost 40-63.
The other Semi-Final (which played the same sixteen boards) was between the 2nd placed HAY team, and the only twice-beaten team in the Semis, the revamped POMEROY team, sporting a substitute pair. On paper, the Pomeroy team had been weakened, but on paper only. After what I'm sure was a fascinating match, they drew 40-40. It was decided the fairest thing to do, in the spirit of the tournament, was play a two board play-off, which the Pomeroy team won.
Only 73 IMPs were shed in the Third Place Play-Off, as opposed to 103 in our Semi. After taking a 500 and 100 for two beaten Game contracts (the first Doubled), on boards 22 and 23, I would've thought, with reasonably tight play, that would've been enough. Unfortunately, our team-mates had a disaster on Board 24, and in the end we lost by 9 IMPs.
In the end, I'm happy with 4th place. (Disappointed in that it was the worst we could've done going into the last night, but we weren't among the top 4 seeds.) We exceeded expectations, and hope to be regular semi-finalists/ finalists/ winners; one day.
The final was keenly contested. ROSS took the title by the margin of ONE IMP. What a great advert for the Phoenix Club; it is going from strength to strength.
Bridge Club Nova v Phoenix II
The playing of this match went into some doubt as both teams struggled to field teams, and in the end neither side could play eight players from their own pool. (Long live the new substitution rules!) Lessurl and I, having played once for Phoenix II already, were eligible for one more match, and the Captain required it to be this match. I sincerely hope the team does not need subs for their remaining two fixtures.
Bridge Club Nova needed a substitute too, and called in - my Dad. It so happens that one of his pick-up partners is in Nova. My Dad was, of course, happy enough to help, when the phone call came, so both McLeods were subbing for opposite sides.
Boards 1, 2 and 3 (the first three boards we played, although not in sequence) all saw the same contract - 1NT. Lessurl thought he was in 2 and made 8; I ran for 7 in mine, and RHO came down in his. Lessurl and I were not in charitable mood. So, we were edging ahead, and then I had this 3NT:
Q x x
K 7 x x
10 9 x
A x x
A K x x
A 9
A Q x x
x x x
I got a small diamond led, and I tried the 9 from dummy. LHO had indeed led from KJxx, so it held. I next tried three rounds of spades, finishing with the queen, so I could lead away from the ace of clubs, but the spades broke 2-4. LHO pitched a heart on the queen of spades and won my club, returning a heart. I won with the ace and cleared the suit, RHO getting in with a heart. For reasons best known to himself, RHO decided not to cash his two hearts and a spade, and played the Queen of clubs. This I won in dummy after seeing the card LHO played, and ran the ten of diamonds. LHO won with the Jack, but now holds this:
---
---
K x
K
All he can do is cash the club before giving me the AQ of diamonds. 9 tricks.
By all accounts, the boards were against us in the first set, so our team-mates were delighted when we offered +760, leaving us a little over 1700 ahead after six boards.
The second set was not as productive. The boards were against us here too, and our opponents were apt to cash in. They bid two good games. One was solid and the other needed a trump lead to beat it, which I don't blame Lessurl for not finding. We also had the dreaded +170 on a vulnerable board, although I'm not saying Game was cold there. The team was 1190 up at half time.
Playing at Table 3 all night, the third round was against the Nova Captain and his partner, one of Lessurl's regular partners. They started well, bidding a thin but cold vulnerable Game. I then failed to make a 4 Spades which wasn't there. This was the turning point:
K x x x
J
K
K Q 10 9 7 x x
A x x x
K Q x x
x x x x
2
Contract: 4 Spades Doubled by the bottom hand; AC lead.
This was the situation Lessurl faced. Immediately he knows he is hoping for a mis-defence. He gets it. His LHO, looking for the big penalty, leads a small heart to trick 2, underleading the ace. After overcoming his surprise when the Jack holds, Lessurl cashes the Ace and King of spades, with both opponents following both times. He now ruffs a small club - a necessary precaution as LHO led from a singleton. He plays the King of hearts, covered by the ace, and ruffs. He can now run clubs until the final spade appears, collecting +590, and +260 on the set overall.
It is always satisfying to get a plus score for a set where the boards are against you. However, this always requires luck. This was especially true on the last set, where the boards were so skewed against us that "par" would probably have been around the -2000 mark. But Lessurl managed to tempt a mistake from his RHO when playing a 4 Spades contract, and I played the following collection in 3NT:
K x
A 9 x x
x x x
J 9 7 4
A J 6 x
K 10 x
x x
A 6 5 2
You might well ask what on earth we are doing in 3NT. My RHO (McLeod Senior) opened 1 Spade (5 card suit), and Lessurl made a protective double. I failed to deduct 3 points from my hand, and blasted 3NT.
LHO dutifully led a spade, and I beat my Dad's queen with the ace. I have to take the view that if they find a diamond switch at any stage, I'm dead, so I better play as if they're not going to. I play the ten of hearts to set them up, as a minimum of three tricks are required from this suit. LHO plays small, and to my surprise, the ten holds the trick. So that's three spade tricks and three hearts now. I need three from clubs. I cash ace and another heart, and then play the 9 of clubs. Queen appears on my right. I cover with the ace and collect the three from LHO. I now play the 2, and the 8 appears from LHO. I play the 7, and the King comes down. RHO now plays a spade, and I have nine tricks.
My Dad felt that we'd been very "lucky" all night. Yes and no. Yes, there were some clear errors from his side. But then, we had to get ourselves in position to take advantage. That's what people mean when they say good players make their own luck. Mind you, I suppose the addage it is better to be lucky than smart also applies.
Not that we got it all our own way. Going into the last board of the night with a double game swing in the bag, we had +930. We were hoping to offer another "plus that should've been a minus". Unfortunately, our opponents bid the solidest of solid slams, so no such luck. We were -440, our Table 1 team-mates somehow were -190, which meant we were destined for a massive swing. It was enough to win 18-2.
That's it for Lessurl and me playing for Phoenix II this season. Next week, it's back to Phoenix Rising. But, as Lessurl joked, "we should have kept Phoenix II away from relegation". Phoenix I and II sit happily at 1st and 2nd place in Division 1 respectively. Certainly it was our most successful (and luckiest) night of the three.
Friday, 23 December 2011
Happy new Blog(?)
Perhaps I know what my New year resolution can be - update this properly. This is going to be yet another whistle-stop tour of everything I've done in the bridge world since November 4th, over two months ago. Oops. I had intended writing in late December, but never got there, and sank into bridge hibernation as Christmas and New Year passed. Eventually, last Tuesday, I raised my head out of the burrow to indulge in bridge once more, and won the session, playing with McLeod senior, with a score of 65%, which I was pleased with given some gross mistakes along the way.
But enough of that. Let's go back to the start.
We are still hangers on in the Phoenix Cup, having finished 5th = in Round 3 whilst the leaders took 3rd place. I haven't done the mathematical workings, but I am fairly sure we are still 2nd in the running. However, there is no margin of error, and we are moving towards the outside lane. It is difficult to get this particular pair of favourites to surrender the lead once they have it.
DISTRICT TEAMS OF FOUR
Rounds 2, 3 and 4 have been played. For Round 2, we drafted in a substitute to replace one of our players who unfortunately had to cancel out at the last minute. This made an already quite difficult task much harder. Our Round 2 opponents were HAY and WATSON - last year's winners and this year's only Ellon entry respectively.
As East-West, Lessurl and I played against the HAY team first. Last year, Jim Hay, who I credit as a coach and important influence on my bridge career, had a team that went through the entire competition unbeaten. Most of this team has still had some participation in this season, so his team were installed as favourites by the Conveners (half of whom is me). This year, however, there are chinks in the armour. They scored 26 out of a possible 40 in Round 1, losing their unbeaten run. Lessurl and I had a reasonable match against the North-South pair (Jim and Jun being out counterparts), although it might have been better had I taken the right view in a slam contract. In the end, we scraped 11 VPs.
We were firm favourites for our second set of twelve boards, against WATSON. This team finished 15th of 16 last season, and were seedings to be used throughout, would've been seeded 12 of 13 this time round. Obviously I have a soft spot for them as I know them from Ellon. Of course, there is a difference between being favourites and getting an "easy" match. The problem, as any "top dog" will tell you, is when the underdogs play a solid game. Certainly, they did not seem to be giving away anything spectacular. What was important was that we matched their solidity, and eventually wore them down. Things went right for us and we eventually did squeeze every IMP we could, taking a 20-0 win.
Round 3 was a mixed/mediocre affair. We won the match in which we were underdogs 17-3, but lost the other match (in which we were still underdogs, but not by as much) 16-4. I don't think we played well or badly; not much to write home about. After this we were 6th.
Round 4 was last night. Lessurl was given the night off, for happy reasons that I won't go into here. Thus I played with our second substitute of the season, and we had a lot of fun, trying to work out what each other's bids meant. This was especially evident in the first match we played, against USHER. Quite a few times we couldn't explain what partner intended, but we did at least manage to find the optimal spots, save for one Game that was just a stretch too far. We managed a thin Semi Slam and also picked up an 800 and 200 courtesy of tempting our opponents to go too high and bringing out the red card. Our team mates went rather overboard, bidding three slams, but at least they made one of them, and when the dust cleared we collected 18 VPs.
Our second match was against this season's leaders. Here, our bidding frailties were shown up and when we missed a slam, and then a Game, on consecutive boards, we were 13 IMPs behind with half the boards played. Cue the comeback.
After RHO opened 1 Diamond (third in), I made a takeout double based on my 4-4-1-4 shape as it was NOT based on my points. I felt this was safe as both LHO and partner were passed hands; my plan was to pass whatever partner bid. In fact he chose 2 Clubs, which suited me holding KQxx. RHO then got across his hand with a 4 Diamond bid. Pass-pass-? Partner thought a little bid, and eventually produced a double. I will remember to ask my regular partner how we play this, as I am not 100% sure and certainly wasn't sure with a first time partner. I was leaning towards penalties, simply because now is a strange time to look for another suit, when I have taken no action after my initial takeout double, and if he wants to play 5 Clubs, he has the option of bidding it. But I never had a dilemma. RHO now bids 5 Diamonds, worried that we are about to find our heart fit. It is a phantom sacrifice, as LHO has 6 hearts. When the bidding comes round to West, my somewhat surprised partner makes another double. Everyone knows this is business. Three off for 500 does nicely.
We then bid to a Game that wasn't there, so shipped out 7. After I opened 1 Spade on the next board, and responded to 1NT with a forcing 3 Spades which was passed, that really did look like the killer. I made 12 tricks for +230. Imagine my surprise when we scored that one up and gathered 7 IMPs. Thank you, team-mates, you've bailed us out again. A flat Game was next, followed by an unexpected +3. My partner was not happy with how he played a 1NT contract on that board, and the upshot was, completely unknown to us, going into the last board the match was tied at 24 IMPs each.
Partner opens 1 Heart (5cM). I hold:
x
x
Q 10 x
A K Q 10 9 7 x x
2 Clubs is my bid. (That was easy).
Partner makes a reverse bid of two spades. Hmm, I think I'll bid 3 Diamonds 4sf.
Partner bids 3 Spades. What now?
Have you worked out what your bid would be? This is not a test; I'm just interested how many people would've done what I did here. (I realise a fair number may not have agreed with my first two bids). My bid was... Six Clubs. Ace of diamonds lead; here is dummy:
A Q x x x
A K x x x x
x
J
I could not have really asked for better. If this was a play problem, the question would be: how do you play once LHO switches to a club at trick 2?
Instead, LHO continued a low diamond. I ruffed with the Jack in dummy, cashed the ace of spades and ruffed a spade with the 9. I claimed: draw trumps in as many rounds as necessary, cross to the ace of hearts and pitch the diamond on the king. 10 IMPs here got us 14 VPs.
When the results are all accounted, we see there is something of a gap in VP totals between 8th and 9th - in other words, the top 8 and the bottom 5. Some will argue that any of the top 8 are still in with a chance of winning. Since we were playing the best team in the bottom five, who are more or less guaranteed a 9th place finish the way things are going, and the team that has led from the outset (although they were 1st= after round 1), we consider 32 a great night's work. We currently lie 5th; not high enough to trouble the leaders I feel, but what else is there to play for?
The aforementioned WATSON and HAY played each other last night, with a 13-7 win for WATSON. Congratulations to them; that is the biggest shock that I can remember in this competition. I will say I know nothing about the match or how the result came about. Others will say I could've stopped after the first six words of that last sentence.
Things are certainly interesting. It still remains in MOWAT's hands. Their grip may have slipped a little with a defeat last night, but we are the only team that has managed to beat them so far, and every other team has lost more than one match so far. We are one of only three teams that have only lost two matches. The resurgent ROSS team has come back from a disastrous 6/40 in Round 1 to climb into second place with scores of 37, 38 and 35. HAY sits 3rd and will play MOWAT and ROSS on the final night. McGUIRE, who hammered us 17-3 on the first night, still have title aspirations, and we sit 5 behind them. Don't get me wrong - I intend to win the Sybil Hay District Teams of Four one day. But I'm not putting money on it being this year.
HIGHLAND BRIDGE CONGRESS; COYLUMBRIDGE
This Congress is already a favourite of mine - perhaps because of everything that comes with it. (The company, etc, etc). It really deserved a blog post of its own, but unfortunately I never got round to it, and giving hands from it now seems just a wee bit off - although there are plenty good ones.
Having missed out on the Pairs Final by one place last year, we made sure of it this time, qualifying as First in our section. Our bridge was solid for the first two thirds of the evening, and it seemed that was enough. By the time McLeod Senior broke free of the reins and took some actions that I'd rather he didn't, we must've been in the Final.
We even started the Final pretty well, but before we reached the half way stage, partner suddenly decided he wanted to play in a Slam missing an ace and three kings and came crashing down. Now we all know that playing Match Points, all you do is get back up and carry on. But a combination of bad luck and bad bridge ensured we never really did that, or by the time we did, we finished just shy of the top 3rd. Apparently this was just high enough to get 2 reds, which I gratefully accept. Phoenix pair Bill Ross and Emily Garden were Runners-Up for the 2nd year running.
The teams went well too. I thought we had a predominantly good card, and whether right or wrong about that, we qualified for the final. We raised our game for the final, and were rewarded with a 3rd place finish.
LEAGUE TEAMS OF EIGHT
So far, not so good for Phoenix Rising this year. It has been a hard battle just getting the matches organised, not to mention actually playing them. We agreed 18th December to play Banchory, and despite snow finally hitting Aberdeen on that day, we played the match. We fielded our youngest ever team and, in fairness, it showed. Division 2 is a step up in class from Division 3, one that some of our players were not quite ready for. We lost 17-3, and are rooted to the bottom of the table. For avoidance of doubt, our season's objective is to stay up.
On the plus side, we have a match in hand over most teams. Our match with Fraserburgh has been postponed until the spring. There is still a lot to play for. Our next match is against Torphins, and I will field as young a team as I can for that one too.
PHOENIX TEAMS OF FOUR
This is the Phoenix Club's premier event, and two rounds of three have been played since I last checked in. It is run as a Double Elimination event, with sixteen board matches. The first round was a random draw, and as we were drawn against one of the possible favourites, one win and one draw was the best we could hope for. It was close - the one win was by 2 IMPs; we scraped into Section B for Round 2.
This was slightly different. One potential winning team was in our section, but the other team we were up against was an outright underdog. Lessurl and I did not cover ourselves in glory, but somehow (I think with a lot of thanks to our team mates), we won the match comfortably. While Lessurl and I played the underdogs, there was a change to the team line-up of the other team, which suited us as it turned out. We won both matches on the night and therefore qualified for the Semi-Finals in Round 3.
CAMROSE
I write this with three of five matches completed in the first weekend of the Camrose. Scotland emerged on top in the battle between themselves and the SBU, although I understand it went right to the wire. Both Scottish teams got a crack at England today. SBU led by more than thirty IMPs half way through, but eventually lost convincingly. Scotland were down at Half time, but could (and should) have grabbed a draw in the second half.
This morning, Scotland found themselves 41 IMPs behind Wales before all of us were wide awake and ready to watch. The deficit was shortened by the end of 32 boards, but Wales still took the spoils. They followed that up with the aforementioned narrow defeat to England, so I'm crossing my fingers that they fire on all cylinders against both Irish teams from the outset tomorrow.
As for the SBU, they finished the day by grabbing their first win, against ROI, so hopefully the improvement continues into Sunday.
Bottom line: Neither Scottish side are doing well right now, but there is still time for that to change completely. Fingers crossed.
So, Happy New Year.
I hope 2012 is very prosperous.
As for the Bridge, I live in hope. We (my Dad & I) followed up our Tuesday win with a win at Phoenix on Thursday, with significant help from our team-mates. Coupled with last night, it seems I'm unbeaten in 2012, so long may that continue. After all, it's the final of the Rayne next week.
But enough of that. Let's go back to the start.
We are still hangers on in the Phoenix Cup, having finished 5th = in Round 3 whilst the leaders took 3rd place. I haven't done the mathematical workings, but I am fairly sure we are still 2nd in the running. However, there is no margin of error, and we are moving towards the outside lane. It is difficult to get this particular pair of favourites to surrender the lead once they have it.
DISTRICT TEAMS OF FOUR
Rounds 2, 3 and 4 have been played. For Round 2, we drafted in a substitute to replace one of our players who unfortunately had to cancel out at the last minute. This made an already quite difficult task much harder. Our Round 2 opponents were HAY and WATSON - last year's winners and this year's only Ellon entry respectively.
As East-West, Lessurl and I played against the HAY team first. Last year, Jim Hay, who I credit as a coach and important influence on my bridge career, had a team that went through the entire competition unbeaten. Most of this team has still had some participation in this season, so his team were installed as favourites by the Conveners (half of whom is me). This year, however, there are chinks in the armour. They scored 26 out of a possible 40 in Round 1, losing their unbeaten run. Lessurl and I had a reasonable match against the North-South pair (Jim and Jun being out counterparts), although it might have been better had I taken the right view in a slam contract. In the end, we scraped 11 VPs.
We were firm favourites for our second set of twelve boards, against WATSON. This team finished 15th of 16 last season, and were seedings to be used throughout, would've been seeded 12 of 13 this time round. Obviously I have a soft spot for them as I know them from Ellon. Of course, there is a difference between being favourites and getting an "easy" match. The problem, as any "top dog" will tell you, is when the underdogs play a solid game. Certainly, they did not seem to be giving away anything spectacular. What was important was that we matched their solidity, and eventually wore them down. Things went right for us and we eventually did squeeze every IMP we could, taking a 20-0 win.
Round 3 was a mixed/mediocre affair. We won the match in which we were underdogs 17-3, but lost the other match (in which we were still underdogs, but not by as much) 16-4. I don't think we played well or badly; not much to write home about. After this we were 6th.
Round 4 was last night. Lessurl was given the night off, for happy reasons that I won't go into here. Thus I played with our second substitute of the season, and we had a lot of fun, trying to work out what each other's bids meant. This was especially evident in the first match we played, against USHER. Quite a few times we couldn't explain what partner intended, but we did at least manage to find the optimal spots, save for one Game that was just a stretch too far. We managed a thin Semi Slam and also picked up an 800 and 200 courtesy of tempting our opponents to go too high and bringing out the red card. Our team mates went rather overboard, bidding three slams, but at least they made one of them, and when the dust cleared we collected 18 VPs.
Our second match was against this season's leaders. Here, our bidding frailties were shown up and when we missed a slam, and then a Game, on consecutive boards, we were 13 IMPs behind with half the boards played. Cue the comeback.
After RHO opened 1 Diamond (third in), I made a takeout double based on my 4-4-1-4 shape as it was NOT based on my points. I felt this was safe as both LHO and partner were passed hands; my plan was to pass whatever partner bid. In fact he chose 2 Clubs, which suited me holding KQxx. RHO then got across his hand with a 4 Diamond bid. Pass-pass-? Partner thought a little bid, and eventually produced a double. I will remember to ask my regular partner how we play this, as I am not 100% sure and certainly wasn't sure with a first time partner. I was leaning towards penalties, simply because now is a strange time to look for another suit, when I have taken no action after my initial takeout double, and if he wants to play 5 Clubs, he has the option of bidding it. But I never had a dilemma. RHO now bids 5 Diamonds, worried that we are about to find our heart fit. It is a phantom sacrifice, as LHO has 6 hearts. When the bidding comes round to West, my somewhat surprised partner makes another double. Everyone knows this is business. Three off for 500 does nicely.
We then bid to a Game that wasn't there, so shipped out 7. After I opened 1 Spade on the next board, and responded to 1NT with a forcing 3 Spades which was passed, that really did look like the killer. I made 12 tricks for +230. Imagine my surprise when we scored that one up and gathered 7 IMPs. Thank you, team-mates, you've bailed us out again. A flat Game was next, followed by an unexpected +3. My partner was not happy with how he played a 1NT contract on that board, and the upshot was, completely unknown to us, going into the last board the match was tied at 24 IMPs each.
Partner opens 1 Heart (5cM). I hold:
x
x
Q 10 x
A K Q 10 9 7 x x
2 Clubs is my bid. (That was easy).
Partner makes a reverse bid of two spades. Hmm, I think I'll bid 3 Diamonds 4sf.
Partner bids 3 Spades. What now?
Have you worked out what your bid would be? This is not a test; I'm just interested how many people would've done what I did here. (I realise a fair number may not have agreed with my first two bids). My bid was... Six Clubs. Ace of diamonds lead; here is dummy:
A Q x x x
A K x x x x
x
J
I could not have really asked for better. If this was a play problem, the question would be: how do you play once LHO switches to a club at trick 2?
Instead, LHO continued a low diamond. I ruffed with the Jack in dummy, cashed the ace of spades and ruffed a spade with the 9. I claimed: draw trumps in as many rounds as necessary, cross to the ace of hearts and pitch the diamond on the king. 10 IMPs here got us 14 VPs.
When the results are all accounted, we see there is something of a gap in VP totals between 8th and 9th - in other words, the top 8 and the bottom 5. Some will argue that any of the top 8 are still in with a chance of winning. Since we were playing the best team in the bottom five, who are more or less guaranteed a 9th place finish the way things are going, and the team that has led from the outset (although they were 1st= after round 1), we consider 32 a great night's work. We currently lie 5th; not high enough to trouble the leaders I feel, but what else is there to play for?
The aforementioned WATSON and HAY played each other last night, with a 13-7 win for WATSON. Congratulations to them; that is the biggest shock that I can remember in this competition. I will say I know nothing about the match or how the result came about. Others will say I could've stopped after the first six words of that last sentence.
Things are certainly interesting. It still remains in MOWAT's hands. Their grip may have slipped a little with a defeat last night, but we are the only team that has managed to beat them so far, and every other team has lost more than one match so far. We are one of only three teams that have only lost two matches. The resurgent ROSS team has come back from a disastrous 6/40 in Round 1 to climb into second place with scores of 37, 38 and 35. HAY sits 3rd and will play MOWAT and ROSS on the final night. McGUIRE, who hammered us 17-3 on the first night, still have title aspirations, and we sit 5 behind them. Don't get me wrong - I intend to win the Sybil Hay District Teams of Four one day. But I'm not putting money on it being this year.
HIGHLAND BRIDGE CONGRESS; COYLUMBRIDGE
This Congress is already a favourite of mine - perhaps because of everything that comes with it. (The company, etc, etc). It really deserved a blog post of its own, but unfortunately I never got round to it, and giving hands from it now seems just a wee bit off - although there are plenty good ones.
Having missed out on the Pairs Final by one place last year, we made sure of it this time, qualifying as First in our section. Our bridge was solid for the first two thirds of the evening, and it seemed that was enough. By the time McLeod Senior broke free of the reins and took some actions that I'd rather he didn't, we must've been in the Final.
We even started the Final pretty well, but before we reached the half way stage, partner suddenly decided he wanted to play in a Slam missing an ace and three kings and came crashing down. Now we all know that playing Match Points, all you do is get back up and carry on. But a combination of bad luck and bad bridge ensured we never really did that, or by the time we did, we finished just shy of the top 3rd. Apparently this was just high enough to get 2 reds, which I gratefully accept. Phoenix pair Bill Ross and Emily Garden were Runners-Up for the 2nd year running.
The teams went well too. I thought we had a predominantly good card, and whether right or wrong about that, we qualified for the final. We raised our game for the final, and were rewarded with a 3rd place finish.
LEAGUE TEAMS OF EIGHT
So far, not so good for Phoenix Rising this year. It has been a hard battle just getting the matches organised, not to mention actually playing them. We agreed 18th December to play Banchory, and despite snow finally hitting Aberdeen on that day, we played the match. We fielded our youngest ever team and, in fairness, it showed. Division 2 is a step up in class from Division 3, one that some of our players were not quite ready for. We lost 17-3, and are rooted to the bottom of the table. For avoidance of doubt, our season's objective is to stay up.
On the plus side, we have a match in hand over most teams. Our match with Fraserburgh has been postponed until the spring. There is still a lot to play for. Our next match is against Torphins, and I will field as young a team as I can for that one too.
PHOENIX TEAMS OF FOUR
This is the Phoenix Club's premier event, and two rounds of three have been played since I last checked in. It is run as a Double Elimination event, with sixteen board matches. The first round was a random draw, and as we were drawn against one of the possible favourites, one win and one draw was the best we could hope for. It was close - the one win was by 2 IMPs; we scraped into Section B for Round 2.
This was slightly different. One potential winning team was in our section, but the other team we were up against was an outright underdog. Lessurl and I did not cover ourselves in glory, but somehow (I think with a lot of thanks to our team mates), we won the match comfortably. While Lessurl and I played the underdogs, there was a change to the team line-up of the other team, which suited us as it turned out. We won both matches on the night and therefore qualified for the Semi-Finals in Round 3.
CAMROSE
I write this with three of five matches completed in the first weekend of the Camrose. Scotland emerged on top in the battle between themselves and the SBU, although I understand it went right to the wire. Both Scottish teams got a crack at England today. SBU led by more than thirty IMPs half way through, but eventually lost convincingly. Scotland were down at Half time, but could (and should) have grabbed a draw in the second half.
This morning, Scotland found themselves 41 IMPs behind Wales before all of us were wide awake and ready to watch. The deficit was shortened by the end of 32 boards, but Wales still took the spoils. They followed that up with the aforementioned narrow defeat to England, so I'm crossing my fingers that they fire on all cylinders against both Irish teams from the outset tomorrow.
As for the SBU, they finished the day by grabbing their first win, against ROI, so hopefully the improvement continues into Sunday.
Bottom line: Neither Scottish side are doing well right now, but there is still time for that to change completely. Fingers crossed.
So, Happy New Year.
I hope 2012 is very prosperous.
As for the Bridge, I live in hope. We (my Dad & I) followed up our Tuesday win with a win at Phoenix on Thursday, with significant help from our team-mates. Coupled with last night, it seems I'm unbeaten in 2012, so long may that continue. After all, it's the final of the Rayne next week.
Friday, 28 October 2011
Another catch-up
So, two and a half weeks since my last post makes another hiatus - so many things have happened since then, all of them worthy of their own post. But no; I haven't got round to writing, so a lot of subjects have to be covered. I'll start with the
Phoenix Cup
At the end of my last post, we'd just finished the first round. Last night was the second round. Lessurl and I are still hanging onto the coat-tails of the leaders, Jim and Jun. The gap has not widened any, as we tied for first place last night. But we will have extended the lead on those behind us - if only slightly in some cases. Whereas in the last round there was no point in looking back, this time I can't help it, since one more Match Point would've sufficed.
Qxx
Q8xxx
xx
Axx
Here is a decision I lived to regret. It was in the last round - the very round after a good round against Jim and Jun (or a round that seemed good but was in fact a draw, so I guess a fair result). Partner opened 1 Club (Better Minor) and bid 1NT over my 1 Heart reply. Initially I reckon 2 Hearts is my bid - gets across my five hearts and that I don't have a Game-going hand as I didn't Check Back. Then I remember it is Match Points, and NT should score better, given lessurl may not have any real support for hearts and should have a diamond stop. So I pass, and am thoroughly disappointed to see 5 diamond tricks cashed by RHO off the top. The eventual one down was a bottom.
Never mind, there was still plenty good stuff. Not that I'll talk (boast?) about it here, but let's look at the first two hands we played, as they were quite interesting.
J x x x
A K Q x x
? ? ?
K
A Q x x x
J x x
? ? ? ?
A x
Yeah, first hand - long time ago, I can't remember the diamond position other than the fact that when the hand went down I had no losers there. This board was played 6 times. Half of the pairs our way played (justifiably) in 6 Spades. We were in 4 Spades (my hand, Declarer, bottom), and the spades broke 0-4. I couldn't avoid two losers although I do remember I deliberately ruffed the Ace of Clubs. It's one of those occasions when you're relieved to see a bad break against you.
The second hand was a point of Match Point bidding. After two passes to me, I opened 1 Heart with 5 hearts and nine HCPs. This met with a 1 Spade overcall, thus initiating our special defence. Lessurl bid 3 Diamonds (alerted), and it is passed to me. I say 3 Hearts (minimum sign-off). LHO asks about the 3 Diamonds; I explain it is normally strong with 4 card support, but in this sequence must be a maximum pass with 4 card support. RHO throws in 3 Spades which is passed twice and gets a "pairs double" from Lessurl. The contract went down by 1 trick. The double was the difference between top and second top, as the only other plus score for our direction was a 50 for beating 3 Spades (undoubled) by one. In pairs we often talk about a narrow margin of error. There is a narrow margin of success equally.
Although not favourites to be the "best pair" in the Phoenix Cup, we did win the Phoenix Summer Pairs trophy - I think largely thanks to turning up over the summer. Still, a trophy is a trophy and deserved too I feel. So we're going to keep up the chase in the Phoenix Cup. That will be possible if we don't have a night like the....
National Pairs
From our point of view, the less said about this, the better. Entries were slim; some of the reasons I accept and some of the reasons I don't. In most cases the reasons I do not know. The field was random. Don't get me wrong - most - but not all - players were accomplished players that are always difficult to beat. But some were there to throw in strange results to skew the scores somewhat. A complete underdog won the event, which I am pleased about. What I am not pleased about is that lessurl and I came in dead last, although anyone who had kibitzed our evening might well have concluded we were trying to do just that.
District Teams of 4
The Sybil Hay as we call it, is in a new format thanks to yours truly. Well, not really. We had 13 entries so we cut our cloth to suit. We wanted to keep the all-play-all format, but we didn't want people sitting out. Thus we are running a scrambled American Whist movement, so that we can have each team playing 2 complete matches a night. (If I was as good at bridge as I was at fixtures and movements, I'd probably be somewhat better...) Still, the increased length of matches (12 boards) has been generally well received. We had one win and one disappointing loss, above average overall. However, the 20-0 win was against the outright underdog, so we didn't emerge with too much credit.
District League Teams of 8
I wear two hats in this competition - Phoenix Rising Captain and League Convener. Both roles have been tested so far. Phoenix Rising have not yet played a match, and I am in the process of trying to get a team out to Fraserburgh on the 25th November. That is by far the most difficult match organisationally. I also have a match against Banchory to arrange. Meanwhile, in our league, Fraserburgh beat Ellon 13-7, and Bridge Club Tartan play against Torphins tonight. Yes, that's right - Torphins were promoted as well as us to Division 2. One team from last season's First Division withdrew and re-start in Division 3.
The team may experience something of a "culture shock" (I don't think that's the term but I don't know what is). Last season the juniors could compete and our more experienced players could bring the team on and win matches comfortably. There is a gulf in class between Division 3 and Division 2, and this year we will do well if we avoid relegation. It doesn't help when certain individuals underestimate the strength of Division 2 teams and expect us to walk to promotion. We do not have strength in depth. Whilst it is true that our four best players would most likely beat the four best players from one of the other teams in a Scottish Cup match, our next four are nowhere near as experienced. Besides which, we are going to be fielding younger teams than we did last season (if possible). And how would we respond to defeat? Some of our players have never tasted defeat in the Teams of 8. (I have; I've played for Ellon).
Being Convener is not without its challenges. Already I have had decisions to make that I did not expect, but all in all, things are running smoothly. I am quite happy to advise players and Captains on matters of rules etc, and have done so on a couple of occasions. There has been a minor "breach" of the rules, but, unforeseen circumstances applied and common sense will prevail. The rules I wrote allow for that; no harm has been done. On a couple of occasions I have seen the result on the website before receiving the Match result sheet; again, no problem there as long as the Match result Sheet arrives. There may be an interesting season ahead.
That's the blog all caught up again. I'll try to write in a week's time or less as there is another couple of big events coming up - one which I'll definitely be involved in and one which I hope to be involved in. Also, at the weekend, Jim and Jun are competing in the final stage of the trials. I'm rooting for them and will be delighted if they make the top 6. So I'll be keeping a keen eye on that too.
Phoenix Cup
At the end of my last post, we'd just finished the first round. Last night was the second round. Lessurl and I are still hanging onto the coat-tails of the leaders, Jim and Jun. The gap has not widened any, as we tied for first place last night. But we will have extended the lead on those behind us - if only slightly in some cases. Whereas in the last round there was no point in looking back, this time I can't help it, since one more Match Point would've sufficed.
Qxx
Q8xxx
xx
Axx
Here is a decision I lived to regret. It was in the last round - the very round after a good round against Jim and Jun (or a round that seemed good but was in fact a draw, so I guess a fair result). Partner opened 1 Club (Better Minor) and bid 1NT over my 1 Heart reply. Initially I reckon 2 Hearts is my bid - gets across my five hearts and that I don't have a Game-going hand as I didn't Check Back. Then I remember it is Match Points, and NT should score better, given lessurl may not have any real support for hearts and should have a diamond stop. So I pass, and am thoroughly disappointed to see 5 diamond tricks cashed by RHO off the top. The eventual one down was a bottom.
Never mind, there was still plenty good stuff. Not that I'll talk (boast?) about it here, but let's look at the first two hands we played, as they were quite interesting.
J x x x
A K Q x x
? ? ?
K
A Q x x x
J x x
? ? ? ?
A x
Yeah, first hand - long time ago, I can't remember the diamond position other than the fact that when the hand went down I had no losers there. This board was played 6 times. Half of the pairs our way played (justifiably) in 6 Spades. We were in 4 Spades (my hand, Declarer, bottom), and the spades broke 0-4. I couldn't avoid two losers although I do remember I deliberately ruffed the Ace of Clubs. It's one of those occasions when you're relieved to see a bad break against you.
The second hand was a point of Match Point bidding. After two passes to me, I opened 1 Heart with 5 hearts and nine HCPs. This met with a 1 Spade overcall, thus initiating our special defence. Lessurl bid 3 Diamonds (alerted), and it is passed to me. I say 3 Hearts (minimum sign-off). LHO asks about the 3 Diamonds; I explain it is normally strong with 4 card support, but in this sequence must be a maximum pass with 4 card support. RHO throws in 3 Spades which is passed twice and gets a "pairs double" from Lessurl. The contract went down by 1 trick. The double was the difference between top and second top, as the only other plus score for our direction was a 50 for beating 3 Spades (undoubled) by one. In pairs we often talk about a narrow margin of error. There is a narrow margin of success equally.
Although not favourites to be the "best pair" in the Phoenix Cup, we did win the Phoenix Summer Pairs trophy - I think largely thanks to turning up over the summer. Still, a trophy is a trophy and deserved too I feel. So we're going to keep up the chase in the Phoenix Cup. That will be possible if we don't have a night like the....
National Pairs
From our point of view, the less said about this, the better. Entries were slim; some of the reasons I accept and some of the reasons I don't. In most cases the reasons I do not know. The field was random. Don't get me wrong - most - but not all - players were accomplished players that are always difficult to beat. But some were there to throw in strange results to skew the scores somewhat. A complete underdog won the event, which I am pleased about. What I am not pleased about is that lessurl and I came in dead last, although anyone who had kibitzed our evening might well have concluded we were trying to do just that.
District Teams of 4
The Sybil Hay as we call it, is in a new format thanks to yours truly. Well, not really. We had 13 entries so we cut our cloth to suit. We wanted to keep the all-play-all format, but we didn't want people sitting out. Thus we are running a scrambled American Whist movement, so that we can have each team playing 2 complete matches a night. (If I was as good at bridge as I was at fixtures and movements, I'd probably be somewhat better...) Still, the increased length of matches (12 boards) has been generally well received. We had one win and one disappointing loss, above average overall. However, the 20-0 win was against the outright underdog, so we didn't emerge with too much credit.
District League Teams of 8
I wear two hats in this competition - Phoenix Rising Captain and League Convener. Both roles have been tested so far. Phoenix Rising have not yet played a match, and I am in the process of trying to get a team out to Fraserburgh on the 25th November. That is by far the most difficult match organisationally. I also have a match against Banchory to arrange. Meanwhile, in our league, Fraserburgh beat Ellon 13-7, and Bridge Club Tartan play against Torphins tonight. Yes, that's right - Torphins were promoted as well as us to Division 2. One team from last season's First Division withdrew and re-start in Division 3.
The team may experience something of a "culture shock" (I don't think that's the term but I don't know what is). Last season the juniors could compete and our more experienced players could bring the team on and win matches comfortably. There is a gulf in class between Division 3 and Division 2, and this year we will do well if we avoid relegation. It doesn't help when certain individuals underestimate the strength of Division 2 teams and expect us to walk to promotion. We do not have strength in depth. Whilst it is true that our four best players would most likely beat the four best players from one of the other teams in a Scottish Cup match, our next four are nowhere near as experienced. Besides which, we are going to be fielding younger teams than we did last season (if possible). And how would we respond to defeat? Some of our players have never tasted defeat in the Teams of 8. (I have; I've played for Ellon).
Being Convener is not without its challenges. Already I have had decisions to make that I did not expect, but all in all, things are running smoothly. I am quite happy to advise players and Captains on matters of rules etc, and have done so on a couple of occasions. There has been a minor "breach" of the rules, but, unforeseen circumstances applied and common sense will prevail. The rules I wrote allow for that; no harm has been done. On a couple of occasions I have seen the result on the website before receiving the Match result sheet; again, no problem there as long as the Match result Sheet arrives. There may be an interesting season ahead.
That's the blog all caught up again. I'll try to write in a week's time or less as there is another couple of big events coming up - one which I'll definitely be involved in and one which I hope to be involved in. Also, at the weekend, Jim and Jun are competing in the final stage of the trials. I'm rooting for them and will be delighted if they make the top 6. So I'll be keeping a keen eye on that too.
Monday, 12 September 2011
Summer remembered
MISSING: Great big fireball; the result of a combination of burning gasses, 870000 miles wide, up to 27 million degrees farenheit hot. Also known as the sun. Has anybody seen this thing? In Scotland, where I live, it is said that it shows itself once every year in something called Summer. Or is that just a girl's name these days?
All right; I know: I can talk. Truth of the matter is that the sun has made more apperances this summer than I have on this blog. Well there's a reason for that. In fact there are several. Number One: Nobody reads this (not that I'm complaining; I genuinely prefer it that way - I dread the day when somebody actually starts following this and I will have to start writing something interesting and/or witty), so there is no need to hurry. Two: Not much happens in the world of bridge in the summer. Three: This is very difficult to maintain with only one computer on which to work and lots of things to do. Anyway, let's get on with a recap of what has been happening in the world of bridge (relevant to my life) over the summer, since quite a lot of things have happened since - um - February.
So, update on bridge things I give a damn about. Phoenix Rising won Division 3 last season. They did it with scores of 15, 20, 19, 15 and 20. Well deserved winners I feel. I was rather disappointed that due to call-offs and illness and players availability on different days, we never managed to produce an all-junior team (as I think, were our opponents), but I did my best and I might (just might) have a larger pool of players to pick from this year. But instead of simply shooting anyone who questions the strength of the teams I pick, I have decided to publish an actual selection policy which shall remain in place until such time as somebody else takes on the Captaincy or circumstances make it unfeasible. That selection policy is thus:
1. Every member of the team pool shall be guaranteed at least one match every season, as long as they can take up their place in the team if and when selected. This guarantee is optional and players who do not require such a promise may be exempt.
2. The team shall consist of as many juniors as are available, up to a full compliment of juniors if 8 or more are available. Note: "available" may also entail "able to get to the venue".
3. Subject to the parameters imposed by Conditions 1 and 2, the strongest possible team shall be fielded for each match. This is a courtesy and responsibility we have to all of our opponents.
Done.
Now then, where was I?
Ah yes, I suspect that the ethos and line-up of Phoenix Rising last season sparked a lot of questions about the League Rules. (I should know, I was answering them). This meant that the league rules had to be re-written. That was a job for the League Convner. With the League Convener stepping down, which so-and-so would take on this unenviable mantle? Ah yes - me. I suppose I was a good candidate for the position - I doubt anybody re-read the rules more times, or spent more time on league business last season, than me. Anyway, the rules are now on the North District website for all to see. And if anyone wants to ask me any questions regarding the rules, they must feel free to do so. However, I must warn them: I promise that I will answer the question properly.
Ellon, on the other hand... Well, Ellon stayed up (small thanks to me), despite losing all three of their 2011 matches. The loss to Banchory (which I actually blogged about) was particularly galling simply because of the margin of loss (the narrowest possible). I was also involved in the Bridge Club Tartan match... I say "involved", but really, I don't think anything I did was ever going to stop us losing. We are on a somewhat muted recruitment drive, so if any bridge players from the area are interested, could they please get themselves along to the club on a Monday night from October through March, and/or contact the club secretary (me again) for more details.
What else has happened? Well, lessurl got his first taste of an SBU Congress when we played the Central District Congress at Montrose. This is not the first time Montrose and the town's Bridge Club will get a mention in this post, so I'll get it off my chest now: Montrose impressed me as a picturesque, quaint little town that is truly a gem on the Scottish East coast. What a lovely place. I have nothing but good things to say about the place and I'm not surprised the Central District choose to hold their congresses there. And as for Montrose Bridge Club, what lovely people. I've met quite a lot of them now and the club exudes the aura of exactly what a Bridge Club should be. (Disclaimer: I've never been to one of their club nights; this opinion is formed solely on meeting them during events at Montrose and looking at their website). Tangent over. Lessurl got his first taste of an SBU congress at the CD Congress. We made the mistake of qualifying for the Pairs Final (with the best score of any of the qualifiers) and the Teams Final too, with the result that lessurl is now under the impression we're supposed to do that in every Congress. Oops.
Lessurl and I won the Summer Pairs Trophy at Phoenix. Woop Woop! I'm very pleased with that because we have put a lot of work into improving our selves and our partnership and I certainly think thatwe lessurl deserves credit.
Now, this is a recap blog, where I talk about major bridge things in my life since the last time I posted. So, I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't say SOMETHING about the trials. Yes, we were there. I forgot to take a picture of our names at the top of the leaderboard (they were there from Rounds 2 to 5 inclusive), but if the pattern of the last two years continues, I'll get another chance next year when we lead the way only to berobbed of qualification through a twist of fate rather unlucky and fall away before the end. I'm not delusional; I know that this year, as last year, we upset a few people not just by turning up but also by not having the good grace to lie down and finish bottom. And I'm not saying that had we not been robbed of 144 X-IMPs we wouldn't have qualified. But I daresay we'd still have been in the running for qualification before being humped in the last match, which in itself is surely a quality that anyone aspiring to be in a Scottish football team should have, not to mention in-keeping with the pattern of last year. So, I reserve the right to stick my oar in to the debate that is raging in various circles right now at a later date. But for now, the only thing I wish to convey about the trials this year is sincere congratulations to my coach and mentor on qualifying for the next stage, playing with his young partner James Hay. Congratulations also to the Selection Committee and directing staff who handled the whole weekend, as well as Walkoutgate very well, not to mention all that is good about the Carlton Bridge Club as a venue.
I will end on a high note: The Inchbrayock Swiss Teams. This was hosted by Montrose Bridge Club. Now, I daresay they will come under fire for some misboarding and mis-scoring issues. However, not from me. Yes, mistakes were made. IT HAPPENS. I know they were doing their best and they put a lot of work into making the event the best it could be. This was the first time the event was played as a Swiss Teams and there were teething troubles. But overall, it was still an event well worth playing in. I'll run through the event from my POV. First round we were a bit unlucky. We played against a quality team and our team mates (playing their first ever boards together) did not find the solid 7NT their way which would've swung the match in our favour. Get the same board in the last round and possibly they would have. We cancelled out our 6 in Round 1 with a 14 in Round 2. Then we played another Aberdeen team (having already lost to one) and lost 8-12 with fault on all sides. A small tea break was the best we could have, since an actual meal would have pushed the entrance fee up substantially. In Round 4, we missed out on a 20-0 win by one IMP. This match was notable for the slams lessurl and I did NOT bid. All three were bad slams (less than 50%) and made on the lie of the cards (and on one occasion on the opening lead), so we were pleased with ourselves, and the bonus of having 5 Hearts Doubled making an overtrick. We thought that would be substantial enough to keep us out of the triangle for rounds 5 and 6, but no. Still, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. We used the situation to our advantage, gathering a 17 and a 20, for a Grand Total of 84. We also avoided the misboarding issues that affected Tables 1 to 14. Finishing before everyone not in the triangle, we worked out that we could swing first place provided Bill Ross scored anything between 10 and 13 inclusive in the last match. Bill duly obliged, and first place was ours. Or was it? The team was getting excited as it was announced that 2nd place had a score of 82. I warned against counting our chickens before they were hatched and my caution was well placed. First place went to a completely different team! They had also amassed 84, but we had to be the villains of the piece by pointing out that we had also scored 84. For some reason, our 17 had not been counted and when everything was checked, we took first place on a split-tie of total IMPs, having not played the other team. Congratulations to my team mates egg46, 009domino and lessurl.
That's all folks.
Unless you can spot the deliberate grammatical error.
Oh, and look out for a posting to the effect of "Summer remembered 2", where I talk about everything I forgot to talk about in this post.
All right; I know: I can talk. Truth of the matter is that the sun has made more apperances this summer than I have on this blog. Well there's a reason for that. In fact there are several. Number One: Nobody reads this (not that I'm complaining; I genuinely prefer it that way - I dread the day when somebody actually starts following this and I will have to start writing something interesting and/or witty), so there is no need to hurry. Two: Not much happens in the world of bridge in the summer. Three: This is very difficult to maintain with only one computer on which to work and lots of things to do. Anyway, let's get on with a recap of what has been happening in the world of bridge (relevant to my life) over the summer, since quite a lot of things have happened since - um - February.
So, update on bridge things I give a damn about. Phoenix Rising won Division 3 last season. They did it with scores of 15, 20, 19, 15 and 20. Well deserved winners I feel. I was rather disappointed that due to call-offs and illness and players availability on different days, we never managed to produce an all-junior team (as I think, were our opponents), but I did my best and I might (just might) have a larger pool of players to pick from this year. But instead of simply shooting anyone who questions the strength of the teams I pick, I have decided to publish an actual selection policy which shall remain in place until such time as somebody else takes on the Captaincy or circumstances make it unfeasible. That selection policy is thus:
1. Every member of the team pool shall be guaranteed at least one match every season, as long as they can take up their place in the team if and when selected. This guarantee is optional and players who do not require such a promise may be exempt.
2. The team shall consist of as many juniors as are available, up to a full compliment of juniors if 8 or more are available. Note: "available" may also entail "able to get to the venue".
3. Subject to the parameters imposed by Conditions 1 and 2, the strongest possible team shall be fielded for each match. This is a courtesy and responsibility we have to all of our opponents.
Done.
Now then, where was I?
Ah yes, I suspect that the ethos and line-up of Phoenix Rising last season sparked a lot of questions about the League Rules. (I should know, I was answering them). This meant that the league rules had to be re-written. That was a job for the League Convner. With the League Convener stepping down, which so-and-so would take on this unenviable mantle? Ah yes - me. I suppose I was a good candidate for the position - I doubt anybody re-read the rules more times, or spent more time on league business last season, than me. Anyway, the rules are now on the North District website for all to see. And if anyone wants to ask me any questions regarding the rules, they must feel free to do so. However, I must warn them: I promise that I will answer the question properly.
Ellon, on the other hand... Well, Ellon stayed up (small thanks to me), despite losing all three of their 2011 matches. The loss to Banchory (which I actually blogged about) was particularly galling simply because of the margin of loss (the narrowest possible). I was also involved in the Bridge Club Tartan match... I say "involved", but really, I don't think anything I did was ever going to stop us losing. We are on a somewhat muted recruitment drive, so if any bridge players from the area are interested, could they please get themselves along to the club on a Monday night from October through March, and/or contact the club secretary (me again) for more details.
What else has happened? Well, lessurl got his first taste of an SBU Congress when we played the Central District Congress at Montrose. This is not the first time Montrose and the town's Bridge Club will get a mention in this post, so I'll get it off my chest now: Montrose impressed me as a picturesque, quaint little town that is truly a gem on the Scottish East coast. What a lovely place. I have nothing but good things to say about the place and I'm not surprised the Central District choose to hold their congresses there. And as for Montrose Bridge Club, what lovely people. I've met quite a lot of them now and the club exudes the aura of exactly what a Bridge Club should be. (Disclaimer: I've never been to one of their club nights; this opinion is formed solely on meeting them during events at Montrose and looking at their website). Tangent over. Lessurl got his first taste of an SBU congress at the CD Congress. We made the mistake of qualifying for the Pairs Final (with the best score of any of the qualifiers) and the Teams Final too, with the result that lessurl is now under the impression we're supposed to do that in every Congress. Oops.
Lessurl and I won the Summer Pairs Trophy at Phoenix. Woop Woop! I'm very pleased with that because we have put a lot of work into improving our selves and our partnership and I certainly think that
Now, this is a recap blog, where I talk about major bridge things in my life since the last time I posted. So, I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't say SOMETHING about the trials. Yes, we were there. I forgot to take a picture of our names at the top of the leaderboard (they were there from Rounds 2 to 5 inclusive), but if the pattern of the last two years continues, I'll get another chance next year when we lead the way only to be
I will end on a high note: The Inchbrayock Swiss Teams. This was hosted by Montrose Bridge Club. Now, I daresay they will come under fire for some misboarding and mis-scoring issues. However, not from me. Yes, mistakes were made. IT HAPPENS. I know they were doing their best and they put a lot of work into making the event the best it could be. This was the first time the event was played as a Swiss Teams and there were teething troubles. But overall, it was still an event well worth playing in. I'll run through the event from my POV. First round we were a bit unlucky. We played against a quality team and our team mates (playing their first ever boards together) did not find the solid 7NT their way which would've swung the match in our favour. Get the same board in the last round and possibly they would have. We cancelled out our 6 in Round 1 with a 14 in Round 2. Then we played another Aberdeen team (having already lost to one) and lost 8-12 with fault on all sides. A small tea break was the best we could have, since an actual meal would have pushed the entrance fee up substantially. In Round 4, we missed out on a 20-0 win by one IMP. This match was notable for the slams lessurl and I did NOT bid. All three were bad slams (less than 50%) and made on the lie of the cards (and on one occasion on the opening lead), so we were pleased with ourselves, and the bonus of having 5 Hearts Doubled making an overtrick. We thought that would be substantial enough to keep us out of the triangle for rounds 5 and 6, but no. Still, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. We used the situation to our advantage, gathering a 17 and a 20, for a Grand Total of 84. We also avoided the misboarding issues that affected Tables 1 to 14. Finishing before everyone not in the triangle, we worked out that we could swing first place provided Bill Ross scored anything between 10 and 13 inclusive in the last match. Bill duly obliged, and first place was ours. Or was it? The team was getting excited as it was announced that 2nd place had a score of 82. I warned against counting our chickens before they were hatched and my caution was well placed. First place went to a completely different team! They had also amassed 84, but we had to be the villains of the piece by pointing out that we had also scored 84. For some reason, our 17 had not been counted and when everything was checked, we took first place on a split-tie of total IMPs, having not played the other team. Congratulations to my team mates egg46, 009domino and lessurl.
That's all folks.
Unless you can spot the deliberate grammatical error.
Oh, and look out for a posting to the effect of "Summer remembered 2", where I talk about everything I forgot to talk about in this post.
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
It's not the system you play...
... It's the way that you play.
Such a comment refers to the match I played in on Friday night; Banchory v Ellon. Ellon's Captain, my Dad, has a continuous struggle to get the club's best players (from a small club in the first place) to play in the Teams of 8. In my last entry I spoke of the joys(?) of being Captain of a junior team. My Dad has the joys of getting players to agree to play, and since some of the better ones didn't, I was drafted in as a substitute from a lower division. Playing with someone who I will just call "West", as this was his position all night, I had a new system to learn. In previous times playing with West, we had played the Asking Club, given it is so simple. But West has recently made clear his hatred of said system, so I decided that, as a better, more experienced player (West will back me up on that; it is not my ego talking), I'd play his.
The system in question was Schenken. This had a lot of gadgets such as a 17+ 1 Club Opener, 12-16 1 Diamond Opener and artificial responses to both. Not that I have anything in particular against the Schenken system, but it is quite complicated. I had five days to learn it and I was also pretty sure that the complexities of such a system could not be covered by one sheet of A4 Paper, which was all I had.
Cue a number of questions sent to West via email on Thursday night and a response on Friday morning. Luckily we were travelling to the match in the same car and had more discussion then. Did the things we discussed come up? By and large, no - of course not.
We spent most of the first round passing, which was all right except for the -930 on our scorecard. We felt the boards were uncontroversial, and certainly the team in the lead after the first six boards were not too far ahead - I actually forget who led at this point.
It doesn't matter what system you play, you have to play the contract the system lands you in and on the second set we allowed a woeful swing out when, despite bidding quite calmly to a solid 4 Heart contract, West lost his head completely and went one down. Such disasters happen, but you have to roll with it and carry on regardless. Unfortunately, West did not take his head up until the half time tea where I made it clear I wanted it out of his mind. We were a couple of hundred points behind at this point.
The third set was where some real points about bidding came up. First up (of note) was this:
Our opponent's bidding was natural, so the 1NT showed at least one heart stop. My 2 Hearts bid was (as agreed) a very weak raise. In other words, I was willing to compete as far as the 2 level so that they couldn't play there. But I reckoned without my partner - who raised to 4 with a hand not unlike the hand you see above (I can't vouch for the exact layout but I guarantee the heart holding was no better. I also don't remember my partner having that many points and quick tricks but he must've had something). Partner's excuse? He thought I had 3 hearts (as opposed to 2). Exactly how much of a difference that would've made to the eventual -800 missing the three top honours in trumps with a 5-1 split is an open question, but I would suggest the answer is zero. Or, to put it another way, I, a notorious over-bidder, would never raise to 4 Hearts there.
Now, we were never going to recoup that in the remaining boards of the set, but we gave it a go:
Again, my exact holding and the exact bidding are maybe not as represented above, but it was not far off this. I know for sure that North had bid clubs, and South diamonds (whether there was a jump or not is another matter) and that I doubled 2 Diamonds for takeout, as we must have a 7 card major fit. Agreement failed us again as my partner passed this, but North was suitably scared enough to pull to her clubs, and this time I did double for penalty holding a long club suit. +500 when the dust settled.
At the end of Round 3 we had chipped away at but not overhauled the half-time defecit, and went into the last round -140. In Round 4, it was all to play for - and thankfully, it was more play problems than bidding problems that I had to deal with, although overtricks were all I could collect for my efforts. In particular, two 3NT contracts, one of which went +2 on a pseudo squeeze, and one of which went +4 when I held AQ in their suit and every queen fell whenever I clicked my fingers. (In bridge terms: Catching it out even before I had to finesse it out).
One has to be careful when taking scores. Our pair at Table 1 were -400, which seemed passable as we had +510 sitting the other direction. I went to Table 4, where our pair were sitting the same way as us, and when they told me their score was 1120 I promptly congratulated them on a great score - and then they told me it was a minus. Somehow, the other pair on our team amassed +1130, but we still lost the match by the narrowest possile margin: 20 aggregate points. Any closer would've been a draw.
JUNIOR CAMROSE AND PEGGY BAYER
As a junior player with International interests, I really have to mention these competitions. This year, England did the double, winning both events, although Scotland were outright second in both events and took it to the last match in the Junior Camrose. The English Under 20s were in devastating form and looked like they would take the maximum 225 points until the Scottish team stepped up in the last match and scored 8VPs against them. It maybe doesn't sound like much, but coming second to England is no disgrace, and being the only team not to be whitewashed 25-x VPs in three matches takes some doing. Neither Irish team got a look in at second place and that is a measure of achievement for Scotland.
Things were closer in the Junior Camrose, where going into the last match Scotland could've finished anywhere between 1st and 3rd, with Northern Ireland snapping at their heels. Scotland needed to beat ROI by 3 more VPs than England beat Northern Ireland, but England achieved 23, so how well the Scots did against ROI became irrelevant.
The event was well covered on BBO and by the ABU, and I only missed a couple of matches in the time it took to go to Pittodrie to see Aberdeen win 5-0 (well come on; you don't see that every day!) and get home again.
Congratulations England.
Still, it's not like the Scottish juniors are winning nothing. Two weeks ago I won the Forbes Trophy at Ellon, and on Monday the 13th I was part of the almost-junior team (lessurl is not a junior, even if we put trainers on his knees) that won the Reid Trophy (pictured below). The fact that we were probably favourites, and the fact that there were only 6 teams competing, does not take away anything from the achievement. 009domino, Jun and I have been competing in the Reid Trophy since its inception (apart from last year for Jun and I; since it clashed with the Men's Teams), and it was great to finally lift it.
I feel somewhat defensive of the Reid Trophy and the prestige of it. Granted, it's not the Scottish Cup, and there is always some detraction from glory when only 5 Star Masters and below can enter. But entries have somewhat declined in recent years and people need to be encouraged to play in it. Apparently, the reason for the lack of uptake boils down to the fact that two and three years ago, some inexperienced juniors were playing, with some highly experienced players sitting beside them to "help with their bidding". Of course, despite the experienced players denying they had any involvement in the play, this was untrue and effectively there were experts playing with the juniors as puppets. Thus, nobody was surprised (or very happy) when the "junior" team won. The juniors in question were the most annoyed, and quit bridge altogether not long after. No self-respecting junior will allow or receive such help in such a competition nowadays, so I think it is time to say it's in the past and will not be happening again.
It is often said that it is harder to beat "weaker" players because they are so unpredictable. Being favourites certainly did not give us automatic claim to the trophy. In the end, our opponent's unpredictability was well received, with swings coming from nowhere in the form of a couple of games and one slam that shouldn't make; lessurl delivering a finely executed (although somewhat fortunate) pseudo squeeze in the case of the latter.
Left to right: 009domino, lessurl, Jun, me, Sally Reid
Such a comment refers to the match I played in on Friday night; Banchory v Ellon. Ellon's Captain, my Dad, has a continuous struggle to get the club's best players (from a small club in the first place) to play in the Teams of 8. In my last entry I spoke of the joys(?) of being Captain of a junior team. My Dad has the joys of getting players to agree to play, and since some of the better ones didn't, I was drafted in as a substitute from a lower division. Playing with someone who I will just call "West", as this was his position all night, I had a new system to learn. In previous times playing with West, we had played the Asking Club, given it is so simple. But West has recently made clear his hatred of said system, so I decided that, as a better, more experienced player (West will back me up on that; it is not my ego talking), I'd play his.
The system in question was Schenken. This had a lot of gadgets such as a 17+ 1 Club Opener, 12-16 1 Diamond Opener and artificial responses to both. Not that I have anything in particular against the Schenken system, but it is quite complicated. I had five days to learn it and I was also pretty sure that the complexities of such a system could not be covered by one sheet of A4 Paper, which was all I had.
Cue a number of questions sent to West via email on Thursday night and a response on Friday morning. Luckily we were travelling to the match in the same car and had more discussion then. Did the things we discussed come up? By and large, no - of course not.
We spent most of the first round passing, which was all right except for the -930 on our scorecard. We felt the boards were uncontroversial, and certainly the team in the lead after the first six boards were not too far ahead - I actually forget who led at this point.
It doesn't matter what system you play, you have to play the contract the system lands you in and on the second set we allowed a woeful swing out when, despite bidding quite calmly to a solid 4 Heart contract, West lost his head completely and went one down. Such disasters happen, but you have to roll with it and carry on regardless. Unfortunately, West did not take his head up until the half time tea where I made it clear I wanted it out of his mind. We were a couple of hundred points behind at this point.
The third set was where some real points about bidding came up. First up (of note) was this:
Our opponent's bidding was natural, so the 1NT showed at least one heart stop. My 2 Hearts bid was (as agreed) a very weak raise. In other words, I was willing to compete as far as the 2 level so that they couldn't play there. But I reckoned without my partner - who raised to 4 with a hand not unlike the hand you see above (I can't vouch for the exact layout but I guarantee the heart holding was no better. I also don't remember my partner having that many points and quick tricks but he must've had something). Partner's excuse? He thought I had 3 hearts (as opposed to 2). Exactly how much of a difference that would've made to the eventual -800 missing the three top honours in trumps with a 5-1 split is an open question, but I would suggest the answer is zero. Or, to put it another way, I, a notorious over-bidder, would never raise to 4 Hearts there.
Now, we were never going to recoup that in the remaining boards of the set, but we gave it a go:
Again, my exact holding and the exact bidding are maybe not as represented above, but it was not far off this. I know for sure that North had bid clubs, and South diamonds (whether there was a jump or not is another matter) and that I doubled 2 Diamonds for takeout, as we must have a 7 card major fit. Agreement failed us again as my partner passed this, but North was suitably scared enough to pull to her clubs, and this time I did double for penalty holding a long club suit. +500 when the dust settled.
At the end of Round 3 we had chipped away at but not overhauled the half-time defecit, and went into the last round -140. In Round 4, it was all to play for - and thankfully, it was more play problems than bidding problems that I had to deal with, although overtricks were all I could collect for my efforts. In particular, two 3NT contracts, one of which went +2 on a pseudo squeeze, and one of which went +4 when I held AQ in their suit and every queen fell whenever I clicked my fingers. (In bridge terms: Catching it out even before I had to finesse it out).
One has to be careful when taking scores. Our pair at Table 1 were -400, which seemed passable as we had +510 sitting the other direction. I went to Table 4, where our pair were sitting the same way as us, and when they told me their score was 1120 I promptly congratulated them on a great score - and then they told me it was a minus. Somehow, the other pair on our team amassed +1130, but we still lost the match by the narrowest possile margin: 20 aggregate points. Any closer would've been a draw.
JUNIOR CAMROSE AND PEGGY BAYER
As a junior player with International interests, I really have to mention these competitions. This year, England did the double, winning both events, although Scotland were outright second in both events and took it to the last match in the Junior Camrose. The English Under 20s were in devastating form and looked like they would take the maximum 225 points until the Scottish team stepped up in the last match and scored 8VPs against them. It maybe doesn't sound like much, but coming second to England is no disgrace, and being the only team not to be whitewashed 25-x VPs in three matches takes some doing. Neither Irish team got a look in at second place and that is a measure of achievement for Scotland.
Things were closer in the Junior Camrose, where going into the last match Scotland could've finished anywhere between 1st and 3rd, with Northern Ireland snapping at their heels. Scotland needed to beat ROI by 3 more VPs than England beat Northern Ireland, but England achieved 23, so how well the Scots did against ROI became irrelevant.
The event was well covered on BBO and by the ABU, and I only missed a couple of matches in the time it took to go to Pittodrie to see Aberdeen win 5-0 (well come on; you don't see that every day!) and get home again.
Congratulations England.
Still, it's not like the Scottish juniors are winning nothing. Two weeks ago I won the Forbes Trophy at Ellon, and on Monday the 13th I was part of the almost-junior team (lessurl is not a junior, even if we put trainers on his knees) that won the Reid Trophy (pictured below). The fact that we were probably favourites, and the fact that there were only 6 teams competing, does not take away anything from the achievement. 009domino, Jun and I have been competing in the Reid Trophy since its inception (apart from last year for Jun and I; since it clashed with the Men's Teams), and it was great to finally lift it.
I feel somewhat defensive of the Reid Trophy and the prestige of it. Granted, it's not the Scottish Cup, and there is always some detraction from glory when only 5 Star Masters and below can enter. But entries have somewhat declined in recent years and people need to be encouraged to play in it. Apparently, the reason for the lack of uptake boils down to the fact that two and three years ago, some inexperienced juniors were playing, with some highly experienced players sitting beside them to "help with their bidding". Of course, despite the experienced players denying they had any involvement in the play, this was untrue and effectively there were experts playing with the juniors as puppets. Thus, nobody was surprised (or very happy) when the "junior" team won. The juniors in question were the most annoyed, and quit bridge altogether not long after. No self-respecting junior will allow or receive such help in such a competition nowadays, so I think it is time to say it's in the past and will not be happening again.
It is often said that it is harder to beat "weaker" players because they are so unpredictable. Being favourites certainly did not give us automatic claim to the trophy. In the end, our opponent's unpredictability was well received, with swings coming from nowhere in the form of a couple of games and one slam that shouldn't make; lessurl delivering a finely executed (although somewhat fortunate) pseudo squeeze in the case of the latter.
Left to right: 009domino, lessurl, Jun, me, Sally Reid
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