Las Vegas, Nevada

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 the 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.

Tuesday in Calgary) When we sit down to play our unusual system we hand out a couple of pre-alert cards that ocassionally get the opponents talking. This time we sat down against the gentlemen who were leading the field and one of them started joking and babbling about canapés so the universe saw fit to give Pam and I a couple of canapé hands to bid. Let's see how your judgement works on one of those.

1) 9-14 HCP, 0-3 hearts, 4+ spades, minor could be longer
2) 10-13 HCP, 3+ clubs, 0-3 spades, could have longer hearts and or diamonds
3) 9-12 HCP, clubs are longer than spades 4) 3 spades, maximum hand

What Happened) Pam decided to go for the money and Pass. When the dummy came down she got to see a very rare thing in our system. In the two or three years since we made 2C a natural bid showing 3+ clubs (it is illegal in the ACBL to play 2C as artificial if it is not Game Forcing) this is the first time I have bid 2C with less then 3. Do you think my hand warranted that kind of special bid?

          1) 9-14 HCP, 0-3 hearts, 4+ spades, minor could be longer               2) 10-13 HCP, 3+ clubs, 0-3 spades, could have longer H/D
          3) 9-12 HCP, clubs are longer than spades
          4) 3 spades, maximum hand

Tuesday Result) The defence must have slipped here as Pam was able to make 4S for a very cold top that scored only 4 matchpoints.

Wednesday in Calgary) Today's hand is more about the story then it is about the hand although our experienced opponent (who has over 10,000 masterpoints) did have an interesting choice to make in the 2/1 system that he was playing.

What Happened) North decided to open 1NT and the auction eventually settled in 3C. Pam led the 9 of hearts and North asked about our leads. I told him (correctly) that we lead low from strength or top of nothing. During the play we failed to take the Ace of hearts twice and I guess this confused North because he became agitated and began grilling me about our leads after the hand was over. I didn't like this so I began grilling him about opening 1NT with a 7 card suit. It took a very perplexed South to step in and calm things down. Although you probably won't believe it, incidents like this occur much more frequently when Pam is sitting at the table. Did I mention that Pam did not say one word during the entire exchange?

1) 15-17 HCP, balanced hand

2) 11-16 HCP, three places to play

Wedesday Result) 3C made 4 for a perfectly average result of 2 out of 4 matchpoints.

Wednesday in Vegas) I chose this next hand because I really enjoyed the auction that we had in our strange system. Before we get to that you can take a look and think about the tough choice that you get in Standard or 2/1.

What happened) Or perhaps you don't consider 3NT a tough choice at all. In my experience though that hand above is perfect for a slam but it is really hard to explore for 6C if your partner is going to (reasonably in Standard) rebid 2NT with 3 card club support. In our system, North and South get to have a lot more information before having to make their final choice.

    1) 14-18 HCP, balanced hand
        2) 10+ HCP, denies a 4 card major
        3) I have lots of Aces
        4) How many do you have?
          5) I have 3
        6) Pam's choices are signing off in 4NT, 6C or 6NT but
            my bid of 3C strongly argues in favor of bidding 6C.

Wednesday Result) 6C made 6 for +920 and a clear top (8 of 8) as we were the only pair not in 3NT although someone did manage to go down 2 in 3NT which is difficult to accomplish. Looking at just the North/South hands, what final contract would you rather be in?

1) 14-18 HCP, balanced hand
2) ...

Thursday in Vegas) Today's deal is one of the most mysterious of our whole bridge trip. Below you can see the results that were generated when the hands were played in the strong Las Vegas club. The important facts to consider are these:

    1) North/South are never going to enter the auction so the bidding is all yours.
    2) 20 of the 26 East/West players bidding these hands have more than 1000 masterpoints.
    3) East/West are missing two Aces and North is holding both of them.

What happened) Here are the rotated hands for you to try in your system. To the side you can see the auction that we had.

    1) 15+ HCP, usually unbalanced hand
        2) 4+ HCP, 0-3 hearts, 4+ spades, longer minor possible
        3) 20+ HCP, 0-3 spades, Game Forcing
        4) 7+ spades missing at least 1 of top 3 honors
          5) Asking for keycards in spades not counting Ace of D's
        6) My 5S bid showed 1 keycard. Pam's correct bid is 4D to
ask for keycards in spades and a 4S response shows 1.

What happened) Perhaps I am unimaginative but I can't think of the auction that Jason and Jason would have in Standard that would see us land in 6S. I hope you stayed out of that contract as well.

1) 15+ HCP, usually unbalanced hand
2) 4+ HCP, 0-3 hearts, ...

Thursday Result) 5S making 6 was worth 10 of 12 matchpoints.

Friday in Vegas) Even though the hand above gives evidence to the contrary, I believe that our system is designed to make it more likely that the once a year bids get remembered by both players. The hand below is evidence in favor of that argument. It has been at least two years since we added inverted majors to our card but when it finally came up on Friday neither one of us forgot it.

Friday Result) 3H making 3 was worth 10 of the 12 matchpoints. As this is a bad result for the opponents you should take a look at the three other hands and assign credit and blame. Did I make a brilliant 3H bid or did one of the opponents Pass when they should have bid?

1) 9-14 HCP, 4+ hearts, any suit could be longer
2) 0-9 HCP, 5 hearts

Monday in Vegas) Perhaps the evidence is really showing that our system is designed so that one bidding forget does not doom you to an unmakeable contract. Anyway, this time you are our South opponent and the explanation for our bids plus your hand tells you that we have had just such an accident. What are you going to lead?

1) 9-14 HCP, 5+ clubs, no 4 card major
2) 6+ diamonds headed by AKQ, forcing
3) to play

South Hand

What Happened) I am from the camp that never leads an Ace (or a suit with an Ace) against 6NT but in bridge we all know that no rule is 100% correct. This is an instance where breaking the rule and leading your Ace will set the contract by 4 and give you a tied for top. Underleading your Ace gives you above average and anything else is a big fat 0. Our strong opponent went with something else.

For the sake of the record, this hand is interesting because Pam's bidding accidents usually result in zeros not tops. I suspect that she intended 4D as a keycard ask in clubs and in that light my 4NT response would show 2 keycards.

        1) 9-14 HCP, 5+ clubs, no 4 card major
        2) 6+ diamonds headed by AKQ, forcing
        3) to play

Monday Result) As you can see below the results were all over the map. Once again though, no one managed to play in the obvious 6C.

Tuesday in Vegas) This one is a long and probably inappropriate story combined with an interesting hand and perfect defence. Let's start with the hand first. You are a great player playing with your regular partner but you have just heard Pam (the apparent client) open up a weak 1NT in 3rd seat. What are you going to do with a 14 count that contains no 5 card suit?

1) 10-13 HCP, 5 card major possible

    The Story) I showed up at Las Vegas Bridge World with the knowledge that Bobby Wolff and his wife Judy Kay-Wolff were regular players. Naturally, I hoped to get one chance to play against them but the Bucky rules prevent me from doing anything manipulative to make that happen. I left it up to fate to determine the outcome.

    On the first Tuesday that we played, the Wolffs were in the room sitting in their usual seats at 3 North/South. We had already bought our entry for 5 East/West so I knew there was a chance of playing them. When the boards were laid on the table I calculated that we would get to their table one round after the game was over. That was too bad but our week in Las Vegas was just starting so I actually liked my chances of playing them at some point.

    On Friday I got a bonus chance when Joe Grue (one of the best young (under 40) players in the game) walked into the room. This time we were sitting at 7 North/South and he got an entry at 11 East/West. After the movement was finalized the result was the same. We missed having him come to our table by just one round. The only real surprise of the day was his final score which you will have to look up for yourself.

    My next chance did not come until the second Tuesday during our last game at Bridge World. This time we all had the same starting tables as last Tuesday but the field was smaller so that meant we would play the Wolffs during the second last round and I had 21 boards to get excited. When we finally reached the table we pulled out board 28 and played to what should have been an average result but left us with 2.5 of 8 matchpoints. On hand 29 the Wolffs were the only ones who failed to reach a cold game after the auction P, P, 1S, *, 2S, 3S and they were having an agitated conversation about that as we pulled out the cards to play board 30, our last one of the round.

    Before I get back to the hand there is one other thing to be aware of. During the week, Pam and I had both noticed that the players at the Las Vegas club seemed to table talk and inappropriately touch the cards when playing the dummy at a much higher rate then we were used to seeing. This was especially strange as most of the players had over 1000 masterpoints and the general skill level in the room was quite high. Up until today we had no idea why this strange behavior was going on.

What Happened) Bobby overcalled 2S which his wife alerted. I passed and she bid 3H which got passed out. After Pam made her brilliant lead (see East hand), I asked about the alert. As Judy started to explain it Bobby cut off the conversation and left me without an explanation. As Judy played the hand Bobby's hands would touch the cards in the dummy before being called and once he even remarked "Do you want low?" before she had called a card.

        1) 10-13 HCP, 5 card major possible

Tuesday Result) 3H went down by 3 and got us a well deserved top of 8/8. I say well deserved because our defence on the hand was brilliantly inspired and flawlessly executed. Sequences of card play like this are what I enjoy most at bridge. Hopefully you can follow and appreciate the diagram below.

Finishing the Story) I was shocked at Bobby's inappropriate behavior and although I was technically allowed to call the director about it (I'm sure this would have created a minor scandal) I ended up just sitting there doing nothing. After some reflection, Pam and I both decided that his behavior was the inspiration behind the other similar things we witnessed during our week at Las Vegas Bridge World. Despite this I would still go back and play there regularly as the caliber of bridge is so high (probably also inspired by the Wolff's) that I can forgive this and the other unpleasant things (ask Pam) that occurred during the week.

What Happened) I did not include a hand from our highest scoring matchpoint game of the trip for a few reasons. If you are interested you can click here and see how many tops and bottoms we got from the 25 boards we played that night.

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 Calgary - Las Vegas as well as the designated winner (a / denotes a tie) for each line. In 14 games so far neither one of us has got a blackout bingo.

Calgary - Las Vegas