Year: 2010

Hi all

First you’ve got to check out this YouTube movie. It’s incredibly funny.

Alright, back to semi-serious business. Last deal (probably) and story of 2010, it all happened on a Wednesday Piedmont teams night. I’m holding a fairly good hand:

1. GF, 4+ support
2. More than average (we play step responses to 2NT)
3. Cue
4. RKC
5. Two keycards with trump Queen, or extra length
6. You’ve got to be kidding me!

Over 4 I decided not to show my void in because partner made a cue bid in that suit. Perhaps I should have Void-wooded myself instead of handing the captaincy to partner. West decided not to trust our bidding and for reasons only known to him pulled a pretty experimental and expensive double from his bidding box. The full deal proved to be like this:

I claim 13 tricks in trick one and I am pretty certain I haven’t seen a +1820 score before. West, though, screams for the director. It seems we should not have alerted during the keycard sequence [as we did], but inform our opponents that we had a keycard sequence [as we did not].

I felt the ground crumbling under my feet. What’s wrong with bridge in the US? Can’t people think for themselves anymore?

Anyway, when the director asked the player agreed he wasn’t hurt during the play, and that he asked for clarification up to the cue bids but then disregarded the rest of the auction. So the director maintained the result. Yay! I got to keep my 6!! result!

Happy & merry holidays to you all.

Hi all

Quick Tricks in San Francisco has a team game every last Monday of the month. Each time it has proven to be a pleasant and challenging night, with interesting deals. Here’s me (South) suffering in 3NT.

Yes, NS have 25 HCP together.
Yes, the lack of spot cards is slightly unsettling.
Yes, you only have four top tricks.

An early (not very thorough) analysis shows that you need to find the Ace of onside, and the suit splitting 3-3. Then if the Jack is located on your left, everything adds up to a fortunate nine.

Well, none of that happened. Both black Aces were in West together with a stinking surprise in . So I’m already down two and I can’t claim yet …

When West cashes the master I pitch a from dummy and the criss-cross position has materialized. It’s pretty clear that East has started with a 4-5-2-2. East discards a seemingly sweaty .

West switches back to for my Ace and I know that my 3 isn’t good. I play a small to dummy’s King confident that the suicide criss-cross squeeze will have been executed properly. Who needs a finesse anyway when you have a nice squeeze?

Already knee-deep in a hellhole, and East doesn’t even have the friggin’ Jack. Really, the odds were 4-3 in my favor! My efforts lead to a nauseating down 3, vulnerable of course.

To add insult to injury, at the other table they took an early finesse against the Jack and ended up down 1. Sigh.

Hi all

Thanksgiving weekend is close, and I’m looking forward to it. I can use the extra days off, I’ve been swamped with work. Even in my sleep I’m clicking through wizards and windows setting up projects for my company’s latest client. But I have been feeling valuable, so that’s a good thing.

This deal is from a sectional in El Cerrito. I was playing with Andrew Gumperz. After the following auction I got to declare 3NT.

I see West leading the Ten of . Right, they didn’t need much time to find my weak spot. But to my surprise the trick runs to my Jack. I doesn’t hurt to rattle of six , and I see West discarding three small and two . East followed suit twice, and then rid himself of two , a and a .

Well, that finesse surely isn’t going to work now. I decide to exit in , maybe some endplay will develop. West won that one with the King and thoughtlessly continued a for his partner’s Ace. On the stream of Trifolium marked cards I have just enough consciousness to retain the AQ in dummy.

The magic has happened. Badaboom! East is endplayed, and has to surrender two tricks to the Ace – Queen.

Maybe West should have cashed his Ace somewhere along the defensive line. Perhaps East could have kept a to keep communications intact. There are some learning opportunities here.

I lost my cool, embarrassingly. I was just staring at the cards on the table, full of disbelief and wonder. Really? Really? Did I actually score up 9 tricks?

Hi all

I have recovered from what proved to be a nuclear cold. My 34th has passed by quite silently. An ant colony has invaded our kitchen and current (Orange Oil fueled) negotiations are stalled. For Thanksgiving we’re planning a roadtrip from Chicago via Denver back home. Tomorrow Massive Attack will be performing in the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. And our 4th batch of beer looks and smells very promising, it should be at its prime by the end of December.

Here’s a deal from a pairs match in Santa Clara. I was playing with Elenalani.

1. I have lost connection to reality

It’s weird, all the others have something to say, but I’m fairly sure I’m the one holding the most points. I couldn’t process what was happening, I had no clue at all.

Full deal:

We held 4 to ten tricks, lead, switch and a ruff. But we’re cold for 5, some people even made an overtrick because of the very favourable position. It actually needs a lead and a switch to beat 6. I should take some blame for not rewarding my partner’s courage for entering the auction at the four-level. On the other hand, Elenalani’s hand looks like a fine preempt to me, why care about those four pips?

Why West didn’t open that hand is a mystery to me. “How to get yourself in trouble?” Chapter 1, Paragraph 1. Usually if I pass hands like this, my partners surprise me with a 3rd seat preempt in my void.

Hi all

The sleep comes in waves, Morpheus carries me to lands far, far away. I sense the presence of an alluring woman around the corner, her chatter and laughter teasing my head and heart. But there are no corners where I am. Then I hear words, words from a popsicle mouth.

I get to relive some tough 3NT.

West leads a small .

At the table I counted three and three after forcing out the Ace. I can set up a , and then a or hook to get to my goal. But East has placed a vulnerable overcall on a very poor suit, so it’s probably safe to assume all the important cards are offside.

I visualize a plan to endplay East.

West wins the second round of and persists in . I win and play a to the King and Ace. Another won by me and I complete the endplay, I think, by cashing the Queen (added bonus if the Jack drops) and two more . I see West pitch a and a . Great! I smile when I surrender my fourth to him. Bring that King to daddy!

No sugar, for West cashes out in and the Jack. Down one.

Still I refuse to put all my eggs in one basket (read: hook), I don’t want to take the hook unless it’s absolutely necessary. The idea of an endplay is sound, but my timing and plan were incorrect.

After East has won the second round of and returned a for you, you should indeed play a to dummy’s King. When East wins and goes back to again, you can win and grant East the he has been craving for. On the run of dummy can miss some number of . But if East started with just two the endplay will be for real now.

A fork in both red suits and communication available in . I should have ended up with three tricks in , three in and three in the red suits.

Now before all the smart asses say that East should duck the to the King. No problem, you cross in (and take the other , too) and play another to dummy’s Queen. East can take two hearts now but you still got your stopper. So when East grants you the lead again you can finally fall back on the hook (scoring three tricks, one , three and two ).

I wake up, feeling nothing but some crumbly soot between my fingers. But I smile.

Hi all

Another deal from Piedmont Wednesday.

It has been a long time ago I’ve had such a clean and powerful hand. Ten absolute tricks from top, unless of course fate spins an evil story on me and gives my LHO four times the Ten and also a doubleton . But how often does that happen?

My LHO opens 1 and RHO responds 1. Perhaps Peter Fredin knows how lure the opponents in a trap here, I don’t know. At my table I wasn’t able to get the opponents to double me in 4, instead they took the push to 5. I have only one defensive trick, so I lift myself to 5. Too much for RHO, the double gets pushed through the table.

1. Obfuscation part 1
2. Obfuscation part 2, complete with theatrical look of insanity
3. Drats!, I’ve been uncovered

LHO leads the Ace of and dummy comes down:

If only I had an entry to dummy! I felt like Indiana Jannes trying to access the Sacred Chamber of The Eleventh Trick. When East shows out on the first , West goes into the tank… and continues a small for East to ruff.

Thank you! Now I can extract the sole remaining trump, and cross over to dummy’s 5 to pitch my losing for +650.

If EW don’t touch or take a ruff, NS can only take ten tricks with as trumps. East can take eleven in because North doesn’t have an entry to give South a ruff.

Hi all

Here’s a deal from the Wednesday teams night at Piedmont. The discussion invoked almost physical violence. In an uncontested auction South gets to declare 6. West leads a small . What’s the best approach?

Two paths: take the safety play in ( King and then small towards the Ten), or, if the lead smells like a singleton play trumps from top.

Do the statistics perhaps provide an answer? Any 4-1 trump split occurs 28.26% of the time, but you can only tackle four trumps in West, that leaves 14.13%. Compare that to the splitting exactly 1-5, which is close to 7.27%. So it looks like we’ve got a winner, safety play beats singleton 2-1.

But…

Bayes Theorem (credits to Geoff for explaining me):

P( singleton | lead) = ( P( singleton) * P( lead | singleton) ) / P( lead)

Read this as:

The odds the being a singleton given a lead are equal to the odds for a singleton , multiplied by the odds for a lead given a singleton, divided by the odds for a lead.

We’ll assume West always leads a singleton if he has one, so:

P( lead | singleton) = 1
P( singleton) = 0.0727
P( lead) = 0.0727 + 1/3 * 0.9273

That last part means that in 1/3 of the remaining space will be the lead chosen. We’ll ignore a broken trump holding as lead option.

This all calculates to more than 19%. So compared to the safety play, this is the superior path.

Well, this was pretty much an eye opener for me, very counter intuitive.

At our table Geoff (East) decided his hand looked like a weak two in . After South’s take out double I took maximum advantage of the vulnerability and put up a massive wall by jumping to 6. Let them figure out if and what slam they have at the 6-level! North took her plus and doubled. When the defence slipped up by not leading trumps twice, we got away for -500. Not a bad deal if you get your odds right.

Hi all

As you can see I’ve updated the look of my blog (again). I had some issues with the old theme and I decided to make a switch. There are still some small issues to attend to, but I’m sure it’ll prove to be a better experience.

Trentemøller has a new album: Into The Great White Yonder. Still electronics-driven, dark & ambient, but unfortunately less formidable than The Last Resort. Check it out on Pandora or Grooveshark.

Here’s another deal from the BBQ Swiss in El Cerrito, a 13 IMP pickup.

1. Strong
2. Waiting

Partner took the slow route (4 instead of jumping to 5) but was unable to make a cuebid. At the table I assumed Antony was holding a couple of possible useful Queens in addition to genuine support. 6 looked to be reasonable safe and on a finesse at worst. Funny to see that partner couldn’t cuebid the suit he controlled because I was ahead of him.

Viking style. With a boatload of points and finding out about a fit with a lot of room to spare is like duck soup. A breeze. Easy as pie. Like taking candy from a baby. Like shooting fish in a barrel. Simple as ABC.

1. Big
2. 0-7 HCP
3. Bigger, 20+
4. 5-7 balanced
5. Relay
6. No 4 card Major, no 5 card minor
7. Relay
8. 3-2-4-4
9. Aces?
10. One
11. Do you have the magic King?
12. No
13. Like a hot knife through butter

Hi all

Last Saturday I was the Methusalem in a team that for the rest consisted of junior players. As you can see, I still haven’t lost my skills in frivolous bidding. Antony cooperated joyfully.

This was the auction from my point of view:

1. Of course this is by no means a vulnerable opening, you have an impossible rebid over the expected 1 by partner
2. 4th suit forcing
3. Asking for half a stopper/more information

I thought my hand improved during the bidding, partner doesn’t seem to have any wastage in opposite my void. I was more than a tad off, for this was the deal.

Antony felt my slight distress and discomfort at the table and waved his right hand towards West like a true Obi Wan. “You will not find the killing lead.”

Well, it worked out better than expected when West found the single lead for us to make it: the Ace of .

Antony ruffed, ruffed a in dummy, took three pitches on dummy’s and cross ruffed the rest of the tricks.

Hi all

Here’s a slam I butchered.

1. Weak
2. Not very scientific, but sometimes you just take off the white gloves and enter while swinging your ax.

Dummy comes down:

King lead. Alright, this baby needs some work. I can count only ten tricks with a successful hook. I won’t go into detail how I botched the contract, but my opponent threw me a trick-twelve-bone with a ruff and sluff.

It took me some overtime to formulate the most elegant plan. Draw two rounds of trumps ending in dummy. Play a to the Queen and exit with the Ace of and the Ten. This basically wins with the 3-3, King doubleton onside and various 2-4 holdings where East will be endplayed. Those last ones might be a bit difficult to read, though.

I think that’s as much optimization juice you can squeeze from that lemon.

Cheers!