Welcome to the Hand of the Day. There are two ways to navigate this section. You can either right click here to save this file and play the hands (if you have a program that allows you to load and play .PBN files) without seeing any of my commentary or you can scroll down and see what I had to say about the hands. It is probably more interesting to play these hands but I always like to offer my partner a choice. If you are curious to see how Pam and I made out, then you can click here to see what events we played or here to see if we placed in those events.
Saturday) Okay, you are playing
the evening BCD pairs game and the opponents are vulnerable
but you are not. The bidding goes Pass, Pass to you
and you look down to see a 5 count and a long club
suit. It is time to make a crazy bid but which one do
you choose?
What happened) I went with a
somewhat conservative (for me) 4C bid and things worked out
better than I could have hoped for.
Saturday's Result) We
defended well and set the opponents by three tricks for +300
and a clear top board (12/12). Passing 4C
doubled is the only winning option for East but it takes a
better player than me to find that bid.
Monday) It's the evening session of the
BCD pairs and things are not going well. With no one
vulnerable you hear your partner open a weak 2 in your void
suit. Do you call it a day and pass? The very
fact that I am asking this question implies that I did not
take that very reasonable path here. As you will learn
if you follow the Hand of the Day, I like the action and I
am not afraid to take the good and bad boards that come with
it.
What Happened) I bid 2NT (asking for a
feature) and my partner (not Pam) bid 3D and managed to make
it for +110 and 4.5 out of 8 matchpoints. To his
credit, he played the hand well after the shock of my
passing 3D. I play with other partners who handle
shocks so poorly that I am forced to stick with only small
lies.
1) 2NT asks for a feature.
Monday Result) As
you can see from the par score, 2S was as good a contract as
3D.
Tuesday) Well,
it's the last board of the afternoon session of the NABC+
Mixed Pairs game. They are vulnerable and you are
not. We are having a 45% game (which is better than our
38% and 43% games
from last year) when I pick up a shapely 4 point hand and
decide that should Pam pass then I am going to make a big move
no matter what East bids. Take a look at my hand and
decide what you would do after you hear 1S.
What happened) I
chose 1NT (which is not as bad as it would be in Standard) and
I did not appear to get into any trouble. As it turned
out, my troubles did not start until the hand was over.
1) 12-14 HCP balanced, denies 4 hearts, may or may not
have a spade stopper.
2) Once the auction ends
like this, which card would you
lead from the South hand?
Tuesday Result) I
chose to lead the 7 of Hearts and East did well to make 6
after this auction. We ended up with 17.5 out of 25
matchpoints on the hand as 6 of 13 pairs bid and made 6S, 6 of
13 pairs bid 4S and made 6 and 1 pair bid 4S and made 5.
After the hand, East (who appeared to be a Pro but who was
also having a 45% game) called the director (who he happend to
be on a first name basis with) and got Pam's hand checked to
see if she was fielding my psych bid. The director
agreed with Pam's pass but then proceeded to lecture me about
psyching (it was my first big one in that tournament) and
implied that if they caught me doing it again then there would
be major penalties.
Let's just say
that even though I understood the situation, I was not
impressed by the big show that both the "Pro" and the director
put on.
Wednesday) Pam and I are playing an unusual
strong club system called Chilli. The
hands below illustrate perfectly why we like the system as
much as we do. Take a look and see what contract you
would get to in IMPS if you assume East deals and the
opponents pass throughout.
Wednesday Result)
At some tournment in the recent past, Pam and I heard a
lecture from Regina Pro, Barry Harper called The 30 Point Deck. Since then,
we make it a point to bid these slams both because they tend
to make and because they are fun to bid. (How can an auction
with 11 alertable bids not be fun?) This one was cold
for 6 so we ended up winning a few IMPs.
1)
Artificial with 14+ HCP if unbalanced or 18+ HCP if balanced
2) At least 4
points, denies 4 hearts, at least 4 spades, could have a
longer minor suit.
3) Artificial, at
least 20 points, game forcing
4) Agrees spades,
asks partner to describe hand further
5) Singleton or
void in hearts (Aces or Kings or Queens don't count as
singletons for us.)
6) Asks for
keycards in spades (Hurray! It could be a "Barry Harper" slam)
7) 1 or 4
keycards
8) Asks for the
King of clubs (Yes, I am thinking about 7 at this point)
9) I don't have
the King of Clubs
10) Asks if singleton or
void in hearts. (I can still stop in 5S opposite a singleton!)
11) Void in hearts with
no other Kings but more than a minimum hand.
12) Because it was IMPs,
I should have bid 6D telling Pam to pick 6D or 6S.
What Happened) If you got to the cold 7D while staying out of the unmakeable 7S then you are deserving of all the accolades you have already won at bridge.
Saturday) It's the
second session of the BCD pairs. The round is
about two thirds over and you are on your way to a 5th place
overall finish (out of 38 pairs). The problem is that
your name is Darryl Hendershot and you are playing with
somebody named Jason that you picked up at the partnership
desk. Can you figure out what he has and make the right
call in this exciting, competitive auction? Keep in mind
that you are vulnerable and the opponents are not.
Saturday Result)
Darryl correctly (as is turns out) made the rarely seen bid of
5H and I misguessed the diamonds and went down 1 for -200 but
a near top of 7 out of 8 matchpoints (setting 4S requires
better defence then you will see in BCD pairs). My
partner's nearly flawless bidding instincts were one of the
main reasons that we finished as well as we did.
For those of you that were counting, there
were only 5 Hands of the Day even though I played 10 days in
Reno. Well, this is mostly because I was just starting
my hand collection at this tournament. I didn't really
know what to record or even what I was looking for so I ended
up with 5 hands that weren't worth showing you. 
