A well played match?

Bridge is never dull, at least for a student of the game like myself.  I love the curious little things that happen at the table.  That’s what this blog is really supposed to be about.

In a recent regional, for example, we had the following auction:

1♣ 1♦ 1♥ 1♠
2♥ 2♠ 3♣ 3♦

I don’t remember what happened after that but I think it went 4♥, spoiling the pattern a bit.  But it was an elegant display at that moment.

But there was one eight-board match in last weekend’s sectional Swiss that I thought so strange that I’m going to share the story.  With two rounds to go of the seven-round event, we had 52 victory points (a pleasing number for card-players).  So, with a strong finish we might end up in the overalls.  At this point, one team (our first opponents) had 94, an (almost) unassailable haul.

We were playing a less-experienced team and I thought we had a good chance of a solid win.  On the first board, our opponents bid to an unremarkable game and made it exactly.  It did seem that they might have made one or two overtricks but I dismissed it as a flat board.  Well, we won 13 imps because our teammates bid and made a slam.  Who knew?

The second board looked like we might get a 6 imp gain as our opponents stretched a little to a non-vulnerable game that went down 2.  I was pretty sure declarer could do better but I wasn’t expecting the 11 imp gain that we got when our teammates also stretched but played it a little more carefully.

The next board was a very boring little vulnerable 2♥+1 for us that looked like at most a couple of imps might change hands.  But no, we increased our lead by six when our teammates somehow came back with 100.  

At this point, it seemed that we might be up a bit, but not nearly enough for a significant victory point score.  I was very happy when the next board came up.  Our opponents were vulnerable while we were not.  My RHO dealt and opened 1♦.  My hand was ♠ A8652 ♥ AKT3 ♦ void ♣ QT74.  I decided to make a takeout double. This was followed by two passes.  Oh dear, partner’s going to be a bit disappointed to find that I have no trumps at all.  But never mind.  RHO opponent then decided to make an S.O.S. redouble (his shape being 4432).  This was passed out.  Interesting!  Partner had six good diamonds and our defense was accurate with the result that we took 8 tricks for the unusual score of 1000.  I knew this was a big gain, but it was hard to predict what would happen at the other table.  Apparently, they played in a more normal contract and our teammates were -110 for a gain of 13 imps.

So, half-way through the match we were up by 43 imps!  Things started to unravel a bit then, however.  On the next board, I picked up (not-vulnerable versus vulnerable) the following unremarkable hand: ♠ AQT953 ♥ QJ7 ♦K5 ♣ 84.  I opened 1♠ heard partner bid 2NT (Jacoby) and I of course bid 4S.  Partner bid 5♣, I responded 5♦ and partner then bid 5♥.  RHO chimed in then with a double.  Hmm, obviously, RHO has the ♥K and he’s now getting a heart lead.  If there’s another loser somewhere we’re going down in 6♠.  Maybe notrump would play better from partner’s side (RHO won’t be able to lead a heart then, will he?).  OTOH, maybe we’re already at our limit.  Well, surely if partner thinks we might have slam, we can make 11 tricks in notrump! [says I hopefully].

This hand was a true comedy of errors.  My partner didn’t really have his 5♣ bid (KJxxx Kx xxx AKQ) and we were about to be down 1 in 5♠.  My RHO didn’t have the ♥K.  He had the ♥A!  Did he really need a heart lead?  And, what was partner’s 5♥ bid supposed to accomplish anyway, particularly as the lead would be coming through his K?  And, perhaps silliest of all, we couldn’t take more than six tricks in notrump, whoever was playing it!  Partner passed (thankfully, nobody doubled) and then they took six diamonds and the ♥A for -250.  Playing in the wrong strain cost us two imps, but no victory points.  Our lead was down to 31.  

We then lost an imp on a 1NT part-score.  On the penultimate board I invoked a somewhat unusual tactic: the preemptive game try.  My hand: ♠ T986 ♥ AKQ93 ♦6 ♣ Q97 .  With nobody vulnerable, partner dealt and passed, as did RHO.  I opened 1♥ followed by a pass.  Partner raised me to 2♥ and RHO passed again.  With a maximum of 20 (or possibly 21) high-card points between us and a singleton diamond, there seemed no likelihood of winning this declaration at 2♥. Indeed, the opponents might even be able to make 4♦ if I give them the chance. I decided to bid 2♠, a help suit game try.  That will deter the opponents, I thought, and partner will probably revert to 3♥ - the same contract that we would probably play in if they balanced.  Well, partner actually bid 4♥ given his excellent support for spades (Jxx).  No, seriously, he bid 4♥ because he had a 10-count.  All I needed was for the ♣K to be onside to gain 8 imps.  Unfortunately, it was offside and I lost 3 imps (our side was -50 at both tables -- I don’t know what their actual contract was).  But my expectation on the hand of 2.5 imps was the kind of odds I can live with.  Lead down to 27.

Then came one of those unfortunate occurrences that you just have to take philosophically.  We bid to a normal 4♠ contract after a strong notrump and Stayman auction.  I don’t remember the dummy precisely but I recall that the shape was 4423.  Our trumps were pretty good ones, we were only missing the K, T and three small.  Unfortunately, my LHO held all five trumps and, try as I might, I couldn’t engineer an endplay on her because most of the adverse high cards were held by RHO.  I ended up down one while my counterpart at the other table played for some unknown reason in 3NT making easily.

We ended up with 14 imps which was good enough for 16 VPs.  Unfortunately, we lost the final match by six and finished out of the money.  As we were waiting for the last round, I was showing all of the crazy swings to my wife Kim (whose team ended up second in the event).  The director David Metcalf overheard this exchange and quipped “a well-played match.”

Swiss Gambit

The scene is a four-round club Swiss at the Newton Bridge Club with some strong teams in contention (five of the 24 teams had GLMs or Platinum LMs).  After a moderate start – we would naturally claim that we were deliberately holding back in the first match to effect the "Swiss Gambit" – we had a nice come-from-behind win.  Two of the pivotal boards were slams.

The first of these was basically as simple as choosing between two suits.  My hand was ♠ T83 ♥ K2 ♦ KQJ ♣ AQ654 and partner Len Aberbach opened the bidding: 1♠ – 2♣ – 3♣ – 3♠ – 4♥ – 4NT – 5♦ – 5♥ – 6♣.  2♣ was game-forcing and 5♦ showed 0 or 3 keycards.  Not countenancing the possibility of zero, I asked about the queen with 5♥.  6♣ showed both the ♠Q and the ♣K.  I now knew his hand to be AKQxx Ax xx Kxx plus one other card, presumably not a spade.  In clubs, it was probable, given the 3♣ call and our style, of a fourth card or perhaps a second honor.  So, at the risk of losing 2 imps, I chose what I thought was the most likely make and passed 6♣.

This turned out to be a good decision. A diamond was led to the ace and dummy came down with ♠ AKQ76 ♥ A75 ♦ 75 ♣ KJT.  Both black suits broke 4-1 but the solidity of the clubs meant there was no loser in trumps to go with the missing ace.  The spades, however, could only be brought in by twice running an intermediate card for a finesse, an unlikely play at the table.  They made 5♠ at the other table for a 12-imp gain.  Of course, it was lucky that I chose the right strain – it could easily have the been the wrong decision and I can't claim any great brilliance.

Much more credit is due however to our teammates.  My wife Kim Gilman – playing with Tony Wolf – later made a very fine bit of hand evaluation and followed it up with careful and accurate play for a nice 11-imp gain.  Kim's hand was ♠ J8632  ♥ K ♦ 4 ♣ AKT654.  Tony opened 1♥ and Kim decided not to make a game-forcing bid at first.  After the helpful diamond intervention and Tony's cooperative heart cuebid, they ended up in 6♠.  This was the layout:


The first two tricks were diamonds, Kim ruffing the second trick.  She then took two rounds of trumps with the A and K, seeing that South showed out.  A club back to hand (dropping the Q) was followed by a second club and a club ruff.  A low heart to the K was followed by another club ruff.  Now all depended on getting back successfully to hand without promoting North's trump ten.  Leaving the ♥A stranded in dummy (there were no losers to throw on it), Kim was able to ruff with the 8, draw the last trump and her hand was good.  Note that the ♥A is a chimera – see what would happen if it was cashed before trying to get back to hand!  At our table, West was in 4♠ and no great care was required to make the hand (as I recall, the ♥A was in fact cashed), and they ended up making just the one overtrick.

Our gambit apparently paid off because we never did meet any of the strongest teams.  We were in fact nicely poised after three rounds in third place ready to overtake the two tough teams ahead of us.  Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good!

On-the-job training

On-the-job training is an inherent feature of playing bridge.  You can't learn it from books or classes alone (far from it) and, unless you're one of those naturally gifted types, you have to keep on making errors in order to improve.  But those mistakes can be heart-breaking.  The important thing is to learn a lesson.

The setting: last of eight matches in a regional open Swiss with 40 teams.  My team is in 2nd place, 13 VPs behind the leaders (to whom we just lost), with decent but vulnerable leads over the next few teams.  We are drawn against a good team, but perhaps not one of the pre-race favorites.  As we reach board six, we are doing fine -- it turns out that we are up by 3.  Having played brilliantly all day, my young partner now decides to break discipline (bidding 4NT instead of accepting the transfer after 2NT - 4H) and we lose 10 imps [responder is most definitely "captain" here because opener is narrowly limited and responder has at least four ways to bid get to the right spade contract: 3H and pass; 3H then raise 3S to 4S - a mild slam try; 4H and pass 4S; 4H then bid 4NT over 4S].  I can't criticize this too much, however, when I realize that if we could have picked up just 21 imps on the last two boards, we would have tied for the win at least.  But I was reminded at the time of the many true stories of team matches where one team has a commanding lead going into the last few boards and...

The final board is brought up.  After what I will politely call "a somewhat unlikely auction" (which, incidentally, I could have allowed to subside at 1C), my LHO ends up in a vulnerable 4S.  We are destined to win 6 on this board (maintaining our 2nd and 5 more masterpoints than we ultimately achieved), providing that, after 55 boards, I can simply stay awake! 

Without going into detail, which would at best be irrelevant to the case in general, and at worst cause excruciating embarrassment to your poor scribe, I will offer this one piece of advice (assuming you are playing in a good event): as long as declarer hasn't yet claimed, there's a way to beat the contract.  This isn't so at our usual practice location, the club, where the scoring is almost always matchpoints, because many players simply do not bother to claim when they should.  But when a good declarer has played the hand out carefully, and you find yourself on lead towards the end of the hand, having achieved your "book," STOP! Then think very carefully before leading to the next trick.

Dumb and dumber

I've heard of "dumbing down", and the ACBL is certainly quite "masterful" at it (get it?).  But this has to be some sort of world record:  looking at the results of a recent NAP game, I note that a C pair "qualified" with a 32.3% game!  They didn't beat anyone, either in their own section or the other section.  What is going on?  Could this be because there was a simultaneous novice pairs going on at the same location?

Meanwhile, in the third round* of this evening's club Swiss, playing the eventual winners, my team benefited considerably from the non-linear IMP and VP scales.  In six boards, between our two pairs, we managed to lose a total of 59 imps on "errors" with respect to double-dummy bidding and play.  That's 5 imps per pair per board!  Fortunately, the opponents made 18 imps of errors and the net was only 34 (instead of the 41 that would accrue on a linear scale) [our net loss in total points was 2030!]  Of course, this all adds up to being blitzed.  But again, it's better to have all your errors in one set because of the non-linearity of the VP scale.  Thanks to the non-linearity, and despite being 1 IMP (and 90 points) in the hole overall, we still ended up 2 VPs above average and in the money!

As they say, in bridge it's better to be lucky than good!

But enough of this silly philosophizing.  What you want to see is a hand!  Here's one from the second match that both pairs did well on (although this time the non-linearity worked against us of course).

Dealer North. E/W Vulnerable.
	♠ K Q J 10 5 ♥ A 10 5 ♦ 9 7 6 ♣ 6 5
♠ 8 ♥ K J 8 7 3 2 ♦ K 8 ♣ K J 9 3		♠ A 7 6 4 2 ♥ Q 6 4 ♦ A 5 ♣ 8 7 2
	♠ 9 3 ♥ 9 ♦ Q J 10 4 3 2 ♣ A Q 10 4

At the other table, Kim opened the South hand with an excellent third-seat "pressure bid": 3♦.  This effectively silenced the West player.  Tony raised the preempt to 4♦ and there it rested.  [BTW: it's usually not necessary to raise a pressure bid unless you have really excellent shape – see my blog Pressure Bids].  Result: -50.

At our table, the South player started with 2♦ and my partner, Len, deemed his hand just good enough to bid 2♥ (and I agree).  If I recall correctly, North passed and I was left to consider my hand.  In the context, my hand was about as good as it could be for a passed hand in support of partner's 2♥: three golden cards.  The only improvement might be if the ♦A was seconded to the clubs instead.  Thinking about the 5:3 reward/risk ratio for a vulnerable game, I jumped to 4♥ and we played it there.  Result: +650.  As you can see, game is cold.  Indeed it takes a slightly unlikely club lead to hold it to 10 tricks.

This was good for 12 imps but, like a 75 yard kickoff return, it was Kim's 3♦ call which got us into a winning position.  Imagine that our North and East players both decided to pass.  We'd still be gaining 7 imps on the board.  As it happens, that would have translated into only one fewer VP for the match.

* Incidentally, on this set, the North hand averaged 14.67 hcp per board (including one 2 point board).  That's quite a marked deviation from the norm.

A nice bit of hand evaluation

The setting: a club Swiss – the last of four six-board matches. There are three strong teams, six not particularly strong teams and ourselves. We are not doing particularly well.  We have no chance of winning and if we don't do something good in the last match, we won't scratch.  We've had one very lucky result but a couple of soft boards.  As it turns out, we are ahead by just one imp half-way through.  On the fourth board, all are vulnerable and I pick up ♠QJ982 ♥KT64 ♦75 ♣83 (spots approximate).  Len, my partner, is the dealer and opens 1♣.  I bid 1♠ and partner rebids 1NT, showing a balanced 15-17.  I rebid 2♥, showing no interest in game and offering partner a choice of majors.  Partner  surprises me by jumping to 4♥!  His hand is, literally, aces and spaces.  But he knows the power of aces (his 4333 hand is now worth about 18 points) and with two eight-card major suit fits, and a vulnerable game possibility, he decides to bid it all on his own.  I dare say that I would have raised to four if he'd bid three.

Interestingly, this is a hand where we might actually have a slight advantage over the strong no-trumpers.   I can show both majors with a fairly narrowly-defined sub-invitational range (6-8 hcp).  Strong no-trumpers probably get to use this sequence more frequently but, for them, the range is less narrowly-defined (6-11 hcp or thereabouts).  It really wouldn't make sense to have this auction playing a strong no-trump because the responding hand could easily be much too weak.

Anyway, the opening lead is a diamond and dummy is: ♠AT6 ♥A953 ♦A62 ♣A94.  As long as trumps are three-two (they are), I can make this hand if either the ♠K is onside (it isn't) or if the player with the last heart has four spades (he hasn't).  Fortunately, for me, the defense isn't perfect and I'm able to pitch dummy's two losing clubs before the ace is knocked out.  That's 10 tricks, 10 imps and a win by 6, which is just enough to put us into 3rd place.

Can you win this sectional Swiss?

It's the final (7th) match of the Central Massachusetts sectional.  There are 26 teams, and your team is atop the standings by 2 VPs and is playing the 2nd placed team.  The match is going fairly well through the first seven boards.  They've just bid and made a vulnerable slam but you're fairly confident that your teammates will have found it too.  In actual fact, it turns out that we are up by 9 imps at this point and, again in retrospect, we can lose as many as 4 imps on the last board and still win the event.  You pick up this collection in third seat (we are vulnerable, they are not): ♠K8 ♥864 ♦AJT75 ♣AQ8.  Your RHO, somewhat surprisingly opens a weak 2♦.  Things are looking good.  With our side silent, the auction proceeds: 2♦ – 2♠ (forcing) – 3♣ – 3♥ – 3♠ – 4♠.  Partner leads ♣7 and this dummy appears: ♠T2 ♥5 ♦KQ9842 ♣KJT9.  It's possible, by the way, that some of the spots are incorrect.  You win dummy's low club with your Q and it's over to you.

Many of the other teams have finished by now and the noise level is right up.  People are picking up bidding boxes, folding tables, and so on.  It's not the best time to be analyzing the hand.  I reasoned as follows: dummy won't be providing any tricks for declarer unless it's a heart ruff, so unless declarer has 10 running tricks in his own hand, in which case no defense will matter, it can't hurt to shift to the SK.  After all, if declarer wants to finesse against my K, he can presumably ruff a heart and run the T.

How do you like my plan?  It turns out my analysis was superficial.  This was declarer's hand: ♠AJ973 ♥AKQT32 ♦– ♣62.  Strange as it may seem, there's only one card in my hand that it's safe to play: ♣A.  Oh, and by the way, if I do correctly cash out then lead a red card, and if declarer does ruff a heart in order to run the T, not only must I not cover, but partner must hold up his Q!  Ultimately, his six will become the setting trick!  The whole hand hinges on the relative weakness of declarer's trumps and his transportation problems.  He can't ruff a heart, finesse in spades and get back to his hand to draw trumps without losing control. 

Our teammates were in 4♥ at the other table which has no prayer as it turns out, despite the robust trumps, since declarer is permanently cut off from the dummy.  So, we lost 11 imps on the board and ended up tied (with our last opponents) for 2nd place.

We had a great day, though, and all my teammates played really well.  Thanks to you all.