High Level Disaster

I just got home from 4 days playing with jason at the regional in Lake Geneva. In the final of the Friday Saturday knockout we got the chance to test our skills against one of the world's best pairs, Cezary Balicki and Adam Zmudzimski of Poland. On this swing hand, the last one of the first set, we were playing against their sponsor and Garey Hayden.
EW Game:
--------Axxx
--------x
--------Jxx
--------Axxxx
xx--------------KJx
AQJxxxxxx----Kxx
x---------------Axx
x---------------Jxx
--------QTx
--------void
--------KQTxxx
--------KQxx
I opened the south hand 1 diamond, which was limited and could have been any balanced 13-16 hand. Hayden overcalled 4 Hearts, Jason doubled (cards), the sponsor passed and I removed to 4NT. Jason bid 5 Clubs and the sponsor took 5 Hearts. Now what? At the table I passed (forcing?) and Jason whacked it. Hayden eventually played to the king of spades for +850. Only Ace of diamonds, diamond ruff beats 6 Clubs...the contract at the other table was 5 Clubs making 6 on the same auction minus the 5 Heart bid.

I have talked to a number of players and have heard differing opinions on who should have done what. Was I to blame for not bidding over 5 Hearts with my void? Or ought North to bid again? Or was it all just bad luck?

Anyway, we lost the match but Jason and I gained some good experience playing against the Poles in the second half. We were hoping to get one more shot at them in the Swiss today but things never came together for us and we wallowed below average (they won it going away). There were some other interesting deals--I'll get a few more up in the next couple of days. On the bright side we only bid 1 slam missing 2 cashing aces this tournament. Improvement!

Another Precision 2 Club Auction

I had this auction today with Jason Rosenfeld--
Axxx
Ax
x
Axxxxx

KTx
KQxxx
Axx
xx
Our auction, starting with Jason's (North's) hand was:
2C (1)-2D(2)-2S(3)-2NT(4)-3C-P
(1) Precision
(2) Relay
(3) 4 Spades, could have only 5 good Clubs
(4) Non-forcing. I could (should?) have bid 3 Hearts, game-forcing

It turned out that there wasn't much to the play--hearts makes with overtricks, 5 clubs makes and even 3nt makes because hearts were 3-3. I think that with my good spades and reasonable club fit that my last pass was a mistake, but I also didn't figure I would be facing 3 aces. I know that some people play that the precision 2 club opening promises 6 of them--that could maybe have made this auction easier. After partner bids 2 Spades I know he is 6-4 and may feel more comfortable forcing game with my partial fits. On the actual auction I did find out that he was 6-4 but also got the message that he had minimal high-cards, which influenced me staying low. Moral I guess is that if you can make a descriptive bid that may cause you to overreach, go ahead and do it in the interest of having a good constructive auction. Next time I'll go ahead and force with 3 hearts with this hand--i'll want partner declaring notrump anyway if his diamonds are something like Qx.

Appreciating Your Values

My dad and I had this (almost) good auction to 5 Clubs today. The only problem was that I forgot to bid 5 Clubs at the end of it.
Kxxx
void
Axx
KQxxxx

AQx
T9xx
Q9
Jxxx
2 C(1)-2D(2)-2S(3)-3C(4)-3D-3S-4C-P
1-precision
2-relay
3-4 spades, could have only 5 clubs (albeit a good suit)
4-non-forcing

By the end of the auction I should know that my values are all working and that 5 Clubs will have a good play. Partner's 4 Club bid was conservative but it gave me a chance to get out with heart wastage. I guess I need to make mistakes like this one every now and then to keep myself on my toes for the future.

Side Game Backwash

Undaunted by relegation to the side one day bracketed KO after missing the IMP Pair final, Jason and I took on a team of friends from Chicago in the first round. This hand came up early on in the match:

KJTx

AQJx

A

J9xx



xx

xxx

K98xx

T6xx

we reached 3 clubs played by Jason (South) via Precision 2 Diamonds-3 Clubs. West got off to the unfortunate lead of the club ace crashing his partner's queen. A trump continuation went to the king and East switched to a diamond. Jason won in dummy and played the king of spades. East won the ace and returned another diamond. Jason won the king pitching a heart and played another spade to the jack. East won again and continued diamonds, Jason ruffing with the jack. he cashed his spade ten pitching a heart and led the last spade in this position:
-----8
-----AQJ
-----none
-----9
none
Kxx
Q
7
-----none
-----x
-----98
-----T6
He ruffed with the ten and West had no good discard! A heart would allow Jason to finesse in hearts, draw trump and enjoy the last two hearts. A diamond would let him play winners through West, and an underruff lets him take the heart finesse and crossruff. I think that this ending is called a backwash squeeze, so-named in the Ottlik/Kelsey classic "Adventures in Cardplay." If Jason had taken a heart finesse before establishing his spade trick, it looks like he would have made 3 with less fanfare since the eventual spade ruff provides the entry to take a second heart finesse, but then there would be no story.
West's full hand was:
xxx
Kxx
Qxxxx
A7x

Back From Nationals

I just got back from the NABC in Detroit. It was a good time, but not a rousing success from a bridge standpoint. My partner Jason Rosenfeld and I arrived with high aspirations to play the IMP Pair and the Weekend Open Swiss but didn't qualify for the second day of either. We started out rusty--we play a strong club system that we used to be able to work on a lot when we were both in the Chicago area--Jason is another Northwestern guy but has since moved back home to Boston. Maybe some of the strain of remembering our old stuff caused some of our defensive mishaps in the early going that really cost us. I have a number of interesting hands to write up...here is one based mostly on being opportunistic at IMPs and taking inferences from the bidding. Second in hand I held:
AQ9
987
QJxx
ATx
Neither vul, RHO opened a precision 1 Diamond which was passed around to Jason who reopened with one heart. RHO bid 1 Notrump, which showed a balanced 16 points or so in their methods (supposedly the initial pass by responder denied a bust and showed diamond tolerance). Anyway i could contest this and doubled, which must show a hand like this. LHO bid a very slow 2 Clubs which was passed back to me. I bid 2 Hearts passed back to the opener who bid 3 Clubs! This i could barely believe, but I knew I had to act in tempo and, feeling i had already shown my hand, I passed. Three Clubs undoubled became the final contract and we beat it two tricks after a small slip in defense...(the opponents had only a 4-4 fit). The +100 was a small loss on the board as we could have made 140 or 170 in hearts. Moral of the story to me is this: when an opp0rtunity arises and the conditions look right, be ready to pounce. If I had doubled and we had defended correctly we would have scored 500 and eventually made the IMP Pair final after all. In this case there was a great argument for the double...I had a good hand with both the ace and ten of clubs, partner had reopend, our fit was not outstanding and the opponents didn't appear to be on firm ground with their bids. Hopefully I'll be ready next time! More hands to come.

GNT Weekend

Qualifying for our district in the GNTs was this past weekend and my team of underdogs created a bit of a stir by making the final of the championship bracket. We finally ran out of steam and lost in the final. Congratulations to Jeff Miller, Doc Mohan, David Yang, and Xiaodong Shi, who played fantastically throughout the event and will be great reps for our district at nationals.

It was an enjoyable run for our squad...while it was a little disappointing to come close and not win, it was great experience and a neat opportunity to play against the best competition in the area. Thanks go out to my partner Jonathan Weinstein and our teammates Kenny Zuckerberg and Bill Drewett. Here are two of my favorite hands--both were slams that my partner and I bid that were not reached at the other table.

x
Qxx
AKQxx
KJxx

KJx
AKxx
Jxxx
Ax
On this one I opened the South hand with 1 Notrump and Jonathan bid 2 Notrump, a diamond transfer. Since I didn't have a top honor in diamonds I just accepted the transfer with 3 Diamonds (I had the option of bidding 3 Clubs showing good diamonds). Jonathan bid 3 Spades promising shortness. At this point I felt that my hand was worth a move despite the spade wastage because I had 4 trump and 3 great cards in the round suits. I bid 4 Clubs hoping it would be a cue-bid for diamonds...Jonathan may not have been sure what I meant by this because he jumped to 6 Clubs. Fortunately the diamonds are higher ranking, so I could bid them at the 6 level and close out the auction. There were no problems in the play when West led the ace of spades, so we chalked up our slam.

xxx
Kxx
KT9xx
JT

AKQxxx
x
AJx
AQx
This one I had to open the bidding as South and could decide between 1 Spade and 2 Clubs, our forcing opening. I felt that the controls justified the 2 Club opening and went with that. Jonathan responded 2 Hearts, which shows 2 controls (ace=2, king=1) in our system. RHO doubled this bid as a lead director and I showed my spades. Jonathan raised, I bid 4 Clubs and he bid 4 Diamonds. At this point I actually figured that his controls were the king of clubs and king of diamonds, so slam was at worst on the diamond finesse. With just the king of diamonds and king of hearts and little distribution he may not have cue-bid because he would have already shown his hand with the two heart bid. Anyway, I bid 6 Spades straight away and bought this dummy. Trump were 2-2 and I played West successfully for the queen of diamonds to make 6. Thinking further about partner's 4 Diamond bid, the hand he held (with a nice diamond suit along with the king) or one with the king of hearts and king-queen of diamonds would also be good 4 Diamond bids, and any of those hands make the slam little or no worse than an even money proposition. Nice bid partner!

Two From the Home Game

I haven't posted in quite a while, partly because I haven't been playing much so nothing very new has come up. That should be changing over the next couple of months with another NABC right around the corner. A few bridge players braved the cold yesterday to travel out to the Chicago suburbs for the latest edition of the home game. Here are a couple of deals that I found interesting:
The first is a bidding problem. You are fourth in hand vul vs not with:
KJxx
xx
KJ87
KQx
LHO opens 1 Spades and partner bids 2 Spades (Michaels) and RHO passes. What do you do now and what is your plan for the rest of the auction? You can suggest whatever methods you like.

The second is a play problem--

AK2
K84
AKT92
93

986
AQ63
96
AKJ5
you bid to 6 Notrump--something like 1c-1d-1nt-4nt-5h-6nt and get the 7 of hearts lead from West. Suppose you win in hand and run the 9 of diamonds and it holds. What is your plan from here? Alternatively, what if the 9 of diamonds is covered by an honor on your left?