Before our match last night I popped in to watch the Scottish U20s playing a team (IMPs) match. You hold:
♠ x
♥ 6xxx
♦ J1098xxx
♣ x
At Game All, your partner opens 1♥, playing 4-card majors and 12-14 1NT, and the next hand doubles.
What advice would you give the youngster at this point?
Monday, June 29, 2009
More training
Another match with the juniors. Surprisingly only one double IMP swing in 20 boards, and that happened when someone failed to lead 4th best of their longest and strongest against 3NT.
Alex and I played against Myles and Gyles. We had one horrendous board when we had a misunderstanding and misjudgement on the same board (unusual to lose -630 when they are non-vulnerable), but the vast majority of swings were due to the different systems being used.
I thought that there were two interesting bidding decisions:
Myles and Gyles were playing standard methods, so a protective 1NT would be 11-14. On the other hand, if partner cannot overcall 1♣ what can you be missing by being a little stronger? Especially if you are aggressive bidders and would tend to double with any hint of both majors? Alex and I play that 1NT is 12-16 in this position and that would make you feel slightly more comfortable with this hand.
Without that agreement you have the choice of underbidding with 1NT or doubling and then bidding notrump.
The second problem also fell to North:
Do you pass, double, bid 1NT or bid 2♦?
Overall I'm quite pleased how these matches are going. Both the U26 pairs seem interested in the analyses that I am doing and the longer match format seems appropriate.
We'll be back on Thursday evening.
Alex and I played against Myles and Gyles. We had one horrendous board when we had a misunderstanding and misjudgement on the same board (unusual to lose -630 when they are non-vulnerable), but the vast majority of swings were due to the different systems being used.
I thought that there were two interesting bidding decisions:
Without that agreement you have the choice of underbidding with 1NT or doubling and then bidding notrump.
The second problem also fell to North:
Do you pass, double, bid 1NT or bid 2♦?
Overall I'm quite pleased how these matches are going. Both the U26 pairs seem interested in the analyses that I am doing and the longer match format seems appropriate.
We'll be back on Thursday evening.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Training the young
Or not so young. Bridge players are juniors now until they're over 26, so marriage and/or kids, careers etc can all be in full flow and yet we still call them kids. Or layabouts if they are still in full time education during their final junior year!
The Scotland U26 team will be playing in the 1st World Youth Championships during August and I am arranging a series of practice matches for them. Unfortunately time and money means that they will not be playing in the European Youth Championships next month.
Last night the first match took place. Andrew and Alex were quickly off the mark:
A well controlled auction to the best contract. Even if hearts are 4-1 there are squeeze chances.
The over-26 opponents gained some revenge on this board, but Myles and Gyles limited the damage by making 3NT in the other room.
What do you think of Alex's 2♦ bid? Anyone prefer 1♠?
After each match I send a brief analysis to the pairs. Generally this takes the form of asking what bids mean, what other options were available, looking at their carding and defence. It is not intended to allocate blame, but rather to explore the depth of their agreements and guiding principles.
More on Sunday and next Thursday.
The Scotland U26 team will be playing in the 1st World Youth Championships during August and I am arranging a series of practice matches for them. Unfortunately time and money means that they will not be playing in the European Youth Championships next month.
Last night the first match took place. Andrew and Alex were quickly off the mark:
A well controlled auction to the best contract. Even if hearts are 4-1 there are squeeze chances.
The over-26 opponents gained some revenge on this board, but Myles and Gyles limited the damage by making 3NT in the other room.
What do you think of Alex's 2♦ bid? Anyone prefer 1♠?
After each match I send a brief analysis to the pairs. Generally this takes the form of asking what bids mean, what other options were available, looking at their carding and defence. It is not intended to allocate blame, but rather to explore the depth of their agreements and guiding principles.
More on Sunday and next Thursday.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Girl on girl action
It was the turn of Scotland's Lady Milne winning team to take on the Irish Ladies last night in three 8-board matches. Viewer numbers were down on the previous week as the Nickell team was trying to fight back from 100+ IMPs down in the US Trials (they failed by 7!) but the bridge was pretty impressive if less exciting for the kibs (how do you score +2070 -- ask Rodwell).
I am not a huge fan of 2♠ but other choices are not perfect either, and Veronica played it card perfect.
Sheila and Maida played well throughout and showed that they were no slouches in the defensive department:
Although the switch to the ♥K at trick 2 is clear, especially looking at four hands, getting these 'simple' things right consistently is the key to success. You don't have to be brilliant, just avoid the easy mistakes. A truism at all levels of the game.
Although I do not play negative free bids, they worked well on this hand as Joan's 2♥ bid got her hand across well. In the other room Anne doubled and the heart fit was lost when West jumped to 3♠. Luckily both contracts failed but I think that you should probably overbid slightly with a (forcing for one round) 2♥ if the alternative is a takeout double.
Finally, I had a lot of sympathy for Anne's actions on the final board:
It was actually the second time that the Irish had a six card trump suit in defence of a doubled contract. The defence was accurate and beat the contract by two tricks. But all's well that ends well when Sam and Veronica made 3NT to gain 3 IMPs.
The final score was 70-29 IMPs (32-0, 19-24, 19-5).
The Irish and Sam are now off to the European Open Championships in Sanremo. Good luck to them all.
I got a thump last Tuesday when I made a comment about Veronica's bidding, but she showed that she had the playing skills to back it up:
I am not a huge fan of 2♠ but other choices are not perfect either, and Veronica played it card perfect.
Sheila and Maida played well throughout and showed that they were no slouches in the defensive department:
Although the switch to the ♥K at trick 2 is clear, especially looking at four hands, getting these 'simple' things right consistently is the key to success. You don't have to be brilliant, just avoid the easy mistakes. A truism at all levels of the game.
Although I do not play negative free bids, they worked well on this hand as Joan's 2♥ bid got her hand across well. In the other room Anne doubled and the heart fit was lost when West jumped to 3♠. Luckily both contracts failed but I think that you should probably overbid slightly with a (forcing for one round) 2♥ if the alternative is a takeout double.
Finally, I had a lot of sympathy for Anne's actions on the final board:
It was actually the second time that the Irish had a six card trump suit in defence of a doubled contract. The defence was accurate and beat the contract by two tricks. But all's well that ends well when Sam and Veronica made 3NT to gain 3 IMPs.
The final score was 70-29 IMPs (32-0, 19-24, 19-5).
The Irish and Sam are now off to the European Open Championships in Sanremo. Good luck to them all.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Not all there
I had a poor session with Dee in the Russell last night. I was lacking concentration, we discovered that we were playing different BIDDING systems in the middle of the evening, and we did not seem to have much luck in the first dozen boards - it is amazing how often these things combine!
To be fair our luck turned but the damage was done. Our bottoms were rock solid and our tops were shared, with the end product being a meaningless result for us both. However we did have some fun throughout it all and at least we provided Mike with some amusement when he was able to double our game contract holding six trumps to the QJ10.
I'll be missing the next three evenings in the event as LotG is off to Thailand and Malaysia leaving me looking after the dogs, and a night in Edinburgh is really too long to leave them.
The upside is that this will give me more time to practise online before our trip to the Nationals next month. And perhaps start concentrating.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
SBU Open Trials
It seems that not playing in this year's Scottish trials qualifies me to be on the SBU Selection Committee, so I have been hard at work1 with the new team putting together this year's Open trials.
1 Of course everyone knows that Anne does all the real work and the rest of us are just there to be abused. I think we are all happy with that.
2 Plagiarised from Anne's work
3 Ditto
The SBU Council decreed that the Open trials will be open to all and based on a pairs, rather than teams, competition. Its policy (available on the SBU web site) also means that the top three pairs from the trials will play in the first Camrose weekend, but that the Selection Committee will select the team for the second weekend.
New this year is the introduction of a Trials Preparation weekend (on August 29-30). This is a new event which is intended to allow those players who wish to gain experience of trial events or who aspire to play for Scotland to compete without having to play against the very strongest players – the latter passing directly through to the Open Trials proper.2
An innovation is that pairs can compete in the weekend with no commitment to play in the later stages of the trials. Play and decide at the end, if you are in a qualifying position, whether you really want to play in the Stage I event (the trial previously known as the Pre-Trial).
The weekend is really good value (£40 per pair) and I'd be delighted to see a high level of interest. It is hoped that Junior, Senior and Women pairs will also take part as the event is intended to be a good preparation for pairs looking to compete in their relevant international events. Experienced players will also be around to discussing topics such as playing in international competitions and partnership preparation.3
Full details are available on the SBU web site under the International heading.
1 Of course everyone knows that Anne does all the real work and the rest of us are just there to be abused. I think we are all happy with that.
2 Plagiarised from Anne's work
3 Ditto
Friday, June 05, 2009
Boys v Girls
We played the Irish Ladies at the Spring Fours earlier this year and they said they would be interested in some online matches, especially as warm ups for the European Open Championships in Sanremo later this month.
So last night they were playing the Scots "Old and Young" - Harry and Finlay who played in the Senior Camrose last year, and Alex and Andrew who are our top junior pair.
The ladies had the better of the first half, winning 28-12 IMPs. It would have been better for them if Finlay had not found the excellent switch at trick 2 (hand rotated):
Finlay led the ♣A and saw ♣6 from Harry. I don't know what this showed, but Finlay found the killing spade switch to win 12 IMPs.
In the second half the men made a comeback and the aggregate final score was Scotland 47:30 Ireland. Two game swings were the major difference but I thought all four pairs did well on a number of difficult hands.
For example:
After South opens 1♠ or 2♠ I know that I would be in game with these hands, but both pairs played in simple heart partscores. With hearts 5-1, clubs offside and the spades 7-1, they could not even make eight tricks.
Next week the Irish will be looking for revenge as they take on Scotland's Lady Milne winning team.
So last night they were playing the Scots "Old and Young" - Harry and Finlay who played in the Senior Camrose last year, and Alex and Andrew who are our top junior pair.
The ladies had the better of the first half, winning 28-12 IMPs. It would have been better for them if Finlay had not found the excellent switch at trick 2 (hand rotated):
Finlay led the ♣A and saw ♣6 from Harry. I don't know what this showed, but Finlay found the killing spade switch to win 12 IMPs.
In the second half the men made a comeback and the aggregate final score was Scotland 47:30 Ireland. Two game swings were the major difference but I thought all four pairs did well on a number of difficult hands.
For example:
After South opens 1♠ or 2♠ I know that I would be in game with these hands, but both pairs played in simple heart partscores. With hearts 5-1, clubs offside and the spades 7-1, they could not even make eight tricks.
Next week the Irish will be looking for revenge as they take on Scotland's Lady Milne winning team.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Can we bid?
Diana and I scored average in the Russell last night. Both of us could have played a few contracts better but in the main we were subjected to constant abuse over our bidding - they are just of lot of old fogies (aka internationalists) at the club :)
Some hands rotated for convenience
Diana's sequence showed 20-21 balanced and certainly ensured an uncontested auction (whereas the 1♣/1♦ openers were fighting spades). Mike, sitting East with the top trumps, was very disappointed to lead a spade through Diana and then find that the ♠K was singleton! Making +620 scored 14/18.
To be fair our opponents did not complain about our bidding, but most failed to reach this excellent game and, when 10 tricks rolled in, we scored 14/18 again.
My hand being too weak for a weak jump overcall, I settled for the space-consuming 1♦ bid. Iain and David brushed this aside and bid the normal 3NT, except that only one other pair took their 9 tricks. My misère defence gave an overtrick to lose even that matchpoint. But we both received some friendly abuse - me for the overcall on a 'queen and five deuces' and Diana for not leading my suit with a doubleton.
And finally,
"I thought 1NT should show a spade stop?", as the trump finesse failed - how quaint :)
I'm certain more abuse will be waiting for me next week!
Some hands rotated for convenience
Diana's sequence showed 20-21 balanced and certainly ensured an uncontested auction (whereas the 1♣/1♦ openers were fighting spades). Mike, sitting East with the top trumps, was very disappointed to lead a spade through Diana and then find that the ♠K was singleton! Making +620 scored 14/18.
To be fair our opponents did not complain about our bidding, but most failed to reach this excellent game and, when 10 tricks rolled in, we scored 14/18 again.
My hand being too weak for a weak jump overcall, I settled for the space-consuming 1♦ bid. Iain and David brushed this aside and bid the normal 3NT, except that only one other pair took their 9 tricks. My misère defence gave an overtrick to lose even that matchpoint. But we both received some friendly abuse - me for the overcall on a 'queen and five deuces' and Diana for not leading my suit with a doubleton.
And finally,
"I thought 1NT should show a spade stop?", as the trump finesse failed - how quaint :)
I'm certain more abuse will be waiting for me next week!
Monday, June 01, 2009
Not a good day
Well, yesterday could certainly have gone better for all concerned.
Alan and I, playing with Harry and Finlay, failed to win the Gold Cup Plate. I thought we played fairly well but it was not enough. Congratulations to the Male team.
And the Scots failed to win the Senior Camrose by the narrowest of margins:
Liz McGowan, Mike Ash, Roy Bennett, David Liggat, David Gerrard and Ken Rae had the consolation of taking the trophy as the leading home nation but I'm sure they really wanted to win it outright.
Alan and I, playing with Harry and Finlay, failed to win the Gold Cup Plate. I thought we played fairly well but it was not enough. Congratulations to the Male team.
And the Scots failed to win the Senior Camrose by the narrowest of margins:
| The Patron | 170 |
| Scotland | 169 |
| England | 151 |
| Wales | 141 |
| Republic of Ireland | 138 |
| Northern Ireland | 129 |
Liz McGowan, Mike Ash, Roy Bennett, David Liggat, David Gerrard and Ken Rae had the consolation of taking the trophy as the leading home nation but I'm sure they really wanted to win it outright.
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