Trials - the first hurdle

The Trials Preparation Weekend was originally intended to provide an introduction to the trials process for inexperienced pairs, including Open, Women's, Seniors and Juniors. However it proved so popular that it also became the pre-pre-trial for the main open trials - no bad thing, as part of the trials preparation is to play some good pairs.

I'm pleased to say that the event went very well. Everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy the event, enjoyed the competition and I think it will have earned a permanent place on the calendar.

The top places were:

Position	Pair	VP
1	Robert Clow & Troy Van de l'Isle	322
2	Tim McKay & Keith Youngs	315
3=	Eddie McGeoch & Jim Mason	309
3=	Tim Wickens & Kim Fryer	309

Everyone was very impressed with the Directors, Ian and Horst, who kept the event running smoothly and to time, posted the scores extremely quickly and handled all the TD calls efficiently and confidently.

Entries closed

Entries are now closed and you can see them all on Google Docs at the following link: http://tinyurl.com/mvfqkp (a google account is not required).

I will update the spreadsheet when we reach the quarter-finals.

Time is short ...

only two days left to get your entry in for the World Team Championships prediction competition. Details in this blog entry.

Currently I have 19 27 entries, mainly from this BBO thread.

If you are not in, you can't win.

Brighton Swiss Teams

The second weekend at the EBU Summer Congress is the Swiss Teams, one of the major events of the calendar. After ten rounds of Swiss, at the end of Saturday the top eight teams are split off into the Four Stars Final and the next eight into the B Final - these teams play a full round robin on the Sunday, with the rest of the field playing another four rounds of Swiss.

This year numbers seem to be down quite a lot, with only 186 teams in the event. Perhaps the credit crunch biting? Gordon points out this is not really true, it is similar to the last couple of years but numbers have been declining since 2001 (256 teams).

So, of course, the real aim is to get into one of the finals and not have to play with the numpties unfortunates who remain in the Swiss.

This was our first event playing with Anne and Sheila, so our aim was to get into one of the finals and finish the weekend still talking to each other. Luckily we seem to have achieved both.

Things started slowly with a small win in the first match on Friday evening, then a 13 IMP loss to Brian Senior's team, and then a 20-0 VP blitz against a less experienced team. We had a reasonable Saturday afternoon scoring 53/80 VPs, including one 2 IMP loss, to leave ourselves a bit to do in the evening. However three wins and 45/60 VPs saw us finish in 9th place, just 2 VPs away from the A Final.

On Sunday, we did not play that well taking it in turns to gift a few IMPs to the opposition, who received them all graciously. There were signs that there was something strange happening in the final early on - we won our first match 18-2 VPs and were lying fourth (of eight); then we lost our second match 0-20 VPs, and were still lying fourth.

After more random play, our last match was against Willie Coyle and John Matheson's team, so naturally we were keen to finish on a winning note. As it happened we won the battle (16-4 VPs) but not the war as they finished in third place just one VP above us.

So fourth place and some prize money that seemed to disappear quickly in the hotel bar. We could all have played slightly better, but it was a good first outing for the team.

And a hand - spot Willie Whittaker's defensive error and how I could have responded:

The GIB button will not help you with this problem!

Other Scottish performances in the teams:

• Glyn Liggins, Willie Whittaker, Nick Sandqvist, Andrew McIntosh (Winners, B Final)
  
• Kitty Teltscher, Steve Eginton, Willie Coyle, John Matheson (3rd, B Final)
  
• David Gold & Bernard Teltscher, Tom Townsend & Mark Teltscher (Winners, Brighton Bowl)
  
• Sarah Dunn & Phil King, Stelio di Bello & David Ewart (14th)
• Myles Ellison & Tom Rainforth, Shivam Shah & Tom Copeland (23rd)
• Paula Leslie & Suzanne Sheasby, Solvi Remen & Kristine Breivik (42nd)
• Sam Punch & Alan Goodman, Liz McGowan & Mike Ash (55th)
• Janet Barnes & David Barnes, Martin Holcombe & Nigel Guthrie (62nd)
• Ross Harper & Paul Hackett, Jim Forsyth & Susan Aitchison (64th)
• Ian Howie & Mike McGinley, Paul Maiolani & Steve Male (69th)
• Apologies to anyone I've missed

No more teams

The team competitions in Istanbul have finished. The Japan-Czech team beat Italy Red in the final for a well-deserved win - they seemed to be a team that started slowly in a match but always finished strongly, frequently being down at the half and then coming storming back. Congratulations to them, Italy and USA Blue who won the bronze medal.

Both Scottish teams slipped down the rankings in the BAM, but now they can all jettison the failing part of the team (that is, the other half) and will play pairs for the next four (!) days. No time for partying ... or is there?

Update: it appears that the Scots are not playing in the pairs.

Playing with team mates

I always feel that playing with a team mate is a dodgy business. Do I really want to expose my complete lack of bridge skills and break that aura of the expert player (cough!) by skilfully making many tricks less than everyone else - there comes a point where "it's only matchpoints" and "matchpoints is a silly game" becomes monotonous.

Anyhow, I was able to limit the damage with Anne and, last night, also got a win in the Russell Cup with Sheila. Despite underbidding a couple of times and appearing to lose the odd trick when defending, we seemed to be able to punish the opponents when they transgressed, some of the lost tricks were not too costly and we finished 3% clear of the field.

After all the voids in previous weeks the hands calmed down a little. But not completely ...

Bidding 5♠ had already won us 60% of the matchpoints, but when Grant took the push this increased to 90%. One of the those really tough hands where it is unclear what is happening. Sheila was concerned that 5♠ was undisciplined, but I think my 4♠ bid should show a pre-emptive/distributional hand and that stronger Michaels hands should be doubling 4♣, so bidding 5♠ looks clear. Two pairs took the push to 6♠, conceding -500, and only got matchpoints when one pair let the club slam make.

And then a question of style, or perhaps matchpoints technique. At unfavourable vulnerability, LHO opens 1NT (15-17) and two passes to you. Do you call holding ♠AJxxx ♥8xxxx ♦Jx ♣x, presuming that you can show both majors?

Finally another hand that was just too difficult for us:

Thirteen tricks was worth 50% as four pairs bid the grand slam but some failed to make the overtrick in the small. Sheila could have asked for extra features, but even the ♥K is not quite enough to count all the tricks especially if I only have four trumps. Bidding grand slams confidently when one has a void in partner's suit, an AK opposite a singleton, and only have 32 points is just tough.

Meanwhile, in Istanbul, the high-flying USA juniors were downed by the Italians in the semifinal. I didn't see a lot of the play but they seemed fortunate to get through the quarter-final by 1 IMP and could not cope with the Azzurri. Disappointing after going through the Swiss undefeated.

In the BAM, the Scotland U26 lie 6th after the first day - an excellent performance. The U21s lie 26th, close to some very good teams and I'm sure that they will hope to consolidate their position in the final sessions today.

Istanbul teams

A heavy defeat in their match against France left the U26s too much to do in their final three matches, but two good wins left them in 15th place, just 17 VPs behind a qualifying spot. It's impossible to tell how they've played at such a distance, but playing with only four players is a significant disadvantage and tougher than most appreciate. Their significant defeats were to Poland (6th), France (4th) and Netherlands Orange (11th) that suggests, despite all the practice, there is still some way to go to compete with the top (European) nations.

Leading the way in the event is USA-Blue, who finished undefeated and 46 VPs clear of the field and will have choice of opponent in the quarter-finals tomorrow. Like some of the other qualifiers this team has world-class players and full-time bridge professionals on board, it's a different world.

The Scottish U21s had a great final day, winning three of their five matches. As I've said before I'm sure that they've found it really tough playing vastly more experienced teams and it speaks volumes to their character, enthusiasm and energy that they have come through with such a performance. I look forward to meeting them at some of the Scottish tournaments over the next year.

Both will now play in a 2-day Board-A-Match teams. This format, requiring more matchpoints-like strategy, will be new territory as it is not a format that is popular in the UK. But it will be a good warm-up for the pairs competitions that start on Thursday.

Istanbul update and Brighton final

In Istanbul, the U21s had a good win against Ireland as the highlight of their day. It really is a little unfair on the four or five U21 teams who have found themselves playing against significantly more experienced and, in some cases world-class and professional, opposition. But I hope that they are all enjoying the adventure and it should stand them in good stead for the future. The U26s continue their roller coaster ride and have a lot to do to finish in the top eight (and qualify for the KOs) - they will have to play exceptionally well tomorrow but have five matches and, judging by today's performances, keeping off vugraph will give them a chance to make up the 20 VP gap.

At Brighton, there is nothing left to play for and the final positions were:

• Brian Spears and John Murdoch (3rd)
• Andrew McIntosh and David Ewart (12th)
• Philip Stephens and Chris Cooper (18th)
• David Gold and David Bakhshi (18th)
• Lynton Stock and Victor Silverstone (26th)
• Nigel Guthrie and David Barnes (60th)
• Jim Forsyth and Susan Aitchison (81st)
• Ross Harper and Martin Hoffman (91st)
• Helen McEwing and Ivan Bruce (165th)
• Iain Sime and Fiona McQuaker (230th)
• Samantha Punch and Alan Goodman (316th)

Congratulations to Brian and John who were at the top of the field throughout.

Finally, congratulations to Martin Garvey and Jon Cooke who won the event, leading all the way. It just shows that playing an anti-field system, which is the polite description of what they play, makes little difference even at matchpoints if you play well.

Scots update

In Istanbul Scotland U26 have had a good start, scoring 56 VPs in their first three matches but had a tough start against the Netherlands today, losing by 24 IMPs (the first two boards). I don't know what happened in the first U21 match as I do not believe any juniors, and few seniors, can score a match 1-2 IMPs - I suspect one team was not there. They lost the following two matches but there is a long way to go.

At Brighton, after 10 of 14 rounds, there is all to play for:

• Brian Spears and John Murdoch (3rd)
• Philip Stephens and Chris Cooper (13th)
• David Gold and David Bakhshi (28th)
• Lynton Stock and Victor Silverstone (28th)
• Nigel Guthrie and David Barnes (47th)
• Iain Sime and Fiona McQuaker (67th)
• Andrew McIntosh and David Ewart (77th)
  
• Ross Harper and Martin Hoffman (222nd)
• Jim Forsyth and Susan Aitchison (236th)
• Helen McEwing and Ivan Bruce (248th)
• Samantha Punch and Alan Goodman (353rd)

Scots abroad ... everywhere

Two Scottish junior teams start playing today in Istanbul in the inaugural World Youth Congress.

The U26 team are all experienced internationals but playing as a team of four will be tough. However I'm sure that Alex, Andrew, Myles and Gyles are all focused on performing well and hopefully we'll see them on vugraph at some point. The U21 team features the not so old-timers, Yvonne and Ralph, and two new pairs - I'm sure that they will all enjoy it and hopefully will make a real impression in the event.

Last night saw the start of the EBU's Summer Congress in Brighton. I'll be down next weekend for the teams but a number of Scots are already there competing in the three-day Swiss Pairs.

So far, with their overnight positions, I've spotted:

• Brian Spears and John Murdoch (8th)
• Iain Sime and Fiona McQuaker (23rd)
• David Gold* and David Bakhshi (29th)
• Nigel Guthrie and David Barnes (40th)
• Jim Forsyth and Susan Aitchison (99th)
  
• Philip Stephens and Chris Cooper (236th)
  
• Samantha Punch and Olivia Hackett** (327th)
  

* Start of my campaign to bring Scottish talent back, as David was born in Scotland and spent at least the first six months of his life here

** Sam was supposed to be playing with Alan Goodman, so I'm guessing that Olivia is substituting due to travel delays.

Of course there is a long way to go, but good luck to all.

It's not what you hold ...

Back to the Russell Cup and date with Julia. I'd been sent the most complete convention card I'd ever seen and so spent at least 30 seconds studying it prior to playing, but luckily that proved sufficient.

Not that it did us much good as our consistent errors were punished heavily and our triumphs were small, so we finished down the field.

One area where we ran into trouble a couple of times was with doubles, specifically my doubles. My doubles tend to be for takeout quite late in the auction, even if I've shown a good hand, but Julia moves into a more optional double situation. This meant that we did not always find the best fit, and occasionally doubles were left in when they shouldn't have been. Luckily a couple of others were suffering the same problem to give us some matchpoints back, but it was illustrative of the problems different styles can cause.

Once again I had a phenomenal number of voids - six in thirty hands. I wonder what they've been feeding the Carlton's computer? This proved the most exciting:

My 6♠ bid was a good example of "it doesn't matter what you hold, it's what they think you hold that matters". I knew the slam would have some play, but against good players they are always going to consider sacrificing at this vulnerability. As it happens David was absolutely right to bid 7♥ as -1100 was the par score, beating the the small slam. But most pairs were not bidding the slam and so we scored 14/16 matchpoints.

A Selector's Life

I have been on the SBU Selection Committee for two months now and thought it was time to let everyone know how it's been going.

It has been a steep learning curve as most of the Committee is new to the job. Right from day one we've been committed to transparency and, following the lead of Fiona (SBU President), are regularly publishing meeting minutes. Personally I wish that the other committees, and the Council, did the same so that there is an easily accessible record of activity and decisions taken.

The main work has been arranging the 2009-2010 trials. We have attempted to build on the aims of the previous Committee by ensuring that the players know where they stand when it comes to the selection process and have introduced the concept of detailed conditions of contest for all the trials. This has been welcomed by the players although we continue to work on some of the detail (a CoC was done by the previous Open selectors, but it became multiple small documents and consolidating these into a single document was important).

At (I believe) Fiona's behest, we have introduced a new stage to the Open Team selection, encouraging players to 'test' the trials process with no commitment to playing in later stages but guaranteeing some places in the next stage and hopefully getting some new blood into all the trials (including Women's, Seniors and Juniors). To be honest this has been more successful than expected and the number of entrants to the trials have nearly doubled.

This new event, and the compressed timetable it has required, has meant that time has been our biggest issue. Getting everything arranged for the end of August, coping with the knock-on effect with the other trial dates, getting the information out to potential new players and the regular triallists, and only starting at the beginning of June has not been easy. No doubt we've made some mistakes, but everything we've done has been (or intended to have been) consistent with the SBU Policy, fair to all the competitors and done openly.

Actions in the past have caused many in Scotland to be deeply suspicious of selectors and it is clear that many, including senior players and experienced administrators, want a completely objective selection methodology. I don't mind this too much so long as there are teams trials for the longer international events, such as the European Team Championships. For short events, like the weekends of the Home International Series, you can pick pairs from a pairs trial as team harmony is less important. But for a week-long affair, you do need to have a team, not three pairs, and this is why we are moving to teams trials for these events.

So we are now approaching the trials season but we are not slowing down. We are already preparing the conditions of contest for the 2010-2011 trials so that the drafts can be published in a couple of months. The European Open trial is set, but we are working on the trials for the European Women's and Seniors.

So how busy have we been?

• I've sent 140 emails and received 220 back over the last two months, just concerning the Selection Committee.
• We've published minutes of two meetings
• We've published detailed conditions of contest for four events (some them revised a couple of times)
• We have draft conditions of contest for two further events almost ready to be published
• We have draft conditions of contest for the 2010-2011 Open Trial ready for review
• Logistics are confirmed for all the trials planned

My biggest concern is that none of this work will directly improve the performance of the Scottish teams. The Scottish way is to leave this to the players themselves, but the SBU Council plays a major role with the funding decisions that it makes and the Tournament Committee with the events that it arranges for our leading players. At the moment I am concerned that neither body is doing enough (although I appreciate it is not easy) while at the same time our leading players are not testing themselves sufficiently. Once we have established the new selection processes and we have time, this is an area I'd like to progress next.

World Team Championships Predictor 2009

It is that time again and I am going to run my Bermuda Bowl, Venice Cup and Seniors Bowl prediction competition again.

First prize is a bottle of wine, but winner must collect!

This year, as per Wimbledon, I have provided equality for the Open and the Women's competition.

BERMUDA BOWL

• 4 losing quarter-finalists (3 points each)
• 2 losing semifinalists (6 points each)
• Runner-up (12 points)
• The winner (24 points)

VENICE CUP

• 4 losing quarter-finalists (3 points each)
• 2 losing semifinalists (6 points each)
• Runner-up (12 points)
• The winner (24 points)

SENIORS BOWL

• 4 losing quarter-finalists (2 points each)
• 2 losing semifinalists (4 points each)
• Runner-up (8 points)
• The winner (16 points)

for a maximum of 160 points.

Entry Deadline: Friday 28 August, 2009

Each entry should contain 8 teams for each of the three competitions, namely the four losing quarter-finalists, two losing semifinalists, runner up and winners. You can only have a single entry, but you may change your choice at any time before the entry deadline.

Each team will score the minimum of your placing for them and their final position, for example:

• if you pick a team as a losing quarter-finalist but they win the competition, then you get the points for a losing quarter-finalist
• if you pick a team as the winner but they lose in the final, then you get the points for the runner-up.

Information on the teams is available at http://worldbridge.org/tourn/SaoPaulo.09/Participants.htm. Note that the conditions of contest for each competition mean that the USA 1 and USA 2 teams must meet in the semifinal if they both progress to that stage.

Good luck!

Update: Glen Ashton is providing a helpful summary of all the systems and players on his blog.

PS The decision of the organiser is final in all aspects of this competition

PPS You can post entries in the comments, or send me email, or message me through the BBO Forums (where I am cardsharp)

PPPS 'Anonymous' entries will be rejected/deleted

PPPPS All accepted entries will be published on Google Docs following the closing date

Glad you came ... now go away

A thought expressed by only one player in Washington, albeit one of the world's greats, after I accidentally did this to him on the final Sunday.

Holding ♠Ax ♥QJ97x ♦Axx ♣AQx, I opened 1♥ (since we play 14-16 1NT) and over partner's 1♠ I rebid a conventional 2♣, either natural with clubs or any 16+ hand.

Partner responded 2♥ and I started thinking. Partner has shown less than 8 points, no heart support, probably does not have a decent 5-card minor (as he would bid 2NT rather than 2♥) and certainly does not have a 6-card minor. He does also not have six spades. So it looks like my good hand is getting worse by the minute and it's hard to see how game can be good so, especially being non-vulnerable, I am happy with just passing this.

Dummy hit with ♠Jxxxx ♥x ♦Qxxx ♣Kxx and when the diamond lead showed that all the honours lay over the ♦Q I was quite pleased with myself.

So it was a bit of a shock when, at trick six, I discovered that one of my diamonds was actually a heart. If I had noticed during the auction I would have raised to 3♥, but as I was actually going down at the two-level level (LHO holding ♥AKT8) things seemed to be working out just fine. And I hadn't revoked.

Naturally at the end I apologised but one opponent was not happy. He knew that his team mates would be a lot higher and go down, perhaps important in a tight 7-board match, but there is nothing to be done here. Just one of those accidents that worked out for us. Phew!

PS Thanks to Memphis MOJO for inspiring the title

Closing thoughts

Why do we (Alex, Sam, Tim, Alan, Dee and I) spend a lot of money coming to the Nationals. I'm pretty sure we'd all give the same answer - we just love the competition. It is about playing decent bridge, over an extended period, and testing ourselves in serious competition against a consistently higher level of opponent that we can find at any UK congress.

This is not a "bridge groupie" thing. We don't go all starry-eyed when we sit down against these teams, we just sit down to beat them. And we do win occasionally, when we deserve to, and our only complaint is that we'd like to play in more rounds of events like the Spingold which may need a higher initial seeding so that we avoid a top eight seed in the round of 64. Scaring top eight seeds brings some satisfaction, but I'd prefer to do that in the round of 32 or even round of 16!

The following is a list of some pairs that we played in a serious teams match over the tournament:

Steve Robinson - Peter Boyd
Kit Woolsey - Fred Stewart
Adam Wildavski - Doug Doub
Claudio Nunes - Fulvio Fantoni
Boye Brogeland - Espen Linqvist
Aubrey Strul - Mike Becker
Michael Rosenberg - Mark Feldman
David Gold - Tom Townsend
Dani von Arnim - Sabine Auken
Benedicte Cronier - Sylvie Willard
Peter Gill - Martin Bloom
Cezary Balicki - Adam Zmudminski
Andrew Gromov - Aleksander Dubinin
Dano De Falco - Pat Cayne
Jonathan Steinberg - Daniel Korbel
Gabriella Olivieri - Jacqui Mitchell

As we were celebrating our final Sunday win, our thoughts were turning to next year. The Summer Nationals will be in New Orleans, which has some attraction, but the recent announcement that the World Bridge Series will be held in Philadelphia in October 2010 seems to be swaying us into attending that event instead.


So our next Nationals may be Toronto in Summer 2011. But we'll certainly be back!

Final weekend

After a slow start we had progressed to 66/120 VPs in the North American Open Swiss Teams with half the field qualifying for Sunday. We probably needed another 16 VPs from our last two matches to make it, so we were a little disappointed when we failed to do it. In our defence, you do not find teams like Rosenberg-Feldman, Townsend-Gold and Auken-von Arnim, Cronier-Willard in the middle of the field at the a UK event. In the end it was two slams that did us in, a good one bid by the Germans (who had no idea if it was good or no play until dummy hit) and another bid by us that needed a 2-2 trump break. If either of those goes the other way we'd have been fine.

So on Sunday we played in the A/X Swiss, seven matches straight throw. It was slightly surreal to spot the losing semifinalists from the Spingold also in the field, given they'd lost a tight match at 1.30am earlier in the day. I guess pros do what they are told, but after a really long and tough week why wouldn't everyone want some time off?

Sam forgot to impose the 'no silliness' rule for the first match - Alex and I took advantage of this to concede a silly -500 and -730, but Tim and Sam had a huge card and we still won comfortably. From then on though, all six of us powered through the field to meet the LYNCH team (Lynch, Passell, Balicki-Zmudinski, Gromov-Dubinin) in round 5. All the pros were playing against us but we came through a quiet set with a 5-2 IMPs win.

We then played the DE FALCO team (De Falco-Mrs Cayne, Oliveri-ANW) and had a good win against them to lie second by a couple of VPs with a match to go. As we waited to score up after the final match, Gromov came up to say that he'd lost 7-13 VPs to De Falco and we only needed 9 VPs to win the event. We actually won comfortably so won the event by 5 VPs.

So we finished the whole adventure as winners of the Second Sunday A/X Swiss.

Waiting ....

Today is the start of the Open Swiss Teams, a two-day event assuming you lie in the top half at the end of day one. Although the number of teams will be slightly fewer than Brighton at the end of August, the quality is a lot higher so we are not expecting any easy matches.

Yesterday four of us played in a compact knockout but won our matches in the wrong order. A big win followed by a small loss gave us the evening off - in compacts you have to win your second match if you want to play in the evening, it doesn't really matter what you do in the first.

Sam and Tim had a more successful day finishing 5th in the all-day pairs. They finished with a +2800 when a pair decided that redouble would be SOS after a fourth seat double of a 4♣ pre-empt was passed - pulling to the 3-3 spade fit would have been a similar, potentially worse score!