Playing with LotG

In another blog a bridge friend is described as "The Lady of the House", LotH for short. It seems more appropriate to use Lady of the Garden for Hels.

LotG spends her time playing Scrabble, gardening, dog walking and keeping her blog updated. The only bridge played down south would be the annual trip to Porthcawl in November, where they hold a very friendly congress and we can visit our friends in Barry. Nowadays this has been replaced with the annual Berwick Congress, a one-day affair at the end of the winter season.

LotG is quite a good player. Lack of practice means that she takes longer than some but she gets most things right. Despite limited opportunities, we have won Mixed Pairs titles in Berkshire and Wales and she is quite comfortable playing against world-class players. I believe that the pressure of playing Scrabble at the highest levels helps a lot with confidence, concentration and a healthy lack of respect for reputations. The only time I've seen any nervousness was when she was asked to partner Eric Crowhurst in a national competition (and even then she said that it was their team mates who were to blame for the defeat!).

Originally we played a simple Acol but now we play a very simple 2/1 system (PDF). This was simple enough to teach in the 30 minute car drive to the club one evening. Combined with an aggressive style it seems to work.

Last year we won the Berwick Congress Pairs with a 69% score. This year was less successful as we finished in the middle of the field with 52%. It is a very mixed-ability field and you need a fair share of luck to be playing the right boards against the right players and nothing we did this time worked. The cards ran mainly in the other direction so, most of the time, we were not in control of our own destiny. I thought we played well but we never really stood a chance of doing well.

In the evening we played with Reg and Jean in the Swiss Teams. Four rounds of six boards is a real shootout and we started well with a maximum win, despite losing a slam swing. However in the next two matches LotG and I missed two games, as did Reg and Jean, and a near maximum in the final match only got us up to fifth place. We had our opportunities but at least the winning team came from the Berwick club.

Solving the teaching maze

"Shep says I need 3 of the top 5 honours; Paul says Juniors do it with 5; Allan won't do it with a 4-card side suit; Oliver's seem very weak. I'm confused, who should I believe?"

A wide range of people offer their time freely to the BBO Beginner/Intermediate Lounge (BIL). Their playing ability goes from world-class to recent BIL graduates. Their teaching ability goes from nationally-qualified to 'just wanting to help out'. You will find excellent players who cannot teach a fish to swim. There are very good teachers who would rarely score above 50% in the club duplicate. And naturally the other extremes can be found too.

There are those that explicitly teach within a rigid format or to a rigid system. And others who just use random hands and focus less on system and more on style and judgement in a more free-flowing way.

The common factor is that they are all trying to help the BIL members. If you attend multiple sessions, as many do, then there is a danger that you will receive conflicting advice. There are few absolutes in bridge and the style and judgement of the individual BIL mentors and teachers will come out.

My advice is to find those teachers that provide you with a solid foundation in a style that you are comfortable with. Attend other sessions but, in the case of conflict, go back to your trusted advisor while noting that there are alternatives.

RBS interest rate increase

The penultimate round of the RBS Pairs at the club saw us leapfrog ahead of our rivals and we will take a small lead into the final night of the championship next month.

Hels always accuses me of underestimating scores on bridge nights and yesterday was no exception, our 63% being 6% above my estimate. In a small field (8 tables) it can be difficult to estimate the first few boards accurately and board 4 was a major contributor to the difference:

Bd 4; Pairs; Game All; Dealer West

North
♠ 10 x
♥ A K J 10
♦ A
♣ A K x x x x

South
♠ x x
♥ x x x x
♦ x x x
♣ Q J 10 x

West...North..East...South
Pass....1♣.....2♠....Pass
Pass....3♥....All Pass

With 4-card support for both my suits, I thought Reg could have bid 4♥. In his defence, I am known for being quite aggressive in the auction and it is matchpoints (at IMPs I think a raise is clear). With two spades and one heart to lose, game was trivial and our +170 looked like a poor score especially as the first table to play this had scored +620. So I scored it as a bottom but it transpired that everyone else played in clubs and we actually had a second top - ~4% difference in the estimate!

There was an amusing board halfway during the evening:

Bd 12; Pairs; NS Game; Dealer West

North
♠ Q x x
♥ x x x
♦ A K Q J x
♣ x x

South
♠ A K x x
♥ x x
♦ 10 9 x x x
♣ x x

West...North..East...South
Pass....1NT...All Pass

East hesitated over my bid so I knew something bad was likely to happen. Sure enough, the ♣K lead was overtaken and a club returned, and East proceeded to cash her seven clubs! Luckily the defence lost its way and only took three hearts tricks, but four down (-400) did not look good ... until we opened the traveller and saw a line of -450 scores for 5♥ - another near top for us. It transpired that East-West had not discussed their defence to 1NT, so the meaning of a 2♣ overcall was unclear and East decided that a Pass at this vulnerability would be fine. And if they'd taken all their tricks she would have been right.

In truth we did not play particularly well and had to be grateful for gifts received. Hopefully we can put together a more consistent performance in the final round.

Transfers in competition

We play many transfers in competitive auctions. In fact, we are finding more opportunities for this all the time and our problem is to define which we have actually agreed!

A recent change is to invert the meaning of bids in well-defined auctions. In particular, when we have opened the bidding and traditional suit bids would be forcing, we interchange the bids to provide some invitational options at the cost of deprecating a minor suit.

For example,

1NT...(3♣)...Double = take-out
...................3♦ = 5+♥, invitational or better
...................3♥ = 5+♠, invitational or better
...................3♠ = 5+♦, game forcing

The concept also applies to auctions such as:

1♠...(2♣)...Double = take-out
...................2♦ = 5+♥, invitational or better
...................2♥ = 5+♦, invitational or better

So far we have identified the following auctions where it makes sense to use this idea:

1♣...(1♠)
1♣...(2♣=nat)
1♣...(2♦)
1♣...(2♠)
1♣...(3♣=nat)
1♦...(2♣)
1♦...(3♣)
1♠...(2♣)
1♠...(3♣)
1NT..(3♣/3♦)
2♠...(3♣) (Our other opening two-bids are conventional)

We already play transfers when we overcall and have decided not to introduce this scheme to those situations yet.

The finishing post - no photo required

The final league match of the season for the 49ers and a comfortable victory gave us the title.

I played with Les and he was not impressed by my final bid on the first hand of the evening:

Bd 2; Aggregate; NS Game; Dealer East

North
♠ K J 10
♥ K J 10 x x
♦ Q x
♣ A J x

South
♠ A x x
♥ Q 9 x x
♦ A J 9 x
♣ K x

West...North..East...South
...............3♣.....Dbl
Pass....4♣....Pass....4♥
Pass....5♣....Pass....5♦
Pass....5♥....Pass....6♥
All Pass

Pass should have been my final call. I had shown all my values and it is a poor slam. The spade lead solved the problem in that suit and with the ♦K well placed even the 4-0 heart break could be overcome.

On the second hand the opponents misplayed a game and we were immediately +2000 to the good. Things got slightly worse after that as we let a no-play game make when Fiona did well to put us to the critical decision at trick 2, and Les tried to minimise the damage in a tough 2NT contract but only succeeded in maximising it :) And then we slopped a few overtricks in some boring part scores. But the team still had a 2,000 point lead at the break.

The second half was a wild affair with three slam hands. We bid the obvious slam, the opponents missed theirs, and then I had this problem:

Bd 16; Aggregate; EW Game; Dealer West

South
♠ K J x x x
♥ x x
♦ -
♣ A 10 x x x x

West...North..East...South
Pass....1♥....Pass....1♠
.2♦.....3♣.....3♦.....4♦
Pass....6♣....All Pass

Playing 2/1 I was not strong enough to start with 2♣ and not looking forward to the problem of rebidding after partner's expected 2♦ response. However the auction took a surprising turn and I had an easy 4♦ bid. Les' 6♣ is clearly sign-off but I thought for some time before passing; I had a lot more than I could have but, in the end, decided there was a small chance of a heart loser. Of course Les had three aces and the trumps were solid, so we made thirteen tricks. Malcolm and Dave also bid this small slam, Sam and Diana unsuccessfully sacrificed in 5♦ (-1100) but Iain and Patrick saw their opponents go down in 4♥ (!).

The rest of the second half saw us take advantage of oppo's errors and we finished with +4,040. Dave and Malcolm were +2,500 (with the same cards) and, surprisingly, Iain and Patrick were also positive with Sam and Di being -1,000. Final score: 49ers 24,750:16,870 Grosvenor Aces

The 49ers finish the season with 7 wins, 1 tie and 1 loss. I played in seven matches with Kenny, Iain, Sam, Finlay, Les (2) and Patrick - this seems to fulfil the role of filler in!

Updating our 1NT response structure

We have been thinking about modifying our response structure to 1NT without doing anything about it. However a post by Fred Gitelman on the BBO Forums has got us started.

Our new system looks like this:

2♣ is Stayman. It may be the start of Smolen (game forcing major 2-suiter) or a relay auction with a very strong hand.

2♦ is a transfer to hearts, showing 5+ hearts (any strength) or a game forcing hand with both minors

2♥ is a transfer to spades, showing 5+ spades

2♠ shows an invitational hand in either minor, or a game forcing hand with diamonds

2NT shows an weak hand in either minor, or a game forcing hand with clubs

3♣ is Puppet Stayman

3♦ shows any game forcing 4441 with a major suit singleton

3♥ shows 9 cards in the minors with heart shortage, typically 31(45)

3♠ shows 9 cards in the minors with spade shortage, typically 13(45)

3NT is to play

4♣ is a transfer to hearts, showing a hand that has no interest in slam (unless it bids RKCB next)

4♦ is a transfer to spades, showing a hand that has no interest in slam (unless it bids RKCB next)

4♥, 4♠ are to play

4NT is Blackwood

There are a few interesting elements from Gitelman's system we are also using:

• after a major suit transfer, we use transfers to show invitational or better hands with 5-card major and 4-card minor
• we now put 5-5 invitational major hands into the spade transfer, so this has released 3♦ to cope with the awkward 4441 hands. Fred actually uses all the 3-level responses for 4441 shapes but we prefer to keep Puppet Stayman.

The major downsides of this new system are:

• Balanced hands with a 5-card major can no longer invite, so you need to take another approach with these
• Invitational hands with 5-4 majors use Stayman, so we stay lower than previously but with less definition

Neither of these is a major problem given that we never play matchpointed pairs.

Sitting in for Malcolm

Malcolm had a hip operation two weeks ago and is recovering well. I am told that he is the ideal patient and so unable to play in the Scott Cup at the club. This meant that I was drafted in to play with Kathy.

We agreed a simple system (Acol, 12-14NT, weak 2s in three suits, normal count) and had a successful session. The team's score of 93 VP was nine ahead of second place, and probably assures Malcolm, Kathy, Brian and George of the trophy.

The boards seemed quite tame to us and there were only a couple of boards where we could have done significantly better.

Bd 19; Pairs; EW Game; Dealer South

West
♠ A Q
♥ K 10 9 2
♦ A 9
♣ K 7 5 4 3

I opened this 1♣ and had to choose a rebid after Kathy's 1♠. After a heavy 1NT I passed Kathy's 2♠ bid and saw her make eleven tricks. All this needed was South to hold ♠KJ, the ♥J and ♣A and to avoid a diamond lead.

The other interesting hand was a competitive problem. What do you overcall after an opening weak 1NT (12-14) on your right, opposite a passed partner, holding:

Bd 4; Pairs; Game All; Dealer West

East
♠ A Q 10 9 8 7 4
♥ K Q
♦ -
♣ K 8 5 4

Kathy chose 3♠ but I passed holding three small spades and the ♣A, so again eleven tricks rolled in. I generally play that a jump overcall of 1NT is distributional rather than strong, so I expected this sort of shape but, perhaps, with two small hearts. It's certainly not a clear cut decision and I'm sure Kathy will ask Malcolm's opinion. I did the same and asked Helen: she eventually plumped for 4♠ so at least we are on the same page.

Update: I gave this hand to the great unwashed (aka bridge players on the Internet) and there was support for 2♠ and 3♠. The clear majority went for 4♠ but I thought the best arguments were put forward by the 'double and then bid 3♠' brigade. Of those who expressed an opinion, all would have raised to game with my hand.

Camrose problem

I was watching Tim, a friend from the south, playing for Wales in the Camrose when he faced the following problem:

Bd 10; IMPs; Game All; Dealer East

North
♠ J 7 6 3
♥ 6 5
♦ J 10 9 8 6 5 3
♣ -

West...North..East...South
...............1♥.....Dble
Rdble...?

What would you call? Answer in the comments and I'll provide Tim's call in a few days.

Camrose update

A much better weekend for the Scotland team as they moved up two places to fourth (Camrose final table). They started well with a losing draw with the England team and played consistently until losing heavily in the last match against the Holders (Republic of Ireland).

Overall I was disappointed to see that the Irish won so comfortably and that no major challenger to them emerged. Although the result might have been expected if the Irish had been at full strength, personal circumstances meant McGann and Carroll were unavailable, so they played as a four-man team with only one regular partnership. Additionally Hanlon played most of Sunday while ill with flu and their non-playing captain replaced him in the last set against Scotland.

Traditionally England has been the strongest country but they finished a distant second this time. None of their pairs played particularly well with mistakes rife, something that is cruelly exposed to a wide audience by the vugraph provided by the SBU and Bridge Base Online.

As I'm frequently heard to say, I believe the problem (for all countries) is a lack of high-quality competition on a regular basis. There too few tough weekends in the UK and players get lazy. Perhaps they will consider a proper league system, country- or UK-wide, at some point.