DoubleSqueeze

A (doubled) grand old time in Toronto

noreply@blogger.com (McKenzie) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 18:16:00 +0000

I just got back to the States from the Canadian Nationals (also known as the Toronto Regional). My partner and I had a great time, and a bit of success - two Blue Ribbon quals is a good tournament. in one knockout, we played a round-robin and these two hands came up:

In a forgettable auction, we got to 6NT from the North side after East had bid hearts. This was viciously double by East. I have a rule... if the person on lead against 6NT thinks you're going down, he's probably right, and often VERY right. (I get to some baaaad slams.)

I pulled to 7♣, which got doubled in a rage on my right. My LHO was a very ethical player, though... he took inferences only from the auction and not from his partner's table action. So he read this as a Lightner double, and led dummy's suit (spades). I tucked in the nine which brought down the queen. A 3-2 club split later, I racked up 1630 for 7♣X nonvulnerable!

East here made two huge mistakes. First, he was on lead against 6NT with a solid six-card suit. This should be a situation that you dream about... but he got very greedy. He wanted to turn +250 into +1100. Then he regretted his decision so much that he forgot what a double of a slam means when you're not on lead.

Let's look at the IMP math here. His teammates were in 4♠ just making for +420. Adding 250 to that gets us 670, or win 12 IMPs. Adding 1100 would make it 1520, or 17 IMPs. So he was trying to gain 5 IMPs, at his great risk. The actual +1630 gave us 15 IMPs - so he lost 27 due to the double. Even if his partner had led his suit, we would have gone down 300 in 7♣X... for the same 12 IMPs! Not a very good trade...

Later in the session, this hand came up:

I know some very fine players who would open the South hand 1♡. I strongly disagree, but when you pay your entry fee, you can bid whatever you want! It was a fun auction:

I decided not to defend with my 8-5 hand. As it turns out, I could have doubled 6♠ for a fine score - +1400. But that would have lost an IMP! At the other table, my friend Ranald was in 6H just in for 1430. I decided that I didn't need much to make 7♢ a good contract, so I just up and bid it. My LHO doubled and led the ace of clubs. I ruffed in hand, and could see that a successful heart finesse would bring it home. The trouble with finesses, though, is that they sometimes lose. So I looked for a better way to go about it.

The diamond spots looked nice - with a good trump break I'd have three entries in the diamond suit. So I led the king of diamonds to the ace (showing off a bit), and they broke 1-1. Nice! I ruffed a club, went back to the board with the seven of diamonds, ruffed another club, and went to the board with the eight of diamonds. These cards were left:

♠

I cashed the king of clubs, hoping the queen would fall for my 13th trick. Sadly, my RHO showed out, so clubs were 5-3. Hmm... my LHO had 5 clubs and overcalled 1♠. He must be 5215 or 6115! He'd pitched a heart on one of the diamond leads, so he had at most one heart left. I pitched a heart on the ace of spades, cashed the king of hearts, and led a heart to the jack, knowing it would win. +2330, for win 14!

Finesses only work 50% of the time. They should be your last resort.

Preparing your mind

noreply@blogger.com (Meg) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 18:35:00 +0000

Here at the Reno NABC, most of the national championship events are pair games. No six-man teams, no time to rest, just a lot of thinking, hand after hand after hand, all day long. It's taxing. Some folks prepare to warm up by playing the morning session, or relax before game time by sleeping in. I've tried these methods, and they're acceptable, but I often feel fatigued by the second half of the day.

This tournament, I'm sleeping in a little each day and going to the gym before the afternoon session. Studies that I'm too lazy to google have shown conclusively that exercise improves brain function. It's no surprise to me that I run into many of the top bridge players here in the gym each morning. I feel like a good hard workout clears my mind and prepares me for the hard thinking I'll have to do for the rest of the day. It gives me the energy and stamina I need to stay sharp all day. And when I exercise before a game, I spend less time looking around the playing area and worrying that one day I'll start to look like the average bridge player...

Good luck to everyone competing here in Reno!

Bermuda Regional 2010, Part Two: KO

noreply@blogger.com (McKenzie) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:31:00 +0000

The Myers team, accepting the Knockout trophy from new ACBL President Richard DeMartino

The main event at the Bermuda Regional is the four-session Knockout that's held Monday through Thursday across the afternoons. This is a truly international event - this year's KO featured teams from the USA, Canada, Bermuda, England, and Austria!

Our toughest competition came from the Hansen team, all from Austria. They had a great showing in the North American Swiss Teams at the Honolulu NABC a few years ago, so they showed up for the KO wearing their lucky Hawaiian shirts!

Andreas Babsch played this hand fabulously against me:

Bill Souster started with the king of clubs. I played the discouraging / suit preference / whatever three of clubs, and Bill dutifully led a diamond, which I ruffed. I attempted to cash the ace of clubs, but Babsch ruffed with the king. He now led a spade to the ten, holding, then overtook the king of diamonds with the ace! He pushed the ten of diamonds through Bill, ruffing on the table when covered, then came back to the ace of spades. He led winning diamonds through Bill, and eventually he took his one trump trick and conceded. Well done! My teammate Ian Harvey played the hand along similar lines, but was playing from the North side - so didn't have to deal with the diamonds ruff. Well played Andreas - tough way to lose an IMP!

On the final board of the last match against the American-Bermudian Petty team (Vera Petty and Roman Smolski, Bermuda, Margie Sullivan and Steve Rzewski, Massachusetts, and Burt Newman and Ed White, Michigan) the match was no longer in danger (but we didn't know it at the time). So tensions were very high when Bill was declaring 4S:

I gave Bill a very pushy limit raise, and he had an easy raise to 4S. Margie led the king of hearts. Bill saw that it would be easy with a winning trump finesse, but that lost. He ruffed the heart return, drew trump, cashed the ace of diamonds, and led toward the king of diamonds. He was hoping to find a 3-3 diamond split for a club loser... but Margie's discard dashed that hope as well. He saw one chance, and took it: he won the king of diamonds, ruffed the last heart from the dummy (eliminating that suit from both hands), and led a low club toward the jack. Margie was stuck - she won the queen of clubs and had to either lead away from the king of clubs or give Bill a ruff and discard. Way to go!

A well earned celebratory drink after the big win

Left to right: Joe Wakefield, Jean Johnson, Alan Douglas, Ian Harvey, Bill Souster, McKenzie Myers

Thanks to Barry Rigal for some of the pictures.

Bermuda Regional 2010, Part One

noreply@blogger.com (McKenzie) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:13:00 +0000

I just returned from the fabulous Bermuda Regional. It was a successful week - my team won two of the three main events - but more importantly it was an incredible amount of fun. I played with Jean Johnson, one of Bermuda's top players, and Bill Souster, a former Bermudian now living in Wales. Both of my partners played admirably.

The Bermuda Regional has a schedule unique to the ACBL: what's known as a "horizontal" schedule. This means that the midweek championship events go day-to-day rather than in the same day. Bermuda is also a Saturday to Friday regional, also (I think) unique in the ACBL. The main events in Bermuda are:

Saturday Evening Charity Pairs
Sunday Afternoon - Evening Swiss
Monday - Thursday Afternoon KO
Monday - Tuesday Evening Pairs
Wednesday - Thursday Evening Pairs
Friday Afternoon - Evening Swiss

I played the pair events with Jean and platooned the team events with Jean and Bill. The tournament started well with Jean and I coming in third in the Charity Pairs.

In the Sunday Swiss, we weren't quite finding the groove yet, but we did get this hand right:

I played this hand with Bill in our first match together. He showed great restraint in not forcing to slam after my one-level overcall. He was very surprised that I wasn't even cold for five...

The opponents led two rounds of clubs. I pitched a heart, went to the king of diamonds, and finessed the ten of diamonds on the way back, which won, lefty pitching a club. I then cashed the ace of diamonds. I was hopeful for a 3-3 spade break to pitch my second heart loser, but queen - king - ace of that suit showed a 4-2 break (LHO holding 4). My next attempt was to play a top heart, hoping RHO would win and be endplayed into leading another heart or giving me a ruff-sluff. RHO did win and conceded. As it turned out, if she had ducked, my last try would have been successful - ruffing a spade to hand and leading a heart to the ten.

More hands and results soon!

"Simple" suit combination problem

noreply@blogger.com (McKenzie) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 01:28:00 +0000

You hold:

AK72

opposite

QT83

in trumps, and you need to hold it to no losers. How do you play it?

That's a relatively simple one, you say. Cash the A. If the nine drops on your right on the first round, after cashing one round, come down to the queen and push the ten through LHO's probable J654. If RHO played the 9 from J965, he deserves his trick. (Be on the lookout for this suit combination as defender. You'll earn massive props from expert opponents and lots of imps if you learn to drop the nine smoothly from J9xx.) If no jack or nine drops on the first round, take the second top trump. You'll be able to find out if J9xx is on your right - you finesse the ten. If it turns out that J9xx is on your left, too bad - you gave it your best shot.

Is it ever right to do something different? Here's the whole hand:

West started with the ace of hearts against 4S, low all around, then the ace of diamonds, low all around again, then a diamond to East's king. East led back the queen of hearts! This ran around to the king on the board. Are you still satisfied with the suit combination solution from above?

My partner thought for quite a while (which is more than most would) about the problem, but decided that any other play would be too anti-percentage. It turned out, though, that the reason that West went with the "granny-defense" of cashing his aces and the king of diamonds was that he had a sure trump trick - J965. Was pard right in going with the odds, or was the ace-cashing enough to tip him off to the winning play (low to the queen, then push the ten through planning on later finessing against the nine)?

I'm just starting on Twitter - you can follow DoubleSqueeze at http://twitter.com/dblsqz.

A New Bridge Tournament Resource

noreply@blogger.com (Meg) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:49:00 +0000

Most of you know that I blog for a living. I've been writing, among others, a travel blog called The Perpetual Tourist, for over two years now. I've just recently launched this blog on my very own website, Jianantonic.com. If you click over to that site, you'll notice a little link on the side that says "Bridge."

DoubleSqueeze.com will continue to feature interesting deals, play problems, analysis, and other commentary from the bridge table, but the Bridge page at Jianantonic will be a tournament resource. This is where I'll post information about tournament schedules, travel and lodging logistics, restaurant recommendations, and editorial comments. McKenzie and I travel to so many regionals and sectionals, as well as all the NABCs, that this page will soon cover most of the major tournaments in the ACBL.

My hope is that this website will become a valuable resource for players planning to attend a tournament for the first time, or who want to find an easier way to attend tournaments they've done before.

This page is still in its infancy, but I am constantly updating it, and soon it will include dozens of tournaments as well as a search feature to find information about particular tournaments. You can also comment on these pages to chime in with your own advice or ask questions about details I may have left out. Please check it out, tell your friends, and keep coming back. You can also follow me on Twitter -- @jianantonic.

Enjoy!

BridgeSpeak

noreply@blogger.com (Meg) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:30:00 +0000

One of my favorite things about bridge tournaments is going out to eat near the playing site between sessions and watching people watch us. Suddenly restaurants are packed at 4:30 in the afternoon, full of people who appear to be speaking English...but, wait, what? Each individual word is English, but none of this makes any sense! Is this some kind of alien invasion?

Last week in San Diego, I was walking into a restaurant as a couple was walking out, fighting. I only heard one line of the fight, but I knew they were bridge players when I heard it:

"I didn't have the right hand to balance with a double!" she screamed.

Now, I get this. You get this. But to a non-bridge player, what could this possibly mean? Someone who doesn't even realize these are bridge players...what would the chance observer deduce from such a line? I've been taking submissions via Facebook, Twitter (follow me @jianantonic), and LiveJournal for lines from a common bridge discussion, and asking my non-bridge friends to translate. I'm not looking for their guess at what it means in bridge terms, but rather, what they'd think if they just overheard this one line out of context. I think this project will make a great post, so feel free to submit your own lines, and to send your non-bridge friends here to make their guesses.

Here are the lines I have so far:

1. I didn't have the right hand to balance with a double!

2. You're supposed to have a stiff when you splinter.

3. Why didn't you try a double strip squeeze?

4. I was five, five, two, one with hearts and diamonds.

5. I was trying to save the beer card.

6. We used the VCR to find the grand.

7. I tried to signal for a club, but I only had high spots.

8. Jack third isn't a real stopper.

9. It was a two-suiter.

10. I couldn't make it after I got stuck in the dummy.

11. My righty hit it in the pass out seat.

12. Who won the Swiss?

We really do take for granted that we speak a whole other language when we play this game. Please send your friends this way and have them give their best translations -- I'll be using my favorite submissions in a future post and will see if I can get it printed in the bulletin. Thanks in advance!

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions from the San Diego NABC

noreply@blogger.com (Meg) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:31:00 +0000

1. No, I'm not related to Donna Compton.

2. Thanks, but I wasn't in the play.

3. 26.

4. Attitude. Yes, I do understand the question. Attitude. Really, not 4th best, not 3rd & 5th, attitude.

5. Portland, OR.

It's been a fun tournament, and I'm glad I was able to get here and play after all -- bought my ticket at 2am on Tuesday and was here in time to kibitz McKenzie in the Mini-Blue Ribbon Pairs on Wednesday. We're leaving a day early so we can get some sleep before getting to work early on Monday. We'll see some of you in Tacoma next weekend, Reno at the end of the year, or Monterey after that.

What you agree on isn't as important as having an agreement.

noreply@blogger.com (Meg) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:07:00 +0000

My friend Greg and I are trying to build a strong partnership. We're studying a couple of different precision systems (don't ask me why it can't be just one; oh, if only things were that simple) and playing 2 over 1 while we work on mastering all these complex relay structures. We really should be playing a barebones 2/1 card while we get our ducks in a row, but why would we do that?

We've been having a tug of war lately over whether to play minorwood or kickback. Greg had never played minorwood and I'd never played kickback, though I do see its advantages. Finally, last Wednesday before our club game, Greg whined enough to get me to agree on kickback. You see where this is going, don't you?

On the final board of the afternoon, we had the following auction:
Greg Meg
1D - 1H
2C - 2S (artificial, game force)
3C - 3D
3N - 4H
PASS

We played in our 4-1 fit, down 2, where slam is cold in either minor. Whoopsie.

So the moral of the story is that if you're going to insist on playing a convention, you should probably remember it when it comes up.

Thanks, Greg, for being a good sport as I continue to laugh at you five days later, and for letting me post this on my website.

Construction time!

noreply@blogger.com (McKenzie) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 09:44:00 +0000

Everyone's vulnerable at matchpoints. Here's the situation:

What's partner's hand / handtype? What do you do? In the words of Bob Hamman, what the hell is going on here?

San Diego

noreply@blogger.com (McKenzie) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 00:53:00 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! The San Diego Fall NABC starts today. I'll try to post some interesting hands and goings-on from the tournament. If you're here, say hi!

Grande Opening

noreply@blogger.com (McKenzie) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:35:00 +0000

Last week I was lucky enough to be able to attend the grand opening at the Boca Grande Duplicate Bridge Club in Boca Grande, FL. An impressive twenty tables were in play - fifteen in the Open game and five in the 0-20 game. Congratulations to Jay and company for getting such a fabulous game going!

Everyone's favorite hand from Wednesday was Board 23, in which East held one of the most powerful hands I've seen at the table in a while:

Board 23	S-AQT983
Dlr: S	H-
Vul: Both	D-98
	C-K8642
S-642	N	S-KJ5
H-754	W E	H-AKQJ63
D-632	S	D-AQ5
C-JT93		C-A
	S-7
	H-T982
	D-KJT74
	C-Q75

If E-W had the auction to themselves, it would probably go something like this:

2C [strong, artificial, and forcing] - 2D [waiting; no good 5-card suit to show];
2H [natural and forcing] - 3C [cheapest minor showing a really awful hand];
3NT [offer to play] - Pass [yes, there's a heart fit, but with no ruffing value and no tricks, it's best to stay at a low level].

In modern bridge, one almost never has a hand this nice all to himself. Somebody will preempt, or open light, or overcall your 2C opening. As it happened, I held the North cards and opened 1S in third seat. [Incidentally, I think this hand is an opening one-bid in first or second seat also. A good main suit, great shape, and defensive tricks all add up to an opening. At favorable vulnerability, I would probably open 4S in third chair.] East had an easy double on the first round. South passed, and West showed her suit with 2C. I bid 2S [I still really like my hand!] and East had a tough call, but finally came out with 4H. We defended this well to set it two tricks.

Here's what I would be thinking with the East hand:

OK, my right-hand opponent has opened 1S in third chair. I have an easy double.

Now partner's shown a bad hand (surprise!) with some club length, and righty's bid his spades again.

4H seems like the automatic bid here, but could anything be better?

Well, pard seems to have length in my shortest suit. That's not so good. And on the auction, I doubt he has as many as 4 points. Bad things could happen in 4H as well - I don't have the ace of spades, and if my LHO is short there, they could get some ruffs in. So 4H may not be the right spot.

How many tricks would I have in notrump? Well, six hearts and two minor-suit aces are pretty sure. If South is a good partner and leads North's suit, I now have nine tricks with the king of spades as well. North probably has the queen of spades, too, so if he continues the suit I can take the jack of spades too! Looks like nine pretty sure tricks. What could go wrong? Well, if they knock out my ace of clubs and partner doesn't have a second club stopper, I might go down. But since partner's bid clubs and my RHO has bid spades, I think it's pretty likely that a spade will get led. It's not perfect, but I think this has the best shot. 3NT!

The important lesson here is: Try to mentally play out the hand during the auction. You'll be amazed at what you can come up with.

Next time you're in SW Florida, pop down to Boca Grande - it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, and some of the friendliest bridge players I've ever met.

Hot Defense

noreply@blogger.com (McKenzie) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:02:00 +0000

The other day, my partner and I found the only sequence of cards to defeat the opponents' game:

I was fooling around a little bit in third seat, opening my three-card club suit rather than my four-card diamond suit. I figured I could happily pass anything partner bid at the one-level. The opponent climbed up to 4S, and I decided to try a deceptive lead through the strong hand. I knew that West had a quite good hand and that partner had some values, so it wasn't a stretch to find dummy with KJxx of diamonds and partner with the queen. So I tabled a low diamond. When KQTx came down on the table, I no longer liked my lead. But partner was up to the task! The king of diamonds held trick one. When declarer led a low spade from dummy partner hopped up with his king, returned his second diamond, and got his diamond ruff. My ace of trumps was the setting trick. Nice play, pard!

The Mathematics of Fits

noreply@blogger.com (McKenzie) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:59:00 +0000

The other day, my partner held

x
AQxxx
KJx
KQxx

and opened the bidding 1H. My RHO passed, I bid 1NT, and my LHO bid 2S, which was passed out. It made on the nose and we went -110.

After the hand, I told partner that I would have made a takeout double with her hand. She said that she didn't think that our side had a fit.

Stop! Time for some very easy math.

How many spades do I have? Well, I bypassed 1S to bid 1NT. So I shouldn't have more than three.

Next, how many non-spades do I have? At least ten.

Can you arrange those ten cards into three suits in any manner in which we don't have at least an eight-card fit? Well, three spades (from the auction), two hearts (giving us only a seven-card fit there), four diamonds (giving us only a seven-card fit there), three clubs (only seven there)... that leaves one card left over. We have to have an eight-card fit somewhere!

In fact, we can generalize this further. If the opponents have a nine-card fit, that gives us four cards in that suit out of our twenty-six total. Twenty-two cards are left for the other three suits. So our fits in those suits are, if the hands fit as poorly as possible, are 8, 7, 7!

If they have an eight-card fit, that gives us five there and twenty-one in the other three. The worst possible case is that the other three suits split 7-7-7. It's much more likely that we have an eight-card fit or longer, though.

Long story short: If the opponents have a nine-card fit, we definitely have an eight-card or longer fit. If they only have an eight-card fit,we probably have one too. Compete!

Matchpoint Strategy: Act Like You Know What You're Doing

noreply@blogger.com (Meg) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 16:01:00 +0000

In this morning's side game in Eugene, I picked up this stellar hand:
8743 T98652 -- K53

Everyone's vulnerable, and partner deals:
1D (1S) P (3S)*
4C (4S) P (P)
5C (X)** XX (P)
P (5S) X

*old-fashioned limit raise
**hesitation, betraying uncertainty

I knew that 5C wasn't going to fare well. At matchpoints, there can't be much difference between the result of 5CX and 5CXX, so I confidently pulled the XX card to entice my RHO to rethink his action. When he pulled to 5S, I doubled to make sure my partner knew to put the brakes on, and we happily collected all the matchpoints when declarer can only find ten tricks.

Friendly Defense Inspires Rap Tribute

noreply@blogger.com (Meg) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 03:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I was playing in a pair game with my new friend Max from Salt Lake City. We've been having a ball at the Eugene Regional, though playing in a regional directly following the summer NABC has been an adventure. I had to struggle to maintain my composure yesterday when the following play happened.

Playing matchpoints, I dealt and opened with 1H. The auction proceeded:
1H (1S) X (4s)
5C (P) P (P)

Dummy hit with:
A J8 AJ9865 Q984

I held:
4 K9532 74 AKJ65

I won the spade lead and drew two rounds of trump, ending on dummy. I'm fairly confident the hearts are offside on this auction, so I think my best bet is to try and throw my LHO in with a diamond. I lead the 5 from the table, and it goes 3 - 4 - 2.

AWESOME. Thanks to my RHO ducking from KQT3, I'm home free for all of the matchpoints. I was amused, and sent the story to my buddy Greg, who put it to a beat. I was going to post it, then I realized the lyrics are a little too explicit for this family friendly website. But anyway there's a rap song out there now about this little play. Maybe I'll make the lyrics available on my Facebook page... :)

Advanced Losing Trick Count

noreply@blogger.com (McKenzie) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:03:00 +0000

See Friday's post for a quick brush-up on the Losing Trick Count.

The LTC is certainly not infallible, especially in its simplest form that I’ve given you here. It tends to work quite a bit better when you introduce the concept of “cover cards”, which I’ll illustrate quickly with hand (C) from earlier:

(C) ♠AQ7632 ♥AT762 ♦5 ♣6

Let’s say responder has one of these two hands:

(C1) ♠K98 ♥KQ5 ♦98432 ♣A2

(C2) ♠984 ♥Q53 ♦KQJ42 ♣KJ

Opposite hand (C1), 6S looks great—on normal splits, we’ll lose only the ace of diamonds.

Opposite (C2), we’ll probably lose a spade, a heart, a diamond, and a club and go down in game!

What’s the difference here? Both hands have the same shape, the same HCP, and the same number of losers! What’s going on?

Well, hand (C1) has four cover cards, and (C2) has only one! Cover cards are defined as cards we know will cover (take care of) one of partner’s losers. Hand (C1)’s cover cards are the king of spades, the king of hearts, the queen of hearts, and the ace of clubs. Hand (C2)’s only cover card is the queen of hearts. So, opposite a major two-suiter, we’d much, much rather hold (C1) than (C2).

How do we know what’s a cover card? Listen to the auction! The auction on Hand (C) would start (opposite either hand) with

1S – 2D – 2H – ?

Hand (C1) is an amazing hand opposite the major two-suiter. Responder should jump to 3S, forcing to game and starting a cuebidding sequence:

1S – 2D – 2H – 3S – 4C – 4H – 4NT – 5D [Blackwood] or 5H [Keycard] – 6S

Hand (C2) is an awful hand opposite the major two-suiter. Responder should attempt to sign off as soon as possible!

Losing Trick Count

noreply@blogger.com (McKenzie) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:00:00 +0000

The Losing Trick Count (LTC) is an old, old method of evaluating your hand. It was first published in 1935 under the miserably long title of “The Losing Trick Count, as used by the leading contract bridge tournament players, with examples of expert bidding and expert play.” This book didn’t make much of a splash, but Ron Klinger’s fabulous 2001 book Modern Losing Trick Count took the bridge world by storm. Here’s the basic idea behind the LTC:

When you have a good fit (8+ cards in one suit between the two hands) with your partner, you can evaluate your “losers” to see how powerful the fit is.

Count one loser for every missing ace, king, or queen in your hand. Only count one loser for a singleton, and two for a doubleton. Never count the fourth (or higher) card in a suit as a loser. Here are a few example hands:

(A) ♠AQT94 ♥A853 ♦Q2 ♣75

This hand has seven losers: one in the spade suit (missing K), two in the heart suit (missing KQ), two in the diamond suit (missing AK), and two in the club suit (missing AK). 1+2+2+2 = 7. Your average minimum opening hand (and minimum game-forcing hand over partner’s opener) will have seven losers.

(B) ♠KQ652 ♥AK32 ♦52 ♣83

This hand has the same shape and same HCPs, but only six losers: one in spades (missing A), one in hearts (missing Q), and two in each minor suit (AK in each). 1+1+2+2 = 6. The LTC says that hand B is one trick stronger than hand A.

(C) ♠AQ7632 ♥AT762 ♦5 ♣6

This is a great hand with only five losers: one in spades (missing K), two in hearts (missing KQ) and one in each minor (A in each). This has fewer HCP than hands A and B, of course, but much more playing strength.

(D) ♠Q632 ♥KJ62 ♦76 ♣A52

How many losers does this hand contain?

REMEMBER: Only use the LTC when there’s a known trump fit!

A good rule of thumb: Take your number of losers, add the number of partner’s losers (let’s say I have 7 losers, and partner’s opened the bidding and shown a minimum: assume 7 losers, therefore 14 total) and subtract that number from 18. This figure tells you the contract you’ll make most of the time. In this example, you have 14 – subtract from 18. That leaves you with 4—you’ll be able to make four of your suit on most layouts of the cards. Bid game!

When you’ve opened the bidding with a 5-loser hand and partner’s given a single raise (9 losers), you have 14 total again. Bid game!

When you’ve opened the bidding with a 6-loser hand and partner’s forced to game (7 or fewer losers), you have at most 13 total losers, quite possibly less. Time to make a slam try!

Tune in Monday for a more advanced use of the LTC.

Interesting Play Problem

noreply@blogger.com (Meg) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:41:00 +0000

This hand comes to us courtesy of my friend Greg. You hold:

Jxx AKJxxxx J xx

You open 3H and play it there. The opening lead is the spade 9, and dummy hits with:

Kxx x Kxxxxx Axx

You duck in dummy and RHO plays low. What's going on here? What does LHO have? Plan your play.

Greg made some intelligent deductions on this hand and was able to score a very good board here. I'll let him tell the rest of the story in the comments.

Thanks, Greg.

The Most Spectacularly Awful Defense Ever

noreply@blogger.com (Meg) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:46:00 +0000

Last week in Vegas, my partner Greg and I were playing in the finals of a Bracket III KO against a very solid team: friends Mike and Eric were at the other table against our teammates Ellianna and Adam, and Greg and I were facing Victor and Steve at our table. On one board, we had the following auction:

(1S) P (1N) 2N! (3N)

or something like this. Neither Greg or I can remember it perfectly, actually. Greg is the one who stuck in the 2N bid, which shows the minors (at least, that's our agreement). He then led the diamond jack.

Dummy hits with something resembling this:

AJxxx QJ Kxx Axx

My hand was:

Qxxxx Kxxx xx Qx

Declarer thought long and hard, won the opening lead, then finessed into my spade queen. I switched to the club queen, which went low - KING - Ace. Victor faced his hand and said through a burst of laughter, "Making 5?" What just happened here?

Well, partner was off in la-la land, thinking he was showing HEARTS and a minor with 2N (not so much). So I led the club queen to unblock and set up his long clubs. But he unblocked the K from Kx to unblock what he thought were MY long clubs. Really, Victor had JTxxx of clubs in HIS hand. Oops.

Greg commented after the hand that if he had led a heart, that might've been a little better. His hand was:

x Axxxx JTxxx Kx

The only problem is that I'm quite likely to duck a heart, thinking the only way I'll score my K is to wait out the two inevitable finesses. Partner doesn't have hearts, right? D'oh!

If I'm in on the joke, we'll take five hearts off the top, and a few more tricks after that. This was one of the few boards all week where our stellar teammates were unable to cover our butts. But since we did go on to win the match, it goes down in history as a good story rather than the reason for the demise of our partnership... :)

In all seriousness, I don't think I've ever had a more fun group of teammates, and I certainly made my fair share of boneheaded plays (though none quite so entertaining as this one -- thanks, Greg, for permission to immortalize it). Even if we had lost the match, this is not something I would've been mad about. It's the ability to recover from such disasters that make a winning squad, after all.

We'll be looking to repeat our success in the North American Swiss Teams in DC later this month. Hopefully we'll have worked out our agreements by then :)

Patting ourselves on the back

noreply@blogger.com (Meg) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:20:00 +0000

McKenzie and I are finally home after nearly four straight months of being on the road, almost entirely for bridge. Our world tour ended in fine fashion. McKenzie tied for first overall masterpoint winner at the Penticton Regional with partner Robert Todd and teammates Ed Ulman and Jim Looby.

In Las Vegas last week, I played with all new teammates Adam Meyerson, Elianna Ruppin, and new partner Greg Humphreys. We won the two KO's that we entered, and I made Silver Life Master at that tournament. A good time was had by all, and now we're finally home with some time off. I can't wait to reunite with these folks again. What a blast.

(L-R: Cathy Van Dyke (NPC), Greg Humphreys, Meg Myers, Elianna Ruppin, and Adam Meyerson)

More frequent updates soon, as soon as we're done sleeping off the last four months.

Ack!

noreply@blogger.com (McKenzie) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 05:25:00 +0000

At all white at teams, you hold

AKQT862 5 AQT8 5

and RHO opens 2S! What's your bid?

If you pass, everyone else does too. What's your lead?

New Life Master

noreply@blogger.com (Meg) — Thu, 28 May 2009 22:42:00 +0000

It's one of those moments you'll always remember. Where were you when you made it to Life Master? And how did you feel? It's a great moment for any bridge player -- the first big milestone among what will hopefully be many to follow.

I'm closing in on Silver now, but I'll never forget how great it felt to collect my 300th point and get that gold card in the mail. It's been so much fun for me today to go through that emotion all over again with my good friend Gail. She and I traveled together to Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, for a regional this week, and this morning, we won our match to advance to round 3 of the morning KO, earning just shy of 10 gold points. Gail was only .2 gold points shy of the milestone, so that win was more than good enough to put her over the top. I was so pleased to be on that team and honored to be the one to deliver the news to her (she was sitting out the second half, so she wasn't present for the comparison).

Congratulations Gail!

Sometimes it really is just bad luck.

noreply@blogger.com (Meg) — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:46:00 +0000

To start the week at the Richmond, Virginia MABC Regional, I'm playing with three friends who are all on the hunt for Life Master. My partner is very, very close, and I'd love to see her go over the top this week. We were playing in a Bracket 4 KO yesterday, and won our first round handily. There's certainly no team in this bracket that we shouldn't be able to beat.

So, it was a little annoying when our first seven boards out in round 2 were minus scores. That's never a good sign. The seventh of these was really demoralizing -- partner opened, and I had a balanced 15-count. We reached what seems like a reasonable vulnerable 3NT, but the opponents took the first eight tricks when my LHO can run seven hearts and cash an ace. All I could hope was that the -300 was a push. But you never know in these lower brackets.

It was a push, but we were still down 33 imps at the half. The team turned to me to wonder what the heck we were doing wrong. I'm pretty sure they didn't believe me when I said it was just bad luck. But it really was. Of course we weren't playing perfectly, but we weren't playing -30 imp bridge, either. We were bidding our close games, and our obvious ones, and none of them happened to make. At the other table, they were being conservative, and so there was a long string of part score swings. But at imps, and at any level, it is right to bid games when there's anything close to a 50% chance that they're working. We were doing that, and 0% of our 50%-and-better games were making. Does that mean we were wrong to bid them? No. We were unlucky.

-33 imps is something like five or six part score swings (-100 where we bid a vulnerable game opposite -140 where the opps stay out is -6 imps). So let's say that we bid 5 close vulnerable games, and the opponents bid none of them (which is exactly what happened). If any two of these games had made (so we're basically hoping that 40% of our 50% chances work out -- conservative, right?), we'd be +620 opposite -170 for +10 imps instead of -6, for a sixteen imp difference per board. If we had just two of those, that's 32 imps in our favor, and -33 becomes just -1. That's if any two of these five close games had been a maker. On most days, you can count on making at least some of your close ones.

I really wanted my team to understand this, because I felt like we were playing good bridge, and I didn't want anyone to make any adjustments. Eventually, the pendulum will swing and those close games will start coming home -- and we don't want to be scared out of bidding them when the time comes.

But alas, it was a very unlucky night. There was all of one game to bid in the second half, and while we gained ground, there just weren't 33 imps in the cards in those last 12 boards.

It's demoralizing, but these things happen. Sure it's disappointing, and of course we all made mistakes here and there, but it's important not to second guess yourself when a loss like this happens. If our team keeps playing the game we've been playing, we'll win far more imps than we'll lose. Last night it just really wasn't in the cards.

So what can you do but buy a new entry? Wish us luck!

Brilliant defense

noreply@blogger.com (McKenzie) — Sat, 16 May 2009 14:10:00 +0000

England's Michelle Brunner, in the 2007 Venice Cup (Womens' World Team Championship) found a very clever defense to defeat a grand slam:

North-South had blasted their way to seven clubs on the uncontested auction

1C (1) - 1D (2)
2S (3) - 2NT
3C - 4C
5NT - 7C

(1) Strong, artificial, and forcing
(2) 0-7 HCP
(3) Huge hand with long spades

Michelle's partner led the jack of hearts, declarer covered with the queen, and Michelle ducked! She knew there were plenty of spade winners to cover the losing heart, so wouldn't be giving a trick away. Declarer's 5NT was asking for good trumps, so she knew that the only trick for their side could possibly be in the club suit. When she ducked smoothly, declarer found herself very conveniently in dummy to take the trump finesse...