Spotted

I thought they were fixed to the table somehow, just part of the furniture. Nut, courtesy of Mike Yuen, the two Scottish pairs who have been playing in Poznan since the start of time the tournament have been spotted:

Harry Smith and Roy Bennett

David Liggat and Liz McGowan

Sam Punch, Moira McGregor, Jenny Cooper, Stephen Peterkin

Photographs courtesy of Mike Yuen.

Meanwhile, back in Poznan

While Mahaffey plays Bessis in the Open teams final, everyone else is still, surprisingly, playing pairs.

In the Women's pairs, Jenny and Moira are into their 29th qualifying session and are currently just below half-way. In the Seniors, Liz and David are similarly placed and must be heartened that there are only another 93 sessions before the final.

At least those in the Open pairs have achieved something, or not, as they compete in the two-day ten-session semifinal. Sam and Stephen, Martin and Patrick, and Mike and Pony, are qualified for Semifinal A and thus are much better positioned to make the A final. Dan Israeli, with partner Dror Padon, is also in Semifinal A. Harry and Roy qualified for Semifinal B and are currently in the running to make the B final.

Naturally the daily bulletins say how wonderful everything is in Poznan, but at the Russell Cup last night Iain confirmed that the venue and organisation were excellent. He especially liked the ability to get a printout of your last ten boards, including hands, scores and running totals, by swiping your badge through a machine.

Nothing to write about

Leaving Poznan for the evening I played with Diana in the Russell Cup. It was a very strange evening. I did not play very well at all, making lots of careless mistakes. Diana slipped an overtrick or two, never a good idea for your score at matchpoints, And we had a bidding misunderstanding about a cue bid over a potentially short one club opener, and my actively ethical response had us bidding a slam when most were in a part-score.

Our opponents were little better, in fact considering we came fifth with 54% they were presumably worse. Lots of mistakes, misunderstandings and random play. Looking through the boards this morning and leaving out all the mistake-ridden hands, there is little of interest left.

Perhaps this is the best example of what everyone was doing:

You'd hope that most of the field would get to a making grand slam, rather than just three of the ten tables.

Perhaps it was the summer spirit that was the problem, as we had our first sunny day since April. I think I'll go back to Poznan for a while.

Jenny update

A text from the tournament from Jenny confirms that she did not play for team Cronier at any point. To be honest I think this became clear when Cronier failed to qualify for the knock-out stages, something that they would definitely have done with Jenny on board. The thought is that Cronier typed in the wrong player number.

Knowing Jenny I'm guessing the SEF is probably not her favourite system despite its advancement by the chairman of the selection committee!

European Open X

Unfortunately none of my featured teams made it through the round of thirty-two so everyone is playing matchpoints now until the end of time the tournament.

Newcomers include Jenny Cooper and Moira McGregor, and Martin Kane who is played with Welsh star Patrick Shields.

The Women's and Seniors pairs do not have many entries, so they are playing multiple qualifying sessions leading to either Final A or Final B.

There are more than 300 entries in the Open Pairs. They follow the same format as the Mixed Pairs and play to qualify for Semifinal A and Semifinal B.

I won't follow the Scottish pairs session by session, but will keep everyone updated on what they qualify for.

European Open IX

The teams are now down to the knock-out stages and everyone left in will be happy about that. Unfortunately that does not include McGowan who finished seventh in their nine-team group: they will now enter the open or senior pairs qualifying. Pharon have made the quarter-finals with Waterlow/Hackett leading the butlers.

Neither Seale nor German Ladies have made the knock-out stages in the Women's event, but in the Open Israel Mongos, Helle and Irens have all made the round of 32. Everyone else will be in the pairs tomorrow.

European Open VIII

Jenny update: Jenny's name has disappeared from the Cronier team roster and from the butler imps, so there is now no record of who played those two sets yesterday. Certainly Cronier has a gap in his playing record. Hopefully someone from the site will let us know!

For the others:

• McGowan has two matches left in the round-robin and seems too far off fourth to qualify, but two huge wins could change that. At least they have one pair who can generate the necessary imps in such circumstances.
• Pharon is definitely in the more competitive group and lies third currently, but only 4 VPs clear of fifth.
• Seale, in the Women's event, remains in mid-table a match behind a qualifying spot.
• Mike Yuen's German Ladies had a tougher day but just need to avoid big losses to qualify.

In the Open teams, I think about 27 teams will qualify for the knock-out stages from Swiss A with only five from Swiss B.

• Cronier is mid-field in Swiss B
• Israel Mongos, with Dan Israeli, is in a KO qualifying spot in Swiss A.
• Marbella has gone AWOL.
• Allfrey is in Swiss A and need a good run.
• Robertson is mid-table in Swiss B.
• Irens is challenging for a qualifying spot in Swiss B.
• Helle is mid-table in Swiss B.
• De Botton is on the bubble in Swiss A
• Harris is mid-table in Swiss B.

Five more rounds of Swiss tomorrow and then the knock-out stages (or the pairs) start.

European Open VII

Having said that there was no Scottish team playing in the Open Series, imagine my surprise when I saw that Jenny Cooper had joined the Cronier Open team. As Phillippe has won both mixed events so far, perhaps this is the best bet for a Scottish medal!

I know that Jenny is in Poznan to play in the Women's Pairs but was always arriving early, and has now presumably been seconded whilst standing in the right place. She played the last two matches today and has a positive butler!

So my view from afar:

• McGowan has started slowly in the Seniors Teams and will need a big day tomorrow with only four of nine teams qualifying for the knock-out stage.
• Pharon has started well but appears to be in the more competitive group.
• Seale, in the Women's event, sits in mid-table but needs a good day.
• Mike Yuen is now NPC of the German Ladies and is clearly doing a great job as they currently lead their group.

In the Open teams, the top three from each group qualify for Swiss A and the rest go into Swiss B. There is a huge advantage to being in Swiss A.

• Cronier, my new favourite team, lie in a qualifying position in their group.
• Israel Mongos, with Dan Israeli, are also in a qualifying position overnight.
• Marbella are in a tough group and qualifying for Swiss B looks likely.
• Allfrey are in a qualifying position but also in a tough group
• Robertson are mid-table but only 2VPs behind Israel Mongos.
• Irens is in the same group and on the same score as Robertson.
• Helle lies in third place, 5 VPs behind Allfrey.
• De Botton has started very slowly but is only 13 VPs off a qualifying spot
• Harris is struggling and qualifying for Swiss B looks certain.

Three more rounds tomorrow and then the Swiss starts.

European Open VI

I forgot to mention that Mike Yuen and Pony Nehmart had qualified for the main final of the mixed pairs. A creditable effort but they finished some way behind the medals.

The winners were Philippe Cronier and Catherine D'Ovidio, a terrific double after they'd won the Mixed Teams yesterday.

In the consolation final, all the Scots finished above average without challenging the top places.

Tomorrow sees the start of the principal team events, namely the Open, Women's and Seniors. The Open follows the format of the Mixed events, with a round-robin phase qualifying for a one-day semifinal Swiss as the prelude to the knock-out stages. Lack of numbers for the Women's and Seniors means they will just have group round-robins with eight teams qualifying for the quarter-finals.

There is only one Scottish team playing, McGOWAN (Liz McGowan, David Liggat, Roy Bennett and Harry Smith) in the Seniors event. Although there are no Scottish players in the Open Teams, one-time partner and non-resident TD Dan Israeli is playing in the Israel Mongos team and I'll be following his progress too.

There are a number of English teams and players playing in the Open:

• Marbella (Waseem NAQVI, Jorg DROMBROVE, Hristo NIKOLOV, Plamen HRISTOV) - England, Spain, Bulgaria
• Allfrey (Alexander ALLFREY, Andrew ROBSON, Tony FORRESTER, David GOLD) - England
• Robertson (Marion ROBERTSON, Simon COPE, Richard BOWDERY, Ian PAGAN, Chris JAGGER, Shivam SHAH) - England
• Irens (Nick IRENS, Espen ERICHSEN, Ulf Haakon TUNDAL, Glenn GROETHEIM, David BAKHSHI, Tom TOWNSEND) - England, Norway
• Helle (Rob HELLE, Roger BRYANT, Jerry STAMATOV, Diyan DANAILOV) - England, Bulgaria
• De Botton (Janet DE BOTTON, Artur MALINOWSKI, Thor Erik HOFTANISKA, Thomas CHARLSEN, Nicklas SANDQVIST, Fredrik BJORNLUND) - England, Norway, Sweden
• Harris (Jonathan HARRIS, Steve CAPAL, Barry MURRAY, Andrew SOBELL) - England

There is one principally English team in the Women's event:

• Seale (Catherine SEALE, Catherine JAGGER, Lizzie GODFREY, Louise LHERE, Nevena SENIOR, Fiona BROWN) - England, France

Similarly in the Seniors:

• Pharon (Paul D HACKETT, Tony WATERLOW, Gunnar HALLBERG, Hans GOTHE, David PRICE, Colin SIMPSON) - England, Sweden

Good luck to them all!

European Open V

Zimmermann, Badger's conquerors, had an easy win in the Mixed Teams final.

In the pairs, all of my featured partnerships have qualified for Final B. Sam and Stephen performed very creditably in the tougher Semifinal A, but even an above average score was some distance from qualifying. In Semifinal B, Laura led the way but could not make the top three finish necessary. Liz and David, and Fiona and Iain, both finished above average too. As you can see, it is tough to qualify for the main final.

Tomorrow is the final day of the mixed competitions.

Slammin'

I had a pleasant evening playing with Jake in the Russell Cup, even though lapses of concentration kept us from getting a decent score. We playing my conventionless¹ system and did reasonably well in the slam zone:

Only two other pairs bid the slam and one tried a level higher!

Almost everyone bid a slam on the next one. I thought we had a well-controlled auction even if the meaning of every call was not completely obvious.

Both four-level bids were ambiguous, as they could have been natural or cue bids. Such is the nature of auctions after an opening two clubs and you can see why people like strong club systems with the extra space it will often provide. We scored just above average for this, with two pairs bidding six hearts but one trying six notrumps (matchpoints partner!) and a couple playing in the notrump game.

Only one pair bid a slam on the following hand. Luckily for us it was some ill-discipline on the part of our opponent, but I disagreed with Jake's bid and I think it is an interesting area of discussion:

We got a top with +800 as most of field had passed the double of five clubs. I think that was the right action as you should not really be pulling the double except to a making contract. Although the double is takeout, it is an action you are forced to take with a wide variety of hands and, as shown here, good support for every suit is not guaranteed. If I were forced to bid with the West hand, I would choose six clubs ... happy to sacrifice a level in order to find a proper fit. Naturally you might then discuss the differences between five notrump and six clubs :)

¹ Naturally we were not completed conventionless, but I do get fed up agreeing to play conventions when my partner does not know the continuations, or does not know what it means when the convention is not used. Checkback is my main bugbear in this regard, so that was not on the card, nor was Lebensohl, Good/Bad 2NT, support doubles, inverted minors, etc. I'm sure you get the idea. Interestingly, 1NT-4♦ showing 5-5 in the majors with no slam interest was on the card and did come up.

European Open IV

Liz, David, Fiona, Iain, Laura and her partner Luca all successfully qualified for Semifinal B in the Mixed Pairs but were outdone by Sam and Stephen who finished in 42nd to make Semifinal A. Seven 10-board sessions to determine which final they all play in.

In the Mixed Teams quarter-final, Badger once again went down to the wire but a game swing on the penultimate board saw them threw. After I'd mentioned their record to one of the BBO commentators he jokingly said that they were perhaps the luckiest team in the event, but I'm sure they feel  that they just playing tough bridge right to the last card and this has seen them through.

Having defeated the Russians they will now take on the star-studded Zimmermann team from France in the semifinal.

Update: I had to leave the Badger team to go and play bridge when they were six imps up with six boards to play. Unfortunately two slams went against them and they will come home with a bronze medal, repeating their success in the 2009 event in Sanremo. Upon reflection I'm sure they will be very pleased with the bronze, but at the moment I guess they are very disappointed not to have gone one step better this year. Congratulations to Paula Leslie, Frances Hinden, Graham Osborne and Jeffrey Allerton.

European Open III

In the round of 32, Mike Yuen and his German friends in the Pony team beat the Italian stars by two imps, winning both halves of the match as it happened. I thought they had decided that these large victories were unnecessary and decided to win their round of 16 by a single imp, but unfortunately it appears that the BBO record was incorrect and they lost by two imps. Perhaps a case of what goes around comes around. Update:  Or perhaps not as Mike explains what happened on his blog.

Mike and Pony will have tomorrow morning free and then drop into Semifinal A of the Mixed Pairs. They are also playing the Open Pairs together.

Once again Paula and the Badger team needed a game swing on the final board but their experience took them through into the round of 16 by seven imps. Then, playing against the strong Hauge team, a slam swing on the penultimate board gave them victory by sixteen imps. In the quarter-final they play the Russians, fresh from their demolition of the English team of Duckworth, Stockdale, Callaghan and Cope.

In the Mixed Pairs qualifying, I believe the top 70 pairs (about a third of the field) will qualify for Semifinal A with the rest 'qualifying' for Semifinal B. After five of the seven 10-board qualifying sessions:

• Sam and Stephen are the leading Scottish pair and lie 51st with 53.4%
• Liz and David are just below the bubble, under a top behind a qualifying spot
• Fiona and Iain started very well but a couple of poor sets have left them needing two big sessions to make Semifinal A.
• Laura and Luca are a few places ahead of Liz and David in the very competitive middle of the field.

Qualifying for Semifinal A is advantageous as 26 pairs qualify from that to the main final with only six pairs from Semifinal B. An important two sessions for them all tomorrow.

European Open II

Liz, David, Sam and Stephen failed to make the knock-out stages of the Mixed Teams so today they play in the first of four days of Mixed Pairs. They will be joined in the event by Iain Sime and Fiona McQuaker, and by our resident philosopher Laura Porro playing under the Italian flag.

Paula and the rest of the Badger team appeared to struggle in the stronger semifinal but achieved the main objective of qualifying for the round of 32, even though it required a game swing on the very last board to make it. The knock-out matches are 28 boards (until the final) so, hopefully, they will have a tough long day tomorrow.

Update: Badger play Connector, a Polish team who finished third in the Swiss, in the round of 32, and would expect to have a chance for revenge against Hauge in they win.


Mike Yuen's team has a tough match against Calandra, a team including Sementa and Madala.

European Open I

The European Open Bridge Championships started this morning with the round-robin stage of the Mixed Teams. All the information and scores are available from the local web site at http://www.poznan2011.pl/.

Following the first day's play, Liz McGowan, David Liggat, Sam Punch and Stephen Peterkin have qualified for Semifinal B. They will need to finish in the top five in the five rounds of Swiss tomorrow to make the knock-out stages.

The only other Scottish player is Paula Leslie, who is playing with Jeffrey Allerton, Frances Hinden and Graham Osborne in the BADGER team. They won their round-robin group and will play in Semifinal A, needing to finish in the top 27.

There may be some bloggers playing but the only one I've spotted is Canadian Mike Yuen. He is playing with German star Pony Nehmert and they also qualified for Semifinal A.

Not a counter

I had a pleasant and enjoyable game with Fiona in the Russell Cup, but we did not impress in the scoring stakes. It seemed like we had a top, a bottom and a slightly below average board in every round and our final score reflected this.

Most of our problems came from off-convention card bidding (c.f., off-balance sheet accounting?). Like most pick-up partnerships we had agreed a basic system but it was on the continuations that we struggled. A few times one of us would choose a sequence because we were unsure whether the simplest bid was forcing, and to the other it seemed like partner was a lot stronger, or weaker, than they actually were. Still, we all have days like this!

This was one of our average hands, but I thought we all did reasonably well:

I led a small club and Harry played the hand carefully, leading clubs at every turn, going just two down. The par score on the hand is actually five clubs doubled, as this can only go one down, but five hearts is second best. A lot of the field played in four of a major, in one direction or another, and we were the only table where both sides got it right. Seems like we should both get a top and everyone else less, but for some reason bridge scoring does not work like this.

Fiona, playing with Iain, and many others at the club are off to the European Open Championships next week that are being held in Poznan. I expect the results to be available on the local web site but I'll try to follow the progress of all the Scottish competitors.

Play and defend

It is a lot easier to write about bidding. It is a very important part of the game and it is simpler to set problems that everyone can understand - here is your hand, this is the auction so far, what do you do next?

Presenting play and defensive problems is more difficult. The best way that I've seen is Gavin Wolpert's series of videos on bridgewinners where he is going through all the hands from his recent win in a pairs event. If I was as talented as Gavin, could remember all the hands, was as eloquent as him or even had actually won anything, then I may have given that a try. But you'll have to make up with this, but I strongly recommend that you work your way through his series and see how a real expert thinks.

So it was the Russell last night and I was playing with Reg. We didn't have a solid session but emerged with a solid 53%.

This was our first board:

A simple auction to the normal contract. If you click the Next button then you can step through the play.

The lead of the ten of spades was interesting. A club lead was normal, so presumably North felt that it would be dangerous. A spade lead would have little attraction if North had length in the suit, so I expected he had two or three including the nine. I could see eight tricks and had chances for nine.

I did not want to duck the opening lead in case North switched to a club. In addition, dummy's spade intermediates posed some threat and South might switch to a club establishing a ninth trick for me, so playing high had many advantages.

When the spade was returned and North played the eight, I thought I knew a lot about the hand. It seemed that North had been dealt the ♠1098. It felt like he had the king of clubs otherwise he may have led that suit. So I decided to duck the spade return.

North continued with a spade and I won and led another to clear the suit. On the fourth round of spades North played an encouraging nine of clubs, so when South switched to a small club I decided to play for a Vienna Coup by rising with the ace. The plan was to cash my diamonds and spade winner, hoping that North had king of clubs and four hearts. If so, then in the endgame dummy would have a heart and the queen of clubs, I would hold the king of hearts and a small one, and North could not keep both two hearts and the king of clubs.

Play through the hand to see if this was successful.

In the final round Reg was defending three notrump:

On the opening lead Reg has to play the king of diamonds in case I have led from ♦AQ108. Subsequently passive defence and careful discarding holds declarer to nine tricks. It would not mean much in a teams match, but worth 22/24 matchpoints here. Allowing declarer to make a tenth trick would have cost us 10 matchpoints, or half a top.

Almost average (a reprise)

Last Tuesday was just a warm up as Anne and I were playing all weekend in the Arthur Trophy, the SBU's Grandmaster Pairs. Given how freely the SBU distributes national points the ten-pair field was small.

To see only one pair who represented Scotland in the 2011 Home International Series playing, and only two pairs that I know to be regular trialists, just reinforces the view that our international players and trialists do not put in the effort that the paying public expects when funding our international teams. To be fair, two of the Camrose pairs (Short/Walker, Murdoch/Spears) were winning their round-of-32 Gold Cup match and could not play, but more than half the field were essentially new partnerships.

Of course I was one of these as Anne's regular partner was not eligible to play. In fact a number of trialists and serious partnerships in the country were not eligible and I wonder if now is the time to relax the qualification for this event. I certainly think that any pair who has represented Scotland in the Home Internationals or other similar representative event should be able to play, grandmasters or not. Of course this would go against the 'rules are rules and we're not going to change' mentally that is prevalent in most bridge administrations, but it is a cheap way for pairs to get some competitive practice and I think it should really be considered when there are European Championships following it (as in 2012).

Back to the bridge. Despite leading overnight Anne and I dropped back into the middle of the pack to finish just above average. We missed a number of opportunities on Saturday but played a lot better on Sunday, something that the scoring was unable to reflect. Butler imps, similar to all the trials, can be very frustrating when you don't get the cards. You are very much at the mercy of your opponents and certainly two of the matches that we lost heavily we could do nothing about. As Derek Sanders was saying, the problem with Butler imps is that you get the downside of having poor cards without the upside of having team mates getting a chance to play with the good cards. Worse still in a small and random field.

Overall I thought Anne and I did fine. We had put in more effort than most on our system, judging by the convention cards available, and we didn't really have any system misunderstandings even if we were not always on a firm footing in some of the more complex sequences.

A couple of the more interesting bidding decisions:

You are non-vulnerable against vulnerable. What is your call and do you have a plan?

It is Love All. What is your call?

The winners of the event were Mike Ash and Roy Bennett, with Derek Sanders and Derek Diamond in close pursuit, well clear of the rest.

Almost average

It felt a strange night at the Russell Cup. Playing with Anne we finished a couple of matchpoints below average: it seemed like our good scores never turned into the matchpoints that we deserved, whereas our poor scores did. Reg said he felt much the same as we discussed the hands on the drive home. And with none of the 25 pairs breaking 58%, I guess most of the field thought that they could have done better and were a little frustrated with their score.

We would have scored better if we had made two of the doubled contracts we were in. Both required precise timing that each of us failed to achieve, but I think we'd have got closer if we were playing in a less time-pressured environment. This was mine:

Ronald led the jack of hearts, enabling me to pick up the suit for the loss of only one trick. I played the ace of clubs followed by a club to the queen, revealing the expected bad trump break. I now played the nine of hearts and Cliff covered with the ten. I won this with the ace but I should have ducked and finesse hearts on the next round. By winning the ace I lost an important entry to my hand and it ruined the communications and timing, as I need to ruff a diamond and then throw Cliff in with the jack of clubs to endplay him in spades.

I, and most of the field, showed good matchpoint judgement in avoiding game on board 18. I'm not sure I would have done it at imps:

Ten tricks were the limit in either minor when the diamond finesse failed. Hearts were 4-4 so eight tricks were the limit in notrump. At this vulnerability avoiding the game is the percentage action at matchpoints (so well done most of us!).