Peebles Part II: Swiss Teams Session 1

Friday evening was the first session of the Swiss Teams. I was playing with Jun Nakamura Pinder, a regular in the Scottish Junior team, and currently studying at the University of Edinburgh. At the other table we had Jake Corry and Alex Wilkinson. Here's a couple of boards where we might have done better. On the first, still not entirely sure if we want to be in the slam:

♠ 6 ♥ K T 9 2 ♦ A Q 7 5 2 ♣ A 9 6 ♠ 7 5 4 3 2 ♥ Q 8 7 3 ♦ K 6 ♣ Q 2 * * * * ♠ 9  ♥ A J 6 5 4 ♦  J T 3  ♣ J T 7 5 ♠ A K Q J T 8 ♥ - ♦ 9 8 4 ♣ K 8 4 3

Jun Me W N E S 1♦ 1♥ 1♠  -  2♦  - 4♠ - - -

I'm not entirely sure that this auction is right, but I know that there was a heart overcall, and that I leapt to 4♠ while being slightly concerned that I was missing something. On the other hand, I do have 7 potential losers in the minors, and three small in Jun's suit (which I actually know is at least 5 cards from the start - we open almost all weak NT hands with 1♣, and play a 5 card diamond suit) really isn't a nice holding for a slam.

The slam essentially seems to rely on being able to play that diamond suit for 1 loser, which SuitPlay informs is a 54% chance. There's also some chance I can set up a heart trick.

If the ♥K was the ♥A, I wouldn't need anything much more than diamonds 3-2. Not sure if I could have bid any differently, a 4♥ auto-splinter seems a bit much with all the losers in the other suits, and as I said, it's not entirely clear we want to be in anyway. Unlike the next one:

♠♥♦♣

♠ K 7 ♥ 3 ♦ A K J  ♣ A K Q J 8 7 4 ♠ Q T 8 5 3 ♥ Q J 9 6 ♦ 8 4 ♣ 6 2 * * * * ♠ 6 4 2  ♥ A K T 7 5 ♦  Q 9 6 3 ♣ 5 ♠ A J 9 ♥ 8 4 2 ♦ T 7 5 2 ♣ T 9 3 Jun Me W N E S -  -  2♣ - 2♦ - 3♣ -  4♣ - 4♦ -  4♠ - 6♣ AP

Jun's hand is huge, and really doesn't need much from me for slam to be a pretty solid prospect. Once I give a non-minimum response pretty much all he needs to know is that I don't have some horrible wasted values like ♥KQJ, and the slam is going to be no worse than 50%. Looking at the North South cards, it's more like 60% (50% for the spade finesse plus about 10% for the ♦Q dropping when the spade finesse is wrong). I guess there are also some potential squeeze chances when both queens are with West, but that would involve some pretty good card reading. However, this could easily have been much better. From Jun's point of view, there's no reason I couldn't have had the ♦Q, or even a doubleton diamond, to go with my spade control, which would have made the slam cold.

We had a pretty successful session, ending up about 15th out of the 70 or so teams competing and, more importantly, placing higher than the other team of people who were staying in our house. After just a drink or two in the bar, we headed back to Peebles for some much needed sleep, so we could be up bright an early for another day's bridge - Saturday being the Swiss Pairs, where I was playing with Alex Wilkinson.