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 the tournament schedule and the games we played or here to see if we placed in anything.




    Monday) Welcome to Palmetto, Bradenton, Sarasota, Manatee or wherever the heck they are holding the one session open pairs.  You are playing with "crazy" Jason, your usual partner and you are playing your usually crazy Chilli system.  There are 6 boards left to go in the round and you are on your way to a 50% game.  Take a look at the cards below and see what you would do with Pam's hand.



1) 11-15 HCP, at least 4 hearts, could have a longer suit.



    In the version of Chilli that you are playing at this time, you have 3 real options here.  You can bid 3H which shows at least 4 hearts, 10-12 HCP and is invitational to game.  You can bid 2NT which is a forcing heart raise showing at least 4 hearts and 0-25 HCP or you can try out the strange 4H bid which I invented.  It may or may not be pre-emptive but it indicates a desire to penalty double the opponents 4S bid.













    Monday Result) Pam chose the 4H bid and East decided to take the 4S sacrifice anyway. Our defence was a bit soft but we were able to set 4S by 3 for +500.  Theoretically, this should have been a good result for the opponents because 4H was going to make 4 for +620 but there must not have been many people bidding it because we got 11 out of 12 matchpoints for that score.


         

          1) 11-15 HCP, at least 4 hearts, could have a longer suit
          2) possibly preemptive, would like to double 4S




         


   
    Tuesday) It's the second session of the open pairs and this is round 6 of 13.  You are heading for a 57% game but are in no danger of winning the event.  Today's problem is simple.  Take a look at the hands below and see what contract you would bid to assuming that South gets to open the bidding and E/W stay out of the auction.









    What happened) We had a respectable auction that featured only 1 lie (by Pam) and we ended up in the nice 6D contract.  As I see it, the problem is this, "Do you have the tools to discover whether your partner is holding the A and K of diamonds as well as the King of Spades?" Without these 3 cards, 7D is at best the 50-50 shot it turned out to be in this case.


    

          1) artificial, 14+ HCP if unbalanced, 18+ HCP if balanced
          2) Game Forcing, at least 10 HCP, denies a 4 card major
          3) At least 5 diamonds, hand is not suitable to play in NT
          4) I could make an exclusion keycard bid with 5C here but Pam's likely response of 5S showing 2 would make it impossible for me to ask for the King of Spades which I need to bid 7D.

   

    Tuesday Result) Perhaps things would have been different in the Ax pairs but here we scored 11 out of 12 matchpoints just for getting to 6D and making 7 for +940.

   




    Wednesday) As you have learned by now, Chilli is an unusual canape system where we sometimes bid our short suits before our longer suits.  I am especially fond of this hand because Pam and I had a combined total of 23 HCP and we each got to make a canape bid but we still managed to stop in the solid 2C contract.  If you want, you can bid the N/S hands yourself and see if your auction would be as elegant.

      

          1) 11-15 HCP, less than 4 hearts, at least 4 spades,
               could have a longer minor suit.
          2) 10-12 HCP, at least 3 clubs, could have
               longer diamonds and or longer hearts
          3) clubs are at least as long as spades


   

    Wednesday Result) Pam was in 2C making 4 for +130 and a dead average score of 12 out of 25 matchpoints.




    Thursday) It's the first session of the open pairs and you are still hopeful because it is only the 6th board of the round.  You pick up a very nice 10 count and listen as the opponents bid their way to the 6D slam.  Take a look at the hand Pam held and see what you would choose to lead.



1) 22+ HCP forcing  2) game forcing, artificial   3) long solid diamonds, sets diamonds as trump   4) first round control of spades
















    What happened) According to Deep Fineese, (1) there are only 2 leads that set this contract.  If you picked either the 8 or 10 of diamonds then you matched Pam and set the contract.  This nice lead is not the real reason I chose this one for the Hand of the Day.  You see, on the previous board, East made a successful, balancing 4C bid after listening to two long passes from his partner.  I didn't call the director on that one for a number of reasons.  One of the strange reasons is this.  I have come to believe that people who choose to play this "style" of bridge pay for it with bad luck in bridge at other times.  It doesn't usually happen so quickly afterwards but this result seemed like payback to me.



    

    1) 22+ HCP forcing     
    2) game forcing, artificial
    3) long solid diamonds, sets diamonds as trump
    4) first round control of spades



    Thursday Result) 6D went down 1 for +100 for us and a matchpoints score of 10 out of 12.  This round was unusual in another way.  Pam and I made a lower number of errors than usual but ended up with a bad 42% score.  At the time, I said that "We have never played so well for so little."  Do you think that we were getting paid back for our own unethical behaviour?





    Friday) It's the first session of the Ax pairs and you find yourself sitting across from Jason and Pam and their cute little Pre Alert cards.  No one is vulnerable when you pick up this weak distributional hand in first seat.  What are you going to do with it?


















    What Happened)  Surprisingly, in these aggressive bidding times, South chose to pass but unsurprisingly, nobody else did.  Is your hand worth a bid at this point?




1) 11-15 HCP, at least 4 spades, denies 4 hearts, could have a longer minor    2) 0-10 HCP, at least 4 spades
















    What Happened)  South went with the reasonable 4H bid and crazy Jason started doubling for penalty like he was holding two outside defensive tricks.  As it turns out, my 3S bid was misalerted as being weak when it was actually on our card as being a limit raise.  South claimed that she would have passed again instead of bidding 4H if she had known 3S was invitational.  The director was called and South's hand was given to a number of other equal players and, regardless of the explanation of the 3S bid, the majority chose to bid with the South hand so the result at the table was allowed to stand.  Take a look at the "quality" of North's 2C overcall.

      

     1) 11-15 HCP, at least 4 spades, denies 4 hearts,
          could have a longer minor
      2) 10-12 HCP, at least 4 spades, invitational

    

    Friday Result) 5C* went down 4 for +800 and a cold top for us of 38 out of 38 matchpoints.  This wasn't even our coldest top of the morning.  We also got +1100 for doubling the Non Vulnerable opponents in 3D.  They played in their 3-2 fit when they happened to be cold for 3NT.  Despite all this luck, we were only able to turn it into a 53% game.




    Saturday) I could tell you a long and unusual story that starts in November at a Sectional in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (2) and ends in Florida with the piece of paper you see below.  I won't be telling that story here today but if you are curious and ever find yourself faced with the prospect of staring at me for half an hour then you should ask me about it.







    Sunday) Chilli is a precision type system that will really get you to the wrong contract should you happen to make certain basic errors in the early part of the auction.  Every so often, Pam makes so many errors in one day that I "punish" her by making her play a very basic version of Standard American that I call "No Alert Standard" or "Piggy Standard" depending who is asking me about it.  Today is such a day.  We have made it to the 6th match of a 7 match Swiss with only 2 wins.  Put yourself into Pam's depressed frame of mind and see what you would do with her hand when everyone is vulnerable.  Keep in mind that I have made bold psych bids in the past and I have a belief that Standard was designed to make life easy for the psych bidders of the world.



















    What Happened)  Pam made the reasonable choice and passed with her 3 count although we know that I would have probably psyched a 3C limit raise with her hand.  Regardless, the auction continues along until you hear two passes.  You look at your hand one last time and decide.  Is it time to take a call?



















    What Happened)  Pam made the bold 5C bid and, thanks to her previous patient passing, it got doubled for penalty.  It was easy for me to hold it to down 2 for -500.  Our partners bid and made game at their table so we won 4 IMPs here.

      

   
 


    

    Sunday Result) The best part of the hand had nothing to do with the bridge.  We were playing against two nice ladies and on the previous board, Pam and I doubled and set them 4 for +1100 and a win of 14 IMPs.  When they doubled me on this hand, I said that perhaps I was about to go down 1100.  After I went down two for 500, they made a point of saying that 500 was not 1100.  My in tempo answer was, "I am paying you back in installments." 

    Despite the fact that we won 18 IMPs in the first three hands of a 7 board Swiss match and despite the fact that I still owe the ladies 500, we still managed to lose by a score of 24 - 28.  It was just one of those days.




    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 90 different things (ranging from likely to very unlikely) that can happen during a week of bridge.  Then I randomly take different sets of 30 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 Palmetto as well as the designated winner (a T denotes a tie) for each line. In 6 games so far neither one of us has got a blackout bingo.




Palmetto


You can see the other 3 cards from the Florida trip here, here and here.