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 hand (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 hand.  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 and here to see if we placed in anything.








    Friday Morning) Over the four years that Pam and I have been playing our unusual canape precision club system, I have gradually worked out a secret formula that guarantees us a good result at matchpoints. The only thing that keeps me from using it every round is the first requirement. We must score lower then 40.00% in a matchpoints game. Then, providing we switch to a system that I call either No Alert Standard or Piggy Standard, we will have a good result the very next game. After experimenting with this I have discovered that the effect only lasts one game and it does not continue to work in any way if we keep playing that basic system.


    I wonder how good we will do this evening after our 36.67 percent score in the morning?


   
    Friday Evening) I normally would not have opened the hand you see below with 1H but I was kind of ticked because the opponents played equal level conversion on the previous hand and didn't alert it even though I think they should have. Anyway, now that I did open, what would you bid with my hand in this spot. We are playing matchpoints, no one is vulnerable and this is just the sixth board of the round so I don't have any sense of how we are doing.





















    What Happened) Well, I considered 4S but I went with 3S and this started a sequence that I have nicknamed the dog and pony show. If I had bid 4S instead of 3S then the opponents are much more likely to take the successful 5C sacrifice. After I bid 3S, West bids 4C and Pam makes the critical penalty double. Now, when I pull it to 4S West is either going to double for penalty or Pass but not bid 5C.

    

          1) When I asked her afterwards,
        Pam said her clubs were 3 to the 4.


    

    Friday Result) Pam made 4S for a nice score of 10/11 matchpoints and we were on our way to a great score of 66.48% and a tie for first overall in the event. Below you can see the lovely picture they took of us shortly after our win.





    Sunday) Unless you are playing at a National or a large Regional, every tournament gives you just one option if you want to play bridge on a Sunday, the Swiss. Well, unless I find myself on a strong team, I don't really care if I play or not. If it happens to be my birthday as well then about the only event I am willing to enter is a pairs game. As it happens, this sectional had a pairs game scheduled on my birthday Sunday so I showed up with Pam ready to play. Including ourselves they sold 1.5 or 2 tables worth of entries so the event was cancelled at the last minute and we were all encouraged to enter the Swiss. We couldn't find a team but the lovely woman shown below did her best to find us a pair even though the event was already starting. (1)


    Now I was aware that I was talking to "World Champion" Donna Compton but it never occurred to me that she was looking for a partner so that she could play on a team with Pam and I. The reality is that Donna and I had a miscommunication of sorts so Pam and I ended up leaving before she could put a team together. When I talked to her later it turned out that I missed out on a once in a lifetime chance to play on a team with a World Champion. Despite that I still had a great birthday not playing bridge. If you click on the image below then you can see what I got up to.






    Monday) We spent the morning and afternoon doing Buckys but we got back earlier then expected so after our nap we decided to head out to the Bridge Academy of North Dallas (BAND) and play in their evening matchpoint pairs game. I didn't record a hand in what later turned out to be a first overall finish for us but I do have this picture that they took of us right after our win. (2)





    What Happened) Why did they take our picture? Well, it turned out to be the monthly club championship game and the winners earn a small trophy and get their picture posted on the website. Our club in Regina would have barred us from winning because we weren't club members but fortunately the BAND had no such policy. Thank you for an enjoyable evening Donna.






    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 Richardson as well as the designated winner (a / denotes a tie) for each line. In 19 games so far neither one of us has got a blackout bingo.

Richardson



This is the second time in a row that Pam has beat me at Bridge Bingo. Perhaps I need to modify the rules so this doesn't happen again.