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 scroll down and read 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.
Tuesday) As you have learned by now, Pam
and I are playing a very weird system that I am calling Blastorscape. For me, part of
the fun in that is arriving at a good contract through an
unusual yet elegant sequence of bids. The hand below
certainly qualifies in that category. Nobody is vulnerable,
West opens 1C and it gets passed around to your big hand in
the South. How are you and your partner going to bid
your combined 24 HCP? I am willing to bet that you
won't get to the same place that Pam and I ended up.
What Happened) I would guess that your final contract was some number of hearts and that is the reasonable place to play it. We ended up in the nearly as good contract of 1S. The big difference (other than the number of available tricks) is that I am still admiring our auction now that I am thinking about it a second time.
1) 16+ HCP, artificial
2) 0-3 HCP,
artificial
3) 4+ hearts,
could have a longer suit, forcing
4) 0-3 hearts,
4+ spades, not forcing
Tuesday Result) I was able to make 3S for +140 and a near average score of 3 matchpoints out of 7.
Wednesday) Okay, today is the second
session of the A-X pairs game but you are in no danger of
winning the event. You do get a chance to test out
your bidding judgement skills against mine. Unfortunately,
you will have to use the information provided by our
precision type system and you may not be used to that.
1) 14+ HCP and an unbalanced
hand or 22+ HCP and a balanced hand
2) 4-6 HCP, 6-7 clubs, not forcing 3) not comfortable
playing in NT
What Happened) The problem I have here is
that I am not 100% sure how Pam will take my continuation
bids. In the context of the system we are playing, 4H
should be asking for keycards in clubs and 4NT should be to
play but we have not discussed this. I decided to go
with the "safe" 6C. If your instincts were pushing you
towards 6NT or 7D then you landed in a better or best
spot. If you chose the guessing 7C or 7NT then I don't
really blame you but I would be hoping against you.
1) 14+ HCP and
an unbalanced hand or
22+ HCP and a
balanced hand
2) 4-6 HCP, at least 6 clubs, not forcing
3) not comfortable playing in NT
Wedesday Result) I got the
guess right and made 7C for +1390 and an average board of 4
out of 7 matchpoints. Perhaps I should also thank Pam for
not passing my somewhat unthinking 3NT call.
Thursday) It's the morning compact knockout
and you find yourself playing with a relatively young guy
named Jason that you just met a couple of hours earlier.
Your team has barely made it through the first round and in
the second you are playing one of the better teams in the
bracket. This is the last board of the match and if you
were able to ask Jason he would have guessed that you are
losing by 10 IMPs. After an interesting auction, the big
decision has fallen into your lap.
1) long pause
before bidding
What happened) My
partner went with 4D which was quickly doubled for penalty by
the 3NT bidder.
Perhaps it is not
fair of me to make this the hand of the day because I have an
ulterior motive. I was really upset about the result of
this hand after it was over and I can't think about it
objectively now that it is four months later. Take a
look at all of the hands and decide which of us should get the
blame for our bad result. I so want to hear you to give
it to my partner but I am willing to accept your
judgment.
1) long pause before bidding
Thursday Result)
4D* went down 2 for -300 and a loss of 6 IMPs as our partners
managed to get +50. This made the final score 16 -
30. At the start of this board we were losing by
8. A double by partner would have probably gotten us
+500 which would have been enough to make the final score 27 -
24 and move us on to the third round.
Friday) Normally there is only one hand of the day but today is a special occasion. Two very unlikely hands came up and your job is to decide which of the two is the most unlikely. First, let's start with an interesting choice that one of the opponents had to make while playing against us. It is the 5th board of the afternoon session in the A-X pairs and everyone is vulnerable.
1) 9-14 HCP, 4+
hearts, any suit could be longer
What happened)
Assuming they were playing a Standard sort of system, I would
have gone with the off shape/off point 1NT bid. When I asked
Pam, she favoured the point showing double with an eye to
rebidding NT. Regardless, I have sympathy for the
opponents choice of Pass even though I have learned that your
partner will never believe you have this big a hand if you
Pass first. So now put yourself into the mindset of someone
who would Pass initially. Can you imagine the sort of
person that would Pass again in this spot?
1) 9-14 HCP, 4+
hearts, any suit could be longer
2) 0-9 HCP, 0-3 hearts, 5+ spades, non forcing
What happened) I ended up playing in 2S making 2. In these days of the Law of Total Tricks and exhortations of "Bid the fit", how likely is it that I would play get to play in 2S on a 12 card spade fit after an uncontested auction in which the opponents have 26 total HCP and two 9 card fits?
1) 9-14 HCP, 4+
hearts, any suit could be longer
2) 0-9 HCP, 0-3 hearts, 5+ spades, non
forcing
Friday Result)
This is about as close to a cold top as you can get for a
score of +110. Because the A-X field was small today, it
was only worth 4 out of 4 match points.
Friday) Are you
excited to see if today's second hand can top the first in
terms of unlikeliness? Well this time we will start you
off with a simple question. Is the hand you see below
suitable for an opening bid in your system?
What
Happened) Experience has taught me that hands like this
are actually better than minimum opening hands provided that
your side has a fit somewhere. Since some very good HCP
hands play horribly if there is no fit for your side, I have
decided to open hands like this with the assumption that there
is a fit. Provided that you can declare properly,
partner can respond normally and you will rarely regret your
choice.
Anyway, somewhat by accident but mostly
from experience, we had an uncontested auction and ended up in
the great 6C contract on a total of 19 HCP while missing two
Aces and two Kings. Even though I checked all the
results in both the A-X and BCD sections and failed to find
one that got passed out, it is still my belief that pass out
is not an unreasonable contract for certain conservative
players. Notice that the East hand has 12 HCP but only 2
spades and I know some people that will pass in 4th seat
because of this.
1) 9-14 HCP,
5+clubs, no 4 card major
2) 0-25 HCP, 3+ clubs, asking for
description
3) singleton or void in hearts
4) asking for keycards in clubs
5) 2 keycards
Friday Result) Pam was in 6C making 6 as she failed to guess
the location of the Queen of spades. That did not matter
though as no one else bid any type of slam and we got 5 of the
5 available matchpoints. Personally, my choice for
unlikely hand of the day is the first one.
Saturday) Ah sweet
luck ! You may recall that I have been trying to become
a Life Master by
winning a two session open pairs game at the Regional or
Sectional level. During the first session of today's A-X
game, the luck has been running my way and we are on our way
to a 58% finish that will put us 1st in our section, 2nd
overall and well placed for me to achieve my goal. This
hand is just a poorly bid example of how things work when luck
is being faithful. On this hand, we are vulnerable and the
opponents are not when I hear the dreaded auction weak 1NT,
double and I look down to see a shapely 3 count.
1) 11-14 HCP, may have a 5 card major
What Happened) I
decided to go with redouble and hope that my partner would bid
something other than 2S. Once 2D was announced as a
transfer, I looked down at my hand again to find a fifth heart
and I felt quite lucky. When Pam made her crazy 2S bid I
felt sick but East took us off the hook and I was relieved to
hear three further passes.
1) 11-14 HCP, may have a 5 card major
2) 0-5 HCP, denies a transfer
3) initally announced as transfer then not sure
Saturday Result)
3H went down 2 for +100 and a much nicer top of 11 out of 11
matchpoints. There is no need for you to send me a
congratulatory e-mail though. Our luck evened out in the
evening session and we finished the event 4th overall but only
1.21% out of first place. I have now had so many close
finishes that I am beginning to wonder if I will ever become a
Life Master.
Sunday) If you
know me personally or if you are a regular reader of the Hand
of the Day then you know that I have the ability to make
bold/psych bids if I feel it is called for but I also have
some respect for the vulnerability/situation at the
table. The hand below is a chance to test your ability
to think like me. I am playing in the A-X pairs against
a married couple that I have not played against at all this
week. We are vulnerable and they are not. What do
you think I did with my 5 HCP hand in the following auction?
Don't worry about trying to translate it into the crazy system that we are playing. Just
come up with an answer in the system that you play.
What Happened)
Sorry, that was a trick question. If I had been sitting
South then my first choice would be Pass because I have
learned that it is often better to conceal your fit and lack
of points in auctions like this. If I was going to bid
then I would probably have to choose between bidding spades
naturally and making a game try in hearts. I would want
to do something to talk the opponents out of the slam that
they almost certainly are cold for.
So why is this a
trick question? Well, I was actually sitting in the West
seat when South made the suicidal raise to 5H. (Take a
look at the Par score. Apparently E/W can make 2H on our 3-0
fit.) Instead of doubling for penalty with my 18 count
and taking a plus score in the range of 1700, I went with the
only somewhat crazy 6S call on my 5 card suit. I guess I
always play bridge assuming that I am the craziest person at
the table so I never considered double as an option.
Sunday Result) 6S made 7 for +1010 and a top board of 5 matchpoints. After that hand, I congratulated the woman who made the bid for having the nerve to do it.
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
Summerside as well as the designated winner (a / denotes a
tie) for each line. In 13 games so far neither one of us has
got a blackout bingo.
Summerside
