Connections Cup #1

With the big lockdown the Buchanan Bridge Club have responded quickly and set up online matches on Monday and Wednesday. These will hopefully become tournaments at some point, but for now are a series of Teams Matches, organised by Ron Hounsell. The winner of the Connections Cup will be those who have the highest five IMP scores across the whole time that the club is closed (maybe three months, maybe six months?)

It is of course a fun and friendly tournament, and I think most people are glad just to have a bit of bridge and some sort of socialising. But I've been thinking about the scoring system, and it means you are rewarded for being in high scoring matches. A flat board is no use to either team. That's perfect for myself and my partner of last night, Phil Moon. Like me, Phil is an optimistic bidder, and he rarely misses either a slam or a sacrifice.

Our best result was on the final board, where I had a really nice hand for my pre-empt and didn't mind being doubled:

West opened 1♣ and East correctly bid 1♠, showing the major. I had the big South hand. I have the strength for 2♥ but opposite a passed partner bid an immediate 4♥. West has an easy 4♠ bid. Phil then found the winning bid of 5♥. East doubled this pretty quickly, although actually she knows about double fit and might have thought about bidding on. West thought for much longer then 5♥x was passed out.

The defence took two Spades then lead a Club ruffed in hand. From my perspective as declarer, if I can avoid any trump losers I'll make the contract. If either hand has a singleton King then laying down the ♥A works, but if it's specifically West with a singleton Jack then I need to lead the ♥Q from dummy. I considered that was more likely, so crossed to dummy to lead the Queen. You can see that on this layout it still didn't work, but still saved a trick compared to starting with the ♥A.

5♥x-1 felt like a good score. In 4♠ the defence have only two Diamond tricks, plus perhaps a Club ruff. Indeed 4♠ was left in at the other table and made, so we gained 11 IMPs.

Our other high level adventures both involved us bidding on to slam after one partner had made a natural 3NT bid. This is always tricky - is 4NT Blackwood, quantitative, or to play? In the end our 6♦ went down and our 6♠ made, for more IMPs exchanged.

The final score was a narrow win by 43 to 34.

Wanderers Team Match #2

Yesterday Ted and I had another game playing in the Wanderers Team Match. The match was due to start at seven, but unfortunately one player delayed the start by twenty minutes. He'd foolishly moved toddler bedtime back by half an hour to account for BST, and had forgotten that this would make him late for the game. On checking his phone (during a Peppa Pig omnibus book) he found many texts and missed calls, so raced through Thomas the Tank Engine and the Windy Day at double speed, put the boy down in his cot and rushed through to log on.

Thankfully, the first four boards were fairly quiet and gave me time to recover. Board 5 I had a high level decision to make, and got it very wrong:

I have a very appealing South hand, especially when partner opens a natural 1♣. Over the 1NT I blasted 4♥, then found out the 1NT was a conventional bid. Didn't matter though. When Ted competed with 5♥ I pictured him with some useful Aces and Kings, and pressed on to 6♥. As it happened, partner's hand was not the one I was hoping for. And, as he tends to do, Tam doubled me.

All three finesses lost (as you would expect from the bidding) leading to 6♥x-3. The other table also misjudged slightly to play in 5♥-1, when actually 5♦ goes down.

Later we gained some of those lost IMPs back when Ted bid 4♥ that missed at the other table, then we saw the opponents unlucky to miss out on the slam bonus with the trump suit below:

	♠ A J 2
♠ K Q 9 8 3		♠ T 7 6 5
	♠ 4

6♠ went one off. However, this was another 9 IMPs away as on the other table East-West had bid on to 7♠! North found a shrewd double and beat it by two. In fact, the 7♠ bidders were lucky 6♠ goes down too.

Next Ted and I had a misunderstanding over the meaning of a 2♣ overcall of a 1♣ opening, where the opening could be short. I wound up in 4♠ in a 3-3 fit, which actually played quite nicely for one off but still a small loss. Then we overbid to 4♠x and the opponents overbid to 6NT-1. It was not a night for aggressive bidding! We finished the first half down by 21 to 33 IMPs.

The most interesting hand in the second half came where I picked up a lovely hand, and duly overbid it to a failing slam.

After my 1♦ opening the opponents competed aggressively in Hearts;. I was happy to leave alone 4♠ but when Ted competed to 5♠ I took the plunge and bid six. I've got exactly the sort of hand that makes lots of tricks.

Throughout the auction I thought Ted had more Spades then he actually did (he's bid them three times!), and doubtless he was also rather disappointed with my dummy. If trumps are 3-3 there's actually pretty good play, if you can set up the Diamonds. Ted played it nobly, going all out for the 3-3 fit, but not to be and the result was 6♠-2. At the other table North-South got off lightly in 3♥x-2, so actually we'd have won the board playing 4♠ (or doubling 5♥).

Just for balance my final hand is one where we gained 13 IMPs. Not for doing anything clever, just getting a lucky lead.

When the ♠J held the first trick I was delighted, and 11 tricks were easy from there. At the other table West got a Heart lead, and very nearly stole the contract. He managed to sneak by a Spade to the Jack, and after that would have had nine tricks if Clubs broke.

In the end we lost the second half by 19 IMPs to 32, keeping up my 100% record of losing every stanza. Thanks to Ted for another enjoyable game and John for organisation.

Wanderers Team Match #1

All of the Bridge Clubs are closed, so it's the perfect opportunity for an online game. Last night Team Wanderers from the Glasgow League had our first online adventure, a teams match between eight of us. Hopefully we'll repeat this each Sunday, and maybe even have unofficial matches against other teams in the league.

In the first half me and Ted were up against the regular partnership of Martin and Gints. We came unstuck early on:

I sat West (dkham) with the the nice 5-5 hand and was all set to make some sort of bid when South opened one of my suits. Partner had passed, it was favourable vulnerability, and I still felt like bidding, so decided this was the time to make a five card weak jump overcall. This initially worked well as the opponents ended up in a hopeless 3NT. Unfortunately my partner expected me to have a somewhat purer hand, and bid 4♥. This was doubled, off two. At the other table West made an (also somewhat dubious) overcall of 2♥, and ending up playing 3♥-1. So that was six IMPS away.

We lost a further 11 IMPs when Martin and Gints made a slam. Then we bid one of our own - in a crowded auction partner bid 5♦ and I crossed my fingers and topped him up to six, then nervously went to put the kettle on. Luckily it worked out fine and we'd recovered slightly to finish the first half 15-18 down.

In the second half we played against Tam and John Faben. The boards were wilder here, and so was the bidding, as we were doubled four times in ten boards. This was occasionally expensive, but it worked out well for us here:

When Ted opened 1♠ I had a great hand as East and began with 2♥. South then weighed in heavily with 4NT, showing a very distributional hand with minors. North chose clubs. At this point I've a decision to make. As a partnership we (obviously) hadn't discussed what Ted's pass of 4NT meant, but I guessed (wrongly) that with defensive values he would have doublded. So I bid on to 5♥, a little worried about my doubletons in both minors but reassured by the thought that even if 5♥ went off it might be a good sacrifice. It was duly doubled.

South lead the Ten of Spades and it's one of those rare hands (rare to me) where straight away you can place all the cards and know what's going to happen. South must be at least 6-5 from the bidding and in fact must be exactly 6-5, as the lead is surely a singleton and he must have a trump if he's bothering to lead a singleton. That means that I'll be able to win the Spade, draw South's one trump, then discard my Club losers on dummy's Spades, and North won't be able to ruff in as he started with lots of Spades. That is indeed how it worked out, for 5♥x+1. It only occurred to me later that South might have just been leading a Spade as partner doubled and it was dummy's suit.

On the other table South made a more restrained 2NT overcall, then came back in with 4NT over 4♥. This got him to 5♣ doubled (likely off three with a Diamond ruff), but East bid on with 5♥ (a slam try, in their forcing pass system). The defence started well with ♣A but then switched to a Spade so that game made too.

Finally, a board with some regret attached to it, as I missed out on the game bonus:

I began with a 1♠ overcall then when partner made a modest raise settled for 3♠. This made plus one on the ♣K lead, after I was able to ruff two Hearts (but suffered a Club ruff). In fact with the friendly Spade position there are always ten tricks there, and with dummy having four trumps game is worth being in.

I was close to bidding 4♠, as I knew that partner had some spade Support and was likely short in Hearts. At the other table my counterpart East didn't have any of that information but still bid game. Their auction began with 1NT form South, passed around to East who bid 2♣ showing majors, and on seeing partner's 2♠ preference, he bid an immediate 4♠ and hit the jackpot.

In the second half my team (the felines I believe) lost by another 22, leaving the other team (canines?) 25 IMPs winners.

Overall I enjoyed playing a semi-competitive game. There was a bit of confusion about playing online, which will hopefully improve each time we do this, and with better planning I'll stop trying to make a sandwich between hands. Otherwise an excellent evening.