SBU Trials update

The SBU has published its new selection policy for Open teams for the Camrose, European and World events.

The major change from recent times is that the selectors are actually going to select the team for the second Camrose weekend, rather than rely purely on some random metrics from the first weekend. This is certainly progress in my view.

Disappointingly, as far as I am concerned, the Camrose trials remain purely pairs. No sign of desire for any Premier League type of structure. So the Selection Committee has achieved a small victory, but nothing has yet to be done about the levels of performance of our teams.

However the SBU is to be commended for publishing the policy quickly after ratification. At least we all know where we stand now.

Camrose tests

I selected the hands for the weekend's practice matches and I chose the 2001 Spingold semifinal between Jacobs and Nickell. The large number of IMPs in the 32-boards suggested interesting and competitive hands, plus the team would be able to compare their bids and plays with some of the top pairs in the world.

However performing the same as the best is no guarantee of success:

	♠ Jx ♥ Txx ♦ x ♣ AQT9xxx
♠ T98x ♥ Jxxx ♦ Tx ♣ Kxx		♠ Kxxxx ♥ AKx ♦ KQx ♣ Jx
	♠ AQ ♥ Qxx ♦ AJ98xxx ♣ x

West	North	East	South
Bob Hamman		Paul Soloway
Brian Spears		John Murdoch
	3♣	X	p
3♥	p	p	p

This inelegant contract was four down at both tables.

In the other room, the downside of transfer pre-empts was shown:

West	North	East	South
Iain Sime	Cliff Gillis	John Matheson	Rafal Wolanski
	2NT1	X	p
p	3♣	p	3♦
p	p	p

¹ Pre-empt in either minor

John was able to get most of his hand safely across and escaped. 3♦ could have made but drifted one down.

Finally, at the fourth table, Nick Nickell did not pre-empt.

West	North	East	South
Versace	Nickell	Lauria	Freeman
	p	1♠	2♦
3♠	p	p	4♦
p	p	p

4♦ also drifted one down.

Of course, there were times when our players outshone the professionals:

	♠ T98xx ♥ QTxxxxx ♦ T ♣
♠ xx ♥ xx ♦ Jxx ♣ ATxxxx		♠ KJ ♥ x ♦ Qxxxx ♣ KJ9xx
	♠ AQxx ♥ AKJ ♦ AKxx ♣ Qx

West	North	East	South
Hamman	Katz	Soloway	Jacobs
p	3♥	p	4♣
X	4♦	5♣	5♥
p	p	p

I'm guessing (and Stacy may correct me) but 4♣ looks like a general slam try. Although Katz may have made a positive noise, it's unreasonable for Jacobs to expect such a powerful hand opposite, so I'd place the blame on the off-centre pre-empt.

West	North	East	South
Versace	Nickell	Lauria	Freeman
p	p	p	2♣
p	2♦	p	2NT
p	3♣	p	3♠
p	4♥	p	4♠
p	p	p

Nickell used Smolen to show 4 spades and 5 hearts, but again the real distributional power of the hand was lost when he didn't make a further move.

West	North	East	South
Brian	Mike	John	Miro
p	p	p	2♣
p	2♥	p	2NT
p	3♦	p	4♥
p	6♥	p	p
p

Mike adopted the practical approach when Miro showed good heart support.

West	North	East	South
Iain	Rafal	John	Cliff
p	p	p	2♣
p	2♦	p	2NT
p	3♦	p	3♠
p	4♣	X	4♦
p	4NT	p	5♣
p	6♥	p	p

Cliff and Rafal also had no difficulty bidding the slam.

So a flat board in both matches, just at a different level.

Bridge on TV

Sky Arts 2 and Sky Arts HD will air a brand new programme on bridge this April, featuring eight celebrity players. Bridge: Celebrity Grand Slam, shows a side of bridge away from tournaments, complex bidding systems and double squeezes. This is social bridge, as played by hundreds of thousands of people in the UK, for fun and the love of the game.

The eight players are:

• Sue Lawley, radio and TV presenter, host of Desert Island Discs for 18 years.   
• Mike Gatting, former cricket captain of England and Middlesex.
• Susan Hampshire, actress, most famous for her role as Fleur in The Forsyte Saga.       
• David Rowntree, drummer with pop group Blur.
• James Mates, ITN journalist and newscaster.
• Pattie Boyd, photographer and writer, former wife of George Harrison and Eric Clapton
• Val McDermid, best-selling author of crime thrillers, including Wire in the Blood.
• Kay Burley, Sky news anchor. Kay is a bridge novice who only started to learn to play Bridge three and a half weeks before the series was filmed.

It starts on Monday 20th April, 2009 Sky Arts 2 and Sky Arts HD.

More details on the SBU website.

Trying to be a vugraph operator

Dee, Julia and I were involved in the full practice of the Camrose team yesterday. In an effort to create the right atmosphere, not only were screens in use but we decided to run a BBO vugraph of the event too.

Luckily for us, BBO has the capability to run this vugraph in a testing mode and it is not broadcast to the waiting thousands. This meant that our inexperience at operating was not exposed and the team not subject to the barbs of the commentary team - that'll have to wait until the real thing in a couple of weeks time.

But all three of us now have a lot more respect for the regular vugraph operators. Coping with the bidding is easy enough, but getting all the played cards accurately is very difficult especially when declarer knows what to do and everything speeds up. But we improved as the matches went on and the record of the event is already proving useful.

Scotland hosts the Camrose next January and I can see quite a few training sessions will be needed.

Principal lesson learned: vugraph operator must sit at the South/East corner of the screen. 

President's Report #1

Fiona Abbott, President of the Scottish Bridge Union, has published her report from the last SBU Council meeting. In the absence of approved minutes this provides an outline of the Council's deliberations and activities.

It's good to see Fiona responding to the feedback that many, including myself, have given and hopefully there will be regular updates. 

Finally this report is posted only two days after the meeting, which must be a record in itself. 

It's not always easy

Another night at the club for the pairs championship and it's not easy to find something to write about. Such was the carnage, with 19 tops and bottoms out of 27 boards, that almost every hand featured X-rated bidding or play or defence from at least one person at the table ... often more than one!

Now I don't have a problem writing about these when I am the perpetrator, but last night I was just the casual observer watching a train wreck happen again and again - I thought it was Groundhog Day.

But we got the occasional good score. LotG and I play a simple 5-card majors, two-over-one game forcing, strong 1NT style with very little system. The fact we played simple Blackwood was important on this hand:

♠ KQx ♥ Q9x ♦ KQx ♣ AKxx

♠ JTx ♥ AJT8xx ♦ AJx ♣ x

West	North	East	South
Paul		LotG
	p	1♥	p
2♣	p	2♥	p
4NT	p	5♥1	p
6NT2	p	p	p

¹ two aces
² it's matchpoints

6NT is clearly the best slam as there is no chance of a ruff elsewhere and, with the heart finesse working, it made comfortably. A couple of other pairs bid 6♥ but we were the only ones in the notrump slam. The popular Roman Keycard Blackwood may have been responsible for some missing the slam - I knew the slam would be on a finesse at worst, whereas the keycarders may be missing two aces. But, to be fair, it is a pure 50% slam so I should not really say that people 'missed' it as it's a pure toss up whether you want to be in it.

Judging it right - result

Jules eschewed the 3NT option recommended by some and settled for 4♦. I'm surprised at those who think it is non-forcing - perhaps it is a better treatment but I've never played it that way - and we eventually settled in the diamond game. But South then doubled.

♠ Ax ♥ 6xxxx ♦ KQx ♣ Qxx

♠ QTx ♥ ♦ AT98xx ♣ AKJx

West	North	East	South
Paul		Jules
1NT	3♠	4♦	p
4♥	p	5♣	p
5♦	p	p	X
p	p	p

More surprising than South's double was his lead of the ♠K. This did not unduly stress Jules who wrapped up 13 tricks by taking the 'marked' spade finesse.

A few points I see on the hand:

• North did not have his 3♠ bid, in fact it was not close. Making decisions in such an environment is tough and perhaps irrelevant to decent bridge.
• When opponents pre-empt, getting a positive score is key. So I do not agree with Dee's leap to 6♦ opposite a weak 1NT.
• South's double cost him 25% of a top - doubling games at matchpoints is generally losing bridge, the opposite of playing IMPs. The second overtrick only cost 2%.
• Although comments are worried about a ruff, 3NT may well suffer from lack of tricks unless the diamonds are solid and perhaps looking to diamonds is not so bad.

Otherwise just another boring hand from a BBO tournament.

Judging it right

I often play short (9-board) tournaments on BBO with some of our aspiring players. To be fair I'm the one who normally does the asking, but I'm always happy to play with people who are seeking to improve.

Whether they do actually improve playing with me is perhaps questionable, but most do seem to find it an interesting experience. There will always be a couple of hands worth discussing at the end and, occasionally, I'll provide an analysis of the key points that arose.

Naturally we are playing such affairs with a minimum of system. This means judgement comes to the fore and, in my humble opinion, this is an area that most need help with.

So Jules was in the hot seat yesterday:

♠ QTx ♥ ♦ AT98xx ♣ AKJx

West	North	East	South
Paul		Jules
1NT (12-14)	3♠	?

What is your plan? Full hand in a couple of days.

Berwicker BBO Pairs result

Rank	Name	Score
1	mops3 & frugal2	65.00%
2	moleey & Fawcet	63.33%
3	dbl d & sceptic	61.67%
4	dave77 & Geofspa	58.33%
5	dunslass & todheugh	53.75%
6	rhua & quaywall	45.00%
7	auntymick & osmap	44.17%
8	mamapat & bordergirl	37.08%
9	geomar & rosa7	36.67%
10	thombee & reg2	35.00%

Friend or Foe?

It was a busy day yesterday. 

First up was the Borders KO semifinal and the first half was one of the more amazing set of hands we've played. After 12 hands the aggregate score at our table was 6,400-100. LotG and I bid one slam, nine games and two part-scores, with one of the part-scores failing by a trick; at the other table, Reg and Malcolm's score was (something like) 100-5,600, gaining their 100 points on the same hand that we lost them!

Our opponents, Jean, Penny, Diana and Margaret, had a handicap start of +250, so we had wiped that out at the half. The second set was a lot flatter and we won that half by 50, to emerge winners by about 700 points. We'll play a Kelso or Berwick team in the final.

LotG played this hand very nicely to earn us some of the first-half lead (this is my first attempt at a BBO movie file).

In the evening we teamed up with Diana and Ros in the next round of the club teams. Little seemed to go right - on a fairly flat set of boards we lost two games swings when they were played the other way around, another when 3NT proved better than the major game, and one more when the opposition played it better than us. Too much in 21 boards and we finished below average.

We also missed this slam, but it looks tough to bid it:

♠ xx ♥ AKxx ♦ AJxxx ♣ xx

♠ AKxx ♥ Jxxxxx ♦ QTx ♣

West	North	East	South
Paul		LotG
			p
1♦	p	1♥	p
2♥	p	4♥	p
p	p

Moving in the right direction

As I mentioned in a previous post, last month I spent a weekend coaching some of the women players so it was heartening to see so many of them do well in the Women's Teams in Perth.

Sam, Veronica, Sheila and Anne won the event with a round to go, finishing well ahead of Maida, Sheila, Fiona and Liz. Unsurprisingly these two teams, consisting of all the triallists last year, were well clear of the field.

Fiona and Pauline were 3rd. Julia finished in a very creditable 4th place, beating Ros and Diana in the final match who had to settle for 10th. Beryl was 9th and Fiona 12th. Anne and Laura were 15th (probably disappointed with the finish having got into a decent position).

Of course they all had partners and team mates who helped out.

For the very top players this reasserted their dominance after last year's hiccup. But I hope that the rest take confidence from their performance forward to the next competitive events. Our coaching covered mainly technical areas, but I believe confidence in your own abilities is key to performing well consistently.

Not our day

We lost in the quarter-final of the Atholl Cup last night, leaving Tim, Donald, David and Liz to play Iain in the semifinal.

As I said to the team, I never really felt part of last night's match - one of the those days where I didn't really seem to contribute to either the plus or minus column and all the decisions were elsewhere around the table. A strange feeling given I played more than my share of hands. 

On the other hand I think Alan felt like he was in the eye of the storm being an active participant in most of the wilder boards. Not that he did anything particularly wrong, it just proved to be one of those days where the decisions were always harder at his table for a variety of nefarious reasons.

Still, there's always next year ...

Berwicker BBO Pairs

I am running a 10-board tournament on BBO on Wednesday 11 February at 2030 GMT (1530 New York, 2130 Paris, 2030 Berwick-upon-Tweed).

It is primarily for the Berwick club players as an introduction to playing tournaments on BBO. Many of the club have recently started playing on BBO, particularly in the Acol Club, but tournaments will be a new experience and hopefully this will provide a friendly start.

The tournament is also open to everyone that I have marked as friend on BBO (all 350+ of you). I hope that some (many) of you will play to increase the numbers, introduce different systems to an Acol-based community, and generally meet new people.  As the club consists mainly of intermediate players, it would be an ideal opportunity for experts to play with a mentee or less experienced partner.

After the tournament I plan to open a teaching table to discuss some of the hands.

The tournament is #296 Berwicker BBO Pairs and registration is open until the tournament starts. Both members of a pair must be online to register. Singles can use the Partnership Desk.

If you wish to play and have difficulties registering, then just message me (paulg) on BBO. It may be that I have inadvertently failed to mark you (or your partner) as a friend.

This is a one-off event and you may play (almost) any system. 

The Acol Club runs a regular Wednesday evening tournament if you play Acol and want to participate in regular online tournaments and there are many other tournaments available every hour on BBO.

Winter Fours - our top tournament?

With an entry of only 22 teams, we should be doing more to promote the Winter Fours weekend if we really want to see it remain a prestigious event.

• Venue - the Cladhan Hotel may be cheap but it really does not have the available space to run this event when the Swiss Teams is run on the Sunday. The entry fee for the EBU's Spring Fours is three times that of the Winter Fours, although it provides another day's bridge and bigger prizes, but increasing the entry fee to get a better venue would be worthwhile. Perhaps running the Swiss Teams at another local hotel would be appropriate.
  
  
• Welcome - the Chairman or Council member should welcome all the teams, especially those who have travelled far, at the start of the event. Not only do we want visitors to come back, but we need them to spread the word.
  
  
• Advertising - there was no mention of the Winter Fours on the front page of the SBU web site, so how would foreign (English) players get to know about the event. The SBU could consider a deal with the EBU to cross-advertise the Winter and Spring Fours on the other's web site and, perhaps, in their magazines.
  
  As numbers for the EBU National Swiss Teams continue to reduce, there is clearly a pool of players looking for another good tournament and the Winter Fours could fill this gap.
  
  
• Publicise the results more prominently. Results are buried in the results section when there should be a photo of the winners and runners up on the front page of the web site.

Comments on how to improve this event welcome.

Gambling 3NT ... no longer

Alex and I have finally given up on the Gambling 3NT wrong-siding contracts and never coming up and now use it to show a 4-level major suit pre-empt.

Matheson-Sime are advocates of this convention but they use it purely as a transfer with no real differentiation with the 4M opener except for who plays it. Alex and I are using 3NT to show a fairly pure 4M opener, that is single-suited: and we'll use 4M as a more distributional opener for those 7-4, 6-5 and 6-4 hands that it seems right to open at the highest level.

It worked well in the consolation final of the Winter Fours.

♠ AKxxxxx ♥ x ♦ xx ♣ xx

♠ Jx ♥ AQxx ♦ AKQxx ♣ Kx

West	North	East	South
Paul		Alex
3NT1	p	4♣2	X
4♥3	p	6♠	p
p	p

¹ 4M pre-empt
² Transfer to your major
³ Spades




Without this transfer Alex would probably have bid 6NT to protect his club holding. The reason he wanted to transfer first rather than bid keycard is the 5♠ response would wrong-side the hand too.

I'm experimenting with BBO's new hand viewer. You should be able to click on the alerted bids for an explanation. Any problems with this just let me know.

Edit: already two complaints within 2 hours of posting, so I've provided both solutions for this post and will probably revert to the previous hand diagrams in future.

Winter Foursomes 2009

The Winter Foursomes is the toughest weekend in the Scottish calendar, so it was disappointing to see only 22 teams competing. The falling entry and poor playing conditions on the Sunday (for the finalists and consolation event) will probably make us consider alternative events next year, although it would be impossible to beat the Winter Fours for low cost (£125 for the weekend, covering entry and 2 nights full board).

But back to this year's bridge. It is a double-elimination event with triads for the first two rounds delivering one undefeated team and two once defeated. We were the top seeds in our group but naturally finished last, losing both matches narrowly. This hand was responsible for one of these losses:

♠ xxxx ♥ KQT9xxx ♦ ♣ xx

Your opening call, first in hand, at Love All?

Jenny, my occasional partner, was part of the team that won our triad. Her team, very much considered the underdogs, went on to beat two more seeds (including the eventual runners up) before losing their two lives. They then went on to qualify for the consolation final and finished in the middle of the field, a very creditable result.

In the once-defeated pool on Saturday morning, we first played ALEXANDER (including Paul Hackett) and then beat WEIR, but then lost by 1 IMP to the OUTREDS. This left us needing to qualify for the consolation event, which we did by using every available qualifying space!

The consolation final is a round-robin of 11 teams. We were the holders but finished a distant third this time, well behind the OUTREDS and MCGINLEY.

The main event was won by SANDERS (Ash, Walker and Short). They went unbeaten throughout the entire event, a tremendous effort and achievement, despite having the worst result on my problem hand.