The Maccabi Bowl (a comedy of errors)

Inspired by Danny Hamilton's bridge blog, I've decided that writing up a few hands every now and then is probably a good way to learn, and also may possibly be of interest to someone else. I'll start with a few from the Maccabi Bowl, which is some sort of Glasgow teams competition. Norman McGeagh (my regular partner) and I played with our team-mates from Hillhead, Babs and Isobel. We did absolutely terribly, and I don't think we even won one of the 12 two-board matches we played, which is quite impressive, if you ask me. Anyway, enough with the pre-amble, on with the bridge (thanks to Danny for the HTML table used below).

EW Vul. S Deal ♠ x ♥ K Q 6 5 4 ♦ K x ♣ Q T 8 7 2 ♠ 8 x x ♥ A J x ♦ A 8 7 x x ♣ K x * * * * ♠ A J T 9 x ♥ x ♦ Q J T x ♣ A J x ♠ K Q x x ♥ T 9 8 x ♦ x x ♣ x x x

N E S W - 1♦ 2♦ 2♠ - 4♠ - - - -

I'm not sure I have the auction exactly right, but Norman opened 1 diamond, North showed 5-5 in the rounded suits, and I ended up playing in 4 spades. This kind of looks straightforward. I have only two losers (two spades and a diamond) and after I knock out the diamond king, at least 11 winners (3 spades, 1 heart, 4 diamonds and three clubs (assuming the finesse is right, which it is very likely to be on the bidding). However, I managed to go two off - I finessed in spades (!) and couldn't quite manage to cope with the resulting heart force. Now you see how the hand might actually be a little tricky. If I don't draw trumps, South is going to ruff a winning diamond with a small trump, and be left with two trump tricks, to go with North's diamond king. If I do try to draw trumps, South forces me in hearts, and makes a small trump anyway. How do I get around this? To be honest, I'm not sure.

I suspect a sensible line (mine was clearly not sensible!) is something like spade to the A, then take a diamond finesse (which, again, is huge odds on given the bidding). Assuming the diamond finesse is right, you just lose three trump tricks. DealMaster says 10 tricks can be made even with the diamond finesse wrong, but I still haven't quite figured out how - it feels like maybe I have to do something like shorten my trumps by ruffing hearts and elope with dummy's 8 of trumps at the end, but I don't see how that can possibly work, as there's nowhere for the diamond losers to go, so nothing I can elope with, so I'm sure there's a much simpler solution (it's going to be that sort of bridge blog...). 

The next hand was a little bit wilder, and had a couple of interesting defensive points.

None Vul. E Deal ♠ A K J x x ♥ A ♦ T ♣ K Q J x x x ♠ x ♥ Q T x x ♦ A x x x x ♣ A T x * * * * ♠ x x x ♥ K x x x ♦ K Q J 9 x x ♣ - ♠ Q T x x ♥ J 9 8 x ♦ x ♣ 9 8 x x

N E S W - - - 1♣ 3♦ - 5♦ 5♠ - - -

North decided that he was going to struggle to get a two-suiter across if he opened 2 clubs (which I think is pretty standard thinking), and also that he really didn't have that many high-card points, so it wasn't likely to be passed out, and opened his 3 loser hand at the 1 level. Having passed on the first round (we play a multi, and Norman strongly objects to pre-empting in a minor with a 4 card major on the side), I couldn't resist coming in now. With two aces and 5 card support, Norman jumped to 5 diamonds. North was now able to show his strength, and bid 5 spades. South didn't find the "master bid" of 6 (I imagine he would have with a void diamond), and so that's where we played.

I led the 2 (!) of diamonds. Norman won with the ace, and switched... to a heart. 5 spades made for not very many IMPs for us. As Norman himself quickly pointed out, he should have cashed the ace of clubs and given me a club ruff. Not only had North shown at least 5 clubs on the bidding (leaving me with at most one), the 2 of diamonds was also a pretty clear suit preference signal, coming from a presumed 6 card suit headed by the KQJ. Pretty defnece that didn't quite come off... 

Talking of pretty defences. Try to beat 5 diamonds with the NS cards. It has to go heart to the Ace, small spade to the queen, heart ruff. Anything else, and declarer can just draw trumps and play a small heart of dummy to the K, making whenever north has the A of Hearts singleton or doubleton. Finding that defence at the table would be a good deal harder than finding the one we missed.

Anyway - that's my first bridge blog. I'm going to try to write up at least one hand a week for the next month or so - we're playing in some Buchanan teams event next week, again with Babs and Isobel, and then I think it's a match the week after, and the second round of the winter pairs the week after that (where Danny and Anna are going to be tough to catch, given their 67% in the first round). Let's see if I can stick to my update schedule.