Bermuda Regional 2010, Part One

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

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.

Construction time!

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

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

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

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

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!

Advanced Losing Trick Count

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

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.

Ack!

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?

Brilliant defense

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...

Deja vu?

Last week I played the Fort Lauderdale Regional with Robert Todd. One afternoon, he showed me his latest article for the Sunshine Bridge News, ACBL District 9's bimonthly magazine.

Follow this link for that article. Read it before the rest of this one!

Two boards into the next session, we had this eerily similar defense:



N-S wound their way to 3H over our 3D. I started out with the queen of diamonds. Robert overtook with the king and switched to a low spade through declarer. South misguessed, playing low, and I won with the queen. I shot a spade to Robert's ace, and he returned the eight of diamonds (suit-preference) to my known jack. I then gave him a spade ruff for the first undertrick. My queen of clubs late made for a very satisfying down two.

Bridge on TV

...but not where I can see it, of course.

England's SkyTV has put together a celebrity bridge competition for their SkyArts channel. You can read all about it here.

Also, here's a short video of the introduction to the programme.

Does anyone know how we could see full episodes of this show?

Time off again...

The Southeastern Regional is over. We had a fabulous time in Fort Lauderdale, making new friends and playing some good bridge. I have a few hands to share... but right now, time to rest. What a week!

A couple of nice auctions from the club

Board 11 Dlr: S Vul: None	QJ8652 A8 AK3 AT
3 9762 65 K87543		K9 Q3 QJ987 QJ92
	AT74 KJT54 T42 6

We were N-S and bid this one uncontested:

P - 1C [16+ any];
1N [8-10, 5+H] - 2S [natural];
4C [splinter raise; usually 4531 or 4621] - 4N
5C [one keycard] - 6S (all pass)

Making 7 easily on the trump finesse and hearts coming home. Only three of 22 pairs bid this 26 HCP slam.

Board 18 Dlr: E Vul: N-S	6 K32 Q64 Q97642
KQ43 JT98 AJ92 8		AJ8 65 KT8753 A3
	T9752 AQ74 KJT5

This time we had opponents to deal with:

(1D) X (1H) 2C;
(2D) 3C (3D) 5C (all pass)

With trumps breaking 2-1 and spades setting up for a heart pitch, 5C was easy. [5D is a maker if they guess trumps correctly.]

A neat defense from Gatlinburg

In the Friday two-session Swiss teams in Gatlinburg last week, Robert Todd and I put together a nice defense. E-W subsided in 2NT after an invitational sequence in which West may or may not have had four spades. I got off to the lead of the two of diamonds. Declarer played low from dummy, and Robert made the very thoughtful play of the seven! Declarer won with the king, cashed the king of clubs (Robert playing the six, his lowest, as a Smith echo - showing that he liked my opening lead), and played a diamond up. Not yet believing that partner had made the good play in diamonds, I split my honors to guarantee me a trick in the suit if RHO had KQx(x). East let me hold the trick. Not really seeing anything else constructive to do, I played another low diamond. Dummy won and declarer pitched a heart. A club was led to the ace, and a spade to the queen. Two more rounds of clubs were played, ending on the table, and I pitched down to AJ of spades, KJ of hearts, and the good jack of diamonds. A heart was led to my jack; I cashed the good diamond and exited the now-stiff king of hearts to the now-stiff ace, and a spade through the queen was our sixth trick for down one. At the other table, our teammates were +400 in 3NT!

Well defended hand

My partner Pat Riding put together a nice defense on this board to get us a plus score and top board on the way to 1st overall on Tuesday:



We were defending 2H in the East. Pat started things off with a low diamond to the ace. Declarer led a club to Pat's ace. She laid down the king of diamonds and played a third round, ruffed by declarer. East now played a club to the board to play a heart to the jack. Pat won with the king and pushed her deuce of diamonds through dummy. I ruffed with my lone queen of hearts, declarer overruffed, and Pat now had four trump tricks to go with her ace of clubs and king of diamonds for +100! Well done.

On the road again

I'm in the airport at the moment waiting to head off to the Toronto Regional. If you're there, come over and say hi!

Building fences

West led a spade to his partner's king, which held the trick. East looked at the two tricks in his hand and the menacing club suit in dummy, and thought "the only way we're going to set this contract is if partner has the ace of diamonds. Then he can give me a ruff for our fourth trick." So East led his singleton diamond. West won the ace, thought for a while, and decided his partner wanted a spade led through the queen. So he tabled the spade jack, trying to smother declarer's supposed ten. Declarer ruffed, drew trumps, and claimed +420. East berated his partner for never giving him ruffs.










A few boards later, this was dealt:



West led a spade to his partner's king, which held the trick. East looked at the two tricks in his hand and the menacing club suit in dummy, and thought "the only way we're going to set this contract is if partner has the ace of diamonds. Then hopefully he'll figure out to duck the first one so when I'm in with my trump ace I can lead another diamond and he can give me a ruff for our fourth trick." So East led his doubleton diamond. West, having been yelled at just a few hands prior, jumped up with the ace and led another one back. Declarer scooped up the tricks, drew trumps, and claimed +420. East yelled at West for never knowing what the hell was going on at the table.








What went wrong here?

I think East was the culprit in both of these hands. First of all, his behavior was horrible. If you can't keep from yelling at or berating partner when he makes a mistake, you need to take up a new game. All players make mistakes. You do, I do, Jeff Meckstroth does. If you can't live with you or your partner making mistakes, bridge is not the game for you.

Incidentally, I heard a local player the other day analyzing a two-session event he'd played the day before. "I made three errors yesterday," he said. This person is fooling himself. Even the top experts make several errors per session. I asked my friend and top Canadian expert Cam Doner once, "What's the biggest number of hands in a row you've gone without making a mistake?" His answer: "One." Now there's a man who's honest with himself.

Every player makes mistakes, but it's the good players that work hard to keep their partners from making mistakes. On the first board, East should have won the first trick with the ace of spades. "Knowing" that declarer had the king, West would see no future in the spade suit and return the diamond for East to ruff. On the second board, when East wins with the king and puts a diamond back again, West should realize that now that he has a partner who's trying to get the right information to him, the defense isn't a blind guess any more. He needs to weigh the possibility that East has led a doubleton diamond [it can't be singleton since the king won the first trick] against the possibility that he led from three or more diamonds and needed a spade led through.

My reasoning would be this: It's far more likely on the auction that East is 5=2 in spades and diamonds than that he's 4=3 or 4=4, because I know he has at most two hearts. If he had a good hand with 4=2=3=4 or 4=2=4=3 or 4=1=4=4, he'd probably double 1H rather than overcall 1S. Since he did overcall 1S, I'll play him to have five spades and two diamonds. I'll duck this one, hope partner has a trump trick so he can lead a second diamond to get his ruff!

See how much easier the defense is to figure out when West knows that East's diamond isn't a singleton?

Amusing hand from bidding practice

Last night, I was practicing bidding with my partner Garth. Garth and I are playing several upcoming tournaments, and we have a very complicated bidding system, so we want our agreements to be in tip-top shape for our first big test-- Gatlinburg in just over a week. We've been practicing several hours a week, and getting better every time.

This hand came up as the last one of the session.


I was very amused to notice that game was most likely on in all five strains - these hands will probably make 3NT, 4H, 4S, 5C, and 5D! I've been experimenting with the E-W hands a bit, trying to see if I can make a full hand where N-S can make game in all five strains but can't make slam in any of them. I've come close, but it seems like 6C by South is always making. Can you come up with a better construction than I did?