Our heroes return for their semi-regular bridge blogging excursion! This time, it's after the NABC's in Boston, where Jon now lives, and to where Alex made his triumphant(?) return. After watching the painful (physically and emotionally) Yale-Harvard football game and spending an exciting weekend with college buddies, we entered the Mitchell Open BAM with Oosman (a current Yalie and international bridge star) and his online friend Doug. For those of you who don't know, BAM is basically team bridge with pair scoring--if your team scores better than the other team on a board, you get a point, if you score worse, you get 0, and if you tie, you get 1/2. It's matchpoints on steroids. In addition, the Open BAM was the main event at Nationals for the first Sunday and Monday, so all the world's best players were playing in this event. Needless to say, we didn't expect to do well in this event (and we didn't, particularly), but it was a great time, and we got a chance to play against some of the world's top players.
There were interesting hands throughout the event, but the most memorable for us were the ones we played against the experts. In the first set, vul against not, you hold the following hand:
S: 83
H: AKJ
D: AQJ8
C: KQ87
Partner opens 1D, and righty bids 3H. What's your bid?
At Alex and Jon's table, the expert thinks for a minute and bids 6NT, then her partner thinks for a couple minutes before passing. At Oosman and Doug's table (playing against Tor Helness and Geir Helgemo), they have a different auction, making it to 7D. Given that partner's hand is:
S: AKJ7
H: 8
D: K654
C: A965
and clubs break 3-2, both NT and D make 7. Win 1! Oosman was (understandably) very excited to get to bid and make a grand against one of the best pairs in the world, while another expert pair was unable to find it. Unfortunately, this was the only point we got against expert pairs, and one of only 20.5 points (26 average) we got all day.
Our other most memorable boards of the day were in the second set. A pair of men sat down against us, and, after bidding 1NT, Jon took a look at their convention card. He saw Meckstroth-Rodwell, and figured they're playing a Meckwell-type strong club system. He then realized that he was looking at the "names" line. We were playing against arguably the best pair in the world, who were playing with Zia Mahmood and Bob Hamman on arguably the best team in the world (and the team that ended up winning the event). On the first board, you (as Alex) hold:
S: T9765
H: 9
D: 7
C: KJT543
Partner opens 1NT (15-17). What's your plan?
After Meckstroth passed, Alex bid 2H (transfer). Rodwell doubles, Jon bids 2S, and Meckstroth bids 2NT. Alex bids 3C (would you bid or pass here?), and after Rodwell passes, Jon asks Rodwell what Meckstroth's bid means. At this point Rodwell says, "I don't think we've discussed it." Alex successfully avoided laughing--this pair is known for having a fantastic, comprehensive bidding system, and we managed to find a bid they didn't know! Jon decides to bid 3D, and Alex bids 3S. Jon decides to take a shot a 4S. Jon's hand is:
AQ2
643
AJT654
A
and 4S goes down 2. Some reasonable auction happens at the other table, Oosman and Doug end up in a reasonable contract going down, and we lose the board. We also lose the next board when Alex is unable to find the switch that Zia finds that would set 3NT. Alex thought about it, and decided to lead the wrong spade, while Zia instantly switched correctly to the jack. Alex still thinks he should have gotten it right, but takes some solace in the fact he thought about it.
After the eventful Open BAM, Jon did Physics on Monday, while Alex played in a Bracket 13 (out of 13) Compact KO with 3 Californians. When a teammate tried to switch us to the top bracket after the brackets had already been made, the director told him, "If you had come 11 minutes ago and said, 'We're snobby juniors and we want to be in the top bracket.' I would have done it, but it's too late." We responded correctly to this response by winning our first match by about 60 IMPs, then steamrolling through the rest of the bracket to win it (for a grand total of 4 masterpoints!)
On Tuesday, Alex played with Jon Pines in a 2 session fast pairs, putting up a 60% in the 1st session and a 40% in the 2nd. With the exception of about 5 hands in the 2nd session, we played very well--if not for 3 hands that we misdefended after pushing the opponents too high, we could've had a 53%. So it goes.
Meanwhile, Jon played with Belinda in the 0-5000 Blue Ribbon pairs. Blame it on being tired (Jon didn't sleep so much the couple nights before this), blame it on having a kibitzer, but they did not play particularly well, putting up a 45% and a 40% in 2 sessions. Toward the end of the second session, there was, however, one hilarious hand. With Alex watching over Jon's shoulder, Jon and Belinda pass throughout the auction as opponents get to 3NT with some auction like 1D-1H-2NT-3NT. As Jon, you hold:
S: KJ642
H: J52
D: 5
C: 8432
Partner leads a low spade and dummy comes down:
S: T
H: KT63
D: 984
C: AQJ95
Jon goes up with the jack, declarer takes it with the queen of spades. Declarer leads the 7 of clubs, partner plays the 10, and dummy plays the queen, winning as Jon plays the 2. After thinking a little bit, declarer plays the club ace from dummy and pitches the 2 of diamonds from his hand, as partner drops the club king! Jon sits there looking confused. Either Belinda made a very weird play of a king under the ace, or someone has reneged. Sure enough, the jack is played from dummy, declarer pitches the 7 of spades from his hand, and Belinda pitches, too. As the play of the hand continues, declarer pitches the 8 of spades and the 6 of clubs from his hand, eventually making 5. When the 6 of clubs was pitched, no one at the table seemed to notice, but it took a huge effort for the kibitzer not to say something. Upon explaining to Jon what happened, we realized that declarer gave up tricks by not playing clubs to get pitches in his hand. Sure enough, most people were making 7, and-460 was good enough for 23 matchpoints out of a 25 top!
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Once more with feeling
The big bridge finish to our Las Vegas trip was our "favorite" NABC+ event - the national fast pairs. By favorite, we lose faster than usual by more than usual (yes, we did use the same joke last year). It's also the only NABC+ event we had played in before Vegas (and still the only one Lovey has played in).
Fast pairs, for the uninitiated, is bridge at the (honestly rather moderate) pace of 11 minutes per two boards, as compared to the usual 15 or 16 minutes. It's a different game, to be sure, but unless you're up against a lot of tough decisions at once the time limit doesn't come up as often as you think. It also is just a lot more fun, for us.
Lovey and I got off to an...inauspicious start by noticing that our first set (with four boards to go) had come to a 36.x%. There were a lot of wild hands (7/26 contracts were at the 5 level or higher at our table), and most of them didn't seem to work out for us. However the most fun one did work out well:
Partner (Jon) opens 1S, righty overcalls 2C and you're holding:
AQxx AQxxxxx void xx
Go! Lovey's choice, not a common one from what we can tell, was 5D - exclusion blackwood. Jon showed two keycards outside diamonds, so Lovey bid 6H, which in our methods (should have) asked for the king of hearts to bid 7S. Jon forgot that agreement, bid 6S, which was luckily doubled by the non-overcaller. Jon's hand:
KJ9xx KTxx xx Ax
A light 1S opener to be sure, but 7 is cold on a non-heart lead. The doubler had a void in hearts (of course), and at our table, lefty declined to lead one holding,
Tx Jx AQx KJTxxx
probably because we had never mentioned our 11 card heart fit and he hadn't doubled 6H. As it turns out, 7H is cold, but +1310 got us 20.5/25 matchpoints.
The last four boards of the set were very good to us (bid and made an unmakeable 4H, they stayed out of an easy game), and we actually came out with a 43% in the first qualifying session. We certainly didn't expect to qualify but that kept us at least somewhat in the running.
In the second qualifying session, less crazy stuff happened but this played to our advantage. We took our gifts and cut down on wild mistakes, and to our surprise, we had an almost 56% and had qualified for the second day.
When we looked at the bulletin on Friday morning, we noticed that we had qualified dead last and had a 0 carryover. We were in the good company our friends in the mixed BAM, who had also just qualified under an arcane tie-break criteria: Argenta, Eric/Bob, Belinda and Pines. With nothing to lose, we were excited to have a good time playing against some great players.
Our first session didn't go great - 37%, with just 8/26 boards above average. No bottoms, but plenty of bad results. Our best scores came when we bid and made a lucky slam, and when Lovey made a great save on this auction (not vul against vul):
Opp-Jon-Opp-AFL
1S-3H-4H-5H
6S-P-P-7H
x-All pass
Lovey's hand:
Qx J8x JT9876x x
Jon's hand:
Jx KQTxxx Qx JTx
6S and even 7S were cold and while 7Hx could be set 7, it was only set six because the defense didn't lead trump quite enough and Jon was allowed to ruff a couple clubs. Sometimes down 6 is good bridge. 62.5/77 matchpoints for a -1400!
Going into the last session, we were still complete-total-dead last with carryover. We wanted to go out and have a fun last set and we were rewarded with colorful hands and even a decent score.
We came out strong on our first two boards. On the first board (7) Jon held:
void x AKQJxxx AQ8xx
Righty opened 1H and Jon gambled on 5NT, to put them to a guess. Partner bid 6C, and lefty pulled out to 6H, which Jon doubled and opps went for 800. 6C is down on best defense but may also have made, depending on the lead. The field wasn't doing better than game so this was an absolute top (77/77). On the second board, we competed to good 4D contract, making exactly (4 minor is always right!), for a 60.5/77.
The session had been going well when, for the second year in a row, we sort-of-fixed (or at least, did unreasonably well against) junior-pro-dude Gavin Wolpert. On our first board against him, vul against not, Lovey opened 1S, Gavin doubled, and Jon bid 3S with:
KQxxx x xxxx xxx
4S is probably a better bid, but when Lovey passed, Gavin bid 4H. Lovey bid 4S over 4H, and Gavin's partner doubled for penalty. My heart stiff across from Lovey's diamond void meant that 4S was actually making +1 on any normal play. Gavin commented mid-hand: "Um, partner, 20 of our points just turned into one trick." 72/77.
Obviously it wasn't all roses, and we got schooled or misdefended on a few hands. For the most part, we made our standard matchpoint mistakes: bad decisions at the 3 level, bad leads, and not enough aversion to overtricks on defense. However, the session came out to a 51%, and we felt very proud to have posted anything above average in the last day of an open national pairs event. Even one as random as the fast pairs.
Since the fast pairs, we've been spending some quality time on the strip with Davenport, non-bridge friends: Mike Davis and Will Derry, as well as Dan Recht. As we write, we are currently waiting for our delayed flight back from Vegas. Getting out during the eastern thunderstorms has been a bit of a train wreck. On the plus side, the extra time allowed us to win some more money at craps and blackjack, which went straight to a $10 rollercoaster and an expensive dinner at the Wynn.
What can we say, Vegas was pretty sweet. But we think Boston will be pretty fun too.
Fast pairs, for the uninitiated, is bridge at the (honestly rather moderate) pace of 11 minutes per two boards, as compared to the usual 15 or 16 minutes. It's a different game, to be sure, but unless you're up against a lot of tough decisions at once the time limit doesn't come up as often as you think. It also is just a lot more fun, for us.
Lovey and I got off to an...inauspicious start by noticing that our first set (with four boards to go) had come to a 36.x%. There were a lot of wild hands (7/26 contracts were at the 5 level or higher at our table), and most of them didn't seem to work out for us. However the most fun one did work out well:
Partner (Jon) opens 1S, righty overcalls 2C and you're holding:
AQxx AQxxxxx void xx
Go! Lovey's choice, not a common one from what we can tell, was 5D - exclusion blackwood. Jon showed two keycards outside diamonds, so Lovey bid 6H, which in our methods (should have) asked for the king of hearts to bid 7S. Jon forgot that agreement, bid 6S, which was luckily doubled by the non-overcaller. Jon's hand:
KJ9xx KTxx xx Ax
A light 1S opener to be sure, but 7 is cold on a non-heart lead. The doubler had a void in hearts (of course), and at our table, lefty declined to lead one holding,
Tx Jx AQx KJTxxx
probably because we had never mentioned our 11 card heart fit and he hadn't doubled 6H. As it turns out, 7H is cold, but +1310 got us 20.5/25 matchpoints.
The last four boards of the set were very good to us (bid and made an unmakeable 4H, they stayed out of an easy game), and we actually came out with a 43% in the first qualifying session. We certainly didn't expect to qualify but that kept us at least somewhat in the running.
In the second qualifying session, less crazy stuff happened but this played to our advantage. We took our gifts and cut down on wild mistakes, and to our surprise, we had an almost 56% and had qualified for the second day.
When we looked at the bulletin on Friday morning, we noticed that we had qualified dead last and had a 0 carryover. We were in the good company our friends in the mixed BAM, who had also just qualified under an arcane tie-break criteria: Argenta, Eric/Bob, Belinda and Pines. With nothing to lose, we were excited to have a good time playing against some great players.
Our first session didn't go great - 37%, with just 8/26 boards above average. No bottoms, but plenty of bad results. Our best scores came when we bid and made a lucky slam, and when Lovey made a great save on this auction (not vul against vul):
Opp-Jon-Opp-AFL
1S-3H-4H-5H
6S-P-P-7H
x-All pass
Lovey's hand:
Qx J8x JT9876x x
Jon's hand:
Jx KQTxxx Qx JTx
6S and even 7S were cold and while 7Hx could be set 7, it was only set six because the defense didn't lead trump quite enough and Jon was allowed to ruff a couple clubs. Sometimes down 6 is good bridge. 62.5/77 matchpoints for a -1400!
Going into the last session, we were still complete-total-dead last with carryover. We wanted to go out and have a fun last set and we were rewarded with colorful hands and even a decent score.
We came out strong on our first two boards. On the first board (7) Jon held:
void x AKQJxxx AQ8xx
Righty opened 1H and Jon gambled on 5NT, to put them to a guess. Partner bid 6C, and lefty pulled out to 6H, which Jon doubled and opps went for 800. 6C is down on best defense but may also have made, depending on the lead. The field wasn't doing better than game so this was an absolute top (77/77). On the second board, we competed to good 4D contract, making exactly (4 minor is always right!), for a 60.5/77.
The session had been going well when, for the second year in a row, we sort-of-fixed (or at least, did unreasonably well against) junior-pro-dude Gavin Wolpert. On our first board against him, vul against not, Lovey opened 1S, Gavin doubled, and Jon bid 3S with:
KQxxx x xxxx xxx
4S is probably a better bid, but when Lovey passed, Gavin bid 4H. Lovey bid 4S over 4H, and Gavin's partner doubled for penalty. My heart stiff across from Lovey's diamond void meant that 4S was actually making +1 on any normal play. Gavin commented mid-hand: "Um, partner, 20 of our points just turned into one trick." 72/77.
Obviously it wasn't all roses, and we got schooled or misdefended on a few hands. For the most part, we made our standard matchpoint mistakes: bad decisions at the 3 level, bad leads, and not enough aversion to overtricks on defense. However, the session came out to a 51%, and we felt very proud to have posted anything above average in the last day of an open national pairs event. Even one as random as the fast pairs.
Since the fast pairs, we've been spending some quality time on the strip with Davenport, non-bridge friends: Mike Davis and Will Derry, as well as Dan Recht. As we write, we are currently waiting for our delayed flight back from Vegas. Getting out during the eastern thunderstorms has been a bit of a train wreck. On the plus side, the extra time allowed us to win some more money at craps and blackjack, which went straight to a $10 rollercoaster and an expensive dinner at the Wynn.
What can we say, Vegas was pretty sweet. But we think Boston will be pretty fun too.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
As regular as "Old Faithful"... that is, not.
So we're really not so good at this whole blogging regularly thing. Sorry. Tuesday, we split up to play different events with different partner--Alex played with Argenta in the fast pairs at 10 and 1 and with 3 ex-Princetonians in the loser Swiss at 7, while Jon worked in the morning, then played in the Wehrner Open Pairs (a national pairs event) with Jon Pines.
Alex (re)discovered the beauty of stratification, as he and Argenta won the C strat in their section of fast pairs for both sessions. They had a 57% in the first set...and a 42% in the second. This earned them each 2 tumblers, the section top awards for this nationals. Alex and the Princetonians had a great set in the 1 session Swiss, winning all four matches and placing tied for 7th out of 139 teams. Doing well in smaller events certainly makes you feel better about yourself.
Jon's first-time partnership with his correctly-spelled name-twin doppelganger went relatively well. They posted a score slightly below average each time in a big, nasty open pairs event (by big nasty, we mean the most joker nationally rated event of the summer schedule). There were some great hands and very few disasters, which neither Jon can really remember at this point. Pines did once hilariously open a hand gambling 3NT with a couple outside controls (after Bittner passed, to be fair), which didn't go well and he still feels sorry for. Bittner had a stiff diamond and the majors stopped, but Pines's suit actually turned out to be clubs, so the opps took 5 diamonds off the top when 6 clubs is frigid. So it goes.
On Wednesday, our two intrepid bloggers took it down a notch to play in a compact KO with Eric and Dan Recht. We switched partnerships each of the first three rounds (winning them all), and managed to lose the final with our "regular" partners due to some poor judgment all around.
Our evenings were filled with merriness - Chrononauts, work, gambling, happy family, and other good times.
As a point of interest, you might enjoy this website:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU
Alex (re)discovered the beauty of stratification, as he and Argenta won the C strat in their section of fast pairs for both sessions. They had a 57% in the first set...and a 42% in the second. This earned them each 2 tumblers, the section top awards for this nationals. Alex and the Princetonians had a great set in the 1 session Swiss, winning all four matches and placing tied for 7th out of 139 teams. Doing well in smaller events certainly makes you feel better about yourself.
Jon's first-time partnership with his correctly-spelled name-twin doppelganger went relatively well. They posted a score slightly below average each time in a big, nasty open pairs event (by big nasty, we mean the most joker nationally rated event of the summer schedule). There were some great hands and very few disasters, which neither Jon can really remember at this point. Pines did once hilariously open a hand gambling 3NT with a couple outside controls (after Bittner passed, to be fair), which didn't go well and he still feels sorry for. Bittner had a stiff diamond and the majors stopped, but Pines's suit actually turned out to be clubs, so the opps took 5 diamonds off the top when 6 clubs is frigid. So it goes.
On Wednesday, our two intrepid bloggers took it down a notch to play in a compact KO with Eric and Dan Recht. We switched partnerships each of the first three rounds (winning them all), and managed to lose the final with our "regular" partners due to some poor judgment all around.
Our evenings were filled with merriness - Chrononauts, work, gambling, happy family, and other good times.
As a point of interest, you might enjoy this website:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Spin-ing wheel
Sorry for the time-delay between posts... the internet has been a bit spotty here.
The FISU 2nd day, back on Sunday, was a difficult match as expected. We played pretty close to our best but we still got beaten pretty soundly, by about 70 IMPS or so in 32 boards. To those who tried and watch us, sorry that the Vugraph thing didn't work out. There were some interesting boards, but nothing that comes to mind to write about.
Sunday night, we warmed up for the spins by...watching Dark Knight, gambling, and otherwise hanging out. It was Lovey's birthday, and we had a good time playing craps and blackjack. Jon thought Dark Knight was very good, but somewhat hypocritical.
Monday morning, we got ourselves knocked out of the Micro-Spingolds despite having a draw against some pretty weak teams. Jon contributed to one tie-instead-of-win by passing a 2NT opener with a good 8 count. Lose 10. On another hand, all vul, the bidding went:
RHO-LHO
1D-1H
2NT-3NT
And Jon was on lead with:
QT83 A2 QJ754 J6
The spade lead seems obvious, right? Maybe a 4th best diamond, or a risky-but devious-club. But no, in the replay, they lead the Q(!) of diamonds, which happens to be one of two killer leads (a club is the other).
In the full hand, dummy has T8 tight of diamonds and partner has 96, so leading a diamond doesn't cost and in fact sets up a trick. Declarer also has AKJ tight of spades, so my lead cost us a trick and another vul game. "These are just a few of the images we've recorded. And you can see, it wasn't what we thought."
After the morning of the Spins, we played in a loser-swiss with Argenta and Elena and had a lot of fun. After the 28 and 32 board sets we've been playing all week, the four 6-board matches hardly felt like a full session. Jon also mentally checked out again on this hand:
AKxx Qxxx QTx AJ
Jon opened 1NT, Lovey bid puppet, and once hearts was confirmed, Lovey bid Keycard (0314). Jon counted his aces and bid 5H(!), and when Lovey passed, Jon sadly remembered that 5H did not show his beautiful Q. When the dummy came down...
xxx AJTx AKJ QTxx
.. Jon thought he had fixed the opponents, because the slam was only about 25% due to wasted values in diamonds. Then he noticed the lead - a club. Making 6. Turns out the King of clubs was offside, so slam was off. Jon asked our kind-but-clueless opponenents what they would have lead against 6H, just out of curiosity, and with complete confidence, LHO answered, "Still a club." Now Jon's not sure whether we fixed them, or they fixed us...
Alex is playing in the fast pairs with Argenta this morning, and Jon is doing some work for, er, work. Or perhaps writing blog entries... judge for yourself!
The FISU 2nd day, back on Sunday, was a difficult match as expected. We played pretty close to our best but we still got beaten pretty soundly, by about 70 IMPS or so in 32 boards. To those who tried and watch us, sorry that the Vugraph thing didn't work out. There were some interesting boards, but nothing that comes to mind to write about.
Sunday night, we warmed up for the spins by...watching Dark Knight, gambling, and otherwise hanging out. It was Lovey's birthday, and we had a good time playing craps and blackjack. Jon thought Dark Knight was very good, but somewhat hypocritical.
Monday morning, we got ourselves knocked out of the Micro-Spingolds despite having a draw against some pretty weak teams. Jon contributed to one tie-instead-of-win by passing a 2NT opener with a good 8 count. Lose 10. On another hand, all vul, the bidding went:
RHO-LHO
1D-1H
2NT-3NT
And Jon was on lead with:
QT83 A2 QJ754 J6
The spade lead seems obvious, right? Maybe a 4th best diamond, or a risky-but devious-club. But no, in the replay, they lead the Q(!) of diamonds, which happens to be one of two killer leads (a club is the other).
In the full hand, dummy has T8 tight of diamonds and partner has 96, so leading a diamond doesn't cost and in fact sets up a trick. Declarer also has AKJ tight of spades, so my lead cost us a trick and another vul game. "These are just a few of the images we've recorded. And you can see, it wasn't what we thought."
After the morning of the Spins, we played in a loser-swiss with Argenta and Elena and had a lot of fun. After the 28 and 32 board sets we've been playing all week, the four 6-board matches hardly felt like a full session. Jon also mentally checked out again on this hand:
AKxx Qxxx QTx AJ
Jon opened 1NT, Lovey bid puppet, and once hearts was confirmed, Lovey bid Keycard (0314). Jon counted his aces and bid 5H(!), and when Lovey passed, Jon sadly remembered that 5H did not show his beautiful Q. When the dummy came down...
xxx AJTx AKJ QTxx
.. Jon thought he had fixed the opponents, because the slam was only about 25% due to wasted values in diamonds. Then he noticed the lead - a club. Making 6. Turns out the King of clubs was offside, so slam was off. Jon asked our kind-but-clueless opponenents what they would have lead against 6H, just out of curiosity, and with complete confidence, LHO answered, "Still a club." Now Jon's not sure whether we fixed them, or they fixed us...
Alex is playing in the fast pairs with Argenta this morning, and Jon is doing some work for, er, work. Or perhaps writing blog entries... judge for yourself!
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Knocked out in the best way possible
Yesterday was a good day to lose. Playing against the team from Michigan, we came out strong with a 25 IMP lead at half-time. However, our food comas got the better of us and we ended up losing by 22 after 56 boards.
There were several interesting hands and a few wild swings. We played good part-score defense, bid to lots of good games, and gave up a couple big ones. We gave up a game here and there, missed a slam, and went for 500 once, but our opponents played decent bridge and we felt we'd played pretty well.
This was a memorable. Bidding from Jon's perspective, lefty opens 1NT and Lovey overalls 2C showing clubs and another suit, 5-4/4-5 or better. Righty doubled for stayman, and Jon is looking at:
AQ98x Jxxx Axx T
Jon bid 2D, on the off chance that Lovey held the other major. Lefty bid 2H and Lovey bid 2S - jackpot! Righty bid 3H, and vul-against not, Jon bid 4S. Do you agree? Jon knew that Lovey would probably have a stiff heart and probably a doubleton diamond, so on a cross-ruff the losers could be as few as a diamond, a heart, and a club or spade. 4S went all check. Lovey played it holding:
KJTx x xx QJ9xxx
A heart was led, and then the defense switched to a diamond. Lovey played the ace, lost a club, and they took their diamond winner. They led a spade back, but Lovey was able to set up clubs by ruffing high on the board and drawing trump from his hand (banking on a 2-2 spade break and a 4-3 club break) for plus 620. Unfortunately, at the other table the result was 3Sx=, so we lost 3 IMPS, but making it did save many IMPS!
The good part about losing when we did is that we lost just in time to enter the FISU trials to represent the US in Poland. The FISU is something in French meaning something like "Federation International Sports University" - um, just translate that into French. It's an international college event, and we're playing on a team with our friends from the MIT club and a pair that was on the Harvard collegiate team. They were nice enough to let us join their existing team at the last minut. We just made it past the round robin, which reduced 6 teams to 4, despite going for 1700 due to a suction gaffe. It won't happen again!
We're now in a four-team double elimination tournament, with the top two teams going to Poland. We're the 4-seed, and decidedly not favored to win, even though our a-priori chance of qualifying is now 50%. Our first match, which is in the works as we write, is against Eric and Victor's team. It rates to be pretty tough. However, even if we lose the match tonight, we can win both matches tomorrow for the right to go to Poland as the second team.
We'll be playing with screens, and on vugraph - we think - tomorrow, so log in around 1pm local (4pm EST) to watch us embarass ourselves (or hopefully not). :)
There were several interesting hands and a few wild swings. We played good part-score defense, bid to lots of good games, and gave up a couple big ones. We gave up a game here and there, missed a slam, and went for 500 once, but our opponents played decent bridge and we felt we'd played pretty well.
This was a memorable. Bidding from Jon's perspective, lefty opens 1NT and Lovey overalls 2C showing clubs and another suit, 5-4/4-5 or better. Righty doubled for stayman, and Jon is looking at:
AQ98x Jxxx Axx T
Jon bid 2D, on the off chance that Lovey held the other major. Lefty bid 2H and Lovey bid 2S - jackpot! Righty bid 3H, and vul-against not, Jon bid 4S. Do you agree? Jon knew that Lovey would probably have a stiff heart and probably a doubleton diamond, so on a cross-ruff the losers could be as few as a diamond, a heart, and a club or spade. 4S went all check. Lovey played it holding:
KJTx x xx QJ9xxx
A heart was led, and then the defense switched to a diamond. Lovey played the ace, lost a club, and they took their diamond winner. They led a spade back, but Lovey was able to set up clubs by ruffing high on the board and drawing trump from his hand (banking on a 2-2 spade break and a 4-3 club break) for plus 620. Unfortunately, at the other table the result was 3Sx=, so we lost 3 IMPS, but making it did save many IMPS!
The good part about losing when we did is that we lost just in time to enter the FISU trials to represent the US in Poland. The FISU is something in French meaning something like "Federation International Sports University" - um, just translate that into French. It's an international college event, and we're playing on a team with our friends from the MIT club and a pair that was on the Harvard collegiate team. They were nice enough to let us join their existing team at the last minut. We just made it past the round robin, which reduced 6 teams to 4, despite going for 1700 due to a suction gaffe. It won't happen again!
We're now in a four-team double elimination tournament, with the top two teams going to Poland. We're the 4-seed, and decidedly not favored to win, even though our a-priori chance of qualifying is now 50%. Our first match, which is in the works as we write, is against Eric and Victor's team. It rates to be pretty tough. However, even if we lose the match tonight, we can win both matches tomorrow for the right to go to Poland as the second team.
We'll be playing with screens, and on vugraph - we think - tomorrow, so log in around 1pm local (4pm EST) to watch us embarass ourselves (or hopefully not). :)
Friday, July 18, 2008
Still in it
On Vegas day 2, we played a 56 board match against the team from District 7 - Athens, GA. We neglected to come up with any regional insults or REM references, but we did play a pretty good set and came out on top. Most of our big wins were on solid defense against overbidding by our opponents games and bad defense to our overbidding :). We were up 3 at the end of the first quarter, and 34 at the half, but at the end of a bad 3rd set, we were down by ten. We had a really strong 4th quarter to end 71-23 for a final score of 163-125.
We won our last 7 boards 54-6 due to many stolen contracts. On one hand, I overbid a lot and ended up in 4H that's about 12%...until our opponents cashed the ace of diamonds off sides. Win 12. On another hand, we bid to a risky 3NT with Axx opposite xx. They lead the Jack of clubs, and her partner, holding Q9, plays the 9! (encouraging?) Partner holds up of course, and the suit blocks and partner gets the second club stopper he needs to make it.
Lovey and I bid about half of the slams we should have, and some good and bad luck. Take a look at this auction:
AL--JB
1D--1H
1S--2C*
2H--3D
3NT-4C
4D--4NT
5H--6D
Would you have pressed on with Jon's hand?
Kx KTxx KQ8 Axxx
Jon couldn't help himself, and Lovey has:
AQxx xxx ATxxx K
The play is sort of interesting too. The slam is on 3-2 diamond break and a heart hook... ish. She leads her ace of hearts (mini sigh of relief), and continues with the queen of hearts. Lovey takes the king, and plays the king of spades, with lefty dropping the jack. Hmm. Lovey plays to the ace, and she drops the ten. King of clubs, small spade, and she hesitates and ruffs with the 9. Lovey overruffs with the king, plays the queen of diamonds, and contines with 8. Righty follows low, and Lovey tanks to decide who has the jack of diamonds. What inferences would you make from lefty's play so far?
Lovey's amazing table spidey-sense figured that she looked guilty and he played the Ace, dropping the jack and wrapping it up. Lucky us! Plus 1370, win 12.
We won our last 7 boards 54-6 due to many stolen contracts. On one hand, I overbid a lot and ended up in 4H that's about 12%...until our opponents cashed the ace of diamonds off sides. Win 12. On another hand, we bid to a risky 3NT with Axx opposite xx. They lead the Jack of clubs, and her partner, holding Q9, plays the 9! (encouraging?) Partner holds up of course, and the suit blocks and partner gets the second club stopper he needs to make it.
Lovey and I bid about half of the slams we should have, and some good and bad luck. Take a look at this auction:
AL--JB
1D--1H
1S--2C*
2H--3D
3NT-4C
4D--4NT
5H--6D
Would you have pressed on with Jon's hand?
Kx KTxx KQ8 Axxx
Jon couldn't help himself, and Lovey has:
AQxx xxx ATxxx K
The play is sort of interesting too. The slam is on 3-2 diamond break and a heart hook... ish. She leads her ace of hearts (mini sigh of relief), and continues with the queen of hearts. Lovey takes the king, and plays the king of spades, with lefty dropping the jack. Hmm. Lovey plays to the ace, and she drops the ten. King of clubs, small spade, and she hesitates and ruffs with the 9. Lovey overruffs with the king, plays the queen of diamonds, and contines with 8. Righty follows low, and Lovey tanks to decide who has the jack of diamonds. What inferences would you make from lefty's play so far?
Lovey's amazing table spidey-sense figured that she looked guilty and he played the Ace, dropping the jack and wrapping it up. Lucky us! Plus 1370, win 12.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Aaaaand we're back (Compression)
Hello again! We (Alex and Jon) have decided to restart this (ex)-Yale bridge blog for the duration of our trip to the Las Vegas NABC. Maybe this will become a regular NABC thing?
This year, we qualified with teammates Dan Wolkowitz and Peter Zoogman for the GNT Cs as the team from New England. For those of you who don't know what the GNT Cs are, it's a "Grand National Teams"... for teams who aren't very good (who roughly have less than 300 masterpoints). The best part about the GNTs is that it's one of the few events where you get a travel stipend. Thanks district 25!
Peter Zoogman had a conflict, so we picked up Dan Recht as our fourth. Dan R started the Princeton club and went to high school with Jon. We got in Tuesday night, iced our Focus water, and synched our sleep schedules with Pacific time for the first day.
The first day of the GNT is a full-day Swiss, with 7 board matches, to compress the field from 23 teams to 16. Compression turned out to be a theme of the day.
In our first match, we enjoyed the full benefit of the VP scale being capped at 20. In 7 boards, we managed to lose 72 to nothing(!!!). Jon and an undisclosed Princetonian each managed to blow enough hands to have us get blitzed individually. For Jon's part, he gave up a trick while trying to cash out a 3NT, and letting a doubled vulnerable contract make when it should go down two. Dan R even managed to pass a Blackwood-asking bid. To top it all off, our opponents bid a 6NT that is only about 9% (if you get the 2-way guess right), which happens to make.
However, the magic of bridge scoring prevents you from losing so much in any one match, or in any one hand, that you can't recover. So we had a good laugh and, having gotten (most of) the bugs out, we managed to fight our way back to above average by the end of the first half. Lovey contributed many good boards, including this one.
Auction:
You Opp Pard Opp
3D-x-4D-4S
all pass.
Your hand:
S Jxx
H void
D AK96532
C Jxx
Lovey underled the AK to Jon's Q, and Jon, holding 5 hearts over Dummy's 6, got the joke and gave a heart ruff, ultimately setting the contract. Lovey thinks this is not that hard but it was pretty dramatic at the table.
In the second half, hilarity continued in match #6. Now you may remember that Dan R had passed an ace-asking bid in match #1. Partner opens 1NT and you (Dan W) hold the following cards:
AKQxxxx
xx
xx?
xx
You bid gerber, and Dan R bids 4H, showing 1/3 aces in their (hastily discussed) methods. Do you bid 5C, asking for kings? Dan W decided that it was too risky and bid 6NT, fearing pard screw up Gerber again and pass. Unfortunately, it was too late for that - Dan W had ALREADY screwed it up! His hand:
xx
AKJTx
Txx
AKx
Dan R had considered opening a heart (and maybe should have, according to some). Quoth the Recht: "For one second, I thought I had bid hearts. Unfortunately, it was for the second I was bidding." 6NT (chosen to avoid a ruff) turned out to be an unlucky decision and opps run 6 diamonds off the top, down 5.
In the almost-as-hiarlious replay:
Op JB Op AL
1H-3D-3S--Pass
4C-P--4NT-Pass
5H-P--6S--All pass
Lovey leads the A from Ax of diamonds, and Jon signals with the J (what DOES that mean exactly, from KQJT9x)? Figuring that our opps would never bid 6S with two dead in the suit Jon preempted, Lovey leads one of his 5 hearts hoping Jon would ruff. However, he had unfortunately forgotten Jon declined to double a 5H Blackwood and overestimated the field a bit. 18 IMPs helped contribute to yet another blitz.
However, we ended up qualifying somehow - 11th out of 16. We were certainly happy that our day of crazy mistakes didn't cost us our tournament lives, and we're looking forward to our all-day match against District 7 (6th seed) today.
In other news, congrats to the new junior USA 2 - Victor, Eric, Kevin, and Roger! They'll probably add two before heading to Beijing in October.
This year, we qualified with teammates Dan Wolkowitz and Peter Zoogman for the GNT Cs as the team from New England. For those of you who don't know what the GNT Cs are, it's a "Grand National Teams"... for teams who aren't very good (who roughly have less than 300 masterpoints). The best part about the GNTs is that it's one of the few events where you get a travel stipend. Thanks district 25!
Peter Zoogman had a conflict, so we picked up Dan Recht as our fourth. Dan R started the Princeton club and went to high school with Jon. We got in Tuesday night, iced our Focus water, and synched our sleep schedules with Pacific time for the first day.
The first day of the GNT is a full-day Swiss, with 7 board matches, to compress the field from 23 teams to 16. Compression turned out to be a theme of the day.
In our first match, we enjoyed the full benefit of the VP scale being capped at 20. In 7 boards, we managed to lose 72 to nothing(!!!). Jon and an undisclosed Princetonian each managed to blow enough hands to have us get blitzed individually. For Jon's part, he gave up a trick while trying to cash out a 3NT, and letting a doubled vulnerable contract make when it should go down two. Dan R even managed to pass a Blackwood-asking bid. To top it all off, our opponents bid a 6NT that is only about 9% (if you get the 2-way guess right), which happens to make.
However, the magic of bridge scoring prevents you from losing so much in any one match, or in any one hand, that you can't recover. So we had a good laugh and, having gotten (most of) the bugs out, we managed to fight our way back to above average by the end of the first half. Lovey contributed many good boards, including this one.
Auction:
You Opp Pard Opp
3D-x-4D-4S
all pass.
Your hand:
S Jxx
H void
D AK96532
C Jxx
Lovey underled the AK to Jon's Q, and Jon, holding 5 hearts over Dummy's 6, got the joke and gave a heart ruff, ultimately setting the contract. Lovey thinks this is not that hard but it was pretty dramatic at the table.
In the second half, hilarity continued in match #6. Now you may remember that Dan R had passed an ace-asking bid in match #1. Partner opens 1NT and you (Dan W) hold the following cards:
AKQxxxx
xx
xx?
xx
You bid gerber, and Dan R bids 4H, showing 1/3 aces in their (hastily discussed) methods. Do you bid 5C, asking for kings? Dan W decided that it was too risky and bid 6NT, fearing pard screw up Gerber again and pass. Unfortunately, it was too late for that - Dan W had ALREADY screwed it up! His hand:
xx
AKJTx
Txx
AKx
Dan R had considered opening a heart (and maybe should have, according to some). Quoth the Recht: "For one second, I thought I had bid hearts. Unfortunately, it was for the second I was bidding." 6NT (chosen to avoid a ruff) turned out to be an unlucky decision and opps run 6 diamonds off the top, down 5.
In the almost-as-hiarlious replay:
Op JB Op AL
1H-3D-3S--Pass
4C-P--4NT-Pass
5H-P--6S--All pass
Lovey leads the A from Ax of diamonds, and Jon signals with the J (what DOES that mean exactly, from KQJT9x)? Figuring that our opps would never bid 6S with two dead in the suit Jon preempted, Lovey leads one of his 5 hearts hoping Jon would ruff. However, he had unfortunately forgotten Jon declined to double a 5H Blackwood and overestimated the field a bit. 18 IMPs helped contribute to yet another blitz.
However, we ended up qualifying somehow - 11th out of 16. We were certainly happy that our day of crazy mistakes didn't cost us our tournament lives, and we're looking forward to our all-day match against District 7 (6th seed) today.
In other news, congrats to the new junior USA 2 - Victor, Eric, Kevin, and Roger! They'll probably add two before heading to Beijing in October.
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