Another drive by blogging this morning, which is possible thanks to my magically working-again laptop. Without warning, my laptop screen actually booted up on the 11th try? If tries were independent (a suspect assumption), then at an alpha of 5% the chance of it booting up any given time is at least, er, about 5/1000. Oh man, that doesn't make me feel comfortable. Maybe I'll be leaving the laptop on...
Anyhow, Wednesday was great fun. We made less (fewer!) mistakes at the table, and grabbed a 51% in the morning and 56% in the evening. It's become increasingly obvious that we should be happy with those scores at this club. Monday night and last night were fairly tame, but the fields Tuesday and Wednesday morning were really sharp. So that 51% might be our best accomplishement. Also hysterically (hilariously!) enough, all but one session has given us .7 silver for 1st C or 2nd B - whether we got a 46% or a 51%, we beat the same three other people in the C strat. The one actually decent score, 56% for second A, was worth only 1.1 silver. I'm sure better bridge players than us don't think about weirdnesses like this often, but Masterpoints are a broken system...
To make the day even better, Lovey and I each spent $7.50 for food today, total, and that's including two beers each. Happy hour special at 4pm with bridge players - hard to beat.
Speaking of hard to beat, 1NT wasn't for us, as we set it for 300, 200, and 150 in the same session, earning us an average of 79%. Defense has been good to us today. Even more random is that I held the following hands IN A ROW in the morning: 18 high, AKQ 5th of D; 20 high 4 trip 3; (one boring); 20 high 4-by-1; AKQJ 8th of diamonds, A9x hearts, Kx clubs. Then later in the session I held ANOTHER 20 HCP hand, 4432. Three out of these 5 times, my partner opened the bidding! Our average on the those boards: 26%. I feel like this might be telling us something about our slam bidding... and declarer play.
The most fun board for me was the following one, which I actually declared well--by accident. The defense is a little tricky, and because they gave it away I ended up making an interesting endplay. I'll give it to you from their perspective. You as west (rotated) hold
S 9
H 432
D KQT
C AQJ943
The vulnerability is favorable for you, at matchpoints. South deals and opens a heart. You overcall 2C, north doubles, pass, opener rebids 2H. You pass, all float. First of all, what do you lead? I probably lead a diamond like an idiot, but if you said a spade, so far so good. Dummy comes down with:
JT8752
9
AJ65
62
Partner plays K and then A, dropping the Q from south's hand. What do you discard? The 4 or 3 of clubs is unlikely to get the club lead through declarer you want, and the 9 would be important if declarer held KTXX...but then you could give partner his onside trump honor by leading a 3rd club. So I think I'd play the nine of clubs. A neutral heart also might be right, because partner should figure this one out. On the actual hand, he actually signaled with the 4 of clubs, and instead of east leading a club like he wanted, east led another "safe" spade, forcing declarer to trump high. Now look at it from my hand as declarer, south. I have remaining
S void
H AQJT65
D 42
C K5
What's your plan? I tank and lead a diamond up to my AJxx, planning to win the ace, take the heart finesse, and lose two clubs and a diamond hopefully catching the king onside (which is likely) and doubleton as my only line to make. But that's obviously wrong. I really should finesse the jack of diamonds in case west has KQ and doesn't split her honors, because I can rough another spade return high and this loses nothing on the old line. But I'm not thinking of that. Fortunately for me, west does split her honors, because now I cover with the ace, finesse the heart, drop the king with the ace, and play a diamond. No thanks to me, west is endplayed. She knows she has to win her king of diamonds, but now she either has to lead a small diamond and let me pitch a club or lead away from her AQJ. Making +1 is worth 86%. w00t!
Life is good. We'll post again soon.
1 comment:
dayem, don't you wish you were playing rubber bridge with all those monster hands in a row.
A spade lead is much better than diamond in the hand you've posted, also saving a Club nine to guard against K10xx is bad bridge. The defender need only think for 2 secs to realize she'll get endplayed after not 2 rounds (against K10xx) but just one (what really happened).
ALSO, after 2 rounds of spade with your partner on lead, you cant see 3 clubs tricks, I'd even throw Club Queen [(if I'm playing with bitt, =D emphatic adventurous signalling, i know you remember some of those :)] because if partner has 2 clubs and declarer 3, perhaps partner has a bigger trump than dummy's 432 to ruff the third. Which could be our 5th trick and now we wait patiently for a diamond.
Cheers
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