Down to earth

After two good wins, a disappointing team performance led to a 17 imps defeat in the InterCity League.

Alex and I had a number of opportunities to do better, including these:

Alex took his six tricks for -500. This was always losing 5 imps but it was nine when they played undoubled at the other table. I don't think either of us misjudged the auction here, more a case of both bidding aggressively and finding a poor lie of the cards. Some may disagree!

On board 12 our opponents proved difficult to hand:

East took full advantage creating a problem for us, because the East hand can be quite strong given the limited nature of the opening bid. Our overcalling style is not particular sound so bidding five hearts with Alex's hand would be a big stretch, but I did consider doubling which would have worked out a lot better. This cost us a game swing.

We also missed an excellent slam in a competitive auction where one hand had good trumps whilst all the controls (plus jacks for the finesses) were in the other hand. Luckily this was missed at the other table too.

On the plus side we did bid two games missed at the other table but we did leave too imps on the table this time.

Hopefully the team will recover for next week's local derby against a Welsh team.

Rosenberg Slam Rule

Michael Rosenberg, one of the best players ever to leave Scotland, explained his slam rule in the Levin-Weinstein postmortem.

"Whenever you have the desire to make an undiscussed bid at the slam level, repress it - your partner will not be on the same wavelength. Even if you think the meaning is obvious, your partner will think it means something else."

Professional postmortem

On board 56 of the Vanderbilt final, two world-class pairs bid to a grand slam missing the ace of trumps. What was particularly unusual was that both pairs actually used Blackwood on the way.

Bobby Levin and Steve Weinstein were one pair of culprits and they have published their postmortem email exchange on the BridgeWinners site.

Moving forward

A second comfortable win in the InterCity League. Miro and Douglas are a new partnership practising for their Gold Cup match but a recurring theme was their ability to use the Double card far better than their opponents that brought in 33 of the 39 imp difference.

Phil and Jim contributed their part too, outbidding their counterparts on the first hand:

An easy twelve tricks was worth eleven imps. Phil's decision to raise directly to four diamonds, rather than use fourth suit forcing, was the principal difference in the auctions.

Later on there was an interesting bidding decision:

Your call?

Phil played for a brilliancy on this board, but the cards proved too friendly for that.

Phil hoped that North had a 4414 distribution with the queen of hearts, as he could then endplay him to concede the last trick to dummy. Disappointing that the clubs were 3-3! In the other room declarer failed to make the right inferences from the lack of diamond continuation at trick two and went down.

The rest of the match happened in the other room, two large penalties and a part score doubled into game earning most of the imps.

More next Wednesday.

Good and bad judgement

Seventh round of the club pairs and I badly misjudged our score. At the end of the evening my estimate was just below average but luckily the scorer disagreed and we were fourth with 55%. Not great but it becomes our worst counting score.

The main reason I was so wrong was the first round against Pam and Betty. On the first board they were a little cautious in the bidding and made precisely nine tricks in three spades, the par score on the hand. I thought most would push on and estimated a bottom. I was right and wrong. Most did push on but the other North-Souths did not find LotG's accurate defence so game was often made and we scored 60% on the board. We passed the second hand out, estimated as average but actually a top for us as they had missed one notrump. On the final hand of the set we went down in a low point-count game and I estimated another bottom. However some did the same and others made game in the other direction so we scored 35%. Overall my estimate on this round was out by 4% on the bottom line.

Strong Twos remain a fixture in LotG's system. I'm not a fan (in line with the rest of the world) even though they do come up more often than people think. No, my problem is that even when they come up no-one knows how to bid constructively after them and so the benefits are really lost.

They do help sometimes though:

I prefer the positive response of 2NT to three spades but we do have agreements on continuations after this start: 3NT now asks for cue bids and a direct four-level bid is natural, showing a second suit. In this context LotG's hand is poor, three small diamonds being the worst holding for a grand slam.

Even this contract could have been beaten on a club lead as the spades break 4-2 and the ace of clubs is offside. Six diamonds is a better slam or, less realistically, six spades played by South. Fortunately a club was not led and making the slam was a top.

Strong misfits are always difficult and I thought we judged this hand well. Reaching the par contract of three notrump looks difficult but at least we found a making spot:

Both of us had interesting decisions. LotG did have a strong jump shift available and could have responded three diamonds, albeit losing the heart suit. Having decided to respond two diamonds she then had to bid three hearts as three diamonds would not have been forcing. In retrospect perhaps starting with three diamonds is more appropriate.

With a likely misfit I was not tempted to rebid three clubs, which would have shown extra values. And over three hearts the quality of the spade suit suggested three spades rather than three notrump (our last chance of par!).

I did think for a minute or so before passing five diamonds, thinking that six diamonds would have play. Eventually, expecting 5-7 in the reds opposite, I passed. The defence slipped a trick and LotG made twelve tricks for a near top - Ros and Diana bidding and making the slam on a misdefence making up (at least a little) for going down in the previous six spades.

Overall none of the top pairs shone last night and we remain well positioned in the event. Three more rounds to go!

Learning young

The Scotland U20 team, plus one ringer, received a bit of a lesson in their second round match of the World Online University Championship. Poland AGH, with at least one 'gold' star player, established a lead sufficient to force a concession after sixteen of the planned thirty-two boards.

Success was limited to this board:

East led a club and Gyles quickly claimed all the tricks.

In the other room, after a very similar auction, Stephen led the two of hearts and Stuart returned the suit for a seventeen imp gain.

Although a disappointing result, playing against good teams is the best way to learn. Perhaps best in small doses of course!

City fights

The 15th season of the BBO InterCity League started yesterday. Matches are played on Wednesday evenings and twenty-eight teams have entered this year and are in three groups. In fact there is space for another two teams so if you are interested please contact cobRAD on BBO and see if you can be accommodated.

EDINBURGH is in Group A and we started last night with a comfortable win against Kočevje, Slovenia. The first problem of the match fell to Phil on board 3:

What would your plan be?

A few boards later I found an unusual attribute of part of our system:

Alex might hold a balanced eleven count with a weak doubleton, but it seems more likely that he have a 3415 distribution otherwise the opponents might have found some heart bids. Even so it seems better to play in the diamond fit in case I was forced in hearts. The other advantage was that Alex was playing the hand and any heart lead would be up to him (although the same would be true playing in spades). The hand was passed out at the other table and making nine tricks was worth three imps.

Strong 4441 hands are often difficult to bid, more so when two people have bid in front of you. I was concerned with this hand but the auction worked out nicely for me:

We missed the top contract of 6NT as Alex could easily have held ♠Jxx ♥Jx ♦Qxx ♣AKQxx, so we lost one imp rather than gaining one.

The final score was 32-4 imps, translating into a 22-8 vps win. More next Wednesday.

Double dummy

A bit of a lull means that I am playing a bit on BBO. I normally review the hands the following day looking at where imps were won and lost. Using the same technique that I practise for analysing serious events, I first look at hands where there is a large imps swing in real life or there is a departure from the 'par' score.

Of course the par score is often unrealistic, especially in the slam zone, but as a metric for examining hands it is useful. And sometimes you come across some real surprises: where would you like to play these two hands?



Hard to blame a pair that did not find four spades.

Camrose finale

An exciting weekend of bridge in Llandrindod Wells resulted in the first Camrose win for Wales. They have been waiting since 1937 and I expect the celebrations continued for some time. In fact they may still be going on.

With every board being shown on BBO, and regular announcements of the current standings throughout the last sixteen-board set, I'm sure the place to be was at the table rather than amongst their supporters, NPC and sitting out pair. The first ten hands were very flat but some explosive hands at the end were there to test the nerve of everyone. But Wales just piled on the imps as their main competition stuttered.

Final Result		VP
Wales	170
England	165
Ireland	160
Scotland	154
WBU	147
Northern Ireland	99

So how did the Scottish team do? The real answer can only be the objective view of the table for the second weekend:

Second Weekend		VP
Scotland	85
Wales	82
Ireland	80
England	73
WBU	71
Northern Ireland	54

Quite a performance from the team and probably the best for several years. Everything else I say should be taken in this context, that the Scottish team was the best at the weekend and everyone else was worse.

Often when watching from afar, especially on the Internet, you only see things that reinforce your personal prejudices. This was not the case in the first match against England where the Scotland team was unrecognisable. They were sharp, aggressive and played pretty much error-free.

On the other hand, the England team were listless and this was, as the record shows, the match where they lost the Camrose. The Scots just appeared to be ready for this match and I wonder if their decision to drive down to Wales a day before the event was the reason. I believe England drove on the day and their bridge seemed to reflect a long day.

Thus it was very frustrating to see that Scotland team that arrived on Saturday morning was not the one that left the previous evening. The aggression largely disappeared and unforced errors started to creep in. I discovered that shouting at the screen is not helpful. I watched a lot of the boards and what you see is not just the swings that happen, but also the missed opportunities and errors that are not seen when a board is flat.

Both Saturday matches, against Wales and WBU (the second Welsh team) followed a similar pattern. A good decision by the selectors to pick an NPC who had some hair to pull out.

To be totally honest, the team continued in a similar vein on Sunday morning against Northern Ireland but they were not strong enough to take advantage. Actually they were very poor and Scotland took an easy win.

The final round matched the three top teams against the bottom three teams, but Wales were the only one to win. Scotland did not play particularly well but neither did the Irish and their super-aggressive approach, perhaps inflated by the need to win well, suffered with solid Scottish defence.

Rereading my review it seems that I did not think much of the Scottish performance and the rest could only be worse. It was certainly hugely frustrating to see Scotland play so well on Friday but never reach those heights again, but obviously they were more consistent than the other teams. I guess we'll see a different England team in the Europeans next year but the others still have some way to go if they are going to reach the top division in Europe.

The butler scores for the weekend, an objective but flawed measure of performance, had Short/Walker marginally ahead of Sime/Matheson with Spears/Murdoch some way behind. I was surprised as this did not fit my subjective assessment of just watching many of the hands. I thought that Sime/Matheson were the stand-out Scottish pair. Short/Walker declared and defended very well throughout, but I thought that they left shed loads of imps on the table through over-conservative bidding - they really missed the opportunity to be the MVP (most valuable pair) of the weekend. Spears/Murdoch started well but were guilty of too many unforced errors.

So congratulations to Wales for a great first win in the Camrose. This team has done well over the last two years and they really deserve it. Congratulations to Scotland on winning the second weekend, showing that they are capable of winning the Camrose if they can perform consistently.

Next year Scotland will have two teams in the Camrose. Entries for the trials close on Friday 1 July, so get practising.

Update: Photos from the event

Israel vs Scotland

The final warm up before the intensity of a Camrose weekend was a match on BBO against Israel. As I noted previously, this was not expected to be an easy match. Yaniv Zack and Michael Barel were part of the bronze medal winning team at the last European Team Championships; Ilan Bareket and Assaf Lengy played for Israel in the subsequent EBL Champions Cup; very much a tough proposition.

There was a small swing on the third board, but it could have been a lot bigger.

In the other room West opened two hearts, showing hearts and a minor, and East just bid game. So Israel had already won the board when N/S found their making club game. Luckily Yaniv's double only came as he took the fourth trick for the defence.

Subsequently there was much debate about Dave's double of five clubs. It looks pretty silly but the crux of the problem is whether you believe that this is a forcing pass auction. If you do, then you need to double here to stop partner bidding on. For my regular partnership this is a forcing pass situation, but it is something that partnerships need to discuss.

Scotland leapt into the lead on board 4 when the Israelis got too high and Brian and Dave cashed their three tricks, gaining a game swing.

Israel got the points back two boards later when they bid a thin game and Iain's normal lead was not the killing one.

Both Wests did well on board 12:

Sound defence by Brian and Assaf for a flat board.

The real purpose of these matches is to put the players under more pressure than they see in Scotland. It is also to test their partnership agreements and understandings. Brian and David demonstrated that they have to discuss (at least) one passed hand sequence as they soared into a grand slam missing the king of their suit and two aces. This gifted 15 imps and made the final result Israel 60:20 Scotland. On a positive note, I'm pleased that they do this online rather than at the Camrose on Friday.

The two matches have generated quite a lot for the players to discuss. Luckily they have a six-hour drive down to Wales tomorrow to fill! Good luck to all in the Camrose this weekend.

The charge for second place

Our performances in the Scott Cup, the club's teams championship, have been mediocre this season. But with Penny substituting for Diana we did manage to win last night's round but are already too far behind one team to win it.

It was an interesting set of distributional hands last night. This was the most extreme:

What do you open and what is your plan?

In our match Reg and I took different routes but ended at the same spot. The fact that it was not a flat board is something that neither defence is happy about.

I thought both Norths failed to exert maximum pressure on this hand:

It was a similar auction in the other room but I feel that South is really worth three hearts, even at unfavourable vulnerability. And just look at the problem that this creates for East, who will presumably double and then nervously pass 3NT. The final pass was nervous enough as it is!

I was unsure about the best line but with limited entries I just won the first heart and passed the queen of diamonds. At the other table declarer lost their way after starting on clubs.

How to bid minimum 5-6 hands is always tricky. I made a plan and stuck with it even though it was really overbidding the hand, but at imps this is the often the way:

Ros did well to restrict this to one down. At the other table they reached four diamonds and we gained five imps.

Finally a really tough hand for North-South:

In our match both South players opened three hearts, a real underbid in my view especially at favourable vulnerability. Whatever you open West is going to overcall spades. At our table North continued with four hearts and played there, making six. But if partner had opened four hearts, then I think you take the money against four spades doubled for a huge swing. Hard to see how the slam can ever be bid.