Gold Cup progress

We have moved into the last 32 of the Gold Cup with a comfortable but tight victory against Clive Owen's Durham/Newcastle team.

We were the only Scottish team drawn against an England team and we decided to play at their venue despite the distances involved. For Harry this meant about 4 hours travelling each way, but just over 1.5 hours for me. Alex left even earlier than Harry, coming up from south-east London but stayed overnight and had a leisurely train back today.

The set scores were 15-10, 47-30, 24-14, 15-12, 20-1 and 11-10 to win 132-77 IMPs. Pleasingly we won every set.

We gained 10 IMPs in the first set when we reached the right game and managed to make it.

♠ K ♥ xx ♦ KT9 ♣ ATxxxxx

♠ ATx ♥ KJxxx ♦ xx ♣ KJx

West	North	East	South
Paul		Alex
			p
p	p	1♥	1♠
1NT1	4♠	p	p
5♣	p	p	p

¹ Transfer to clubs

Unsurprisingly a spade was led. Clearly the contract needs the ♦A onside. The simple overcall and the leap by a passed hand suggested that North would be more distributional so I led a club to the ♣K. North indeed showed out, so I discarded a heart on the ace of spades and led a diamond. South ducked so I played my ♦K and continued the suit. The defence cannot prevent the diamond ruff and subsequent club finesse for the contract.

In the other room less preemption saw the opponents finish in 4♥, which did not make.

In each of the first four sets Alex and I bid a thin game missed at the other table and this was a major contribution to the win. Disappointedly we misdefended a couple of games but Harry and Finlay were solid throughout and we always had the momentum in the match.

There will be four Scottish teams in the round of 32, Short and Sime being seeded, but Harry believes we'll be drawn against English teams.

Update: Harry was wrong and we play McGinley (the new #16 seed after beating Sime) in the next round.

Another boring set of hands ... until the end

Jules and I played our final match in the March League and another boring set of hands. Even so we missed a few chances and it needed a slam on the last board to give us a narrow win.

♠ AQ5 ♥ Q87 ♦ AJT8654 ♣

♠ KT876 ♥ K54 ♦ K7 ♣ K92

West	North	East	South
Paul	LJ	Jules	JK
	p	1NT1	p
3♦2	p	3NT	p
4♣3	X	4♥3	p
6♦	p	p	p

¹ 12-14 NT
² Slam try
³ Cue bid (1st or 2nd round)

JK's double suggested that Jules would not have too many wasted club values, and the subsequent heart cue bid drove us to slam. JK hesitated over the slam, so it was no surprise when he led out two aces. As it sounded like he had club values too, I was planning to finesse LJ for the trump queen but it appeared on the second round so that was 11 IMPs to the good.

100 hands played, we have declared 45 of them and bid to a game contract on 21 of these, including 4 slams: meanwhile the opponents have bid 29 game contracts including 2 slams.

Lack of excitement

Penultimate round of the Scott Cup and I'm back at the club playing with Malcolm. The hands were fairly quiet and, aside from me letting through a non-vulnerable game, there was little we could seem to do. We didn't do anything exciting and the opposition made their normal number of errors, so we finished in second place on 89/140 VPs.

Actually we thought we'd won on a split tie, but it later transpired that Penny's team had only counted six of their matches and they finished well clear on 103/140 VPs.

Slams'r'us

Another three matches in the Acol league and the cards are starting to be a little friendlier. Our slam bidding is bringing in the IMPs too:

♠ A ♥ J9 ♦ AKQxxxx ♣ Axx

♠ xx ♥ AKx ♦ Jxx ♣ Kxxxx

West	North	East	South
Jules	spiregrain	Paul	mickskid1
	p	1NT1	p
4♣2	p	4♥3	p
6♦	p	p	p

¹ 12-14 points, supposedly
² Gerber, asking for aces
³ one ace

12 tricks for a 8.5 IMPs. Two boards later:

♠ A9xx ♥ AK ♦ KQ9xx ♣ KT

♠ KQxx ♥ xx ♦ Axx ♣ QJ9x

West	North	East	South
Jules	spiregrain	Paul	mickskid1
			p
1♦	p	1♠	p
4♠	p	4NT1	p
5♥2	p	6♠	p
p	p

¹ Blackwood
² Two aces

12 tricks were worth 11.5 IMPs. And, in the next match, a more complex auction that did not have the certainty of the previous two, but ended up with the right result:

♠ AJ8xx ♥ Axx ♦ A ♣ K9xx

♠ T9x ♥ T9x ♦ KQ9 ♣ AQxx

West	North	East	South
Paul	kart man	Jules	EddieU
			p
1♠	p	2♣	p
4♣	p	4♠	p
5♦	p	5♠	p
6♣	p	p	p

12 tricks and 12.3 IMPs.

90 hands played, we have declared 39 of them and bid to a game contract on 20 of these, including 3 slams: meanwhile the opponents have bid 27 game contracts including 2 slams.

Hesitations

One of my recommendations to Jules in the Acol Pairs League is not to rush. When playing online there is a tendency to play faster than normal, with bids and cards being made quickly. It requires a deliberate effort to give yourself time to think.

Sometimes you will have a real problem and need more time to consider what to do. At these times it is best to say 'thinking' to the table: this lets them know that you are still there and the delay is not due to your (or their) Internet connection. It is not an infraction to think, but it does create unauthorised information (UI) for your partner.

When partner is in receipt of UI, the Laws say "the partner may not choose from among logical alternatives one that could demonstrably have been suggested over another" (Law 16B1(a)).

A logical alternative action is one that, among the class of players in question and using the methods of the partnership, would be given serious consideration by a significant proportion of such players, of whom it is judged some might select it (16B1(b)).

Actually, I think that Law 73C does a better job of explaining the principle:

When a player has available to him unauthorized information from his partner, such as from a remark, question, explanation, gesture, mannerism, undue emphasis, inflection, haste or hesitation, an unexpected alert or failure to alert, he must carefully avoid taking any advantage from that unauthorized information.

So, in last night's match, I was sitting there holding

♠ 63 ♥ K63 ♦ K73 ♣ KQJT3

South passed and there was a pause, then a 'thinking' from Jules, and eventually a 1♠ bid. North passed.

So now I am in receipt of UI. Jules does not have a simple boring 1♠ bid. She would not take so long to open a weakish hand, so it is probably either (i) very strong, (2) highly distributional or (3) both.

However I have no problem with my first bid, as the entire world would bid 2♣ with my hand. South passed and then another pause from Jules, another 'thinking' and then a 4♠ bid.

In most systems, 4♠ would show a single-suited hand that is too strong for a 4♠ pre-emptive opener. However, with this kind of hand I would only expect one hesitation, not both, so I was pretty convinced that she had a strong hand and was unsure how to get this across in the auction.

But, of course, I cannot take advantage of this. With an aceless hand it is clear to pass. Jules should not have a solid spade suit and two outside aces for this action, so there is little chance of slam.

So I passed.

What would happen if I had bid on? Well, the opponents should call the Tournament Director (TD), tell him the facts, and ask whether my bidding over 4♠ was influenced by the UI. The TD would probably rule "yes", and then assign us an adjusted score (like installing a pass over 4♠ rather than my bid).

As I am an experienced tournament player I would expect a procedural penalty as this is a blatant case of using UI and I should know better.

It is were the other way around and Jules held my hand, then being far less experienced, she would probably receive an explanation of her obligations when UI is present and a warning not to repeat this.

In summary, Jules did nothing wrong on this hand taking her time to call. She passed unauthorised information to me, but this is not an infraction. I did not act on the UI, so I did not commit an infraction.

And, in this case, virtue was its own reward. We missed a good slam, but it went down on a bad trump break.

Pau team and event details

I am the captain of the Scottish Women Bridge Team competing in the 49th European Team Championships. This tournament is held in Pau, France, starting 14th June 2008, with the Women series starting play on 19th June 2008.

Our Team is:

• Sheila Adamson and Anne Martin
• Michele Alexander and Joyce Benson
  
• Liz McGowan and Fiona McQuaker

The Women series will be played as a complete round robin with all teams playing each other. It is anticipated that there will be 20-25 teams and matches will be of 20 boards.

The website for the event is http://eurobridge.org/competitions/08Pau/Pau.htm.

I am planning to keep a blog before and during the event. Let me know if you have any questions or would like to know anything about the team or the event.

American Nationals ... or is it?

The Spring NABC has just finished in Detroit.

Justin was a key part of the team that created the shock of the tournament when they knocked Nickell out of the Vanderbilt in the round of 32 (and through to the quarters too).

However, looking at the leading masterpoint winners for the event suggest that it may have been more of a European affair.

Masterpoint leaders in Detroit

1 257.50 Krzysztof Martens,Poland
2 257.50 Krzysztof Jassem, Poland
3 251.99 Boguslaw Gierulski,Poland
4 251.99 Jerry Skrzypczak, Poland
5 238.46 Louk Verhees, Netherlands
6 198.96 Krzysztof Buras, Poland
7 198.96 Grzegorz Narkiewicz, Poland
8 193.44 Larry Cohen, Boca Raton FL
9 193.44 David Berkowitz, Boca Raton FL
10 191.14 Jeff Meckstroth, Tampa FL
11 187.61 Bruce Ferguson, Boise ID
12 187.61 Robert Hollman, Santa Barbara CA
13 180.00 Russell Ekeblad, Providence RI
14 180.00 Jan Jansma, Netherlands
15 180.00 Marcin Lesniewski, Poland
16 180.00 Peter Weichsel, Encinitas CA
17 180.00 Ron Rubin, Miami FL
18 178.71 Eric Rodwell, Clearwater Bch FL
19 166.93 Chris Compton, Dallas TX
20 163.50 Kyle Larsen, San Francisco CA
21 163.50 Tor Helness, Norway
22 163.50 Rose Meltzer, Los Gatos CA
23 163.50 Geir Helgemo, Norway
24 162.14 Perry Johnson, Bloomfield Hls MI
25 160.33 Dan Jacob, Vancouver BC

The Summer NABC will be in Las Vegas. I'll be there with my Anglo-Scottish team, so hope to see many readers there.

Close but no cigar

We lost to the Outred team yesterday in the quarter-final of the Scottish Cup. It was a tight affair but disappointing to lose a 17 IMP lead going into the last 12 boards.

All the boards were hand-dealt, but there were mutterings about the computer on this hand from the first quarter.

♠ AKT9xxxx ♥ Axx ♦ J ♣ A

West	North	East	South
David	Miro	Paul	Brian
			p
1♦	1♥	?

I went for the practical option of 6♠. David put down no spades but he did have the top 3 diamonds, but Miro also had no spades (!!) so I went down two. This gained 7 IMPs when the contract was doubled in the other room.

We were down by 3 IMPs at the quarter and it was the same at the half. The third set was also tight but a poor slam and a poor lead gave us a 17 IMPs lead. Two missed games and a big penalty meant that we were well behind, and this was the final straw:

♠ KQJ ♥ Axx ♦ Kxxxx ♣ Kx

♠ Axx ♥ x ♦ A98x ♣ Axxxx

West	North	East	South
David	Charles	Paul	Vi
1NT	p	3♣1	p
3♦	p	3♠	p
6♦	p	p	p

¹ 5+ clubs, 4+ diamonds, game forcing

An excellent slam wrecked by a 4-0 diamond break. that they missed at the other table. So a 25 IMP swing but it would not have been enough to change the result.

Close ...

A safe line

Another Acol league match, against the leaders. A very boring set of hands, except they missed an obvious slam (that went unpunished as most missed it), and the scores were really determined by the random events at other tables.

There was another classic 3NT problem. This one really is an intermediate problem and will not deteriorate into the complexities of the last one!

♠ AKQ54 ♥ J63 ♦ 872 ♣ Q2

♠ J3 ♥ AK7 ♦ K93 ♣ AJ874

West	North	East	South
	Paul		Jules
		p	1♣
p	1♠	p	1NT
p	3NT	p	p
p

West led the ♥8. How do you play the hand? Consider how many tricks you have, what the threat may be, and how you can develop the additional tricks required safely.

Jules made the contract comfortably.

60 hands played, we have declared 22 of them and bid to a game contract on 11 of these: meanwhile the opponents have bid 21 game contracts including 2 slams.

A Perfect Season

We won the final league match against Falkirk, our main rivals, last night. A perfect season, league champions and winning all nine matches for the first time in the team's history.

The match did not start well for Patrick and I. I doubled a weak 1NT holding ♠AKx ♥Txx ♦AKx ♣Qxxx, Patrick had five points and passed, and it was solid for 8 tricks (-280).

Things did not improve. We bid a poor slam when Patrick overstated his hand, a fatal mistake opposite me, and then missed a game that everyone else bid - to be fair, the non-vulnerable game is against the odds (DM Pro suggests 45%) so we should be lauded! All this meant that we were solely responsible for the team being 700 points down at the half.

The second half went better. The opponents missed a slam, we defeated a game when I found the only winning switch at trick 2, but we had one poor board. Opposite a passed hand, at favourable vulnerability, I doubled a 1♦ bid holding ♠AKxx ♥xxx ♦Jxx ♣K10x. Although this looks silly, it's really not as dangerous as it looks. Partner is unlikely to overbid as a passed hand, vulnerable opponents are unlikely to double early in the auction, and it may allow us to establish a good lead or fit and disturb their auction.

Unfortunately this was a time where partner had a wild hand. Roy, on my left, bid 4♦ and Patrick came in with 4♥. As Moray now bid 5♦ I was happy that they seemed to be in a poor spot, but it never occurred to me that Patrick would bid again, but he did. Naturally he was bidding 5♥ to make, but we lost -300 with their contract only making 10 tricks. Patrick held ♠xxxx ♥AKxxxx ♦- ♣Jxx and his bidding was fine.

In the end we recovered the 700 points in the second half and finished on roughly the same score as three of the other tables. But Dave/Malcolm were significantly better than the rest and we finished up by 1500 points for a sound win.

Grant, the 49er braving out the winter in Spain, says,

"Strangely enough despite our very many league wins we have never had a perfect season winning every match. Since we won the league for the first time when Les joined us from Craigleith for a large fee about twenty years ago we have always been first or second - apart from one year when X and Y drove us into fourth position before being promptly fired - lots of laughs. This year promises also to be an AMP record score.

Some fine ex-49ers

Andrew (Tosh) McIntosh
Tommy Garvey
Iain Crorie
Alex Adamson
James Forbes
Alan Ferguson
the late Fiona O'Brien"

Don't Panic!

We have played a further three matches in the Acol Pairs League. The standard of bridge is not high but it is proving tough as the cards continue to be against us. Out of the 50 hands played, we have declared only 15 of them and bid to a game contract on 8 of these: meanwhile the opponents have bid 19 game contracts including 2 slams.

Still it means that our defence is getting a workout.

Last night Jules got to play one of our non-game contracts, although it came with game bonus potential.

♠ K632 ♥ T643 ♦ J94 ♣ K7

♠ A6 ♥ A982 ♦ KT62 ♣ AQJ

West	North	East	South
	Paul		Jules
p	p	p	1♥
p	2♥	X	p
p	p

Just as she was wondering which game try to make, Jules found herself doubled in 2♥.

West led a small spade and Jules won in dummy to lead a trump. Unsurprisingly East showed out, so Jules played the ♥8 and West won. The club switch was won in dummy and the ♦J led, covered by the ♦Q and ruffed by West! But Jules now had trump control, to the extent that she could only lose two more, and could concede the ♦A to make eight tricks for +670.

Cruising into the final

We had a comfortable win in the semi-final of the Atholl Cup last night, despite Sam's cold and a wild set of boards in the final set. The Atholl is pivot teams over 30 boards, so you can get strange results when irregular partnerships play each other.

Playing with Dee first we established a 26-4 IMPs after the 10 boards. One game swing was achieved when Dee managed to find the ♦10 lead from ♦AK10985 against 3NT, which established six tricks for us: Alan and Sam's auction was different and somehow they persuaded the opponent not to lead this suit. The second swing occurred when Dee and I found that a 5-2 spade fit played a lot better than 3NT.

Board 10 was a classic problem of how to play 3NT. In fact it's a good enough example that it could come from a play book.

♠ A32 ♥ K2 ♦ K982 ♣ AT92

♠ KQ54 ♥ A3 ♦ JT43 ♣ K43

West	North	East	South
Carolyn	Dee	Fiona	Paul
p	1♦	p	1♠
p	2♠	p	3♣
p	3♥	p	3NT
p	p	p

Carolyn led the ♥5. How do you play the hand? For full marks you must state where you win the first trick.

The second set with Alan started well when we took +800 with a perfect defence, instead of our vulnerable game. I then overbid this hand:

♠ Tx ♥ Kxxxxx ♦ x ♣ KTxx

South opened a weak 2♦ and Alan overcalled 2♠. North raised to 3♦ and I made an aggressive double.

Alan responded 4♣, so I thought I'd have one try at playing in 4♥ hoping that this did not sound like a cue bid. Alan went back to spades and I corrected to 5♣. Lack of aces meant that we were down one, but this allowed Dee and Sam to make 5♦ doubled so we gained 10 IMPs. We blitzed the set 30-0 to have a 52 IMPs lead going into the final 10 boards.

Now in our most established line up and the boards turned wild. On the first board we found the only lead to let a slam through, then the opposition missed a good slam (phew!), then we bid and made a thin slam (comfortable now!). On the fourth board Sam balanced against 1♣ (mind you, she did have a good hand), but eventually we doubled their 4♠ contract and held it to an overtrick.

On board six they missed a game, but Alan and Dee would go off in it. And on the final board Sam unwisely overcalled their weak notrump and I was looking at -800 until a kind defence let me get out for one down and a flat board.

The set score was 21-44 but we'd won by 77-48 IMPs.

Criss cross

Criss-cross squeezes are rare. Of course if you read the bridge literature then they happen all the time, but they are rarely spotted in real life. They are fragile creatures, easily broken by both declarer and defenders.

So, in a BBO tourney this afternoon, I needed a lot of help to see one. To be fair, the defence actually set up the position, a case of building rather than breaking, but at least I did spot the potential for this rare coup.

	♠ AT7 ♥ QT52 ♦ KT3 ♣ K64
♠ Q8652 ♥ K86 ♦ A54 ♣ AQ		♠ J43 ♥ A9 ♦ QJ862 ♣ JT8
	♠ K9 ♥ j743 ♦ 97 ♣ 97532

West	North	East	South
Paul		Geir 5
	1♣	p	1♦1
1NT	p	p	p

¹ Alerted as any 1-8 points

I'm think 1♦ should have been natural as North led the ♦K, and I cashed the first five tricks throwing a couple of spades from my hand. As the defence pitched spades too, I led a spade from dummy to the ♠9 and North's ♠10. North erred by switching to club around to my queen and, when back in with the ♠A, switched to a small heart that I won with my king.

At this point the layout was:

	♠ ♥ QT ♦ ♣ K6
♠ Q ♥ 86 ♦ ♣ A		♠ J ♥ A ♦ ♣ JT
	♠ K ♥ 74 ♦ ♣ 9

On the lead of the ♠Q North is caught in a criss-cross squeeze. If he throws a heart, then I cross to the ace of hearts and the ace of clubs is my entry; if he throws a club, then I cash the ace of clubs and the ace of hearts is the entry for a club winner.

Smile.

Jules and the Acol Pairs League

Jules is a keen and enthusiastic intermediate player in Scotland. I've met her at a couple of tournaments and chatted online frequently, not least as I know some of her partners well.

I asked her if she wished to play in this month's Acol at BBO Pairs League and, in accepting, she sent me her 4-page convention card and 24 pages of notes. I did say she was keen! Luckily I only have to learn the first 14 pages as the last 10 are 'for the future'.

The league format is to play 10-board matches in the Acol Club area on BBO, using the normal boards and imping against the other 15 results.

We played two matches last night, winning the first comfortably (22 IMPs) and the second narrowly (1 IMP).

After the match I sent Jules my thoughts on the match, essentially comments on our bidding, play and defence noting the good and the bad. At any level of bridge there is little good, it is almost always how much bad was there. And with proper records from BBO it is easy to analyse and detect more errors than you would in a f2f game. So I try not to make this a depressing list of error after error, after all we all know when we've done something stupid, but instead look at those situations where a misjudgement was made and an experienced player might have considered more options.

But we did okay in these matches. The second one was tough as we did not hold the cards and relied on the opposition not to play too well and take the few chances we had on defence. The vagaries of the 16 results on any board mean that bidding the simplest game will always gain you 2 IMPs (and in this match they bid 2 simple games to gain 10 IMPs to none for us) so you really need the cards to be fairly spread.

The hand that has caused most discussion was Jules' options on this one:

♠ Txx ♥ Qxxxx ♦ Axx ♣ Qx

West	North	East	South
	Paul		Jules
p	1♣1	2♠2	?

¹ Shows 4+ clubs in a weak notrump system
² 6/7 losers, essentially intermediate

The jury is still out whether to double or pass. Do you have a view?

Acol at BBO

There are many clubs at Bridge Base Online, but perhaps the most popular public club is Acol at BBO. There always seem be to a number of tables in play, there is a schedule of lessons and they organise a monthly pairs league and weekly team events.

I guess most of the members are British or from the colonies, but everyone is welcome to come along.

Naturally you are expected to play Acol, whatever this means - last night it was 'we play Acol, 5-card majors and short club' !!

It maintains a friendly environment and it is a pleasant place to play, so check it out if you play some form of Acol.

Lost

Reg and I had a nightmare 49% at the club last night. With George and Brian, our principal rivals, scoring 63% it now looks unlikely that we can defend our pairs title.

A good weekend for some friends

No bridge for me this weekend, but a number of friends were quite successful in their pursuits.

• Harry and Finlay (our Gold Cup team mates), with Roy and David (my Scottish Cup team mates), won the SBU Senior Trials. They will represent Scotland in the Senior Camrose at the end of May and the European Team Championships in June. For the Europeans they will be joined by fellow 49er, John.
• Nigel and David, from my old club in Reading, won the EBU Grand Master Pairs.
• Last, but not least, Reg and Diana were second in the East District Flitch.

Did I miss anyone?

Apparently I did! Congratulations to Jean, Diana, Penny and Margaret who comfortably beat some of the Berwick men in the Border Teams competition (without using their handicap).