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 read first and play later 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 the tournament schedule and the games we played or here to see if we placed in anything.
Monday) Today's hand is an
interesting bidding problem no matter what system you are
using. You are playing in the Monday Evening Pairs
game, sitting N/S and North gets to open the bidding while
the opponents are silent throughout. What contract
would you get to?
Monday Result) Pam and I had an
auction that I didn't really like and we ended up in the
perfectly respectable 5H contract making 6 for +680 and a
dead average 3 out of 6 matchpoints. Below you will
see the auction that I think is the ideal auction in the Chilli system.
1) 11-15 HCP,
at least 4 hearts, could have a longer suit
2) Forcing
heart raise that asks for more information.
3) Singleton or
void in clubs
4) Asks for
keycards in hearts
5) 1 or 4
keycards
6) Are you void
in clubs?
7) Yes and I
have the K of spades but not the K of diamonds.
8) I have
longer diamonds. Please pick 6H or 6D.
Tuesday) It's the second session of the
two session open pairs and you are playing in a small but
fairly strong field with your (somewhat) sane partner
Jason. With everyone vulnerable, you hear a crazy
auction. All the pressure is on you. What is
your lead?
Tuesday Result) Pam chose the Jack of
hearts which worked out brilliantly as we set the contract 3
for +300 and what must have been a near top board. If
Pam makes the "mistake" of leading my suit then the
opponents will make 6 and give us -1440 for a certain
bottom.
1) Do you like my
3D bid vulnerable?
2) Do you like East's 6NT bid?
Wednesday) This
hand is more of a story than anything else. It is the
evening session of the Swiss teams and we are playing the
seventh board of a seven board match against opponents who are
fairly tense. In addition, the match has been going
poorly for Pam and I and it appears obvious that we are
behind. So, despite the unfavourable vulnerability and less then ideal
distribution, I step out there a bit and open a pre-emptive
2NT (0-11 HCP, at least 5-5 in the minors) in second
seat.
The auction
proceeds normally after that except for one thing.
Tightly wound West makes a point of asking Pam on two separate
occasions, "How many diamonds does his 2NT bid promise?"
For some reason, Pam decides to emphasize that my bid promises
at least 5 diamonds (perhaps because of the vulnerability)
even though she has played with me before and see me open 2NT
with 5-4 in the minors.
After the
opponents find their heart fit and reach 4H, Pam makes the
gutsy 5C call with the above hand, (would you have the nerve
for that?) and twitchy West leads the Ace of hearts to take a
look at the board. Of course, Twitchy was not on lead
but Pam decides to accept it and let me play the
contract. After some thought (and probably wanting to
ask Pam about my diamonds for the third time) Twitchy switches
to ...
1) 0-11 HCP, at least 5-5 in the minors
2) Because I
should never lie in second seat while vul vs not,
Pam believes my bid and makes the
gutsy 5C call.
What Happened) Twitchy switches to the J of diamonds. Of course this is the only switch that will let me go down 1. Needless to say, West was not very happy when her partner didn't rough the diamond. However, if West had truly believed my 2NT bid then she would have realized that a diamond rough was pointless because West has only one natural diamond trick and her partner can not hold more than 1 club so the "rough" can't get any extra tricks.
Wednesday Result)
I was down 1 for -200. We won 6 (satisfying) IMPs on
that board but we still lost the match as expected.
After this hand, I started to make Pam explain my 2NT bid by
saying "0-11 HCP, approximately
5-5 in the minors."
Thursday) It's the
second half of the second round of a fairly tight and well
played knockout match. We are playing a pair from our
club that we know quite well and are on friendly but
competitive terms with. With nobody vulnerable, I pick
up a distributional monster in first seat and I have to decide
what to open. In the Chilli system we are playing I can
choose from either:
1C (either 18+ HCP
or an unbalanced hand that meets the rule of 25 (HCP + length
of 2 longest suits must equal 25 or higher))
or 1H
(11-15 HCP, at least 4 hearts, could have a longer suit)
or 1S
(11-15 HCP, at least 4 spades, denies 4 hearts, could have a
longer suit)
or a standard 2S or 3S or 4S
pre-empt
or anything else even more ceative.
What happened) I
chose an aggressive 1C opener and the auction quickly got out
of hand. (This hand meets the rule of 23 but I thought
it qualified anyway.)
1) unblanced with 14+
HCP or balanced with 18+ HCP
2) probably a
negative double but is the only
forcing bid available with a strong balanced hand
3) forcing,
promises 4 hearts
4) Is this
forcing? I hope my partner passes it.
If you could bid
your way (without just guessing) to the cold 6S contract
through the likely E/W interference then you are a much better
player than I am. Interestingly, I had three hands
similar to this during the week in Moose Jaw. The first
two both made slam although I didn't bid them. When I
picked up the third one I got smart and just overcalled at the
6 level ! Of course, it happened to be the only one that
went down.
Friday) It's
another two session Swiss but I don't remember anything about
how this match was going. Anyway, I made an unusual (for
most people) 4S opening bid and my partner responded with a
non-forcing 5H call. Pam knew that my bid was
pre-emptive when she bid 5H so do you think I have enough
extra values to bid again?
What Happened) I
really liked my hand so I decided to bid on to 6H. Pam
got the Ace of diamond lead and gave it a good try but the bad
spade split means that you need to be a better player than
either Pam or I to make this contract. (Deep Finesse
found two different ways to make it after roughing the Ace of
diamonds. I don't know if they are good percentage lines or
not.)
Friday Result) Even though Pam was down 1 for -50, we ended up
winning 3 IMPs on the hand. I tend to be lucky that way.
Saturday) It's the
Saturday Morning Side Game and I am playing with my 85 year
old Grandmother.
She is a conservative but consistent bidder and we are playing
straight, basic, Standard American. What call do you
make with my hand after listening to this auction?
1) natural to
play
What happened) I
chose 4S because my hand is so shapely and because my Grandmother
does bid conservatively so I get the privilege of bidding her
hand for her on some occasions. In this case, I managed
to guess the right contract.
1) natural to play
Saturday Result) 4S making 4 for an unknown but probably good result. Of course, I was stunned when East roughed the club lead.
What Happened) I enjoy playing bridge with my Grandmother and I try to fit in one game with her every time I am down in Moose Jaw for a tournament. Our scheduled game was actually on Thursday morning but when we played that morning we happened to go on one of the luckier streaks I have been on recently and we finished first in the side game ! This meant that we won 1.87 Gold points but we could only claim them if we played in another morning side game. Well, my Grandmother is not an ACBL member but I thought it would be nice if she got the Gold points anyway so we agreed to play on Saturday morning as well.
Sunday) Every so
often, Pam takes a look at her hand and falls in love with
it. This tends to happen more often when I am going to
be the declarer because Pam believes that I can make the extra
trick more often then she can. Anyway, this is such an
extreme example of this phenomenon that I am still surprised
she bid her hand the way that she did. Take a look and
see if you know anyone who would do the same.
1) 11-15
HCP, at least 4S, less than 4H, may have a longer suit.
2) Forcing spade raise that asks for
more information
3) Singleton or void in clubs (does
not promise extra values)
4) Asks for keycards in spades
5) 2 keycards (says nothing about
the Q of spades)
6) Wow !! (I told Pam later that I
would have asked me for the
King of
hearts and then stopped in 5S when I didn't have it.)
7) I hope my partner leads a heart.
Sunday Result) I
don't remember what the lead was (probably a club) but I do
know that it wasn't a heart. I took a safe line of play and
made 6S for a score of +1430 and a win of 13 IMPs. Larry and Paul had a
discussion afterwards about whether or not West had a bid (at
any point in the auction) that would have helped Larry find
the heart lead. There was no agreement on that point but all
three of us agreed that Pam's 6S bid was "crazy". Of course,
when something works out as well as this bid did then I think
it becomes polite to label it "eccentric" or just chalk it up
to the powers of the Slam Queen.
Why) At week long
bridge tournaments, Pam and I have been playing this game I
invented called Bridge Bingo. Essentially, I created a
list of 75 different things (ranging from likely to very
unlikely) that can happen during a week of bridge. Then
I randomly take different sets of 25 things to create unique
Bingo cards for me and Pam. Generally speaking, the
items in the top line are the easiest to get while the items
in the bottom row are the toughest. The first person to
complete a line (or complete the majority of the line by the
end of Sunday) wins the dollar amount designated for that
line. It is just another way to make bridge a bit more
exciting.
Below you can see my Bridge Bingo card from
Moose Jaw as well as the designated winner (we forgot to
compare for this tournament) for each line. In 3 games so far
neither one of us has got a blackout bingo.
Moose Jaw
