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.
Friday, 28 October 2011
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
Ellon season begins
From here on through to March, I know what I'm doing on Monday nights. It's time for a new season at Ellon Bridge Club. It is no secret that I do not particularly enjoy my bridge there; who wants to play Match Pointed pairs of less than 30 boards in a small field which produces almost completely random scores? (Not that THAT should discourage any new members... my views are entirely my own and certainly not the views of Ellon Bridge Club, otherwise we obviously wouldn't be playing Match-Pointed pairs.) With my regular partner from last season not available to be regular this season, I made it clear that with no regular partner (and therefore no chance of winning the championship), I had no interest in returning. As it happens, a lapsed player was keen enough to return to the game, so there I was last night, at it all over again.
Our recruitment drive has not been a great success. We might have one or two new partnerships appearing, but there is a worry we will lose just as many if not more. One of our long standing members had spent most of last season insisting that she would not play at Ellon on the Mondays any more; that last season was indeed her last season. That is a loss of one whole partnership if true. One of the other pairs will only manage 3 of every 4 Mondays - and last night was the 1 in 4 they can't play. With one of the other regular/almost-regular players away on holiday, last night was expected to be a melting pot of the regular partnerships who are gunning for the title, one or two regular partnerships who, with the best will in the world, I don't expect to mount a title challenge, and one-off partnerships having a bounce game. Not that this was particularly a randomising factor - how do you randomise a random field? Perhaps insert an expert player, of which we have none. In actual fact, the last type never turned up, so there were 7 regular partnerships plus us, who hope to be regular.
But you can say what you like about Ellon. The Ellon Club Championship (or Advertiser, as we still call it) trophy is still prestigious and still very much a trophy I want to get my hands on. It is, very much, difficult to win. That's because you cannot play so well that you can guarantee yourself first place, which means in turn it is also difficult to win consistently at Ellon. I attack the standard of the club constantly (again, all the more reasons for new players to JOIN - we have no sharks), and it is no surprise that the (or at least most of the) pairs in the running for the Championship include one of the club's three players that are also members of Phoenix. Although, it remains to be seen whether I'll be part of the title hunt this year. It'll depend on how much I can bring on my new partner and how quickly I can do so. IF you include myself and my partner in the running for the Championship, I think it could be a four horse race - although I'm open to the possibility that there will be a dark horse that emerges. But that is like a football pundit saying the Premier League will be won by either Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool or Man City - but that Tottenham or Arsenal might be a dark horse. For those of you who want a slightly bolder prediction: Okay, I'm pretty sure the winning partnership will include a Phoenix player. What's that? You think that because I used the horse analogy I should make an on-the-nose bet? Okay then. Mike and Morton. You heard it here first.
Now, I have a slight confession to make. Since it takes me a considerable length of time to write these blog posts, I actually started writing this post on Monday - before I actually went to Ellon. I have come this far without knowing what the first night was like. Why am I admitting to this? Simply because, since I made a few predictions in the last paragraph, I wanted to be clear that they were made without the benefit of last night's results. (Although, since I do the scoring, I guess I could've just written this blog before doing the scoring... sigh) It doesn't really matter if Mike and Morton came bottom last night (which is actually this evening... er, ahem - just to be clear: No butterflies were harmed during the making of this blog post) I am at least committing myself, by continuously saying "last night", to actually coming back and concluding this tomorrow.
Where was I? Oh yes, I remember... it hasn't been a day since I was working on this; honest! (No, seriously, it hasn't - it's still Monday; still me typing some random stuff about an event that hasn't actually happened yet...) Yes, there are up to four (maximum five) pairs that are title contenders, I expect an actual title race, but maybe between two and not three (depends how well my particular horse does) to go all the way - the title race might still be a race right on up til the final night and it certainly won't be done and dusted (mathematically anyway) before February. I know where I was: the predictions. Actually, I'd just finished that. If I was a real expert pundit, I'd run through all the horses and say how I rated them and what their individual strengths were (just the positive stuff), but since (a) I'm not an expert pundit, (b) I don't really want to talk about all of them on the Internet, even though I'd only say good things, and (c) I generally can't be bothered, I'm not going to.
I have just opened up the Excel file from last season for an interesting look back. It is interesting to note that as far as I am concerned, last year's Champions are not my favourites to win this season (just as in the Phoenix Cup). As a matter of fact, Mike finished 10th last season, but then he switched partners mid-way through the season which made that rather inevitable - he'd been in the race until then. I expect last season's Champions to finish 2nd, with myself and partner finishing anywhere between 3rd and 10th, depending on various factors. I don't expect it will be as close as last season, since it was very close at the end - my Dad and Kathleen getting only half a point more than us. The eventual 3rd and 4th pairs from last season are dark horses but nothing more.
The Championship works thus: 12 points to the winner, 11 points to 2nd and so on (two pairs get 12 in Mitchell Movements). The total throughout the season is recorded, and the three lowest scores dropped. This is because it is near impossible to guarantee perfect attendance, so a good pair can keep themselves in the running even if they have to miss three nights. (Obviously, if you do have perfect attendance, you can give yourself a slight advantage, because you can afford 3 bad nights - very useful in the Ellon field.) We all start at 0 - bring on the race to the 200 points it'll take to bag the Championship. Note that figure is a guesstimate based on last year's winning score being 170. The Champions had 195.5 points in total, but were ever-presents so 3 scores didn't count.
The stage was set when a full four tables - 8 pairs - turned up to play. As it was the first night, we played a Howell movement of 21 boards. A 28 board Mitchell would've been preferable, but never mind. I was also called into action as the TD for the first time of the season, for failure to play a major penalty card - nice and interesting. I also made a faced opening lead out of turn (must remember to teach partner the "no questions" procedure) and partner made an inconsequential revoke. Even by Ellon's standards, that's eventful.
Partner and I were handed a baptism of fire. First up were my Dad and Kathleen (incumbent champions), followed by Mike and Morton (Champions elect). But then I certainly contributed to said fire. On the very first board, RHO opened a strong 2 Diamonds. With a long heart suit headed by KJ10, I bid 4 Hearts. This was doubled, and went 2 off for -500. As our opponents were also vulnerable and could make 3NT with room to spare, this was an outright top. I then made 3NT+1 when partner didn't correct to 4 Spades holding AQJxxxx - certainly a teething trouble. We won the head to head against my Dad and Kathleen (not that we had any idea at the time), and proceeded to get a bottom on the first board against Mike and Morton when we stumbled into a 4 Spades when we really should have got out of the auction much lower. Then I was presented this play problem.
Our recruitment drive has not been a great success. We might have one or two new partnerships appearing, but there is a worry we will lose just as many if not more. One of our long standing members had spent most of last season insisting that she would not play at Ellon on the Mondays any more; that last season was indeed her last season. That is a loss of one whole partnership if true. One of the other pairs will only manage 3 of every 4 Mondays - and last night was the 1 in 4 they can't play. With one of the other regular/almost-regular players away on holiday, last night was expected to be a melting pot of the regular partnerships who are gunning for the title, one or two regular partnerships who, with the best will in the world, I don't expect to mount a title challenge, and one-off partnerships having a bounce game. Not that this was particularly a randomising factor - how do you randomise a random field? Perhaps insert an expert player, of which we have none. In actual fact, the last type never turned up, so there were 7 regular partnerships plus us, who hope to be regular.
But you can say what you like about Ellon. The Ellon Club Championship (or Advertiser, as we still call it) trophy is still prestigious and still very much a trophy I want to get my hands on. It is, very much, difficult to win. That's because you cannot play so well that you can guarantee yourself first place, which means in turn it is also difficult to win consistently at Ellon. I attack the standard of the club constantly (again, all the more reasons for new players to JOIN - we have no sharks), and it is no surprise that the (or at least most of the) pairs in the running for the Championship include one of the club's three players that are also members of Phoenix. Although, it remains to be seen whether I'll be part of the title hunt this year. It'll depend on how much I can bring on my new partner and how quickly I can do so. IF you include myself and my partner in the running for the Championship, I think it could be a four horse race - although I'm open to the possibility that there will be a dark horse that emerges. But that is like a football pundit saying the Premier League will be won by either Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool or Man City - but that Tottenham or Arsenal might be a dark horse. For those of you who want a slightly bolder prediction: Okay, I'm pretty sure the winning partnership will include a Phoenix player. What's that? You think that because I used the horse analogy I should make an on-the-nose bet? Okay then. Mike and Morton. You heard it here first.
Now, I have a slight confession to make. Since it takes me a considerable length of time to write these blog posts, I actually started writing this post on Monday - before I actually went to Ellon. I have come this far without knowing what the first night was like. Why am I admitting to this? Simply because, since I made a few predictions in the last paragraph, I wanted to be clear that they were made without the benefit of last night's results. (Although, since I do the scoring, I guess I could've just written this blog before doing the scoring... sigh) It doesn't really matter if Mike and Morton came bottom last night (which is actually this evening... er, ahem - just to be clear: No butterflies were harmed during the making of this blog post) I am at least committing myself, by continuously saying "last night", to actually coming back and concluding this tomorrow.
Where was I? Oh yes, I remember... it hasn't been a day since I was working on this; honest! (No, seriously, it hasn't - it's still Monday; still me typing some random stuff about an event that hasn't actually happened yet...) Yes, there are up to four (maximum five) pairs that are title contenders, I expect an actual title race, but maybe between two and not three (depends how well my particular horse does) to go all the way - the title race might still be a race right on up til the final night and it certainly won't be done and dusted (mathematically anyway) before February. I know where I was: the predictions. Actually, I'd just finished that. If I was a real expert pundit, I'd run through all the horses and say how I rated them and what their individual strengths were (just the positive stuff), but since (a) I'm not an expert pundit, (b) I don't really want to talk about all of them on the Internet, even though I'd only say good things, and (c) I generally can't be bothered, I'm not going to.
I have just opened up the Excel file from last season for an interesting look back. It is interesting to note that as far as I am concerned, last year's Champions are not my favourites to win this season (just as in the Phoenix Cup). As a matter of fact, Mike finished 10th last season, but then he switched partners mid-way through the season which made that rather inevitable - he'd been in the race until then. I expect last season's Champions to finish 2nd, with myself and partner finishing anywhere between 3rd and 10th, depending on various factors. I don't expect it will be as close as last season, since it was very close at the end - my Dad and Kathleen getting only half a point more than us. The eventual 3rd and 4th pairs from last season are dark horses but nothing more.
The Championship works thus: 12 points to the winner, 11 points to 2nd and so on (two pairs get 12 in Mitchell Movements). The total throughout the season is recorded, and the three lowest scores dropped. This is because it is near impossible to guarantee perfect attendance, so a good pair can keep themselves in the running even if they have to miss three nights. (Obviously, if you do have perfect attendance, you can give yourself a slight advantage, because you can afford 3 bad nights - very useful in the Ellon field.) We all start at 0 - bring on the race to the 200 points it'll take to bag the Championship. Note that figure is a guesstimate based on last year's winning score being 170. The Champions had 195.5 points in total, but were ever-presents so 3 scores didn't count.
The stage was set when a full four tables - 8 pairs - turned up to play. As it was the first night, we played a Howell movement of 21 boards. A 28 board Mitchell would've been preferable, but never mind. I was also called into action as the TD for the first time of the season, for failure to play a major penalty card - nice and interesting. I also made a faced opening lead out of turn (must remember to teach partner the "no questions" procedure) and partner made an inconsequential revoke. Even by Ellon's standards, that's eventful.
Partner and I were handed a baptism of fire. First up were my Dad and Kathleen (incumbent champions), followed by Mike and Morton (Champions elect). But then I certainly contributed to said fire. On the very first board, RHO opened a strong 2 Diamonds. With a long heart suit headed by KJ10, I bid 4 Hearts. This was doubled, and went 2 off for -500. As our opponents were also vulnerable and could make 3NT with room to spare, this was an outright top. I then made 3NT+1 when partner didn't correct to 4 Spades holding AQJxxxx - certainly a teething trouble. We won the head to head against my Dad and Kathleen (not that we had any idea at the time), and proceeded to get a bottom on the first board against Mike and Morton when we stumbled into a 4 Spades when we really should have got out of the auction much lower. Then I was presented this play problem.
With my partner and I not having agreed any methods, I had to take the
3 Spades bid as natural. Indeed it was. I got a spade lead.
Initial prospects are all
right. I seem to have 3 spade tricks and I can hopefully find the heart ace
onside if they attack hearts. That just leaves the clubs to figure out. LHO is
more likely to hold the queen so the finesse is odds against. The ten of spades
holds the first trick. I therefore cash my Ace and King of clubs, and when the
queen does drop on my left I have no
qualms about preserving my Jack and playing up to it. Now then. 1 spade and 3
clubs are safely in the bag, and I can cash out two diamonds and 3 more clubs
for nine tricks. But hang on – it is
Match Points. With reasonable chances of the heart ace on my right, should I
not establish two more spade tricks first? Dilemma. Teams instinct demands I take the nine tricks
and run. But I go for it. I play a spade and the ace appears. This turns out to
be a bad decision – LHO has the ace of hearts. Thankfully, RHO did not switch
to hearts, electing instead for a diamond – 11 tricks and an outright top were
mine; 9 tricks would’ve been a top equal. The match is tied, and we win it when
the opponents bid a 4 spade contract that comes 2 down.
On the first board at the next
table (I skip one bad round delicately here as the 2nd and 3rd
rounds were played at the same table), RHO opens 1 Diamond and I hold:
X x
H H x x x x
K x x x
X
I lay a trap with 3 Hearts, which works like a charm. LHO bids 4
Diamonds, partner 4 Hearts, RHO 5
Diamonds and I double. I lead a club to partner’s ace. I get a ruff and we take
enough tricks off the top for a good score. Declarer made it better for us by
miscounting trumps and the contract went 5 down for 1100.
All these hands, by the way,
appear on the first half of the night, during which partner and I barely have a
clue what we are doing! Even scores that we thought were bad were Ok when we
opened the ticket; all in all, we did rather well – especially considering we’d
never met before last night. In the end, we had to settle for 56.35%, which was
only good enough for third. Still, we will take that, as six of the eight pairs
scored above 50%. Mike and Morton finished 1st, Dad and Kathleen
second – never mind the bridge; my predicting seems spot-on.
My initial thoughts are not
bad. I don’t expect we shall mount much of a title challenge, but in so doing
we might have some fun. And if we can do
that at Ellon, I’m actually looking forward to it. The season has only just
begun.
Friday, 30 September 2011
Towie is a bridge term
Magazine editors, newspaper columnists and media in general please note: Towie is a quaint and picturesque countryshire hamlet in West Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is also, according to Dictionary.com, a bridge term (who knew?), referring to a version of three-handed bridge. So please find another acronym-slash-abbreviation for The Only Way is Essex. Guess which of the above three two definitions is relevant in this bridge blog post? Yes, that's right: the hamlet.
Towie happened to be the venue for the first District event of the season: West Aberdeenshire v City. For us Townies, that meant we had the issue of getting there. With me sitting in the navigator's seat, that was not a problem. Towie is just three quarters of a mile South East of Glenkindie, which is just down the road from Kildrummy, which is in turn on the South turn off from Mossat... that's a six mile drive from Alford if you take the Bridge of Alford turn-off... you get the idea.
Calling the event West Aberdeenshire v City might give the wrong impression. It is certainly NOT a case of farmers going hammer-and-tongs against bankers (which, come to think of it, is something we'd pay good money to see if you swapped the table for a boxing ring... I'm sure someone at Sky is working on it right now) - it is for building friendships, good feeling and overall happiness amongst various bridge players that otherwise might not get a chance to meet each other. It is very much a social event. Yes, we were on a team comprising of 12 pairs against a team of twelve shire pairs. Yes, we played bridge against them and naturally had to try and win. But there are various levels of competition and various levels of competitiveness. These events are diplomatic ventures as much as anything else - one does one's best to play good bridge but it's not life-or-death.
There is no artificial line drawn between city and shire. I was born and bred in Aberdeen, and all year round I play bridge at Aberdeen and Phoenix. But there was a time when, owing to family links, I played exclusively at Ellon Bridge Club - a fact that meant I was generally asked by the shire Captain if I would play for the shire. It's still considered "eligible" for both sides and have been known to play for the City when they play West Aberdeenshire and against them when they play North. I've played both sides many times and don't know which side I'm on one year to the next.
First thing's first. (He says five paragraphs in...) There were twelve pairs on each team. That meant twelve pairs had to be selected. As our Selector operates a rotation policy, nobody is guaranteed a game. More specifically, nobody should be. There are some players within the City that feel that, as the "top" players in the City, they should be automatic selections. And maybe they would have a case if it really mattered who won. But it doesn't. Winning doesn't even make it onto the list of priorities in these events. It goes without saying that the twelve pairs we do select aren't going to play badly on purpose, so if we win, we win and if we don't, who cares? I say this as someone who always plays to win. Sometimes one plays to win not out of desire, but because it would be disrespectful to do anything else. Yes, at some level I wanted to win. But if I was offered a deal of losing the next hundred City v Shire matches I play in in exchange for winning, say, the Gold Cup once, that's a deal I'd happily make. So when it comes to selection, my view (which is shared by plenty others) is that we should not pick the twelve best pairs but the twelve friendliest. That's something some of these "top" players really need to catch on to. Furthermore, I would venture as far as to say that some of these players that think they should be automatic selections should not get a game even if the aim was to field our strongest possible side - all bridge players think they are better than they are. Some more than others. As for the saying: those players I refer to know who they are - that would be untrue. The point is they don't. But for the avoidance of doubt I will state that I am thinking of nobody in particular.
Second thing's second: Twelve pairs on each team requires a movement. We tried to employ the same movement as we always do for City v Shire (and North v Highland) events: Home team North-South at the odd-numbered tables, East-West pairs move two tables after each round with the boards (which there are two sets of to avoid sharing) moving one, and after six rounds we have Half Time. After Half Time, the home team are the same again while the away team move down one table from where they started and change orientation accordingly, and we have another six rounds with the same movement as the first half, at the end of which everyone has played every pair of the opposing team exactly once. How could that possibly go wrong?
Ah, well, us Bridge players are a simple folk. For one thing, the boards were hand dealt, which meant that we had to duplimate the boards manually - play our first board in the first round, make a copy of it on the corresponding board from the other set of boards, and go and trade that with the copy from our corresponding table (1 to 7, 2 to 8 etc) to get our second board; after which we have two sets of the same boards in play. Easy peasy for a young brain like me who had been through this rigmarole before, but unfortunately this was to push others to the threshold of confusion before we'd even finished Round 1. Things settle down as we continue on towards Half Time without a hitch. But then the changeover causes yet more confusion. Don't ask me exactly how it happened, because I don't know, but at one point we had one of our pairs sitting East-West at consecutive tables. We managed to fix this eventually, but not completely - we had one pair that sat North-South both times, and so did they - meaning there was one opposing pair that we played twice and one we didn't play at all. Whether it was what was printed on the table cards, or our ability to interpret them, that was at fault, I don't know. But the Captain of the opposing team (which was who we played twice) not being well-versed in the movement did create problems. By the time we had duplimated the boards for the second half, I don't know if everyone in the room still had it in them to play bridge. Conclusion: It doesn't matter how simple something should be; the more people you have to convey it to, the more complicated it gets. Just like the Liberal Democrats trying to explain their decision making to the general public - a good idea becomes a complete mess.
As in NOT the custom at such events, there was no catering. Most players brought their own or, if you were me, had a sandwich before leaving and hoped that would suffice until returning home. Luckily, someone had the idea to raid the kitchen for tea and coffee, resulting in possibly the best cup of tea I'd ever had - I have found which combination out of the milk and sugar options suits me quite by accident. To say the tea was so good is quite a compliment considering how long it had possibly been sitting there.
Bridge was played, but I can't tell you much about it, which is why the focus has very much been on the day in general. Hopefully we have gone a long way to convincing the Home Team that bridge in the city is not so different from bridge in the shire. All right, so we had to turn a blind eye to the breaches of law and regulation that comes with the territory in shire bridge. But all were things I have seen done in the city, by city players, and I don't say anything to them, either. After all, I am experienced at playing at Ellon where I have to grin and bear downright cheating on the odd occasion. As David Stevenson says in Bridge magazine: "Zero tolerance for rudeness; maxi tolerance for everything else". Folk who are used to playing in the country genuinely don't know any better when it comes to technical regularities and they might be more inclined to join us for a game if they can feel comfortable in the knowledge that they won't have the Director called over the moment they sit down. Most City folk are more easy going and friendly than we often get taken for and the minority, as I shall call them on this occasion, you come to recognise pretty quickly.
My partner for the day (I'm sure he won't mind being named here, particularly given how well he played), was Mike Hodder. It was our first ever game together so we played a nice and simple SA based system. One mini-misunderstanding occurred half way through the first half, when Mike opened 2 Clubs, and I responded 2 Hearts. Mike thought that showed the ace of hearts exactly whereas I was showing just one ace, but it led to the same thing - 6 Clubs making. The best play problem of the day was his so I can't remember the hand in enough detail to post here.
As I have said before, the score did not matter - to the point where I don't actually know what it was. I know that we were roughly 4500 ahead at Half Time, and I think the Shire clawed a little bit of it back in the second half - a few of our pairs bid a Grand Slam (Yay!), but then half of them came down (Oh...). Don't look at Me and Mike; the slam was East-West and we sat North-South defending 6NT.
That's the fun stuff out of the way; more serious competition to come...
Like the Phoenix Cup. This might have been a separate article had I actually finished writing on Sunday night/ Monday, but no. So, we started off with Round 1 of the Phoenix Cup last night. There was a good turn out: 16 pairs. As is the norm for the Phoenix Cup, we played a 3/4 Howell movement. The favourites, Jim and Jun (my favourites if not anybody else's) stormed into first place with a 64% score. Despite a gallant effort, Lessurl and I encountered too much bad luck to compete with that and had to settle for 59% in second place. We made mistakes, but not so much that we could've caught the leaders had we got them all right. We've won with less. If last night's results reflect the final standings then we won't have disgraced ourselves. Last year's joint winners finished 8th and 14th, which is probably a sign that there are twists and turns to come.
Towie happened to be the venue for the first District event of the season: West Aberdeenshire v City. For us Townies, that meant we had the issue of getting there. With me sitting in the navigator's seat, that was not a problem. Towie is just three quarters of a mile South East of Glenkindie, which is just down the road from Kildrummy, which is in turn on the South turn off from Mossat... that's a six mile drive from Alford if you take the Bridge of Alford turn-off... you get the idea.
Calling the event West Aberdeenshire v City might give the wrong impression. It is certainly NOT a case of farmers going hammer-and-tongs against bankers (which, come to think of it, is something we'd pay good money to see if you swapped the table for a boxing ring... I'm sure someone at Sky is working on it right now) - it is for building friendships, good feeling and overall happiness amongst various bridge players that otherwise might not get a chance to meet each other. It is very much a social event. Yes, we were on a team comprising of 12 pairs against a team of twelve shire pairs. Yes, we played bridge against them and naturally had to try and win. But there are various levels of competition and various levels of competitiveness. These events are diplomatic ventures as much as anything else - one does one's best to play good bridge but it's not life-or-death.
There is no artificial line drawn between city and shire. I was born and bred in Aberdeen, and all year round I play bridge at Aberdeen and Phoenix. But there was a time when, owing to family links, I played exclusively at Ellon Bridge Club - a fact that meant I was generally asked by the shire Captain if I would play for the shire. It's still considered "eligible" for both sides and have been known to play for the City when they play West Aberdeenshire and against them when they play North. I've played both sides many times and don't know which side I'm on one year to the next.
First thing's first. (He says five paragraphs in...) There were twelve pairs on each team. That meant twelve pairs had to be selected. As our Selector operates a rotation policy, nobody is guaranteed a game. More specifically, nobody should be. There are some players within the City that feel that, as the "top" players in the City, they should be automatic selections. And maybe they would have a case if it really mattered who won. But it doesn't. Winning doesn't even make it onto the list of priorities in these events. It goes without saying that the twelve pairs we do select aren't going to play badly on purpose, so if we win, we win and if we don't, who cares? I say this as someone who always plays to win. Sometimes one plays to win not out of desire, but because it would be disrespectful to do anything else. Yes, at some level I wanted to win. But if I was offered a deal of losing the next hundred City v Shire matches I play in in exchange for winning, say, the Gold Cup once, that's a deal I'd happily make. So when it comes to selection, my view (which is shared by plenty others) is that we should not pick the twelve best pairs but the twelve friendliest. That's something some of these "top" players really need to catch on to. Furthermore, I would venture as far as to say that some of these players that think they should be automatic selections should not get a game even if the aim was to field our strongest possible side - all bridge players think they are better than they are. Some more than others. As for the saying: those players I refer to know who they are - that would be untrue. The point is they don't. But for the avoidance of doubt I will state that I am thinking of nobody in particular.
Second thing's second: Twelve pairs on each team requires a movement. We tried to employ the same movement as we always do for City v Shire (and North v Highland) events: Home team North-South at the odd-numbered tables, East-West pairs move two tables after each round with the boards (which there are two sets of to avoid sharing) moving one, and after six rounds we have Half Time. After Half Time, the home team are the same again while the away team move down one table from where they started and change orientation accordingly, and we have another six rounds with the same movement as the first half, at the end of which everyone has played every pair of the opposing team exactly once. How could that possibly go wrong?
Ah, well, us Bridge players are a simple folk. For one thing, the boards were hand dealt, which meant that we had to duplimate the boards manually - play our first board in the first round, make a copy of it on the corresponding board from the other set of boards, and go and trade that with the copy from our corresponding table (1 to 7, 2 to 8 etc) to get our second board; after which we have two sets of the same boards in play. Easy peasy for a young brain like me who had been through this rigmarole before, but unfortunately this was to push others to the threshold of confusion before we'd even finished Round 1. Things settle down as we continue on towards Half Time without a hitch. But then the changeover causes yet more confusion. Don't ask me exactly how it happened, because I don't know, but at one point we had one of our pairs sitting East-West at consecutive tables. We managed to fix this eventually, but not completely - we had one pair that sat North-South both times, and so did they - meaning there was one opposing pair that we played twice and one we didn't play at all. Whether it was what was printed on the table cards, or our ability to interpret them, that was at fault, I don't know. But the Captain of the opposing team (which was who we played twice) not being well-versed in the movement did create problems. By the time we had duplimated the boards for the second half, I don't know if everyone in the room still had it in them to play bridge. Conclusion: It doesn't matter how simple something should be; the more people you have to convey it to, the more complicated it gets. Just like the Liberal Democrats trying to explain their decision making to the general public - a good idea becomes a complete mess.
As in NOT the custom at such events, there was no catering. Most players brought their own or, if you were me, had a sandwich before leaving and hoped that would suffice until returning home. Luckily, someone had the idea to raid the kitchen for tea and coffee, resulting in possibly the best cup of tea I'd ever had - I have found which combination out of the milk and sugar options suits me quite by accident. To say the tea was so good is quite a compliment considering how long it had possibly been sitting there.
Bridge was played, but I can't tell you much about it, which is why the focus has very much been on the day in general. Hopefully we have gone a long way to convincing the Home Team that bridge in the city is not so different from bridge in the shire. All right, so we had to turn a blind eye to the breaches of law and regulation that comes with the territory in shire bridge. But all were things I have seen done in the city, by city players, and I don't say anything to them, either. After all, I am experienced at playing at Ellon where I have to grin and bear downright cheating on the odd occasion. As David Stevenson says in Bridge magazine: "Zero tolerance for rudeness; maxi tolerance for everything else". Folk who are used to playing in the country genuinely don't know any better when it comes to technical regularities and they might be more inclined to join us for a game if they can feel comfortable in the knowledge that they won't have the Director called over the moment they sit down. Most City folk are more easy going and friendly than we often get taken for and the minority, as I shall call them on this occasion, you come to recognise pretty quickly.
My partner for the day (I'm sure he won't mind being named here, particularly given how well he played), was Mike Hodder. It was our first ever game together so we played a nice and simple SA based system. One mini-misunderstanding occurred half way through the first half, when Mike opened 2 Clubs, and I responded 2 Hearts. Mike thought that showed the ace of hearts exactly whereas I was showing just one ace, but it led to the same thing - 6 Clubs making. The best play problem of the day was his so I can't remember the hand in enough detail to post here.
As I have said before, the score did not matter - to the point where I don't actually know what it was. I know that we were roughly 4500 ahead at Half Time, and I think the Shire clawed a little bit of it back in the second half - a few of our pairs bid a Grand Slam (Yay!), but then half of them came down (Oh...). Don't look at Me and Mike; the slam was East-West and we sat North-South defending 6NT.
That's the fun stuff out of the way; more serious competition to come...
Like the Phoenix Cup. This might have been a separate article had I actually finished writing on Sunday night/ Monday, but no. So, we started off with Round 1 of the Phoenix Cup last night. There was a good turn out: 16 pairs. As is the norm for the Phoenix Cup, we played a 3/4 Howell movement. The favourites, Jim and Jun (my favourites if not anybody else's) stormed into first place with a 64% score. Despite a gallant effort, Lessurl and I encountered too much bad luck to compete with that and had to settle for 59% in second place. We made mistakes, but not so much that we could've caught the leaders had we got them all right. We've won with less. If last night's results reflect the final standings then we won't have disgraced ourselves. Last year's joint winners finished 8th and 14th, which is probably a sign that there are twists and turns to come.
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
Saturday, 12 February 2011
Phoenix Rising go top
Who'd be Captain of a "junior" Club Team of 8? Well, me, as it turns out. After a couple of week's worth of phone calls, texts, negotiations and tribulations, I managed to get together a team for Phoenix Rising's latest match - a home match against Torphins. One wonders if the team is cursed. Players were either away, ill, or otherwise engaged, with the result that we required two substitutes. One came from Phoenix I in the first Division; one from Ellon from the 2nd Division. Whilst this is perfectly workable (and, despite suggestions to the contrary from our opponents, legal), one always wishes that 8 players from the pool are always available. This is especially critical should we gain promotion from Division 3 as the current "alliance" between Phoenix Rising and Ellon will cease to exist.
For the uninitiated, there are clear rules on substitutions in the North District leagues. A substitute from another team must be a member of the club they are substituting for, not have played a match for a team in the same Division and not have played more than 2 matches for a team in a higher division. I have been meticulous in ensuring that any substitute for Phoenix Rising has met this criteria. If Phoenix Rising earn promotion to Division 2, and Ellon stay in Division 2 (both of which look likely at the moment), Ellon and Phoenix Rising will not be able to share players as they have done this season. (I have played once for Ellon already and will do so at least once more by the end of the season)
Then there was the issue of catering. As it turned out, I was not the only one that decided to bring in some home-made sandwiches and we probably had enough food to feed all three matches that were being played at Aberdeen Bridge Club that night. The sixteen players from our match did TRY to eat it all, but unsurprisingly failed.
Once all that was organised, there were 24 boards of bridge to be played. With my Dad and I playing at Table 1 in the last round, we limped to a (bad) score of +240 on the first 6 boards. However, this turned out to be the worst offering from any pair on the team. Our new player, partnering our Phoenix I substitute, contributed +1060. (They were sitting the same direction as us, so this was an indictment of our form). Our least experienced player, partnering someone who is regularly referred to as our "random club member", sitting the other way, somehow scored +1460. Overall, we were +3050 on the first set, which was phenomenal.
On the second set, we played at Table 2 and the boards did not get any easier. Here was the worst auction:
Dad RHO Me LHO
1D P 4H 4S
5H 5S P P
P
(Board 11; Love All)
In our system 4 Hearts is not strictly pre-emptive, although it does mean a long heart suit expecting to make Game. Contrary to a pre-empt, it can have values. What I had was rubbish spades, 7 hearts to the Ace-Jack and quick tricks in the minors. (I can't remember the exact hand). Unfortunately, in our system, I cannot bid 1, 2 or 3 hearts as they are all limit bids (3 Hearts is 12+ so partner shouldn't pass, but he has been known to) Partner decided 5 Hearts was as far as we were going. Fair enough, but why is 5 Spades going undoubled? Partner's reasoning was that he had a void in spades. Plenty people would've taken out the 6H or the X card without needing to look at their hand in that situation. 6 Hearts, as it happens, makes, so +100 for 5S-2 was not good.
We did claw something back on Board 7 when partner, already with 8 tricks in the bag in 3NT, played the losing ten of spades off table and my RHO, holding queen and jack, ducked. -10 was not as bad as it could've been but not good either. Our team-mates sitting our way had -870 (Slam was found but misplayed), and at Half time we were up 2100.
I do not recall a set like the third set. Six games bid and made - only one of them by the opposition. I felt our score was therefore bang-on par, with the only worry in my mind when I was presented this play situation in 4 Hearts:
A x x
J x x
A K J 10 x x
A
K x x
K Q 9 8 x x
---
Q x x x
(My Hand)
I had opened this 1 Heart, my partner had gone to 4 Clubs (Gerber); I said 4 Diamonds and he signed off in 4 Hearts. (We don't count void as an ace) The queen of spades was led. My worry was that the ace of trumps was my only loser. Since I was in 4 I took the safest line and made 11 but would I make 12 in 6 Hearts? Missing the ace of trumps it is difficult for anyone to bid and we're probably best out of it. Trumps broke 3-1. The question is open. Who wants to be in 6 Hearts here? +2070 was what we scored on the set, the next score I marked down was -2260 from Table 2. This was looking bad until 009domino and lessurl turned in -750 from Table 4. The score at Table 1 was +2440 - bring on Round 4.
Round 4 was a bit of a struggle. Partner raised my weak (to be passed) raise in spades and went for 300. Then this hand cropped up:
8 7
K
K Q 8 7 x x x
K x x
RHO opened 1 Spade. I discounted my KH and pre-empted 3 Daimonds. LHO said 3 Spades, and after some thought partner said 4 Diamonds. RHO said 4 Spades, passed out. (If I can find a double with my hand, is it ethical to do so?) I led the King of Diamonds, and dummy was:
A Q x x
x x x
x x
Q J x x
RHO won with the ace and took a round of spades, ending in dummy. She played a small heart from the table, which I won with the King, and then I found what I thought was the killer defence of a low diamond to partner's Jack. Partner laid down the ace of hearts, ruffed by RHO and over-ruffed by me. As it happened, partner had the Ace of clubs as well, so my neat defence was not so killer as a club would've done as well; the contract is always -2. What a shame we had not found a double. The line I took was right if partner does not have AC. So, that was an opportunity missed.
This was what saved it:
A x
K J x
x x
A K Q J 10 4
RHO opens 1 Heart. As my partner is somewhat wobbly on the meaning of doubles, and 1NT shows 16-18, I overcalled 1NT. LHO overcalls 2 Spades, and partner bids 3 Diamonds. I bid 3NT, which RHO doubles. I resist the temptation to Redouble and play in 3NTX. A heart is led, and dummy is:
x
A x
K 10 9 x x x
8 7 x x
Brilliant. The contract is solid anyway and I've just been gifted overtricks. The Jack wins and I play a small diamond. The Jack appears on my left so I cover and the ace wins. RHO returns... a heart! I win in dummy and play the ten of diamonds. Nobody covers, so I cash out my clubs, then my heart, then the ace of spades (hoping for a pseudo squeeze). 750 made for +500 overall.
We didn't have it all our own way, however. There was a -870 and a -300 to come. However, 009domino and lessurl came in with another fantastic score; +1610, sitting the opposite way from us. The big board? On the hand where I made 3NTx+2 above, 009domino opened 4 Hearts, got doubled, and made it. Try as I might, I cannot see how that is possible, with 1 spade loser and 3 heart losers. But I'm not complaining.
So that was a 19-1 win against the team that were top. It was Torphins' first defeat of the season, having won their first two matches 19-1 and 20-0. Phoenix Rising now sit proudly at the top, 14 points clear of Torphins. Despite what some would have us believe, we are not automatically entitled to first place. There are two big matches to come; 48 boards of bridge to be played. Well done to my team (who I have carefully avoided naming outright in case they don't want to take any credit).
For the uninitiated, there are clear rules on substitutions in the North District leagues. A substitute from another team must be a member of the club they are substituting for, not have played a match for a team in the same Division and not have played more than 2 matches for a team in a higher division. I have been meticulous in ensuring that any substitute for Phoenix Rising has met this criteria. If Phoenix Rising earn promotion to Division 2, and Ellon stay in Division 2 (both of which look likely at the moment), Ellon and Phoenix Rising will not be able to share players as they have done this season. (I have played once for Ellon already and will do so at least once more by the end of the season)
Then there was the issue of catering. As it turned out, I was not the only one that decided to bring in some home-made sandwiches and we probably had enough food to feed all three matches that were being played at Aberdeen Bridge Club that night. The sixteen players from our match did TRY to eat it all, but unsurprisingly failed.
Once all that was organised, there were 24 boards of bridge to be played. With my Dad and I playing at Table 1 in the last round, we limped to a (bad) score of +240 on the first 6 boards. However, this turned out to be the worst offering from any pair on the team. Our new player, partnering our Phoenix I substitute, contributed +1060. (They were sitting the same direction as us, so this was an indictment of our form). Our least experienced player, partnering someone who is regularly referred to as our "random club member", sitting the other way, somehow scored +1460. Overall, we were +3050 on the first set, which was phenomenal.
On the second set, we played at Table 2 and the boards did not get any easier. Here was the worst auction:
Dad RHO Me LHO
1D P 4H 4S
5H 5S P P
P
(Board 11; Love All)
In our system 4 Hearts is not strictly pre-emptive, although it does mean a long heart suit expecting to make Game. Contrary to a pre-empt, it can have values. What I had was rubbish spades, 7 hearts to the Ace-Jack and quick tricks in the minors. (I can't remember the exact hand). Unfortunately, in our system, I cannot bid 1, 2 or 3 hearts as they are all limit bids (3 Hearts is 12+ so partner shouldn't pass, but he has been known to) Partner decided 5 Hearts was as far as we were going. Fair enough, but why is 5 Spades going undoubled? Partner's reasoning was that he had a void in spades. Plenty people would've taken out the 6H or the X card without needing to look at their hand in that situation. 6 Hearts, as it happens, makes, so +100 for 5S-2 was not good.
We did claw something back on Board 7 when partner, already with 8 tricks in the bag in 3NT, played the losing ten of spades off table and my RHO, holding queen and jack, ducked. -10 was not as bad as it could've been but not good either. Our team-mates sitting our way had -870 (Slam was found but misplayed), and at Half time we were up 2100.
I do not recall a set like the third set. Six games bid and made - only one of them by the opposition. I felt our score was therefore bang-on par, with the only worry in my mind when I was presented this play situation in 4 Hearts:
A x x
J x x
A K J 10 x x
A
K x x
K Q 9 8 x x
---
Q x x x
(My Hand)
I had opened this 1 Heart, my partner had gone to 4 Clubs (Gerber); I said 4 Diamonds and he signed off in 4 Hearts. (We don't count void as an ace) The queen of spades was led. My worry was that the ace of trumps was my only loser. Since I was in 4 I took the safest line and made 11 but would I make 12 in 6 Hearts? Missing the ace of trumps it is difficult for anyone to bid and we're probably best out of it. Trumps broke 3-1. The question is open. Who wants to be in 6 Hearts here? +2070 was what we scored on the set, the next score I marked down was -2260 from Table 2. This was looking bad until 009domino and lessurl turned in -750 from Table 4. The score at Table 1 was +2440 - bring on Round 4.
Round 4 was a bit of a struggle. Partner raised my weak (to be passed) raise in spades and went for 300. Then this hand cropped up:
8 7
K
K Q 8 7 x x x
K x x
RHO opened 1 Spade. I discounted my KH and pre-empted 3 Daimonds. LHO said 3 Spades, and after some thought partner said 4 Diamonds. RHO said 4 Spades, passed out. (If I can find a double with my hand, is it ethical to do so?) I led the King of Diamonds, and dummy was:
A Q x x
x x x
x x
Q J x x
RHO won with the ace and took a round of spades, ending in dummy. She played a small heart from the table, which I won with the King, and then I found what I thought was the killer defence of a low diamond to partner's Jack. Partner laid down the ace of hearts, ruffed by RHO and over-ruffed by me. As it happened, partner had the Ace of clubs as well, so my neat defence was not so killer as a club would've done as well; the contract is always -2. What a shame we had not found a double. The line I took was right if partner does not have AC. So, that was an opportunity missed.
This was what saved it:
A x
K J x
x x
A K Q J 10 4
RHO opens 1 Heart. As my partner is somewhat wobbly on the meaning of doubles, and 1NT shows 16-18, I overcalled 1NT. LHO overcalls 2 Spades, and partner bids 3 Diamonds. I bid 3NT, which RHO doubles. I resist the temptation to Redouble and play in 3NTX. A heart is led, and dummy is:
x
A x
K 10 9 x x x
8 7 x x
Brilliant. The contract is solid anyway and I've just been gifted overtricks. The Jack wins and I play a small diamond. The Jack appears on my left so I cover and the ace wins. RHO returns... a heart! I win in dummy and play the ten of diamonds. Nobody covers, so I cash out my clubs, then my heart, then the ace of spades (hoping for a pseudo squeeze). 750 made for +500 overall.
We didn't have it all our own way, however. There was a -870 and a -300 to come. However, 009domino and lessurl came in with another fantastic score; +1610, sitting the opposite way from us. The big board? On the hand where I made 3NTx+2 above, 009domino opened 4 Hearts, got doubled, and made it. Try as I might, I cannot see how that is possible, with 1 spade loser and 3 heart losers. But I'm not complaining.
So that was a 19-1 win against the team that were top. It was Torphins' first defeat of the season, having won their first two matches 19-1 and 20-0. Phoenix Rising now sit proudly at the top, 14 points clear of Torphins. Despite what some would have us believe, we are not automatically entitled to first place. There are two big matches to come; 48 boards of bridge to be played. Well done to my team (who I have carefully avoided naming outright in case they don't want to take any credit).
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Life-Long ambition fulfilled
Well, more precisely, a 5 year ambition "kind of" fulfilled. When I played on the Scotland Peggy Bayer team 5 years ago, Wales did not enter a team. Curiously, the event will (as 5 years ago) be held in Scotland, and again, Wales are unable to field an Under 20 team. Consequently, I have never played a Junior International against Wales and I thought it might be a running thing that they would be a home nation that I wouldn't play against. That was until last night, when that was "sort of" put to bed.
The Welsh U25 team have been training hard (as I'm sure, all the home nations have been), and yesterday their regieme included a training match against 4 of the Scotland Under 20s - except one of them had connection problems so proximo and I alternated as partners for 009domino. Cue a chance to play against Wales.
The match consisted of three eight board matches. I was kibitzing the first stanza. You wouldn't have known all 8 players were juniors given 6 flat boards. Scotland found themselves 7-2 ahead at "One third time" thanks to a single board:
Proximo and 009domino competed well (but naturally) in spades. Since neither of their opponents held any of the top honours in diamonds, they were allowed to play in 2 Spades. Proximo went on to make 9 for +140, whilst at the other table the Scottish pair competed to 3 Diamonds, bought the contract, and made 10 tricks for +270 on the board overall.
So, Scotland had a slight lead - probably a safe enough time to deploy me. How many IMPs could bad judgement decisions cost? Answer: 3 (I cannot legitimately claim responsibility for the other 19 IMPs we lost in that set, although my team mates might beg to differ)
Here was an interesting call. We gained an IMP on this board but could so easily have lost 12:
There were a couple of key decisions here. Firstly, there was the issue of whether I should rebid 2 Spades or 2NT. The 2 Diamond bid has balanced my hand, but without heart cover I fell that 2NT tells a lie and 2 Spades doesn't. With 1 stop in the unmentioned suits and ace of mine, partner raised to 4 Spades.
As you can see with the Double dummy view, 4 Spades should not make, and 3NT is 100%. But 3NT is only solid owing to a 3-3 heart break, which is only a 33% chance. The rest of the time, 4 Spades is just as bad (or good). It is unlikely I hold up to 3 hearts so 4 Spades seems reasonable from partner's hand. Jonny lead the 5 of clubs and I won with the 10 in hand. I played up to the Ace of spades and back to my KQ, drawing the trumps, pitching a club in attempt to give Jonny the wrong idea of the hand. Sure enough (and luckily), when I lay down the queen of diamonds, he does not cover - and all roads lead to ten tricks now. 3NT at the other table made 9, but I did not know this at the time - for all I knew we'd just had a Game swing. Unbeknownst to me, this hand had just put us 14-0 up in the set.
I'll skip past the next two boards, where a 14-0 lead in the set became a 14-15 defecit. (Oh, all right then; I missed a diamond discard to not take an overtrick and I doubled a cold Game when our counterparts made an undoubled sacrifice). However, I was happy with the following board:
My Hand jonny-r 009domino jack army Alisdair
K Q J 4 3 1D 1S
K J 10 3 Pass 2C Pass 2H
10 9 Pass 3C Pass ?
A 4
3 Clubs or 5 Clubs - stick or twist?
Partner is a good bet for KQxxx of clubs. She probably holds an outside ace - or a diamond stop. If she has the maximum amount of major cards that she could have (five), then that leaves two diamonds - or an extra club. For me I felt 2 Diamond losers were likely and she only needs one more for Pass from me to be correct. In the end, it is an easy choice. Partner will make 5 Clubs only when she has the best hand she could have. I passed. In fact, partner held:
A 6
Q 9 4
8 5
K Q 10 9 7 3
Pass is right as partner has 3 losers in top tricks. In 5, she should surely go down. In 3, she makes 12, as LHO has to look for 2 more tricks and begins the campaign by leading the singleton 2 of spades. Partner lets this run to the ace, draws trumps (which break 3-2) and takes K, Q and J of spades, pitching her two diamonds. The defence must come to the Ace of hearts but that's all they get. I must confess that, again our gain was as much by luck as it was design. Our Welsh counterparts bid to 4 Spades but were defeated by the 5-1 break (North holding 10 9 8 7 5)
With all this bad luck the Welsh players had, I'll compliment them for the 7 IMPs they won on the last board to take the second stanza by a point. With the same contract being bid in both rooms, it came down to this play problem:
A 10 9 6
K 6
8 5
A K 9 8 4
Q 8 7 2
A J 10 7 2
7 6
Q 10
Contract: 3 Spades
Lead: Diamond honour
I lead QD followed by the 10, which partner overtook with the Jack, before leading a small club. Declarer rose with the queen, and played a small spade to the ten, beaten by the King. My partner tried the Queen of Hearts next, but Declarer won with the King and played a small spade, noting a discard of the curse of Scotland, and finessing through my Jack. After cashing the ace of spades, he claimed 10 tricks without further ado. It was played by North at the other table but he suffered no better a defence - I shall not post on the Internet how he played the hand.
The score after 16 boards: Scotland 28-24 Wales
I sat out the last eight boards which was a shame, with everything to play for. (I'll leave it to others to suggest which side it was a shame for). Wales battled into an 8-0 lead but after one pair overbid to 4 Spades when only 8 tricks were there, the score in the stanza was suddenly 8-8. It really could've gone either way, but in the end the Welsh side were struck yet another horrible lie of the cards after getting to the right (but not correct, as it turned out) contract on the penultimate board:
South(D) North South North
1S 2H A K 9 5 4 3 2 Q 6
3S 4NT --- A Q 9 6 4 2
5C 6S K 7 6 4 10
A J K Q 10 3
009domino was sitting West and lead Ace and another diamond. South ruffed this, but found out on trick 3 that the contract was doomed - on cashing the QS it transpired East had all four missing trumps and was bound to get one. Wales lost 13 IMPs instead of gaining 12 for bidding a 90.44% slam. Incidentally, if West did not want to lead her ace and instead chose a heart lead, 6 Spades can make on a trump coup.
Final score: Scotland 49-45 Wales
In WBF terms Scotland were 1 IMP better than a draw. I think it is a moral victory for both teams. The Scotland Under 20s will be encouraged by a win (however narrow) against an Under 25 side. The Welsh team will know that if only the cards had been a little nicer to them they could've had a convincing win themselves. I certainly hope they have better luck in the Junior Camrose in eleven days' time. (Except against Scotland; patriotic loyalty and all that).
You will notice I have not mastered the art of embedding bridge movies into blog posts. Hence the hand-typed scrawl to describe hands. Any help in this department much appreciated.
The Welsh U25 team have been training hard (as I'm sure, all the home nations have been), and yesterday their regieme included a training match against 4 of the Scotland Under 20s - except one of them had connection problems so proximo and I alternated as partners for 009domino. Cue a chance to play against Wales.
The match consisted of three eight board matches. I was kibitzing the first stanza. You wouldn't have known all 8 players were juniors given 6 flat boards. Scotland found themselves 7-2 ahead at "One third time" thanks to a single board:
Proximo and 009domino competed well (but naturally) in spades. Since neither of their opponents held any of the top honours in diamonds, they were allowed to play in 2 Spades. Proximo went on to make 9 for +140, whilst at the other table the Scottish pair competed to 3 Diamonds, bought the contract, and made 10 tricks for +270 on the board overall.
So, Scotland had a slight lead - probably a safe enough time to deploy me. How many IMPs could bad judgement decisions cost? Answer: 3 (I cannot legitimately claim responsibility for the other 19 IMPs we lost in that set, although my team mates might beg to differ)
Here was an interesting call. We gained an IMP on this board but could so easily have lost 12:
As you can see with the Double dummy view, 4 Spades should not make, and 3NT is 100%. But 3NT is only solid owing to a 3-3 heart break, which is only a 33% chance. The rest of the time, 4 Spades is just as bad (or good). It is unlikely I hold up to 3 hearts so 4 Spades seems reasonable from partner's hand. Jonny lead the 5 of clubs and I won with the 10 in hand. I played up to the Ace of spades and back to my KQ, drawing the trumps, pitching a club in attempt to give Jonny the wrong idea of the hand. Sure enough (and luckily), when I lay down the queen of diamonds, he does not cover - and all roads lead to ten tricks now. 3NT at the other table made 9, but I did not know this at the time - for all I knew we'd just had a Game swing. Unbeknownst to me, this hand had just put us 14-0 up in the set.
I'll skip past the next two boards, where a 14-0 lead in the set became a 14-15 defecit. (Oh, all right then; I missed a diamond discard to not take an overtrick and I doubled a cold Game when our counterparts made an undoubled sacrifice). However, I was happy with the following board:
My Hand jonny-r 009domino jack army Alisdair
K Q J 4 3 1D 1S
K J 10 3 Pass 2C Pass 2H
10 9 Pass 3C Pass ?
A 4
3 Clubs or 5 Clubs - stick or twist?
Partner is a good bet for KQxxx of clubs. She probably holds an outside ace - or a diamond stop. If she has the maximum amount of major cards that she could have (five), then that leaves two diamonds - or an extra club. For me I felt 2 Diamond losers were likely and she only needs one more for Pass from me to be correct. In the end, it is an easy choice. Partner will make 5 Clubs only when she has the best hand she could have. I passed. In fact, partner held:
A 6
Q 9 4
8 5
K Q 10 9 7 3
Pass is right as partner has 3 losers in top tricks. In 5, she should surely go down. In 3, she makes 12, as LHO has to look for 2 more tricks and begins the campaign by leading the singleton 2 of spades. Partner lets this run to the ace, draws trumps (which break 3-2) and takes K, Q and J of spades, pitching her two diamonds. The defence must come to the Ace of hearts but that's all they get. I must confess that, again our gain was as much by luck as it was design. Our Welsh counterparts bid to 4 Spades but were defeated by the 5-1 break (North holding 10 9 8 7 5)
With all this bad luck the Welsh players had, I'll compliment them for the 7 IMPs they won on the last board to take the second stanza by a point. With the same contract being bid in both rooms, it came down to this play problem:
A 10 9 6
K 6
8 5
A K 9 8 4
Q 8 7 2
A J 10 7 2
7 6
Q 10
Contract: 3 Spades
Lead: Diamond honour
I lead QD followed by the 10, which partner overtook with the Jack, before leading a small club. Declarer rose with the queen, and played a small spade to the ten, beaten by the King. My partner tried the Queen of Hearts next, but Declarer won with the King and played a small spade, noting a discard of the curse of Scotland, and finessing through my Jack. After cashing the ace of spades, he claimed 10 tricks without further ado. It was played by North at the other table but he suffered no better a defence - I shall not post on the Internet how he played the hand.
The score after 16 boards: Scotland 28-24 Wales
I sat out the last eight boards which was a shame, with everything to play for. (I'll leave it to others to suggest which side it was a shame for). Wales battled into an 8-0 lead but after one pair overbid to 4 Spades when only 8 tricks were there, the score in the stanza was suddenly 8-8. It really could've gone either way, but in the end the Welsh side were struck yet another horrible lie of the cards after getting to the right (but not correct, as it turned out) contract on the penultimate board:
South(D) North South North
1S 2H A K 9 5 4 3 2 Q 6
3S 4NT --- A Q 9 6 4 2
5C 6S K 7 6 4 10
A J K Q 10 3
009domino was sitting West and lead Ace and another diamond. South ruffed this, but found out on trick 3 that the contract was doomed - on cashing the QS it transpired East had all four missing trumps and was bound to get one. Wales lost 13 IMPs instead of gaining 12 for bidding a 90.44% slam. Incidentally, if West did not want to lead her ace and instead chose a heart lead, 6 Spades can make on a trump coup.
Final score: Scotland 49-45 Wales
In WBF terms Scotland were 1 IMP better than a draw. I think it is a moral victory for both teams. The Scotland Under 20s will be encouraged by a win (however narrow) against an Under 25 side. The Welsh team will know that if only the cards had been a little nicer to them they could've had a convincing win themselves. I certainly hope they have better luck in the Junior Camrose in eleven days' time. (Except against Scotland; patriotic loyalty and all that).
You will notice I have not mastered the art of embedding bridge movies into blog posts. Hence the hand-typed scrawl to describe hands. Any help in this department much appreciated.
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