Future SBU Open Trials

We have published an invitation (PDF) on the SBU web site for people to tell us, the SBU Selection Committee, how they would organise the SBU Trials for the 2011 Home International Series Open Teams (Camrose Trophy).

A lot of people have expressed their opinion on the trials this year and I hope that they will take the time to make a contribution. Email responses to the Secretary, or me, by December 1.

Comments on this blog may influence my thinking, and others who read it, but will not be formally presented to the Committee.

Alien Foreign input is also very welcome.

Top of the league!

So we've won the first match of the league season and head the table.

I played at table one with Miro and we finished with an aggregate score of -770. Veronica and Carolyn were playing the same way as us and finished with about -1200, mainly due to their opponent's bidding a slam that was missed at our table. June and Christine were about +100 but the real stars were Simon and George who were around +2800.

Miro and I could have scored a lot better if only we had neglected to take some finesses - two vulnerable games failed when we did not drop a doubleton queen offside (missing five and six in the suits). But we played okay and it seemed that par was probably the -1200 at Veronica and Carolyn's table.

Our first three matches are against title contenders and next up will be Craigleith in a week's time.

A new season

Autumn arrived yesterday, so LotG and I trundled down to the club for the start of the new season. The club opened at the start of the month, but this was the first 'serious' Tuesday and it was packed to the rafters with 23 pairs.

As I've mentioned previously, the LotG system is a mix of old and new. Every attempt to introduce weak 2 bids has been firmly kicked into touch by a succession of Acol Strong Two openers or failed weak 2s by the opponents.

Last night was no different.

Apparently Margurite has been teaching weak 2 bids to some of the newer players over the summer, so they have arrived at the club with their new toy itching to deploy it against some unsuspecting foe. Unfortunately we were ready for them (perhaps more accurately the cards were waiting to harm whoever won the contract):

Perhaps not a classic weak 2♠ opener (a bit too strong for my liking but the final contract is always likely to be 2♠) but it was unfortunate to go three down. Still, not a bottom as there was a -1400 on the card! LotG judged well to pass the hand out at this vulnerability - if it had been reversed then you are probably forced to act.

Board 6 showed the importance of balancing:



I made nine tricks when the defence failed to push a club through the North hand, but most of the matchpoints were lost in the auction. My style would have been to raise 1♠ to 2♠ with Colin's hand and this would have ended the auction, however as Meckwell do not raise without 4-card support it would be wrong to suggest that Colin is wrong! However he might have considered bidding 2♠ over my balancing 2♥. This has two ways to win: 2♠ makes seven tricks for a better score or, most likely, we shall push onto 3♥ and they have a chance to set the contract for an excellent score. Matchpoints is a delicate balance of the aggressive and passive, but generally you score poorly if you let the opposition play in a fit at the two-level and it is worth taking risks to avoid that.

Overall we played very solidly throughout the evening. Our worst score was a 30% board and we had some good ones to win with 64%.

But there is a long way to go, as the Royal Bank is decided on your best six performances over the ten sessions.

Excellent! I cried. "Elementary," said he.

The first event of the season is the district teams of four. I played in a team of misfits with Alan, Les and Dan - Alan and Les have played a couple of times in the Russell Cup, Dan and I had practised on BBO but this was our first live outing.

There were 17 teams and it was a pretty strong field. We were doing well at the half but had not played any of the stronger teams, something I noticed as five international pairs promptly sat down against us in the second session. Dan and I played reasonably well, although it appeared that I was the junior when it came to bidding and he was the old man, and we finished third on 201/320 VPs just five VPs behind the winners.

Perhaps Sherlock Holmes would have solved this hand:

The wildest hand was the following, although swings tended to be small:


I was a little surprised at this turn of events, but recovered my composure to take the contract four down. At least East-West were almost on the same wavelength.

And finally, are you a junior or an old man?



PS As you may have guessed, this event is for the Watson Trophy

Borders vs East District

The annual curtain raiser to the league season is the Borders vs Edinburgh match ... although it seems to be transforming to the Borders vs East District. Given that all the Borders teams are in the East District this seems a little strange!

The East District forms its team behind closed doors with cauldrons brewing by selecting from the league division winners and second placed teams. The fact that none of these teams are from the Borders suggests that it is a real mismatch and, to be honest, it is. But Reg, Anne and Grant are considering introducing a handicap for next year to make it fairer and, given that everyone seems to enjoy the evening, I think this would be worthwhile.

Once again I was playing for the Borders with Reg at table 1 against Jim and Alec from Falkirk. We had the second-best N/S score of the evening and generally played quite solidly. Our mistakes were not particularly costly (aggregate scoring can be quite forgiving in some circumstances) and we beat some games.

Reg's spade lead is normal, but when he gets in with the ♣K he needed to reassess. With no entry for his spades it is clear to switch and a diamond is looks best, removing any entry to a late heart winner.

After the spade return, declarer can make the contract if he can read my carding. The end position is quite interesting if you use the Next button on the movie.

At the end the East had won by 10,000 points. Over 28 boards this means that each table lost the equivalent of a vulnerable game swing so no disgrace for the Borderers.

Trials - getting more serious

Stage I of the Scottish Open Trials is where it starts to get serious. What this actually means is that most of the participants believe that they deserve to be in the next (final) stage but their way is blocked by a succession of numpties who should not even be playing in this stage.

Perhaps a little harsh, but I'd be disappointed if most did not believe that they should be in the final stage although a little more respect for some of the other competitors would not go amiss. In truth there are few outstanding pairs in Scotland and we could run a trial every week and get different results, it's just the nature of the beast.

Nevertheless, it was pleasing to see that the two leading pairs actually came from the Trials Preparation Weekend. I'd like to think that a small part of this was due to the fact that they were prepared better than some - familiar with the format, the stresses and strains of the trial, etc - but I'm sure the fact that they thought they played a lot better helped too.

Jim Hay and Frazer Morgan, with SBU President Fiona Abbott

The top seven qualified for the two weekend final trial that will be held in October and November:

Position	Pair	VP
1	Jim Hay & Frazer Morgan	355
2	Tim McKay & Keith Youngs	337
3	Douglas Piper & Alex Wilkinson	310
4	Miro Dragic & Sandy Duncan	309
5=	Charles & Vi Outred	305
5=	Sam Punch & Stephen Peterkin	305
7	Roy Bennett & Nigel Guthrie	301

Full results are available on the SBU website.

Competition winner

Final result:

Player	BB	VC	SB	TOTAL	RANK
maggieb	51	48	22	121	1
Jlall	48	48	22	118	2
Ant590	33	54	28	115	3
Walddk	39	54	18	111	4
PeterGill	39	48	22	109	5
bidule4	36	48	22	106	6=
Wisdom of the Crowd	36	48	22	106	6=

Congratulations to Maggie whose strategy of taking Peter Gill's Venice Cup and Seniors Bowl answers and attempting to beat him on the Bermuda Bowl proved successful. Maggie lives in the US so getting the prize there will be a challenge, but possible on one of my US trips or one the other way.

The full result can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/mvfqkp (a google account is not required).

Pictures of the real winners (Open - USA2, Women - China, Seniors - England) at the medal ceremony can be seen on Mike Yuen's blog.

Start of the end

The finalists are known and start their matches today - 96 for the weak, 128 for the macho. I have no idea why the women and seniors cannot play 128 boards - no more strenuous a schedule than they've been playing for the last two weeks.

Bermuda Bowl
Italy - USA 2

Both had comfortable wins in the semis and we have a repeat of the 2003 (USA) and 2005 (Italy) finals. The Nickell team has lost its aura of invincibility over the last few years and I doubted that they would make the final, but an excellent win over the Dutch in the quarters shows that they are worthy finalists.

Italy are a lot of people's favourites but they too have lost their world-beating mantra over the last couple of years. But they remain the team to beat.

I think it will be a terrific final.

Venice Cup
USA 1- China Long Zhu

USA 1 rested for the last two sessions when USA 2 conceded early. This gives them a significant advantage over China who had a really tough match against France, only winning one session but by 53 IMPs whe France's largest win was 11 IMPs.

USA 2 conceded when a 100 IMPs down with 32 boards to play. Spain did the same to USA 1 in the quarter-final and this means that USA 1 have played four sets, that is one day and a half, less bridge that their opponents. Perhaps both teams were mentally beaten, but I think you should playing at least one more set - if you get 50 IMPs back, which is easily possible, then you have a chance.

d’Orsi Seniors Bowl
England - Poland

The Seniors have provided most excitement this week, with many matches going down to the wire. England overcame a half-time deficit and powered through Indonesia in the fifth set and then hung on, despite a couple of alarms, fairly comfortably in the sixth. I thought that England would have bowed out at the semifinal stage but, despite one poor set, they seemed to really raise their game.

Poland were also down at the half and it needed a big last set to give them a final berth. The final score was not as more comfortable than it looked.

In the prediction contest, the following still have a chance of winning (according to my calculations):

gwnn, ant590, maggieb, petergill (all from the BBO Forums) plus Iain Sime (Scotland)

Assuming that all the finals are a 50:50 chance, then maggieb has 3/8 chance, Iain 1/4 and the rest have a 1/8.

Russell's end

Tuesdays will never be the same again, at least not until next April when the merry-go-round starts again. Alan Goodman was the clear winner of the event, clear being the operative word as he finished about 2% clear of the field with six counting scores above 60%. As Les said in the pub afterwards, the winning score was perhaps less impressive than the margin of victory itself.

I played with Reg and we finished just below average. A couple of my 'matchpoints only' bids were not successful and we made a few mistakes, so finished with a whimper rather than a bang,

The hand of the night was board 20:

Reg, sitting South, played the hand in 2♠ doubled, making nine tricks for +870. A below average score when there were two 1100s, a 1400 and 1000 on the score card. Clearly when both sides are trying to declare diamond contracts there is going to be trouble.

The other hand debated in the pub was less exciting:



What is your call?

So thanks to all my partners over the summer season. It's been fun and I'll see you all next year.

Semifinals

Bermuda Bowl

Italy - Bulgaria

USA 2 - China Long Zhu

China withstood a tremendous comeback from Norway, while USA 2 were taken to the last few boards by the Netherlands, so these teams may both be a little tired. A hard match to call, but China appear to have the momentum.

Italy and Bulgaria had easier final sets but were never comfortable before this. A huge test for the Bulgarian team and the question is whether they really believe that they can beat the Italians. I reckon an easy match for the Azzurri.

Venice Cup

USA 1 - USA 2

France - China Long Zhu

Two matches that are both too close to call. Conditions of Contest force the USA teams to play each other, but all four teams could win the event.

d’Orsi Seniors Bowl

England - Indonesia

USA 2 - Poland

England won by a simple IMP against Egypt while the other three teams spent the last set in the bar as opponents had conceded. I predict a Poland - Indonesia final.

Excluding confidence

Have you discussed this non-competitive sequence with your partner?

1♣ - 1♥ - 2♥ - 5♣

Two pairs, one in the Bermuda Bowl and one in the Seniors Bowl, discovered that they had not and lost 15 IMPs in the process.

In a sense this is what makes bridge such a great game. It does not matter how well you prepare, nor how much you play, there is always something new around the corner. And it does need to be complicated to catch you out.

Perhaps this auction should not fit into this category but it does, doesn't it?

Quarter-finalists

The quarter-finalists are known in São Paulo and the spreadsheet has been updated. But still many points available, assuming your teams are still in!

Bermuda Bowl
Italy - Russia
Norway - China Long Zhu
Bulgaria - Germany
USA2 - Netherlands

Venice Cup
China Long Zhu - Sweden
France - Italy
USA1 - Spain
USA2 - Germany

D’Orsi Seniors Bowl
England - Egypt
Belgium - Indonesia
Poland - Sweden
USA1 - USA2

A nice introduction

It was the penultimate round of the Russell and Alan had grabbed me to play. He was leading the event and presumably looking for the most competent player available who was not a threat in the competition - but I guess he was not available and he got stuck with me instead for one of our four or five games of the season.

As Alan said at the end, it was a scrappy game but I did deliver a 'counting' 60% for him. This was a fair recovery after scoring 6/36 matchpoints on the first three boards.

We started against Cliff (Scottish Camrose player but speaks like a Canadian) and Dan (Israeli junior recently moved to the Borders), who were playing their first game in the Russell. They defended the first board more competently than most to score 66% and then we had the following auction:



What is your call?

Suffice to say that Alan's understanding of this everyday (not!) auction was quite different to mine and we failed to trouble the scorers. Cliff and Dan finished on the same score as us at the end of the evening and I guess they were surprised at that. But we are always generous to newcomers - welcome to the club guys!

I am used to people abusing my bidding but it would be nice if, occasionally, they did not all laugh together at the table. Things are improving as it only happened twice last night!

On the first occasion RHO's dummy contained ♥AQJx, slightly surprising for them when I had opened a vulnerable 4♥ (I did have EIGHT of them, and 0814 distribution - I can't believe I was the only one to do this!).

Secondly, following my Muiderberg 2♥ opener (weak hand with 5+ hearts and 4+ minor), Alan bid rapidly to 6♥ and put down ♠AKQx ♥AJ109xx ♦AK ♣x - this contract rolled home when the king and queen of trumps were in different hands.

So just one more week in the Russell and there are three people with a realistic chance of winning (Alan, Sam and Iain), and a couple more who need a huge session. I am not in the running but will be playing with Reg.