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.
Friday) Before I fill you in on the
back story, I would like you to take a look at the auction
and South hand below and tell me what you would bid in this
spot. You are playing the second board in the last match of
the 10K Swiss event. Regardless of how you do in this match
your team will not be qualifying to play tomorrow.
1) 9-14 HCP, 4+ hearts, any
suit could be longer 2) 4+ Hearts, Invitational to 4H
What Happened) Did you find the Pass card? The opponent at our table did and they ended up with a nice result because of it. Personally, I don't understand how South is supposed to know what to do if North could have the hand he does or even better holdings. I have noticed that more and more the opponents are going to this style of bidding. In some auctions these bids are classified as "negative free bids" and should be alerted but never are. In this case, 3S does not require an alert but there is something in me that feels it should.
1) 9-14
HCP, 4+ hearts, any suit could be longer
2) 4+ Hearts, Invitational to 4H
Friday Result) 3S made 3 for -140 while our partners were in 4S down 2 for -200 and a loss of 8 IMPs. I hoped you missed the fact that I psyched a 1H opening in 1st seat. Personally, I don't think it is relevant to the conversation we are having here but Pam thinks I do it like this to distract from the blame I should be taking for our bad result. What is your opinion? If you had to assign all the credit/blame for our bad result to one person who would you give it to?
Sunday) Before we arrived at the tournament, Pam and I
decided to put a team together that would be willing to try
and qualify for the prestigious Vanderbilt Knockout. That
difficult task was left to me but thanks to a friendly
connection I made at another tournament we got a team.
Thanks to a loss in another event, we found ourselves
entered in the 66 table 1st Sun AX Swiss. Thanks to the
tournament schedule, this turned out to be the toughest
field of any event I have ever entered. Our first match of
the day brought Jack Zhou to
our table. Although he seemed completely disinterested, I
must have been nervous as I managed to go down in a 6H
contract that wasn't bid at the other table. To make it, I
just needed to take a finesse but I decided to mangle a
squeeze instead. The last hand of the match ended up being a
good story. Pam appeared to be struggling to make a 2S
contract when Jack Zhao woke up with 7 tricks to go in the
hand. As Pam was thinking, he called out her hand and
claimed for her. The final result was making 2. Needless to
say, we lost that match 4 - 47 and we went on to get blitzed
in the next two matches as well. Have you ever heard the
expression that goes something like, "If you can't tell who
the sucker is at the table then you are the sucker at the
table." Let's just say that I did not see any suckers at the
table until our fourth match.
Monday) 64 teams are required
to start the Vanderbilt knockout and as luck would have it
we ended up as the 66th
ranked team out of 68 entrants. In order to earn a 1st round
match against Meckstroth/Rodwell and Levin/Weinstein, all we
need to do is win one of two 32 board knockout matches
against a higher ranked team. In the afternoon match we
started out against the 57th ranked Camberos team. They
turned out to be better known as the Argentina National team
and they felt slighted that they hadn't merited a higher
seed and earned a bye. So, they took their frustrations out
on us as we lost the first 16 board half by a score of 15 -
44. I decided to try and make it up in the second half and
we lost that one by a score of 26 - 57. In the evening match
we drew the 63rd ranked Moorthy team. Despite a bidding
accident that saw Pam and I get -1100 and lose 14 IMPs in 6S
doubled on the second board of the first half, we managed to
fight back from that and ended up only down 28 - 37. This
result must have worried our opponents a bit because in the
second half, they showed us what real bridge is as we got
clobbered by a final score of 16 - 69. Although we learned a
lot of useful things from this beating, the most impressive
was the following uncontested auction that our opponents
had. 1S, 1NT (forcing), 2D, 2H, 3D, 4D, 5D. Five Diamonds
was unsettable and was good for 7 IMPs as our partners
stopped in 2 of a major for 110 and they were completely
surprised that any game could be made.
What Happened) Team Camberos and Team Moorthy went on to compete in the Vanderbilt and although both of these underdogs were ahead at the half way point of their matches they both went on to lose. When we talked to them separately later in the tournament they all felt that their team should have won "that" match.
Tuesday) Today marks the fourth time that
Pam and I have entered the NABC+ Mixed Pairs game. Although
our two session average score has gone up every year, this
time we both contributed to a bad first session and we ended
up scoring 39.39%. This is actually good news because now I
can implement my secret formula and
give us a good chance to score the 55.21% needed to give us a
better average score then last year. The hand below is our
20th of the day and I believe we are on pace to break 55%. How
are you going to bid my hand when you hear Pam open a 19 - 21
HCP 2NT?
What happened) I asked Pam for Aces and discovered that we were missing one. Fortunately, I have a rule for just such a situation but I let the shape of my hand and overconfidence in my own declarer play talk me into the unmakeable 6D contract.
1) asking for Aces
2) Showing 2 Aces
Tuesday Result) 6D down one was worth 3 out of 64 matchpoints but tonight was our night as we went on to a 55.92% game that placed us first in our section and earned us 1.33 Platinum points. As earning some more Platinum for Pam was the stated goal for our stop in St. Louis, we were both pretty happy about this result.
Above you can see the Bulletin entry showing our overall ranking as well as a screen shot showing Pam's lifetime Platinum winnings.
Wednesday Morning)
I am a big fan of symmetry.
This fact alone made me hopeful that I would be able to earn
Joan Fedor the two
gold points she needed to become a Life Master. In order to
get any Gold in the Side game you have to finish first in your
section. In the first game we played on Tuesday morning, Joan
seemed a bit nervous and we ended up with a 47% game. The hand
below is board 18 out of 24 and even though Joan is playing
much better today we are not scoring well and I am going for
it a bit. Take a look at the hand below and see if you have
the nerve to overcall my strong 2C opener.
What happened) South decided to risk a 3C overcall and I was not good enough to pass that so I went with Piggy 3NT and went down 1 for -100. This ended up scoring us an amazing 22 out of 23 matchpoints. I guess 2C was not a common opening with my East hand.
Wednesday Morning
Result) Our luck was pretty bad this morning and we ended up
scoring a disasterous 41.94%.
Joan,
I really hope I can open the Bridge Bulletin one month and
discover that you have made Life Master.
Wednesday Evening)
For me these days my most satisfying moments at bridge usually
involve a beautiful defence with my partner. On the hand you
can see below, Pam and I are about to embark on just such a
defence but it all hinges on what card Declarer plays at trick
one. Take a look and see what you would choose and then guess
which card the Declarer chose.
1) 4-11 HCP 5+ spades
2) requesting a 3C bid
from partner
3) doing as asked
What Happened) The
King or Queen of hearts looks normal to me but the Declarer
tried the 9 of hearts. Pam won her Jack of hearts and then
played back the 4 of Diamonds in tempo.
Declarer got that guess wrong too and now there was nothing to
stop us from taking 6 more tricks and setting 3H by 3 for +300
and 26 of the 26 available matchpoints.
Wednesday Result) It would be nice if we had parlayed that
defence into a high score but everything evened out for us in
this round and we ended up scoring 50.15%.
Sunday) As usual,
we did not have a team lined up for the Sunday Swiss. I kind
of like this situation though as it allows me to function as a
kind of amateur handwriting analyst/tea leaf
reader. Today I narrowed my choice down to the card you see
above and another pair that had 10 times the total
masterpoints the Kobles did. I went with this card because
David's handwriting gave me fond memories of my time taking a
drafting course. I wonder how this choice will work out for
me. The bidding problem you see below came up in the last hand
before lunch in a match that seems close. Are you willing to
pass it out so you can get into the lunch line a bit sooner or
are you going to compete for this contract?
1) 9 -14 HCP, denies a 4 card major, 5+ diamonds
What Happened) The
opponents let Pam contend with a bad fit and a bad break but
she managed to struggle her way to 9 tricks and a score of
+110. Our partners also managed to score +110 so we won 6 IMPs
on that board and won the match by a score of 27 - 18.
1) 9 -14 HCP, denies a 4 card major, 5+ D's
Sunday Result)
After our first 3 matches in this BCD Swiss we had earned 33
of the available 90 Victory points but our win in the fourth
match seemed to be a turning point as we went on to win all of
our matches after lunch and end up placing 8th overall to earn
ourselves 3 gold points. During the course of the day, Pam and
I got to know and like David and Vicki and we all decided to
go out for supper afterwards to celebrate our nice finish. The
dinner and conversation was enjoyable and for Pam and I it was
a nice way to mark the last bridge game of our trip. I have
included David's business card below because it seemed like
another nice symmetrical coincidence
to me.
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
St. Louis as well as the designated winner (a / denotes a tie)
for each line. In 20 games so far neither one of us has got a
blackout bingo.
St. Louis
