Post NABC Club Game

Just a few deals, before I start slogging through the hand records from last week.

12) 4th, unfavorable
Ax Qxx Qxxxx KJx

P-1D-X-XX, P-P-1S-P, P-X-P-P, P

+800

Ok, this looks like a lucky (stupid?) result, so I'd like to explain my methods before you judge me.

a) I play that the redouble sets up cooperative doubles. If you pass and then double, that's absolute penalty. Partner should never play you for that unfavorable (that is, he should pass your double, but he shouldn't balance in case you were trapping).

b) When I pass 1S, I'm denying a cooperative double (think KTx), so when pard doubles Ax is pretty, pretty good. In fact pard had KQJx, and we drew trump.

I think this is the opposite of a system Ed Manfield wrote up in the Bridge Worlds in the early 80's, and I like this better. I've heard that Marshall Miles plays this way (though I don't want to libel him, it's just what I heard and I don't know the details) though I still thought I was pretty clever with the inversion, until I saw it written up in the Bridge Journal from the early 1960's!

Some complain that you rarely have them nutted, and when you do you might pass the double and pard bids in front of you. I can live with that, since frequency is what's important. I get to redouble without absolute control of two of the three suits, and that lets me show my values more frequently.

This works over Michaels or Unusual 2NT, too. When I pass and double, they're in trouble. If I double and double, it's cooperative.


17) 3rd, none
AQJxx Ax ATxx Kx

P-3C-3N-P, P-P

It's uncomfortable to bury the spades, but it looked like the only shot at playing 3NT.

xx 9xx KQJxx JTx
AQJxx Ax ATxx Kx

LHO led his stiff club and RHO won his ace, then shifted to a spade. I put in the queen, losing to the king, and then ducked LHO's HK. He shifted to a diamond and I won the ace. Now what?

I can count 2S, 1H, 5D, and 1C, and I've lost 1S, 1H, and 1C. If the spades are 3-3, I could have won the first heart and taken 11 tricks, but how likely is that? I ducked a heart so the timing would be right for a squeeze. RHO seemed to have 7C, and rated to have a few pointy cards, leaving him only two hearts. If LHO had played another spade at any point I'd have needed 3-3 spades, but he hadn't. I cashed HA, CK, and ran the diamonds coming to:

Sx H9 CT
SAJx

and LHO had to keep HQ, so he had to unguard the spades. +430.


One comment about nationals. Most people play A from AK against suits, though a small number play Rusinow. A few people have other agreements. One I hear see somewhat frequently is A asks Attitude, K asks Count (or Kount. How clever.). Someone played something that sounded very interesting:

A from AK, but K from AKJ or from AK if you plan to shift to a singleton at trick two. When my partner leads an A and shifts, I never play him for a singleton. That means no ruff when the disobey me and peek at dummy before leading their stiff, but it sometimes means their AK go away. Not optimal. Maybe this has some merit.

Not sure whether the AKJ part is worth playing, but I'm certainly open to comments. Anybody?

Stray Team Deals

I have hand records for a lot of events, so I'll just crack out the stray team deals now. But first, an anecdote:

Playing against a couple with a bridge column, with a ton of defensive carding agreements, I asked what their agreement was when splitting honors on a lead off dummy, and how they played Smith Echo (it wasn't obvious, since they play reverse smith by one partner and "standard" by the other). I was treated to an outburst about how "you" (not "me" but men in general) have all kinds of blah blah, but she just plays cards, and she's "just sick of this" and then her partner piped in that he's probably only needed to smith twice, ever. That's fine, but it seems pretty weird to keep two versions of smith on your card when you don't even play one.

One of them accused me of not having a sense of humor (I don't think it was mean spirited, and might have been a joke, though I don't know how I would be expected to get it, lacking a sense of humor). When I admitted I have no sense of humor, blaming my religion, they gave me a Moshiach wallet card ( http://www.sos-israel.com ). Oooooookay...

The next day I asked what the card says, since I'm not fluent in Hebrew, and they just walked away (perhaps to compare with their teammates, and urge I understand).

Wacky.


26) 1st, both
Txx AJT9x Q9xx x

P-1N-X-2C, X-2H-P-2S, X-P-P-P

1N was weak. Double of 1N was penalty. Double of 2C was takeout.

Pard had Axx xxx KJ KQJxx.

-670 didn't score as well as I'd hoped. I felt that pard didn't have a penalty double of 1N when he couldn't set 3N. We (I) could have set it a trick, and that would have been better.


These particular opponents were SO pleased with themselves, not just because of that board, and kept congratulating each other. Then came:

33) 2nd, none
9xx AJ9x xxx Jxx

They bid 1D-1S, 1N-3N, P

I went passive and, when in with CJ, looking at HTx in dummy, decided I only needed pard to have HKxxx to set the contract. In fact, declarer won the HQ and, when pard got in, I scored three more heart tricks to set the contract. Declarer informed his partner he had had no chance to make. I suggest that, perhaps, HT from dummy on the first heart lead might have been a bit luckier.


18) 2nd, unfavorable
Tx Kx AKxx JT98x

P-P-2H-X, P-3N-P-P, X-P-P-P

+1350. Neat. I don't know what else to say, except that we won the ko match on this, fairly random, board.


11) 2nd, none
KJx KJxx Qxx Q98

This is, by far, my favorite board of the tournament, +1350's excepted.

P-P-1S-X, P-1N-P-P, P

I didn't do the calculation in my head, but I figured the Kaplan and Rubens hand evaluator would give this hand about 10 points (it turns out I was optimistic, it's only worth 9.65). Still, I wavered when dummy tabled a healthy 14 HCP hand. Oops, playing at the ONE LEVEL, at IMPs, with 26 HCP and all suits stopped (and a 4-4 heart fit...)!

I made +150 but they can always hold me to eight tricks, and 4H is down off the top.

To be fair, at the other table I opened, so LHO didn't open 1S, so it wasn't quite so obvious how lousy 4H is when pard has Tx AQxx AKx Jxxx.