Scrabble update

LotG has finished in 10th place in the World Scrabble Championships. Her best finish in the event and just in the prize money. I'm sure she'll be fairly pleased with the result, but disappointed not to finish a little higher.

LotG finished as the top woman (next was 30th) and second-best British performance (Craig was 8th). The other Scottish players finished 26th (Neil) and 60th (Allan).

All the results can be seen on the WSC web site or, more graphically, using the active scoreboard.

Holiday books

The folks at Master Point Press asked me for the favourite five bridge books (that they sell) and you can see my selection on their web site. These are all sold as downloadable e-books, so delivery charges are quite small wherever you are in the world.

You can also see the selections of others, including author Tim Bourke. Unsurprisingly, at least to me, the most popular title is Sabine Auken's I Love This Game.

Happy holidays.

PS This is an unsolicited, unpaid-for advert for MPP. It is not an endorsement of their web site or products, even though I'm very happy with them. Reading e-books does have side effects, like forgetting to feed your kids or pick them up from football: I accept no responsibility for this.

Scrabble News

LotG is in Malaysia for the next two weeks playing Scrabble.

On Thursday the 10th World Scrabble Championships start in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Full details, including real-time scoring, will be available on the WSC website. The tournament has 24 rounds of swiss-style competition over three days, with the top two players then having a best-of-5 play-off on Sunday. The winner will take home $15,000.

A few days later, on December 2nd, the Causeway Scrabble tournament starts in the same location. This is an invitation teams tournament that is quickly becoming the World Teams Championship. Ten teams of five players and you play everyone except your own team, for a gruelling 45 games in 5 days. Although a teams tournament, the prize fund is focused on individual performance and all of the players are striving to be top. The length of the competition, and the fact that the field will be a lot stronger than the WSC, means that the individual winner will fully deserve the $20,000 first prize.

As an invitation event, the Causeway field is a lot stronger than the WSC as the weaker countries are not represented (although strong individual players are invited to play for one of the two international teams), some of the traditionally strong nations are overly represented in the WSC and some of the currently strong countries are under-represented. This is the first time that it has been played alongside the WSC and it will be the strongest field ever.

And, if that is not enough, then there is the World Youth Scrabble Championships at the same venue. The observant may doubt LotG's credentials for playing in this competition, but apparently they are running a tournament alongside in the lobby of the hotel and she could not pass up the opportunity ... as she was already there!

Who'd be a selector?

Today is the final day of the Scottish Camrose trials and the team for the first Camrose weekend will be known (subject to appeals, etc) at the end of the day. It is all very tight and at least half the field have visibility of a place in the team.

Being an English selector does not look any easier. Having created an elite training squad targeted at the Europeans, you would have hoped that these pairs would dominate the Premier League. As it happens only one of these eight pairs (Holland/Brunner) have been selected for the Camrose, with only one other pair (Townsend/Gold) also scoring well in the butler rankings. Two of the elite pairs were in the second division (where they did okay and were promoted), two finished below average in the first division, and two were nowhere to be seen (although at least one of these was due to illness).

I think what all of this shows is that it's not an easy job.

Update: it appears that the EBU has added Price/Simpson and Crouch/Patterson to the elite squad following the Premier League. Crouch/Patterson finished top in the butler, Price/Simpson were reasonably high although behind Dixon/Silverstone, Hackett/Waterlow (who may be more interested in the Seniors competition).

Dribbling away

Our first loss in the InterCity League was a frustrating affair. IMPs seemed to slip away for no real reason and in the end it amounted to a heavy defeat.

On the second board, our opponent unilaterally decided to sacrifice at adverse vulnerability and caught a near-perfect dummy to go just one down, so this cost us 6 IMPs.

Then I held a 2-0-5-6 hand with 9 points. Having passed I then heard a Precision 2♣ on my left and then a double from Anne. As my clubs were headed by the KQJ I passed. Unfortunately the opener had all the other clubs and we had a diamond fit, so the two trick defeat cost 8 IMPs.

Then a succession of boards where all of our aggression cost 3 IMPs a time and their lead just kept increasing. Although some of these were preventable (a laughable defence from me against 3NT cost 3 IMPs), the cards were not there for us to erode the deficit.

The final two boards just showed what we were up against. Firstly Jim doubled a misfitting 3NT, they redoubled and he found that partner had a complete bust and could not prevent the overtrick - the double was a very reasonable shot as it lost 1VP but would have gained 2 or 3VPs had the contract gone down.

Then, on the final board, Anne and I bid an excellent vulnerable game that was only defeated by the 4-0 trump break. In the other room they did not even investigate the game.

It was just not our evening.

Flexible friend

The second round of the Royal Bank Championship at the club and we scored 64% to continue to lead the field. But it's very early days with another eight rounds to go and others, notably Colin and Alan, have also started well.

Last night was standard fare. We played very solidly and took what gifts were on offer. We bid a few games missed by others (only one was off in top losers but they failed to cash), but we win most points by defending more accurately than most.

From a technical perspective, the following hand seemed to cause some a problem:

I know at least two players decided to run from 1NT and bid 2♦.

Naturally 1NT does look vulnerable when you hold a maximum of four hearts between you. But the opposition have been silent, so perhaps partner holds a strong (albeit short) heart suit. Even so, it is matchpoints and it is love all, so going down in 1NT may not be a disaster or you may have sufficient tricks in the other suits. So I don't think it is automatic to bid here.

However, if you are going to run, then perhaps you should consider 2♣. Partner is only likely to pass this (or raise) when they have two more clubs than diamonds, as otherwise they would give (false) preference. It is a flexible call that should find your better minor-suit fit, although slightly unusual as it is only a 3-card suit.

On the actual hand, running from 1NT was the right answer. However the reason that the opponents are not bidding is that the strong hand is sitting over you with diamonds. So you cannot make 2♦, but you can make 10 tricks in clubs.

Looking at the traveller, it appears that no East-West pair played in clubs. Perhaps more will consider it next time.

Partnership rankings

Richard Pavlicek has produced an interesting analysis of the performance of world-class partnerships over the last 13 years using the available vugraph records. It can be found on his website.

Some of the statistics do not look that relevant - for example, it is hard to understand why one partner should be on lead a lot more than the other - but the total imps/board is a good measure.

One of the statistics I was interested in was the number of hands that a partnership declared the hand. You would expect highly aggressive pairs, such as Meckstroth/Rodwell, Hampson/Greco, Cheek/Grue to play a lot more than they were due but this is not always true: Meckwell 53.7%, Hampson/Greco 51.7%, but Cheek/Grue 49.3%. Some top pairs were as low as 45% and most of the Italian stars were below 50%.

I have collated similar statistics for our performance in the English Premier League. Unlike Richard's work, which uses the real IMP swings from the match, my numbers are based on the Butler scores for the boards. I think this is probably more relevant but normally the butlers will not be available in a normal tournament.

Overall I thought that the three weekends had a far lower percentage of 1♣ openers than usual and this is probably why we did not have a higher play percentage:

	Dcr%	Mak%	IMP/d	Olr%	Set%	IMP/d	Deals	IMP/d
Paul	24.23%	66.67%	0.18	21.73%	42.31%	0.17	360	0.4
Alex	25.07%	62.22%	0.90	28.97%	33.65%	0.30

One hand was passed out and not included in Dcr and Olr numbers.

Dcr = hands declared/Mak = make percentage/Olr = on lead percentage/Set = hands beaten

So we were two hands short of playing our fair share.

Interesting, or not?

I found an error in my spreadsheet for the last 120 boards, so numbers have changed since original posting.

Well, that's 360 boards played then

The English Premier League finished this weekend. It must be said that the real excitement was in the first division, where some teams could still win the event or be relegated with 20 boards to go. In the end Crouch (Peter Crouch, Glyn Liggins, Derek Patterson, Willie Whittaker) won by 1.5 VPs and will represent England in the Camrose.

There was less excitement in the second division. De Botton were always going to be promoted and, with Wilson ineligible, Senior got the second spot when we beat Cope to stop them going up.

Two wins and a small loss in the final weekend got us up to mid-table respectability. Alex and I played consistently throughout the competition except for one bad set against Wilson and we will finish quite well in the butler. Despite the vagaries of this method of scoring, it is probably a reasonable reflection of our performance over the whole event.

I'll post more later this week, but there was one fun auction in the final match (click Next to step through the auction):

It's obvious (at least to me)

Another InterCity League match last night and young Phil filled in as my partner as Alex was unavailable. It proved a comfortable win by 23-7 VPs although it really should have been more.

Miro and Sandy defended very competently to earn the biggest swing of the night.

This was worth 14 IMPs when Phil made the same contract at our table after a less revealing auction (EW never knew about their diamond fit).

One of our missed opportunities was the result of the following auction:

What does 5♦ mean?

Ideas welcome and I've also created a poll on the BBO Forums if you want to see the thoughts of others. One point is already clear, there is no consensus and it is a bid better avoided.

Slams 'R' Us

Another Wednesday, another match in the InterCity League, this time against Dubrovnik. A 17-13 VPs win keeps us narrowly on top of our group but we are not half way through the round robin yet.

Alex and I bid three slams missed at the other table. As we lost 7 IMPs on these hands the opps were probably not disappointed.

I thought we bid this well and shows the advantage of 2/1. Alex's ability to go slowly with his hand allowed us to even investigate the grand.

Alex had a choice of a slam-encouraging 5♣ or taking the responsibility on himself. They finished in 4NT in the other room with a less convincing auction (which seemed to involve Gerber and Blackwood by the same hand).

Our final slam was a missed opportunity, although it is difficult to let the opposition play the contract when you know that you have a 12-card fit.

Then both pairs missed an excellent slam. A tough one to bid but I did have a chance as Alex was marked with spade shortage. My concern was cue bidding hearts may lead to the opponents finding their double fit and my club values being unable to cope with potential 4-1 breaks - another missed chance.

Jim, subbing for Miro, and Sandy had no problems with their only opportunity:

Interesting to consider whether the strong hand is worth an upgrade (due to the clubs) or not (due to the hearts).

The contest continues next Wednesday.

Where's my metal hat?

Judy Kay-Wolff reports on her blog:

"The UNITED STATES BRIDGE FEDERATION (USBF) is considering inaugurating a preliminary event [for the US Trials] for the first time to be held via internet and there is much to be said for saving time and money for those who do not make the initial cut, thereby being able to not have the expense of traveling to the eventual playing site."

I think it will be a while before the SBU is ready to discuss this and, even then, you can imagine it will be trialled with juniors first.

But is it coming?

Duck!

No repeat

The 49ers managed their first real win of the season last night, after three draws, as we failed to repeat last year's magnificent victory.

The first half was the lowest scoring that I've ever been involved in. After twelve boards, the aggregate score at table 1 was 750-470 - an average of 101 points scored per board. Four game contracts were attempted and defeated. The scores at the other tables were similar although table 4 did manage two making game contracts (I think one was a doubled part score and the other they failed to find the normal save).

So at the half Merchiston were only 20 points down but we fell away in the second half to lose by about 2,500 in the end. Our opponents did well on this hand:

We were the last to finish because of this board. For a bonus point, which bid took Les at least ten minutes to make?

As a pair Miro and I seemed about 700 points below par as we went off in a game that should be made. The rest of the hands seemed to be played relatively sensibly.

EPL II

The second weekend of the English Premier League was held in Manchester.

Chris was back and we all did him proud by beating most of his former team in the first match. In the second match we faced the de Botton team and lost to them by 8 IMPs, 14-16 VPs. We all had chances but, then again, so did they.

After this good start it was disappointing to get demolished in our final match of the weekend. I think we all made mistakes that were heavily punished and our opponents got all the decisions right, never a good combination.

I did not feel that Alex and I played particularly well all weekend, but only the last match really reflected that. Alan and Chris seemed to have five solid sets and it was only the final set that got away from them.

Still, no real time to reflect on this as the final weekend is only ten days away.