Beginner Blunder

I haven't played any competitive bridge for the last few months, so instead here's a hand where I could have done better.

The deal is taken from a hand taken from a beginner's class in Norwich, which was reproduced and given to me as declarer. It was setup so that if declarer gets it right they always make it. It ought to have been easy - but I bodged it.

No one vul S deal ♠ Q J 3 2 ♥ x ♦ K J x x ♣ Q x x x ♠ x x x ♥ Q T x x x ♦ x ♣ K x x x 9 5 11 15 ♠ x ♥ K J x x ♦ Q T x x x x ♣ A J ♠ A K T 9 8 ♥ A x x ♦ A x ♣ x x x

I was South. We quickly got to 4♠ and after some thought, West lead a Diamond. There are clearly ten tricks (five trumps, three Hearts, two Diamonds), it's just a case of taking them all.

The whole point of the hand, I realised afterwards, is to be wary of the singleton Diamond and draw trumps before playing Diamonds. To do this, while also getting the two Heart ruffs, you have to return to hand after each ruff with a trump. So, after winning the initial Heart in hand, the sequence might be: ♥A, Heart ruff, trump back to hand, Heart ruff, trump back to hand, draw trumps and claim.

I didn't do that though. After the first Heart ruff I drew two rounds of trumps, ending in hand, and lead up to the ♦K. So I have been a bit careful, and was hoping the person with a singleton Diamond was out of trumps. He wasn't, but because I was leading up to the ♦K (rather than cashing it) I still had ten winners available if they couldn't take three Clubs, which indeed they couldn't.

So I made 4♠=, but missed the point of the hand. The notes said "remember, trumps can be used as transport between the hands too." It's a tough game.

Blyth Valley Bridge Club #3

This week Anna and I were back in a bridge club together, for the first time since last August, which was also in Blyth Valley Bridge Club in Walberswick. As before, we went for the afternoon game and the grand parents had the pleasure of looking after our little monster.

It's a lovely place to go for a game, and lots of people recognised us and gave us a warm welcome. There was also a slight undercurrent of suspicion, as we had won the last time we were there (see here) and in fact the time before that too (see here). We now had a reputation, which I think became slightly self-fulfilling as people played worse than normal against us.

Anna and I defended most hands, and defended them pretty well. Overall we didn't make too many mistakes, and of course benefitted from a few gifts as is the way with matchpoint scoring. The only hand where we thought we could have done better was when Anna made two overtricks in 3♥, and we then found everyone else had bid the game.

After a surprisingly chilly week on the East coast (colder than Scotland) suddenly the sun came out, and with the heating on full blast, it got pretty warm. Sitting by the window I felt I was getting a tan on the back of my neck. Then someone decided the glare of sunlight was too much and moved the table ten feet into the middle of the room and closed all the curtains too.

At the halftime break I went to check my phone for any news of the baby, and when I returned found I had last choice of the biscuits. Still, it was a delicious cup of tea.

There were two hands of interest:

No one vul W deal ♠ A K J x x ♥ x x ♦ A J T x x ♣ x ♠ x x ♥ K x x x ♦ K x x x ♣ A T x 13 10 8 9 ♠ Q x x x x ♥ A J T x x x ♦ x ♣ J ♠ x ♥ Q ♦ Q x x ♣ K Q x x x x x x

Danny Anna W N E S - 1♠ - 1NT - 2♦ 2♥ 3♣ - - 3♥ 4♣ - - -

I had the nice North hand and opened 1♠. East decided he was too weak to overcall and passed. Anna was South and made a very disciplined bid of 1NT (Bernard Magee would be proud). But on her next bid she weighed in with 3♣ I reluctantly passed as North with a singleton Club, and was even more nervous when she bid 4♣,. But Anna knew what she was doing, 4♣ is a good contract and since East-West had a massive heart fit they can make ten tricks easily.

In 4♣ Anna got a friendly Spade lead, and was able to discard her singleton Heart and make the contract comfortably. This got us a good score when the deal really belonged to East-West.

On to my second chosen board:

No one vul W deal ♠ A K ♥ Q x x ♦ x x x ♣ A K x x x ♠ J T x x ♥ A K J x x ♦ J T x x ♣ 16 10 11 3 ♠ Q x x ♥ T x x x ♦ A K x ♣ Q x ♠ x x x x x ♥ x ♦ Q x x ♣ J x x x x

Danny Anna W N E S 1♥ 1NT 3♥ - - - -

West took a bold view and opened his hand 1♥. I might have done the same. I had the North hand and decided to bid 1NT instead of 2♣. East raised to 3♥, natural, where in fact double would have made more sense as she knows her side have the majority of the points so I'm not likely to be making 1NT.

When 3♥ came back round to me I really thought about doubling, reckoning I had four tricks with my two AK's and perhaps a trump trick. I passed, but when I saw dummy wished I had doubled as I could now see that my ♥Q was going to make a trick. I cashed my ♠KA (with the ♠K first to show it was a doubleton, but I don't think my partner would have cared anyway), then started on Clubs. When the very first one was ruffed I was glad I hadn't doubled, but also saw we had a ten card Club fit so wished I'd overcalled 2♣.

Needless to say, when I played these hands at home with my parents there were totally different contracts on both - I think that's what makes them interesting hands.

In the last few hands of the afternoon I had the opportunity to bid fairly aggressively, and put some pressure on the opponents. On the first hand they bid to a very reasonable game that went off on a bad trump break, and took this to heart. So on the next board when West was invited to game she accepted, but then informed her partner and the table "You're not going to make this!", which we thought was unduly pessimistic. As it turned out she was right, with another bad trump split he didn't make it (six off).

In the end we finished with the top score of 64%, so I was slightly embarrassed about winning again but glad that it was such a nice afternoon.

I got stuck with the Fruit Club

Director!

Do you call the director when someone revokes? I do. Following David Stevenson's advice every week in Mr. Bridge magazine a friendly club is one where there is no hesitation in calling the director and accepting her ruling. Much better than the players trying to sort it out themselves.

My policy was tested last night. I was at the Buchanan Club in Glasgow, and the contract was 5♦x. The auction was as below:

W N E S Danny June 1♣ - 2♣ 2♦ 3♥ - 4♣ - 5♣ 5♦ - - x - - -

I had the North hand, with fine Diamond support for partner, which I only showed at the five level. Anna asked me when I showed her the hand why I didn't support earlier, and I wasn't really sure, but I think it was because I thought the 3♥ bid was a mix-up so my strategy is to stay out of it.. Anyway, it worked well and 5♦x has excellent play, with just a Club loser and eventually a Diamond.

Partner was well on the way with a cross-ruff, when I noticed that after a Spade lead West discarded a Club. Then on the next trick she followed with a Spade. I was dummy - but thought it within my rights to point this out.

After a bit of turning cards over we realised West had indeed revoked, someone said it didn't matter as she didn't win the trick, then someone asked if I wanted to call the director. I said yes. The rules for a revoke are pretty simple - the defence forfeits one trick if they win the revoke trick, and one further trick assuming they win a trick subsequent to the revoke. In this case that meant a one trick transfer, so we made an impossible 5♦x+1. The revoke had not been crucial, only causing an overtrick.

There was no hard feeling, and we moved on swiftly. The opponents were not too aggrieved as they had previously made a great 6NT (at aggregate scoring), which always helps.

This was my first night at the Club in a while, and it was a very enjoyable evening playing with standby June, after my partner was late. Except he wasn't really late, arriving at 7:13 pm for a 7:15 pm start. But bridge clubs tend to be pretty punctual, and in fact at 7 pm we were all set to go and at ten past we went ahead without him.

I like playing in new partnerships, and happily agree to everything the other person suggests. So I readily accepted the suggestion for Reverse Benji, which seems to be the club standard, even though I'm a bit shaky on it. As the first round started June tried to rapidly communicate a few other things, then someone knocked over a glass of Coke so we had to change the table cloth, and it was rather a chaotic start. But I felt happy enough, the merits of a new partnership is everyone keeps it simple, and I'm protected from my usual flaw of over-thinking it.

Our agreement for discards - low means like - was tested on the very first round, when I lead a Diamond and dummy won with a singleton Ace. When I got in later I remembered my had partner played an encouraging 2♦, but did this still apply now that dummy was out of Diamonds? I decided it did, and didn't want to lead anything else anyway, so continued with a Diamond, giving declarer not one but two extra tricks. Afterwards, everyone said I should have switched to a Club.

On the one where Reverse Benji came up I surprised partner by responding to her 2♦ opening with 2NT (should have just relayed with 2♥), but we got to the right contract anyway.

We had a few bad contracts that were off two, but also made a couple of good games that not everybody was in. At the end of the night I said "that was quite a steady night" at exactly the same time my partner said "that was a bit up and down". Overall we finished about average, but with the scores very close we were only 500 points from winning - certainly close enough for me to put it down to the opponents bidding that 6NT against us.

Pairs at St Andrew

My parents have been learning to play bridge, and have so far had three months of lessons. These have focused almost exclusively on bidding, and have got as far as one level openings and responses. So it was a big step up when last night I took my Dad to the St Andrew's Saturday evening tournament, a No Fear event. On the upside, this is an event advertised for beginners and looked after by Raymond, a very patient mentor to many new bridge players.

I tried to remember my first experiences playing competitively. My hands shook and I was glad to get a bad hand and have nothing to do. I noticed the same thing in my partner. Of all the new things (Bridgemates, Stop and Alert cards, contracts above 4♠, competitive bidding, changing seats, "any questions?"), the one that surprised him most at the start was the fast pace. Despite being a beginners tournament a rather ambitious 28 boards were scheduled, with rounds of four boards every 25 minutes. I think for the first few deals Dad was just focusing on finding the right card and following suit.

There was no messing about from our opponents - and they quickly bid to games and slams. Dad made his first ever overcall, and was rewarded for his bravery when I was able to lead a Diamond to his ♦AK and beat 6♥.

To begin with he was blessed with bad hands, but then came the moment that certainly relaxes me - when you get to be declarer for the first time:

♠ 9 5 3 ♥ A J 7 4 3 ♦ 6 ♣ 7 6 3 2 ♠ A J T ♥ Q 8 ♦ J T 8 5 ♣ A K Q 4

W N E S 1♣ - 1♥ - 1NT - 2♣ - - -

South has a balanced 17 points so opened 1♣. I was North and have a nice hand in support of Clubs, and thought about passing out 1♣ just to make things easy. But then I remembered my rule; to bid with beginners as normal. So I replied 1♥, and Dad replied 1NT showing a balanced 15-17. Textbook bidding! Then I bid 2♣, passed out.

This is a nice hand for your first ever hand, with a good chance to ruff some Diamonds in dummy. It was duly wrapped up, 2♣+1.

There was no let up to the fast pace. I kept up my policy of bidding as I normally would, and landed Dad in his first ever slam. He was South, I was North:

♠ A K 6 5 ♥ K 2 ♦ Q 8 6 ♣ K Q 6 2 ♠ Q 9 3 ♥ A Q 6 5 ♦ A 7 5 3 ♣ A 5

W N E S 1♦ - 1♠ - 2NT* - 6NT - - -

I've starred the 2NT rebid as it was accompanied by an apology "I'm not really sure what I'm doing here". I took a look at my 17 points and decided it was time for some decisive action. "I bet you weren't expecting this!" I said as I bid 6NT. "You can have a biscuit if you make it" I added.

He didn't make it, but still took a biscuit (or two). But from this failure came the highlight. After playing three rounds of Spades, Dad cashed the long Spade from dummy. Afterwards he admitted "I was 99% certain it was a winner".

After another biscuit, things picked up and we finished well. Or at least I'm guessing we did, as the scores weren't posted online.

Overall it was a very enjoyable experience. It's always great to get to the bridge club, and play a few hands. I didn't mind it when we got a bad result. And we did get a few bad results, but some good ones too.

Honey the bear

Historic Hand

This deal is historic (for me at least) as it's the first one ever to feature my wife, mother and daughter. A Hamilton family special.

The cards did not live up to the occasion and were not very exciting:

No one vul N deal ♠ Q J x x ♥ x x x ♦ K x x ♣ A x x ♠ A 5 x ♥ K Q x x ♦ J x x x ♣ J x 10 11 2 17 ♠ T x x ♥ x x x ♦ Q T x x ♣ x x x ♠ K 9 x ♥ A J T ♦ A x ♣ K Q T x x

W N E S 1♣ 1♠ - 1NT - 3NT - - -

South opened 1♣ and when North responded 1♠ made a rebid of 1NT, showing 15-17. With 10 points North raised straight to 3NT.

West was on lead, and found the bold choice of the ♠5. This could have worked well, playing through dummy's suit, but actually here it gives declarer an immediate ninth trick in Spades. Nothing else works any better though, and declarer always makes 3NT.

It should be noted at this point that West just had just had her 1st birthday, and was sitting on her Daddy's knee. Many of her cards were held upside down, or on the floor, and after the game she could be found under the table tossing cards around randomly and playing with Hippo.

National Pairs (not)-Qualifying

Last Wednesday at the Buchanan Phil and I attempted to build on our 38.5% of the previous week and qualify for the National Pairs Final. The good news is that we did 10% better, the bad news that we didn't quite make the 50% required to get to the next round.

We were within a board of qualifying, and it could have been any of many. There were some wild hands, wild bidding and wild defence.

Looking for a nice calm start I picked up the hand below.

♠ AQJT842 ♥ AK9542 ♦ - ♣ -

I couldn't believe it when I started sorting my cards and realised they were all Spades and Hearts. I went for a cautious 1♠ opening, reasoning that surely it won't get passed out, and this way I've a better chance of getting doubled at the end.

W N E S Phil Danny 1♠ x 2♦ - 3♥ - 3NT - 4♥ - 4♠ - - -

When Phil gave false preference to Spades at the four level I thought about jumping to 6♠, figuring I'm probably going to lose one Spade and can ruff out the Hearts. Looking back, I wish I had bid the slam. When am I even going to get a hand like that again?

As it is, I underplayed the hand as well as underbidding it. After a Club lead I decided to ruff a Heart, but for no good reason played the ♥A and ♥K before taking a ruff. This got over-ruffed, as did the next Heart, so even though I dropped the singleton ♠K I lost two Heart tricks for 4♠+1. This turned out to be slightly above average when only one pair bid and made the slam, and a couple had a horrible time in 6NT.

The standard was high, and I didn't mind when our borderline contracts got beaten by good defence. But it did mean we got a succession of rather poor scores. Our defence was not so tight, and one declarer embarrassed us by collecting four tricks from this suit:

	♣ A Q 7 4
♣ K 6 5 3		♣ T 8 2
	♣ J 9

So I was slightly on the tilt when I made a very poor two-level overcall on the hand below:

W N E S Phil Danny 1♥ 2♦ x - 2♠ - 3NT x - - 4♣ - 4♥ - - -

The opponents landed in 3NT, a decent contract with South's seven running Clubs. But Phil doubled it, right in theory as we beat 3NT so long as he leads a Diamond. In practice though, they removed to 4♥, which is very hard to beat (and we couldn't do it). Conceding 4♥= was worth 19%.

I persisted with dodgy overcalls, and it paid off on this one:

W N E S Phil Danny - - 1♥ 3♣ - - -

After North opens 1♥ it's the perfect time to pre-empt, with favourable vulnerability and partner having passed. I bid a bold 3♣. Phil thought about removing this to 3♦ but I think rightly passed, and I was left to play it. It did not go well, and after a brief discussion about whether the defence had made eight or nine tricks we agreed 3♣-4. However, while playing the hand it become clear to me the opponents could make a lot of tricks in Spades, and so we scored 85% for the board.

In another wild hand I opened 2NT and Phil leapt to 6♣, which made all 13 tricks. There were higher scoring slams, so we got a slightly above average 56%. Our best slam was one we bid and made off two cashing Aces. This sounds like poor bidding, but I think actually we knew what we were doing. Judge for yourself:

W N E S Phil Danny - 1♣ x 1♥ 4♠ - 4NT* - 5♥* - 6♠ - - -

I decided not to open the East hand, reasoning I could always get in to the auction later. When Phil doubled 1♣ for takeout I jumped to 4♠. Phil saw the potential of his Diamond suit, and well placed ♣K, and bid Blackwood. This is a bit risky with a void, as I could well have the useless ♥A (and indeed I did), but he reasoned that on the expected Heart lead he could ruff it then throw away Hearts on the long Diamonds, as indeed turned out to be the case. An interesting strategy from South might have been to Cash the trump Ace to see dummy, then on seeing there was no Club void cashing the ♣A.

Going in to the final round against John Di Mambro and Ronald Gaffin we needed something special to qualify. The first board was a good one, as I made 4♥+2 for another 100% board. A little feature of interest came at the end of that hand. With no outside entries to dummy I played on the Spade suit, with the lead in my hand as South.

	♠ A J T 5
♠ Q 8 7		♠ K 9 2
	♠ 6 4 3

I lead low and finessed the ♠T. When this lost to East I won the return and finessed the ♠J, making three Spade tricks when this finesse won and the suit split 3-3, and I thought "that's lucky". Then it was pointed out that actually West can thwart me by going up with the ♠Q on the first round. If I win this East holds up the ♠K and I get cut off from dummy and only get two Spade tricks. And if I let the ♠Q win I also end up losing two Spade tricks.

In the end it didn't matter as they qualified anyway and we didn't, finishing on 48% and just outside the top five. Maybe next year.

Matchpoint warm up

In preparation for attempting to qualify in the National Pairs next week, Phil and I played the match point evening at the Buchanan.

Things started very well, when I doubled a Blackwood response of 5♦ leading Phil to find a winning Diamond lead against 6♣ which let us take the first two tricks and defeat a slam that would normally make. A pleasing instance of partnership co-operation in defence. Then two boards later we were the only table to bid and make 7♥ after a very unconvincing auction. But these few highs were wiped out by all the little boards that make the difference in match points. It was a high standard, much higher than us, and after those initial highs we plummeted to finish bottom with 38.5%.

As bridge players like to do, I have rationalised our bad score into boards where the opponents were particularly successful against us, and boards where I had to admit we brought it on ourselves. In the first category were a couple where they bid a game (e.g. 3♣-5♣), we sat there and defended accurately (taking the maximum possible of two tricks), but got a bottom as other tables were not in the same making game. Nothing you can do about that.

Another example is the deal below, where our opponents were the only ones to bid 4♠, after Phil opened the South hand with a Weak Two.

W N E S Danny Phil 2♥ 2♠ - 2NT - 3♠ - 4♠ - -

It's probably an overbid by East with his Hearts sitting badly, but worked well here with the Club fit and ten tricks were easy.

That one I expected to be a bad score, ,ore frustrating was the board below. I took a bit of a risk and thought it had paid of handsomely with a good result, until I looked at the Bridgemate and saw we'd got another bottom score.

W N E S Danny Phil 1♦ - 1♠ - 2♦ - - -

After Phil opened the South hand 1♦, I responded 1♠, reasoning that with my Diamond fit we'd always end up somewhere good. This turned out to be the case as Phil rebid 2♦, and made it for +90. But every other table had East-West going down one in 4♥, for +100 to East-West. It's a cruel game.

Last time Phil and I played together (see here) it was aggregate, and we thought afterwards that we should have bid a few more thin games. Six months later playing match points, we adopted that strategy, and played some very dicey contracts, that all went down. The deal below was the height of our folly:

W N E S Danny Phil - 1♠ - 1NT - 2♥ - 2♠ - 3♠ - 3NT - 4♥ - 4♠ - - -

The auction is fine up to 2♠, but then I should really pass. We might have a game, but it's very unlikely, and 2♠ could well be high enough, if partner has only a doubleton Spade and weak hand (as here). But I chose to invite anyway. And Phil, perhaps overestimating my playing ability, chose to accept with his 5 point hand and tried 3NT based on his long Clubs. But we couldn't play 3NT with 20 points between us so settled in 4♠. The one advantage of bad bidding is that it's hard to defend, and we managed nine tricks, but would much rather have had them in 2♠+1 than 4♠-1.

We were playing a simple Acol system with three Weak Twos, and I think it worked well. The only confusion was in defence, when we weren't sure what counted as enough to encourage, and I ended up eagerly continuing a suit that Phil didn't really want. Of course we'll fix all that up though and come storming back for the National Pairs.