April's bridge

It's been an eventful few bridge weeks for me. First, there was an away match in Falkirk - where Adam and I had an auction where neither of us was sure if transfers were on, resulting in the opponents missing a good ♥ game, and drifting one off in 5♦. I definitely had unauthorised information on the auction, and the East District quite reasonably ruled that I'd taken advantage of this by not bidding on, and corrected the score to 6♣X. Luckily, this meant we still won the match by about 100 points. Also, it means we've now agreed which positions we play transfers after interference, at least after a 1♣ opener.

While all this was going on, there was a debate about Adam's eligibility for the National League. He hasn't been in Scotland long enough to qualify to play in the 2016 Camrose, but as we are entering in the Second Division, so aren't actually eligible to selected to play in the Camrose, we thought this would be ok. Eventually, the selection committee agreed, and we'll be entering next year. Mike McGinley and Laura Middleton are our team-mates.

Then there was the Melville Congress. Danny has an account of the pairs competition here. Martin and I didn't exactly cover ourselves in glory, but struggled to a lackluster 51% or something. It was Martin's first time playing transfers over 1♣, but I don't think we can use that as an excuse - I didn't play very well all, and we just let too many boards slip past. Then Adam and Martin's dad Peter joined us for the teams. I didn't actually feel that our performance in the teams was much better than in the pairs - I rather spectacularly let through 3♥X  by, essentially, forgetting to draw trumps turning what should have been +500 into -530, and causing us to lose a match we should have won comfortably. With a big win in the last match, we still somehow had done enough to win ourselves a silver prize (I think our team was technically bronze, but presumably we beat the next best silver team, and so qualified for the better prize).

Then there was the East District Men's teams - Paul has an account of it here. We came in in second place, and left in second place, but again we didn't really do a lot right - the only reason we managed to scrape second is that Paul, Miro, Mike and Arend were so far ahead of the rest of the field that barely anyone else managed to get above zero. There were a couple of hands where I pre-empted too far with hands that weren't quite offensive enough, and was soundly punished by the opponents.

Then this Friday, Jess was having dinner with the Edinburgh Mathematical Society, and as I had cancelled on Norman to go and play with Jun on Wednesday, we decided to head to St Andrew. When I got there, there was wine, cake and some delicious quiche-like things, as well as a raffle. I initially assumed that this was just how they like to do things on a Friday night at St Andrew, but it turns out we had picked the day of the club party. Once again we didn't have a great showing - scraping just over 50%. I had several interesting play hands, and seemed to be getting below average scores on all of them (although looking at the travellers now, most of them seem to have improved). I had an interesting bidding problem: 

What do you bid with the East cards? 4♣ seems obvious, as it keeps the auction alive and if partner does have a ♣ void, then there's a chance there's a grand. However, it also has the difficulty that whichever suit partner chooses, you've now wrongsided the contract in the more likely (?) event that he has exactly 2♣s - I'm not sure this is actually more likely, as you know partner has doubled in direct seat with what is presumably not a huge number of points, so he's more likely to be short in ♣s. I think 6♥ is probably correct. My actual choice (probably being greedy at match points) was a somewhat ambitious 6NT. This still had chances, when South led the ♣A, and his partner didn't give a suit preference signal... he had to guess between the majors, but unfortunately, he guessed right. I was one off for a surprising 27% of the matchpoints... one East who also guessed to play in 6NT got the unlucky ♠ lead and went 7 off! 6♥ or 6♦ making would have been 100%, so you win all the matchpoints if you came up with either 4♣ or 6♥, assuming you have the methods to find out that partner has a useful void. I'm not really sure how 80% of the tables stayed out of slam altogether.

John and Trish Matheson had a bidding mix up on another slam board, and still managed to get 94% against us. Trish transferred into ♣s, except she accidentally transferred into ♦s, and when her partner bid 3♦, she realised something had gone wrong, and just jumped to 6NT. With 14 tricks on top in any of three strains (ok, 7♦ is lucky), and with only a particularly bad trump break beating 7♠, you might think this was worth an average score at best - but everyone else managed to play in their club fit (one pair, who shall remain nameless, doing so at the three level...). So once again 6NT making 13 tricks was a huge score when 7 minor was cold. I don't know what it is - people don't appreciate the power of a long minor to take tricks in NT? Or they are just pleased to be bidding a making slam, and don't worry about the scoring?

It's the Buchanan Congress this week. Norman and I managed to finish third in the pairs - two places lower than last year, but we'll be aiming to do better in the teams next Saturday, particularly as our team-mates were one of the two pairs to beat us this weekend. Congratulations to Iain McIntyre and Bobby Moore, who get to take home the McLelland tankards (and I'll have to find somewhere else to keep my masterpoint certificates).

JJ Final

Yesterday was the final match of the season for Hillhead, we played the final of the Jackie Josephson against Gilmorehill. Unfortunately, they were just too good for us - we lost by about 4000 points over the 32 boards, even taking into account the fact that we started with a 2000 point headstart. I thought we did well to play in what seems to be a clearly better slam on this board, although our auction was not particularly impressive.

After Norman bid 2♦ over my strong 2♣ opening, I pretty much just drove to slam, as I didn't really have any way of finding out if he had the only card I was interested in - the ♠K. 

Norman drew trumps and played a ♣ towards the K. When Jim went in with the ♣A, the hand was over. John Murdoch seemed to think that this was wrongly played, but I can't actually figure out why. You don't have two entries to hand to pitch the black suit losers on the ♥QJ, and you still have the chance of the ♠J dropping when you play it this way. Maybe you should run a lot of ♦s first? But this line has at least an 80% chance of success. There was also a discussion afterwards of how good 6NT is (on a ♥ lead). Basically, you need to be able to play this ♠ suit for no losers. Danny Kane and Jim came to the conclusion that this was 62% after the match (this was Jim's instinct, and Danny did some calculations).  

Using Richard Pavlicek's bridge calculator (I don't have a Windows machine at the moment, so can't run SuitPlay): you can pick up: void in either hand (1.5%); stiff J in either hand (2.5%); Jx in either hand (16.2%); Jxx in either hand (35.6%) and a small singleton onside (6.1%). This is a total of 61.9%, so they did pretty well... 

In addition, no defender can keep all of ♠Jxxx ♥K ♣A if you come down to a 5 card ending, so if you're willing to back yourself, and if the player with the long spades has one of the high cards in the other two suits then you have some chances of an endplay. 


We also won a Gold Cup Plate match on Wednesday, so will get a rematch against John Dick's team, who knocked us out of the Gold Cup proper in our very first match. No bridge this weekend, but next weekend is the Melville one day congress, I'm playing with Martin Stephens in the pairs and Adam Dickinson, with Martin and his dad, in the teams. 

Things are getting closer to being sorted for our National League team, a couple of people have some decisions to make, and it's possible there will end up being just two of us looking for team-mates, but I've spoken to a few people lately who don't have teams sorted yet, and I'm confident I'll be playing again, if not quite sure who with yet.

Livingston Away

We played away at Livingston yesterday, in what I think was probably our last league match of the season, but there might be one more. We found out rather more than any of us wanted to about a knee operation that someone in the adjoining bowling club had recently been through (the room wasn't very soundproofed), and cruised to a comfortable victory. I played with Yvonne Wiseman, and we had the run of the cards, finishing +3400 at the end of the night, and only conceding two game contracts, I think. 

The most exciting hand was the one above. Yvonne made it very easy for me, by opening the West cards 2♣. There's pretty much no way that I'm stopping in any contract other than 7NT now, so I should probably just bid it straight away, but I thought I'd waste some time by bidding 2♦ on the way. I got the expected confirmation that that Yvonne's bid was based on a solid ♠ suit, and decided to stop messing around. LHO led a club, and I might a slightly lazy claim, just putting my hand on the table, and pointing out that I had 14 top tricks (had the opponents forced me to state a line of play, I would probably have been pitching the ♠A on the ♦A, just because I could...). 

Perhaps surprisingly, we were the only pair to reach this optimal contract. Our other EW had a Blackwood mix-up and stopped in 6 of something, the opponents also had one pair who bid 6 of something, and one pair who somehow managed to play in 7♥ (maybe the guy with the solid ♠ suit was worried his partner would correct to 8♥ if he bid 7♠?). 
I'm not sure how things would go if Yvonne made the (I think) more normal 1♠ opening on her huge hand. over 2♦, she will still rebid 3♠, and once again I know she has solid spades and something outside, but without being about to find out about the 4th ♥, or the 8th ♠ I think it might be difficult for me to count 13 tricks. I'm certainly never going to picture her actual hand!

Yvonne thought for a while before bidding 2♣, and I spent the time wondering if I had a slam try if she opened 2♠. I think I do, we keep our second-in-hand weak 2's pretty solid. Something like AJTxxx xx Kxx xx opposite makes 6♦ nearly cold, and that's pretty much a dead minimum - I remember reading somewhere that if a suitable minimum from partner would make the contract a laydown then you should just go ahead and bid it. I was also wondering whether the fact she'd taken a while to bid gave me any ethical problem (I think probably not, she could have been considering any of passing, bidding 1♠ or 3♠, so it's not clear which way the information points - although I guess she wouldn't think for a while then pass, as this almost always gives partner a problem). Actually, given the style we were playing, I think it's very unlikely Yvonne would ever think for a while before bidding 2♠. Thinking for a while before bidding 1♠ on this hand would have made things more difficult for me.

We also agreed in the car on the way back that we'll be entering a team in the National League. There's at least 4 of us, and possibly up to 6, we just need to figure out who actually wants to play, who's eligible, and who wants to play with whom. It'll be good to be back in it, and hopefully with a good chance of qualifying for the first division. As I also submitted a Scottish Cup entry last week, (I'm playing with Adam and we're teaming up with Danny and Anna), I feel like I'm well organised for next year. 

Last night of the Winter Pairs tonight. Norman and I are not quite out of contention, currently sitting in a fairly comfortable 3rd place, but we'll need a score something in excess of 67% to catch the to pairs who are out in the lead. It's close at the top between Liz and Grace, who started off the competition with a a massive 68.83, and Christine and Ian who have consistently scored in excess of 62% almost every session. 

Promotion!

This week was a big one for the Hillhead team, with both a semi-final in the Jackie Josephson (a handicap cup competition) and our final league match, which would decide promotion. We won both, and after a slightly tense evening waiting for the scores from other matches, we did enough, and will be back in the first division next season, which some in our team find intimidating, but I'm very much looking forward to it. I also played in the West Distict Congress on Saturday and Sunday with Norman and Adam. I'm not going to say much about that, apart from that Adam was remarkably understanding when I revoked to let through a doubled part-score when playing at table 1 of the Swiss Teams on the Sunday... a very useful feature in a partner! (not that I intend to make a habit of it...)

With the league season winding down, I'll be trying to figure out how to make sure I continue to get my bridge fix over the summer, and at some point this month I'll have to work out whether or not I'm playing in this year's National League.

Just one board from yesterday's league match. I played in 4♠ after the auction above, and the defence got off to a reasonable start with two ♦ tricks and a ♦ ruff. West now switched to a small ♣, and as I've pretty much got no chance if the finesse is wrong, I ran this to my ♣10. Now what? I think basically it's about guessing the ♠ suit. I got this wrong, playing a club to the 9, ruffing a ♣, and playing two rounds of ♠s from the top. I figured that W was less likely to have played for a ruff if he had the ♠Q. However, I did know that he had fewer ♦s that his partner, so maybe playing him for greater ♠ length than his partner was correct, but this was exactly balanced out by what I knew about the ♣ suit. In any case, no-one else managed to make the game, apart from the pair who got a helpful ♥ lead, and our 1500 point margin was enough for us to secure promotion to the First Division next season.

Men's Teams 2015

I played with David Wiseman in the Men's Teams on Sunday. Our card was nothing to be proud of, and our team-mates seemed mostly relieved by this, as they were, if anything, even worse than us. We were deservedly comfortably at the bottom of the table. Congratulations to Mike Ash, Alex Adamson, Finlay Marshall and Patrick Home who won the event (narrowly beating Derek Sanders, Stephen Peterkin, George Plant and Peter Moss). 

Here is the last hand we played of the evening.

Having passed as dealer, (he might have opened if we were playing Acol, but probably not, as the rebid is potentially awkward), David understandably got excited when I opened 1♥, and even more excited when I bid a conventional 3♥, showing a non-minimum opener with a shortage in ♣s. After checking all the keycards were there, we didn't really have any system available to find out what could be done with the third round of ♠s, so David just decided to go for it. 

John Murdoch led a small ♣, and everyone followed to everything when I ruffed out the other suits, N pitching a ♣ on the second round of ♥s, so I was down to this ending. The missing cards being ♠Q98632 and ♣KJ. 

What next? Do you play off the last round of trumps? (I didn't, and I think this was a mistake - if either defender started off with 4 ♠s, they'd be forced to pitch one now, which gives you a big clue as to where the Q is). If you don't (or if you do, and both defenders pitch ♣s), which way do you play the ♠s? 

I played ♠ towards the ♠K next, and John played the ♠9. Does this tell you anything? 

There were 29 IMPs on the line on this board, as they had failed to bid even the small slam at the other table. Those 29 IMPs were worth more than 13 VPs (we were playing 4 board matches, and this would have converted a 20-0 defeat into a victory)... what are the clues? Is it any better than a guess? 

Winter Fours 2015

Last weekend was the Winter Foursomes in Falkirk. Probably still the strongest event in Scottish bridge (although I guess National League first division comes close), and certainly the longest day, with 72 boards played on the Saturday. I was once again in a team with Jake Corry, but this time we were partnering each other, and playing with Yvonne and David Wiseman at the other table.

Jake and I stayed in the Antonine Hotel in Falkirk, which was significantly cheaper than the conference venue, and also much more exciting late at night... on the way home on Friday, we encountered about 50 what I can only describe as "young people", several of whom were literally falling down the stairs drunk. One gentleman kindly invited us to join them at the local night club, but we declined, and got a relatively early night in preparation for the next day's bridge. Saturday night was even more exciting. On the Saturday, Adam and Andrew Murphy (Paul's and Alex's team-mates) were staying in the same hotel, and I went out with them for a quick drink after we got back from the bridge. When we returned, we narrowly avoided being right in the middle of a huge brawl, which seemed to spark from nowhere, and just as quickly defuse a couple of minutes later... Falkirk is an exciting place at the weekend!

As Paul mentions on his blog (which also includes details of what happened in the competition overall, won by the team of Matheson, Sime, Short and Goodman), we somehow stumbled into the quarter final on the Saturday night despite having lost to 2 different teams, one of them twice - a feature (or a bug, if you prefer) of the fact that there were only 19 teams in the competition, so several triads were required to ensure that the numbers worked out to have the correct number of teams left in the competition on Sunday.

We won the second triad thanks mostly to David making 2♠XX + 1 for 1240 (not a score I've seen before, or really expect to see again...) on a hand where most of us would have opened 1♠ (and I think Yvonne was confidently expecting to concede a double figure IMP swing when she put down the dummy). Overall though, I didn't play particularly well all weekend, and as a team, I think we were lucky not to be in the Swiss Teams on the Sunday, even if we did find our way into the quarter final.

The penultimate board of the subsidiary final brought my highlight of the weekend at the table, making 6♦ on a squeeze - the first time I think I've ever actually made a slam on a squeeze both successfully and deliberately:

We had a nearly textbook auction to the slam. I opened 1NT, and Jake transferred to ♦, I showed support by breaking the transfer, and he went through keycard (safe, as if I only have 1, we can stop in 5♦) to bid 6. I'm not quite sure why, but I denied the ♦Q in the auction..., I'm also not quite sure why I decided the North hand was a strong no trump, although I'm pretty sure I do have the hand right... luckily Jake wasn't interested in a grand slam anyway, so that didn't have any negative consequences, other than perhaps on partnership trust.

The lead was a small ♦ (which I ran to my Q, just to reveal to everyone at the table that I was incapable of bidding blackwood). This is almost literally a textbook hand on squeeze play - you have 11 top tricks, and need to find a 12th from somewhere, there are potential menaces in all the suits, so it seems like it's time to rectify the count. I drew trumps and played a ♣ to the 10. Peter returned a ♥.

The ending is now luckily unambiguous. You can just unblock the ♠s, run all the trumps, and if the ♠J and if neither of the major suit jacks is now good, you have to hope they are in different hands, and so the clubs will drop. You'll end up with an ending like this. If either defend has 5♣s and the ♠Q, then you have a squeeze in those suits, while if West has the ♥Q and his partner the ♠Q, then you have a textbook double squeeze regardless of the ♣ position.

Notice that you lose most of these chances if East returns a ♣ when you duck one to rectify the count, as now you don't have an entry in that suit. However, as it happens you can still make the contract as the cards lie, because East did have 5♣s and the ♠Q, so you get down to the above ending instead, and as East has to discard before dummy, as long as you're paying attention, you can still make it. Although it's worth noting that you do actually have a decision to make earlier in the play now, as you have to decide whether to keep the ♣6 or the ♥J as the second threat for your positional squeeze in dummy... as it happens, I think either would have worked, but I have to say I'm glad I wasn't put to the test.

All in all, an enjoyable weekend, and a good opportunity to play against the best players in Scotland, and we gave a reasonable account of ourselves, even if we didn't exactly set the world alight. Hopefully we can give a better showing next year.

Happy New Year!

I spent three of the first 7 nights of 2014 playing bridge, and on one of those I was double-booked and had to turn down a game with Jake's Merchiston team as I was already playing in a match against Bearsden in the West District League. We started on Monday with a defeat in the final of the Manning Foster (Buchanan teams championship). Neither of our pairs had a very good card in the first half, and we couldn't quite do enough to catch up in the second.

What do you open this hand, first in, red vs green? Does the scoring matter? Does it matter if you were 50 IMPs down at half time in a 24 board match, and haven't really done enough to get that back yet this half? We ended up in a disastrous 6♣ contract, which was galling when 3NT making would have been enough for more than 10 IMPs in, as they played in an only-slightly-better 5♣ at the other table.

Congratulations to Fergus and Lina Kerr and Peggy and John Donaldson (John was filing in for Betty Bell, who had played with Peggy in the earlier rounds). I think that's the second Buchanan teams competition they've won so far this year. 

Tuesday and Wednesday went a little better... 

2N shows a balanced 16+ raise in ♠s, 3♦ was a cue bid (I think I probably also had 4♥ available as a void splinter here). Norman didn't have a ♥ cue, and my hand improved immensely. When I found out he had the ♦K, I figured that the grand was very likely to be better than 2:1 odds (note that at aggregate scoring what happens at the other tables is irrelevant, so you should be in the grand exactly when you gain 1510-980 enough times to justify the occasions on which you lose 980+50 - ie, almost exactly when grand is 2:1), and bid it. As it happens, the grand is something over 90%, I think. As long as ♠s and ♦s are no worse than 3-1 and 4-1 respectively it's completely cold, and you can pick up a lot of the layouts where one or other suit breaks badly.

I didn't really expect anyone else to have bid the grand on a combined 27 count, but the scores from the other tables still managed to surprise me. Both of the opposition pairs had stopped in game, making all 13 tricks, and our other EW pair had managed to a bid a 6♠... and then go off. I didn't quite manage to get the story of what happened during the play, but clearly a Cow Flew By, as in the small slam, I think you can actually just claim at trick one... 

There was an interesting play problem for our opposition on a later board:

South played in 5♦. Interestingly, this is actually a pretty good contract, but you have to be really careful. Note that it's not good enough to duck a ♦ early - you end up losing trump control. Instead, you have to use the ♥ ruff at trick 1 as a entry ruff a ♣, and later give up the 4th round of clubs, avoid getting forced. It's probably hard to envision losing trump control with KQJ8xx, and none of the declarers managed to make it. 

It turns out the 7♠ hand was a microcosm of the entire match, as we were the only one of the three pairs in our team who managed to end up with a positive score (+3770), and yet we managed to win the match 10-6. I think we probably realistically needed a bigger victory to be in with a good chance of winning the 2nd division, but we'll see as the results of the other matches continue to come in. 

Finally, last night was the 5th round of the Winter Pairs. Norman and I finally managed to get a genuinely big score - with 66%, which I think now means we're leading the competition overall. We had a much harder grand slam decision as a part of this match:

The auction went - 1♥ - 2♣ - 2♦ - 4♠ - 4N - 5♣ - 7♦. 

My final decision was tricky. I was pretty sure that there was a > 50% chance that we were making 13 tricks, but really wasn't sure if there was a >50% chance that the rest of the field would be in 6♦... the odds get complicated here, and trying to work them out at the table, as it turns out, doesn't make you popular with the opposition. In the end, as you can see, I was right to assume that most people would manage to find a small slam with what looks like an enormous hand opposite my opening bid. Note that this time I'd actually need odds of 22:9 for the grand to be worth bidding (although it's actually more complicated than that, since the interesting case is where there are only 12 tricks available, in which case I think it's safe to assume some of the pairs would have gone off in the small slam...), which is even stricter than when we were playing aggregate! I wasn't put to the test in the play when the opposition led a ♥... 

I'll be busy bridge-wise in January, with Winter Fours coming up, and then I'll potentially be playing some of the Clyde Congress in Irvine.