Korbel Bridge Adventures

Congratulations to the CNTC Winners!

2009-06-15T11:58:00.006-04:00

Photo courtesy of Ross Taylor

Congratulations to Dan Korbel, David Grainger, Nick L'Ecuyer, Kamel Fergani, Darren Wolpert, and Jurek Czyzowicz on winning the Canadian National Team Championship! They played team Carruthers in the two day final (John Carruthers, Joseph Silver, David Turner, Roy Hughes, Nader Hanna, Jim Green) and won with a final score of 288 to 224.

For more results, please visit the CBF Bridge Week website.

Dan will update with hands from the event when he returns home from the Penticton Regional this week!

Winnipeg Regional

2009-04-25T23:58:00.002-04:00

This week Jonathan and I are at the Winnipeg regional, playing all week with Danny Miles and Dave Colbert. Although we haven't had a great week, we have placed in a few KOs and won the Thursday Swiss. Here are three wild slams from this week:

I decided to evaluate the South hand as a limit raise of spades and bid 3H (which is our systemic bid). When Jonathan tried 4C, implying club length, I judged that my hand was golden and decided (dubiously, perhaps) to bid 4NT to simplify the auction. Jonathan went into the tank and a smile crept across his face. I said to the opponents, "He's never had 5 keycards before on this auction!" Indeed that was the case -- he had five keycards and the queen of trumps! Jonathan just bid 7S over 4NT, trusting that we couldn't have a late loser anywhere if I was sane, and we scored an easy +1510. Amazingly, this was worth 11.5/12 matchpoints.

This was a really wild hand. I decided to open the South cards with Flannery 2D, conventionally showing 4 spades, 5 or 6 hearts, and 11-16 HCP (Yes, I was a little light). Look at Jonathan's hand! He must have thought I had forgotten the convention and opened a weak 2D by mistake. Nonetheless, Jonathan responded 3S, which is forcing and a slam try in our style. RHO tried 3NT for the minors, vulnerable vs. not, and I rebid 4S, intending to show a minimum 4=5=2=2 (I had overbid enough already!) but accidentally showing a 4=5=2=2 maximum. My LHO bid 4NT for the minors, and Jonathan decided to take a shot at slam.

Because the opponents were vulnerable and we were not, they subsided and Jonathan bought the hand. My RHO led the dA, and quickly tried the dK -- oops! Jonathan ruffed and claimed +980. Notice that yet again the opponents are cold for 6 of either minor, and can make 7 if we don't lead a heart! An amazing hand.

Just to show how tough high-level freak hands are, our teammates doubled 6S and then perpetrated the same defense for -1230. Despite the vulnerability, bidding 7 of a minor has a lot going for it, as it's very cheap and will make whenever they lead a spade for a humongous swing.

This hand was pretty amazing too. Jonathan made a vulnerable 1S overcall and I was looking at that South hand. Incidentally, compare this hand to the problem hand in Part 1 of the Toronto Regional post a few posts ago. The situations (although here at a much lower level) are nearly identical! I said in that post that I would comment what the right approach was, and I think that against most opposition you would be best off just blasting a grand slam. It's tough for your opponents to lead the suit they have bid in the face of your grand slam blast, so they will often lead a trump or the unbid suit. Yes, a thinking opponent may call your bluff and lead the suit they have bid, so against a smart opponent you will actually want to have a void in diamonds most of the time! Note that you aren't even sure of making a small slam if partner doesn't have a diamond control so it's not like you're necessarily throwing away a bird in hand.

An added benefit of this approach is the bonus to your reputation. I remember one time I used Exclusion Blackwood with a void in their other suit and two small cards in the suit I ERKCB'd in; they led my void and we made our slam despite having two top diamond losers. A month later, I played against someone who knew about this hand, and I used ERKCB against him, honestly this time. They led the Ace of my EKCB suit, not trusting my bidding, and this gave away the slam!

In any case, my RHO led the cQ and Jonathan picked the spade suit for +2210 and a big pickup.

Am I crazy? Probably. But it sure is fun!

Toronto Regional (Part 2)

2009-04-20T00:46:00.002-04:00

Starting on Thursday was the premier event of the Toronto Regional, the Percy Sheardown Knockouts (Percy was a legendary Canadian player). I had the good fortune to be playing with Darren Wolpert as my partner, and David Grainger and Joel Wooldridge as our teammates. (David is my partner for the CNTC coming up in June, and Darren is one of our teammates. Joel, unfortunately, lives in Buffalo).

Unlike most regional knockouts nowadays, this knockout was seeded, and despite our team's youth we managed to draw the #1 seed (I suspect one of the directors may have fudged the numbers a little bit as we were probably the #2 seed by masterpoints).

We drew a 3-way match in the first round, and beat one team 45-0 over 14 boards, and beat the other team 50-32 to advance. Here was a hand in the closer match that won us 11 IMPs:

West led a fourth best spade and I tried the sJ from dummy, not overly pleased to see the queen from East. I needed the cK onside to have any chance at the contract, and that pretty much marked the dK offside with my left hand opponent. Accordingly, the right play is to win the first spade with the Ace, for an obscure reason I'll show you a bit later. I crossed to dummy's hA to run four rounds of clubs ending in my hand with the aid of the finesse. I judged West to be 6-3-3-1 from her discards (1 early diamond pitch, then a spade and a fumbled heart). I cashed the hK, stripping West's last heart, and played a spade, claiming the last two tricks as she had to lead from the Kx of diamonds at trick 12.

Do you see why winning the first spade is the correct play? Because you don't have a high heart honour in your hand, if there is no spade in dummy it becomes impossible to strip West's last heart and then lead a spade next unless there is one in dummy to lead! So, if West discards the way she did, she will beat you unless you win the first trick.

In the second round we found ourselves in another 3-way match. This one didn't go so well -- we found ourselves +6 at the half in one match, and -45 at the half in the other!! If the second half didn't go better, we might find ourselves out of the event.

Happily, our team regained its form in the second half, not giving up a single IMP. Against the team we were +6, we picked up 34 more, and against the other team we got 39 of those IMPs back! In fact, on the only board we pushed, both tables went +150 in 1NT when they might have stolen a vulnerable 3NT were they in it. If Joel and David had bid it, we would have picked up 49 IMPs and won the set by 4!

Darren and I were swinging a bit in this set, as we knew we were down a ton and needed to create some swings. There is an art to swinging, and it does not involve blatant psyching. Instead, you should look for ways to create different situations at each table. You might open a shaky preempt you know your counterpart won't; you might upgrade a 13 point hand with a good suit to a strong notrump; you might open 1D on KJx instead of 1C on Axxx; you might open a chunky 4 card major in first seat; you might overcall at the 1-level instead of making a weak jump, or make a "weak" jump overcall instead of a simple 1-level overcall to shake things up.

Here was a hand where we swung successfully:

Darren, as North, made a simple raise of diamonds a diamond light, but he felt he had the high card points to compensate. I bid 2S over East's double which was pretty normal (OK, I was a little light HCP-wise, but I had good shape). When Darren doubled 3C for penalties, I decided to take a piece of 3H. Even despite the match score, I really didn't think Darren would be doubling here with "just clubs," as he would hate to push them out of clubs back into a heart contract we could not beat. So I decided we were probably killing this contract, and Darren would almost never lead a diamond -- he would either start with club ruffs, or with a spade. In fact, he led a spade, and declarer lost the first 8 tricks for +800 and 12 IMPs to us.

In the quarterfinals, we played a solid team of locals. The cards were running against us at our table, but the beauty of a team game is that your teammates encounter the same situations as your opponents. Our card didn't look wonderful, but David and Joel had a solid set and we found ourselves +13 at the half. The second half was all us at both tables and we picked up 37 IMPs.

In the semi-finals, we faced the same team we had narrowly lost to in the 2nd 3-way match, as they had inherited the #4 seed. Time for some revenge -- we hoped!

We set the tone on the very first board, where Darren doubled a 4H contract where trumps were breaking 5-0. We beat it two tricks for +500 and a 7 IMP pickup (our teammates were two down undoubled, one level lower, not warned of the bad breaks).

Another big pickup from the first half:

Lacking a good lead, I tried a low diamond from the West hand and it went to the Q, K, and Ace. Declarer next played a low club from dummy. I decided to rise with the cT to lead the d8, which held the trick, as partner played the d7. I was now quite certain that diamonds were 4333 around the table, so I couldn't afford to cash another round now. I was pretty confident that declarer had at least 5 clubs to the AK and usually 6 to go after them in this manner. In the auction, he had denied as many as 3 hearts, so I thought his only possible shapes were 2236, 3136, and 3235, with both spade honours. So, I switched to the hK, intending to give declarer a communications problem. He won the hA, dropping the hJ from hand, and led a spade to the King and my Ace.

I cashed the dJ, severing declarer from dummy, and exited with the cQ. Declarer could cash all his black winners but I had to score the sJ at the end. It wouldn't have helped him to cash the hQ before dislodging the sA because we would then have the setting tricks to cash in the heart suit. At the other table, the defense never led hearts, and David scored 9 tricks via a late heart finesse.

When the smoke cleared, we had won 45 IMPs in each half to win by 90.

In the final, we faced the original #2 seed, John Carruthers - Eric Murray, Nader Hanna - Jim Green, John Gowdy - Vince Oddy.

Darren and I had a good set against Eric Murray and J.C. in the first half, doing nothing wrong. Well, almost nothing. I had to find a lead from this hand:

Clearly, a heart is the only logical choice, but which heart? The heart Ten would be best if dummy hit with Kx, or declarer had KJx (KJxx doesn't help us); a higher heart would be necessary if dummy had a doubleton or singleton jack. I judged the latter to be a more likely scenario, and I decided to try the Ace of hearts, which as you can see was a major disaster. Perhaps I was being too much of a genius. But opening leads are hard. Jim Green did not open my cards, and in the midgame found a low heart switch. -600 was worth 13 IMPs away.

Fortunately, those were the only IMPs we lost in the half, and we found ourselves +13 IMPs overall. Here was a hand that was a swing to us:

J.C. led the h4 and I won the queen in dummy. This contract was a really bad one, but if I could find a lucky club position I still might make it. I led a club to the queen, and J.C. won the king. He switched to a diamond, which Eric Murray won to return a heart. I won the Ace and took stock. It seemed incredibly unlikely that a player as seasoned as John would win the first round of clubs from an original holding of KJx, so when I led a club toward the dummy and he played the c9 I was not tempted to finesse. The fall of the cJ meant +400 and 8 IMPs to us instead of 5 IMPs away. Yes, the defenders should let me win the first round of clubs. But anyone can make a mistake in the heat of the battle, and he was a bit unlucky that I was awake enough to take advantage.

In the second half both tables were very solid. Here was another 3NT I declared (some days, all the good play problems fall to one seat):

Vince led the cT which I covered with dummy's jack as John Gowdy won the queen. He switched to a spade, which I rode to dummy's queen. I played another spade, which he won to clear spades. At this point, I knew that he had 4 spades and at least 5 clubs (probably exactly 5). Vince's diamond discard made it clear to me that he had 5 or 6 diamonds, and thus 3 or 4 hearts. In fact, RHO's most likely distribution was 4=2=2=5, and if so, I was going to make this hand on an endplay.

I cashed the dA and led the hT. If Vince covered, I would have simply taken two deep heart finesses, but when he played low smoothly I rose hA, cashed the dK, and ducked a heart to John's queen. He cashed his spade, but with only clubs left in his hand he had to give me the c9 and cA, and a heart finesse was marked for my ninth trick. This was worth 10 IMPs when the other declarer failed on a diamond lead (on a less informative auction).

When all was said and done we picked up another 16 IMPs in the second half to win the match by 29 IMPs. Our opponents played very well, but on this day our team was firing on all cylinders and it was very hard to beat us.

Playing with David and Joel was a pleasure, as they are both great teammates, great players, and fun guys to hang out with. Partnering Darren was a treat; he is a very supportive partner and really makes you feel confident. Darren and I are playing in the "mini" Cavendish pairs in Las Vegas in May (we'd play in the big one but don't want to pony up the $15K!).

Tomorrow I fly out to Winnipeg to play at the regional with Jonathan. Stay posted for updates.

Toronto Regional (Part 1)

2009-04-20T00:25:00.004-04:00

The Toronto regional was held the week of April 7 - 12. I played from April 7 to April 11. On April 7th I played with Sean Pryke in a 2-session pairs game; we did okay but not enough to get in the overalls. Our opponents played well against us in the afternoon and that in and of itself is often enough to keep you from winning a pairs game. The trick with pairs games is to be sure to take the win when it is dealt to you, but this wasn't our day.

On Wednesday I played a Swiss teams with Andy Stark, John Carruthers, Mike Roche and John Rayner. I played 4 sets with Andy and two with J. C. Last year, in this event with the same team, we were sitting at 119/120 at the half way point, and after 5 matchs were 149/150 -- we had it almost locked up with three matches to go!

This year was a different story, and we didn't even place in the overalls!

Two good auctions J.C. and I had:

In my opinion, John is a really world-class bidder so I was perfectly comfortable trusting all his bidding completely. He responded Drury 2C to my 1S opening bid, and I tested the waters for slam with a 3C bid. John's 4C bid showed club strength as well as club length, so I could immediately picture a possible slam in clubs. When I tried 4H, denying a diamond control, John bid 5D, which was promptly doubled. Missing the sAKQ and the cAQ, I knew it was impossible for John not to have the dA and be willing to bypass the safety of 4S, so I didn't bother to pass 5D around to him and give him options. Instead, I bid 6C, as heart ruffs in my hand could bring us up to 12 tricks even if 6S could not make, and this way the diamond position is protected from the lead.

On the hA lead, all we needed was spades not 4-1 offside, but alas, that was the case, and we lost 12 IMPs to the +620 recorded at the other table. This was our first board of the day and unfortunately set the tone.

A grand slam we backed into:

I chose to respond 1S to 1C, mainly because we hadn't discussed what we were playing over the auction 1C-P-1D-P-1NT (I would usually bid 1D, my best suit, on a strong hand). In any case, this worked out great when my 2D bid got raised to 3D, showing 4=6 in the minors. I bid 4D to set trumps, confident John would trust that this bid was forcing, and he duly cuebid 4H on his singleton. I launched into Keycard Blackwood, and asked for the Queen of trumps over his 1-keycard reply of 5C. John knew that I needed all the keycards for my 5H bid, as it went past our "safety" level of 5D, and thus was a grand slam try, and loved his cards. He tried 7C to emphasize his great clubs in case I wanted to try 7NT, but I settled for 7D. This was a 13 IMP win against 6C at the other table -- they never even mentioned diamonds!

The last round of the Swiss was memorable for this doozy -- a hand straight out of a Victor Mollo book:

Yes, this really happened at both tables. If RHO hadn't bid 4H, you would still have a problem, but it wouldn't be as sticky as the problem you have now. Think about what your options are and what you would do and I will post what I think, and the table results, in a later post.

See Part 2 for a recap of the Sheardown Knockout, the premier event each year at the Toronto Regional.

A Hand from Bridge Base Online

2009-01-27T02:26:00.003-05:00

Tonight David Grainger and I played a set game online against Ira Chorush and Venkatrao Koneru. It was a very well played match all around, I thought, and we only ended up ahead because we had way more than our share of the cards.

Here is a grand slam that ties into the theme of a hand I posted a little while ago, of avoiding a weak 4-4 fit:

Many players nowadays would open the South hand, but it's just not something I'm comfortable with -- although I suspect it would have made the auction trivial. As it was, we didn't really have too much difficulty with the hand once David made the exquisitely Canadian decision to open 1C rather than 2C despite holding 23 high card points. I like this approach to bidding, on the theory that if you get by the first round of the auction, you are usually in good shape to have intelligent communication with your partner. Here, 1C is rarely passed out, sometimes it is right to play in 1C when it is passed out, and this hand is difficult to describe without artificial methods if you start with 2C. (If the auction starts 2C-(3H), I have trouble constructing a sequence in our methods that allow us to get to 7C. In any case, it's much harder).

Over David's 4H cuebid, I knew that he either had a big hand with a spade fit, or a big hand with a club suit, so now the question was what to do. I really wanted to bid 5D, but I was worried that that would be natural (as we hadn't discussed it I wasn't going to risk playing in a 3-2 fit). I decided finally that if David had a singleton heart or the Ace as his 4H bid suggested (meaning tricks 1 and 2 weren't going to go hA, heart ruff), my cards were good enough to take a shot at slam. David decided that if I didn't have the dA I was crazy and found a good raise to 7C.

As you can see, 7NT is the best spot, but 7C is quite a happy contract. The key here was to ignore the spade fit, where you are at the mercy of a 3-2 break. Strangely, Ira's preempt probably made it easier for us to avoid spades, because had he passed or bid 1H, the auction would have gone 1C-(1H)-X or 1C-P-1S, making it much more difficult for me to show both my strength and my club support, two things that helped David to choose clubs at the end.

When should you avoid a 4-4 major suit fit? If it is to play in a slam, whenever you have enough tricks but you have a weak trump fit you can consider a different trump suit or notrumps. If it is a choice between 3NT and 4M, you will usually want to have a little extra in HCP to make up for the fact that you aren't making use of ruffing power. As an example, if I picked up

and heard partner open 1NT, I would just bid 3NT and forget about the major suit fit. My suit is weak, I have extra strength (we are in the 27-29 HCP range), and help in the other suits. Not everyone agrees with me on what hands to avoid the major suit fit on, but one thing Kit Woolsey suggests to look for in his classic book, Matchpoints, is to have secondary honours (Queens and Jacks) in your doubleton.

Read this entry for a spectacular example of 3NT being right.

A Funny Hand

2009-01-26T22:35:00.003-05:00

Here's a funny deal that I was a part of 6 or 7 years ago.

My most regular partner at the time, Matthew Mason, was sitting North, and I was sitting South. We were playing at the Waterloo, Ontario sectional in the Saturday matchpoint game. Things were going fine and we were enjoying ourselves. Then, two little old ladies came to the table, whom I knew by name:

The lady on my right opened 1S, and the lady on my left -- well, as you can see, she responded with 1D. Unfortunately, that is not a legal call in that auction, and Matthew summoned the director, David Burke (who has since passed away). David asked Matthew if he would like to accept the bid. Matthew said no. David explained to LHO: "You can make any call you want, but if it isn't 2D, your partner is barred for the rest of the auction."

So LHO, a very agreeable lady, nods and says okay, and goes into a brown study, staring at her cards. The director repeats, "You can bid 2D with no penalty, but otherwise your partner is barred."

LHO nods again, but still doesn't emerge with any bid. Eventually David takes a look at her hand, looks at the lady, and says, "You can bid 2D with no penalty, and the auction will just continue on as normal."

To this, the little old lady on my left forcefully replies, "No, I don't want to bid 2D."

After another long trance, she finally reached into the bidding box ... and pulled out ... the master bid of ... FIVE SPADES!

Yes, five spades. Matthew and I make eye contact and I realize we are both about to break out in peals of laughter. I quickly stare at a spot on the ground and try to think of Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day.

The director, of course, can't believe what is happening either. He says to LHO, "You realize your partner must pass this bid!"

The LOL on my left is apparently quite happy with her decision because she says, "Yes, I understand."

At this point David says, "OK," and he has to walk away because he too has broken out laughing. Matthew and I have done an admirable job of keeping ourselves to the occasional smile or sharp breath.

As you can see from the diagram, the LOL on my right quickly wraps up all the tricks. Matthew and I book it away from the table because we just couldn't hold it in any longer. As we were leaving the table I could hear my RHO saying, "Why didn't you just bid 2D?"

A funny hand, but I have a few other good ones, including my all-time favourite. I'll post them in February.

Bridge over the New Year

2009-01-15T20:49:00.014-05:00

As has become almost traditional, Susie, Jonathan Steinberg, Martin Hunter, and I hopped on a flight on Christmas Day to the Kansas City Holiday Regional. Although this isn't the largest of regionals, the food and hospitality in Kansas City are great and we are always made to feel welcome.

We had a nice week in Kansas City, with a number of good showings in events. Susie and I won over 50 points, while Jonathan and Martin broke 70 points due to their win in the December 30th Flight A Barometer Pairs (a cool event; the scores are updated almost in real-time).

We followed that up with a win in the New Years Eve swiss teams event, despite losing 30-0 against Dan Morse's team in the first round! After that, we went 6-0 while Morse's team lost their last two matches, allowing us to nip them for the win. Another thing about this event that I will probably never do again: Susie and I went for -2000 (!) on a board in this match, and then won the event! Not only that, but the other table ran out of time, and the board we went -2000 on was thrown out, as if it never happened! We got blitzed anyway. Bridge can be a strange game.

You can check Jonathan's photos if you are interested in seeing more.

The day after we got back from the KC Regional, it was time for the Toronto Sectional!

I played with bridge author and proud new father of a beautiful baby boy, Lennox, Andy Stark Friday afternoon, and we had a whopping 68% game to win easily. I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but we have played together 5 times, and that is the lowest score we have ever had!

On Saturday, Jonathan and I broke average in the pairs game, while Susie played with Danny Miles and did a little better, scoring a 54% average. Here is a hand I like from the event:

Susie's 4C was not a shy bid; I might have settled for 3S myself. In any case, the point of the hand is to play in hearts, not spades, and Danny found a great 6H bid at the end, having difficulty visualizing any hand where 6H would not be nearly cold despite missing a keycard and the sQ. Note that Susie didn't show her club void, having overbid enough already.

The reason I like this hand is that bridge bidding in general is geared into looking for the "magic 4-4" fit, which, although often right, is important to be able to squeak out of when you have abundant values elsewhere and your suit is weak. This can be true at the game level, too; I can't tell you how many times I have played in a makeable (or cold) 3NT with 4H or 4S on a 4-4 fit shaky (or no play).

On the Sunday I played with Robert Lebi, teammates Jim Green and Nader Hanna. We started out 7-0 to lead the event, but an unfortunate final match had us drop all the way to 5th in the event (there were a lot of teams).

There may not be much bridge happening until March, but I have a few funny bridge stories I'd like to share with you, so check back for those in the coming weeks.

A Great Defense

2008-12-03T17:30:00.009-05:00

Well, I didn't get the chance to go to Boston for the Nationals this past two weeks, as we are moving into our new house (yay! check our website if you want photos) and I have been busy with school. The pictures are now mostly after we have moved in and repainted and decorated.

So, I don't have any hands from Boston, but I do have a gem I have been saving for about a month I'd like to share with you. Hopefully you have some sympathy after seeing how the opponents skewered me!

My partner was NABC-champion Tom Carmichael of Atlanta, Georgia, who was in Toronto for business; we decided we'd have a game at Hazel's club.

The auction had a few points of interest: even at matchpoints, Tom decided not to overcall the sterile, minimum North hand vulnerable versus not. I agree with this decision, and it didn't hurt us any when I decided to try 3NT despite my marginal club stopper. I expected a club value with partner given West's failure to rebid clubs and RHO's silence; even if partner had nothing in clubs, it was likely that either West might not lead them (or have difficulty working out I had no stopper), or might have only 4 to cash and I could claim. Again, not a clear bid, but it did have the effect of right-siding 3NT (3NT is unmakeable from the other side on a normal black suit lead).

Our opponents on this hand were Toronto experts Mike Cafferata (West) and Mike Kenny (East).

Mike C. led a quick sA, and Mike K. played the s9. The sA asked for an unblock or count, so Mike C. knew the spade position exactly. After long thought, Mike C. switched to -- the hQ!! I had spent the long tank thinking about what to do on a heart switch, since it seemed likely I would need 3 heart tricks to make the contract. I was at a crossroads. I decided to win the hQ with the hK, draw two round of diamonds (they were 2-2), and lead another heart up. RHO played the hJ (!) without much thought (!!) and I won the hA. Time to take stock.

It looked for all the world that LHO had started with the doubleton hQ and had found a good switch at trick 2, meaning that I should have ducked the heart switch (today, that would NOT have worked, as LHO's low heart continuation would find me finessing the third round into his ten for sure!) ... regardless, what could be done?

Clearly I could not afford to let my RHO in, as he would push a spade through and set me at least one trick. Was there any other hope?

Well, there was one slight hope: that RHO would be unable to win the 3rd round of clubs, and I could perhaps endplay my LHO to give me a spade or a club at the end.
If the hearts were indeed 2=4, this meant that my LHO was specifically 4=2=2=5 (I knew the spade situation at trick 1 as well).

This would, however, require some finesse: I cashed the rest of my diamonds, throwing a heart from my hand, as LHO threw two clubs and a spade. RHO pitched a spade, a low heart, and ... a club!! This might actually work! I thought the position was now:

In reality, I was dead wrong about the heart position, and LHO had the high heart and one less club, while RHO had one less heart and one more club.

I led a club to the queen, LHO winning, and he exited a club. I exited triumphantly with a club ... as RHO produced the jack and LHO claimed!

Oops -- all I had to do was lead a heart earlier and I had it made! Oh well, Mike Cafferata and Mike Kenny deserve a lot of credit for the cooperative and inspired defense. As Bruce Ferguson always says, you just pay off if the opponents are being geniuses.

Just a Lowly Partscore

2008-11-15T17:53:00.009-05:00

A little while ago, Susie and I attended Jonathan Steinberg's retirement party at Hazel's Bridge Club in Toronto. As many of you probably already know, Jonathan is retiring from the board after 15 years of service.

It was a pleasant game (with cake!), and a pretty strong field for a club game. Here is a great hand Susie played that I wanted to share:

Yes, it's just a simple 3C contract, but on hands like these many matchpoints can be won! Susie received the h2 lead to the hA, and a heart was returned. After some thought, before drawing any trumps, Susie decided to work on diamonds, since she was conveniently in the dummy, and drawing trumps could complicate the hand if things didn't go well.

So, Susie led a diamond from dummy and played the .... king! When the dQ fell under it, she drew three rounds of trumps ending in the dummy, and ran the d9. East-West were unable to stop her from scoring +130 and 90% of the matchpoints. +110 would have been only a 40% score.

I asked Susie later why she led to the diamond king. She said: "I was sure East had the Ace for his 2H overcall, and when he didn't hop up with it I thought there was a good chance that if I played the jack, West would win and somebody would eventually get a diamond ruff. I was happy to lead a diamond to the king and exit a diamond, planning to make my contract exactly. The queen falling was an unexpected bonus!"

Poker in Aruba ??

2008-09-14T12:54:00.004-04:00

(This post has nothing to do with bridge, but rather is about poker, so if that isn't your thing you won't want to continue reading).

Susie and I have a friend, Sean, who "grinds" Pot Limit Omaha 8-or-better on Ultimate Bet (in English, that means he plays a lot of a form of poker known as "PL08" to increase his livelihood). Because he plays so much on UB, they often reward him with frequent player specials. Lately, this has been a free entry into a $109 satellite tournament, where if you finish in the top 160 players, you get an entry into a $530 tournament. If you make the top 50 in this tournament, you get $3000 cash and a seat to the $5500 Aruba Classic main event, which has a first prize of $1 million!

Well, our friend Sean doesn't like long no limit hold em tournaments, and he was out of town besides on the scheduled day, and he likes the way Susie and I play, so he offered us the freeroll for a 50-50 split on any winnings. Well, that seemed like a no-brainer.

I played in the 11:15am $109 feeder. The funny thing about this tournament, is that fewer than half the people registered even bother to show up! One guy who did show up was clearly not taking it seriously, and at one point asked, "What does this get you anyway?"

In short, making it to the final 160 out of maybe 300 people who actually show up is a breeze. So the stage was set for the real tournament, the $530 Aruba 50 Seat Giveaway, at 5:30pm.

Well, I wasn't home that Saturday night, so Susie would have to go it alone. The field started with 766 players, with the top 50 all winning the same first prize.

Despite never playing a tournament with anywhere near this high an entry fee before, Susie proved that she could more than hold her own. She qualified easily, and when the 51st person was eliminated (boy, is that a bad beat or what!), she had coasted her way comfortably into 13th place. Congratulations Susie!

Susie played really excellent poker this whole tournament, never making a costly mistake and using her position intelligently. The bigger buy in tournaments on UB give a deeper starting stack of 3000, and blind levels last 20 minutes instead of the normal 10 minutes, which gives a lot of "play" to a tournament. This is right up Susie's alley, as her biggest forte in these tournaments is her incredible patience. In a fast-paced tournament, this often means she ends up clinging on at some point if she goes card dead, but in a slower structure she was never in any real danger. Every time she was all-in, she was at least an 80% favourite to win the pot -- now that's a figure we would all be thrilled with.

I will give you a few of the key hands she played. I've never formatted poker hands so I hope this works out.

(20/40 Blinds)

Susie's Hand: Villain:
Susie's Chips: 2430 Villain: 3300

Susie raises to 100, Villain calls.

FLOP:

Susie bets 150, Villain calls.

TURN:

Susie bets 300, Villain raises to 800, Susie reraises all-in, Villain calls.

RIVER:

Susie wins 4920 chips.

(Note Villain's error in not protecting his hand. Had he raised substantially on the flop, Susie would certainly have folded her nice straight draw and he would have gained some chips instead of being crippled).
-------
HAND #2

(Blinds 150/300, 50 Ante)

Susie's Hand: Villain: ??
Susie's Stack: ~9000 Villain: ~5500

Villain raises to 1000. Susie, on the button, folds 99.

Result: Stack stays at ~9000.

(Note Susie's tight but excellent fold here. Calling off 1000 chips at this point to try to flop a set (12%) against Villain's 4500 remaining chips was out of the question, so by calling 1000 she was essentially committing herself to getting all in on the flop if only one overcard comes to her 99. This is an extremely wild play with her playable 9000 chip stack size, as going down to 3500 would severely cripple her. Note that if the Villain had her out-chipped or was very short, she would have called, as the math would have been far better for calling. Great fold, in my opinion.)

-------
HAND #3

(Blinds 200/400, 25 Ante)

Susie's Hand: Villain:
Susie's Stack: ~8000 Villain: ~19000
Villain limps from mid position. Susie raises to 1200 from the button, Villain calls.

FLOP:

Villain moves all in. Susie calls.

TURN:

RIVER:

Susie wins ~17000 chips.

(She was sure in the right place at the right time for this silly hand! If plays like this guy made are a part of your game, you've got a major leak to fill, and that leak is called patience).
------

HAND #4 (the very next hand against the very same player).

(Blinds 200/400, 25 Ante)

Susie's Hand: Villain:
Susie's Stack: ~19000 Villain: ~11000

Villain min-raises to 800 from mid-position. Susie calls. Big blind calls.

FLOP:

BB checks. Villain bets 2600. Susie raises to 6000. BB Folds. Villain moves all-in. Susie calls.

TURN:

RIVER:

Susie wins ~23500 chips, putting her up to ~31000 chips, eliminating Villain.

(This hand was a cold deck for the villain. But he put himself into this position by stacking off 8000 chips to Susie the hand before -- or he would still have been in fighting shape, instead of eliminated. Also note that Susie didn't reraise him before the flop even with a hand as strong as JJ, as he had never before raised a pot preflop, and now was min-raising. This smelled funny and sure enough, he did indeed have AA).
--------

HAND #5

(Blinds 500/1000, 100 Ante)

Susie's Hand: Villain: ??
Susie's Stack: ~69000 Villain: ~34000

Villain raises to 2500 from mid position. Susie calls in the Big Blind.

FLOP:

Susie bets 3000. Villain calls.

TURN:

Susie bets 7500. Villain folds.

Susie wins 12500 chips, stacking up to ~74500.

(This is my favourite hand of the whole tournament. The blinds were going up and everyone was feeling the pressure. Susie had stayed in a fairly aggressive mode after winning those two big pots (Hands 3 and 4), and had chipped up to about 70000 in chips. With the blinds increasing and the magic 50th place payout getting ever closer, nobody wanted to step out of line and "donk" their way out of the tournament.

Since Susie had plenty of chips to play with, she decided to use this to her advantage -- after all, she could make a small error and survive, where other people couldn't afford to be wrong! Ordinarily, she would not usually defend her blind with a hand as dangerous as A7, but in this case she decided to call and take a flop. When the flop came JJ5, it was extremely unlikely that her opponent had caught a piece of that. So Susie bet out 3000, expecting to take the pot down right then and there.

Well, her opponent was suspicious too (after all, if Susie had a jack, why wouldn't she check and go for the check raise?), and decided to call. If the blinds were lower and the stacks were deeper, he might have raised here to test her, but he couldn't afford to be wrong so he compromised with a call. Susie was aware that her opponent might be "floating" her here with a hand like AK or 99, waiting to see what she did on the turn, and maybe intending to take the pot from her there. This is why I love her 7500 bet on the turn, basically asking her opponent, "Do you want to dance?" His quick fold said that no, he didn't. What a great hand.)

In any case, the timing for Aruba will not work for us, so we will likely sell our seat on the open market, which is too bad, but that's life I guess.

Atlanta Regional, 2008

2008-09-02T14:01:00.000-04:00

On August 25th, Jonathan and I headed off to the Atlanta regional. We had heard it is a nice tourney with great hospitality and a strong field, so we decided to attend this year. We were not disappointed; the tournament had 3 (!) separate hotel suites dedicated to hospitality, with all the food and alcohol you could want. And probably at least 20 world champion bridge players were in attendance at the tournament.

The tournament is an easy 40 minute MARTA train ride (just $2.00) from the airport. Across the street from the Crowne Plaza hotel is a humongous shopping mall, Perimeter Plaza, with an abundance of restaurants to choose from. The tournament gets about 3500 tables each year, making it one of the largest regionals around.

We ended up playing in team games all week, except for the first day where we placed in two one-session pairs games.

On Wednesday we played with Jerry Helms and Penelope Smith, a wonderful lady who helps produce his materials for teaching bridge. We lost a close match in the afternoon compact KO, but saved a little face by winning the large 1-session swiss in the evening.

We played with Jerry Helms and Bob Bitterman in the Thursday - Friday KO, with somewhat better results. We breezed through the first three matches (winning them by an average of about 45 IMPs!) until we stumbled against the tough Feagin team in the final. Incidentally, this team won two bracket 1 KOs and the final day Swiss (!), quite impressive in a field like this.

Here are a couple of hands:

This hand occurred in the semi-final. I raised Jonathan's vulnerable 3S opening to 4S, and the defense started with sK, sA, heart switch. (Yes, a club switch at any time would have been better). Jonathan made the standard expert play of ducking this trick, winning the next heart, to "tighten the position" if a squeeze existed. He proceeded to run some trumps; watch what happens to East! He must keep a high heart and 4 diamonds, so he can't keep the cK guarded. A triple squeeze! A strong East would stiff the cK early, hoping that declarer would take the finesse, but Jonathan was not tested as this East discarded his diamond stopper and Jonathan was able to set up a long diamond trick for +620 and 12 IMPs. (On the actual deal, Jonathan would have had a strong clue to drop the cK anyway, as East had thought for quite some time over 4S, essentially marking him with the cK given that the rest of the hand counted out, the way the play went).

This hand occurred during the second half of our extremely close match against the Feagin team in the final. We had done well to arrive in this good slam (it's about 50% on a heart lead, and nearly cold on any other lead). My pass of 5D doubled asked Jonathan to clarify his control, and his redouble promised the ace. This was enough to get me to bid the slam.

Sure enough, I got a diamond lead, but ironically it is a diamond lead that requires the most care! On a heart lead, which was found by our teammates, declarer was basically forced to take the spade finesse, using the cA as a reentry to finesse spades again, and eventually ruffing a club once all the trumps are gone with the dA as an entry back to the long club.

On a diamond lead, that late entry is gone, and it's easy to slip just a bit and go down, with the foul breaks. However, I crossed to the cA to finesse the spade, and then ruffed dummy's low club high in my hand after taking another spade finesse -- +1430. Just another push.

Anyway, we came second in this knockout, and the following day (this time playing with Jim Murphy, Warren Roberts, and Bob and Jane Teal), we drew the Feagin team in the first round 3-way match. Well, we beat them by 19, but it didn't matter, because the other team lost both matches.

Once again, we coasted through our 2nd and 3rd round matches, winning them both very comfortably, to face the Feagin team in the final! This match was also desperately close. Jonathan and I could have done very little better at our table, except this board:

We got to 4NT, with 6C playable and, in fact, makeable. (Notice how carefully you need to play the hand on a neutral red suit lead -- trying a spade toward the sJ after drawing one round of trumps and before trying to ruff a heart. Another hand where if you get careless you will cost yourself a bundle of IMPs). As it turns out we did the right thing because had 6C gone down, we would have won the match, whereas had we bid and made the slam we would have lost by 2!

In retrospect, we decided that Jonathan might have bid the slam based on the fourth club and the working doubleton, and I might have accepted based on the good trumps. But it's no crime to stay out of this slam, and if the club finesse is offside it will almost never make.

All in all, a successful tournament. Jonathan and I won 86 masterpoints, a respectable total given that we did not play morning events.

I won't be playing much bridge until mid 2009, as I am going back to school to finish my degree, so the blog won't be updated very often.

Las Vegas NABC 2008, Recap

2008-08-01T17:20:00.003-04:00

The Las Vegas Nationals ended just a few days ago. I played throughout the week with Les Amoils, a South African turned Torontonian:

We had high hopes for the first event, the 3-day Life Masters pairs, but unfortunately we failed to make the cut on even the first day. Our opponents played well against us, and when that happens in bridge in general, the pressure is on. If your opponents play poorly and hand you a "baseline score" (the score you'd get by playing sort of average) of 60% or more, almost anyone in the field could qualify. But when they play well and hand you a "baseline" score of 50% or less, well, the ball is in your court now, and it's easy to have a bad session and not qualify.

But, we hooked up with two good friends of ours for a 2-day KO event, Jordan Cohen and Doug Baxter. This is the first time I have played on a team with Jordan Cohen, but Doug and I have been many-time teammates and occasional partners.

Because a lot of the Spingold teams with gazillions of masterpoints choose to sharpen up in these early KOs rather than enter the LM Pairs, the masterpoint requirements for bracket 1 are higher than any other time of the year. In fact, it took over 10000 masterpoints average per player to qualify for bracket 1! We got stuck in bracket 4 with an average masterpoint total of approximately 3800.

Well, we smoked each of the first three matches, winning by margins of 30 IMPs or higher.

In the final match, our opponents played solidly and we were up by 2 at the half, when they informed us they were withdrawing! I thought it was a joke until they said congratulations, one of our team members is ill, pleasant match! I must confess I've never gotten the WD being up by two IMPs before, but all four of us would rather have played the second half and won or lost legitimately. But hey, a win is a win.

The next day was the Spingold, where we teamed up with Greg Hinze - Nagy Kamel, Dan Morse - Ken Schultze. On the first day we ended up with the #38 seed in a 4-way. Should be easy, right? Well, our team wasn't very good in the first half of the first match and we found ourselves stuck 45 IMPs to a team we figured to beat. In the second half, things went better and we put on a clinic to regain 28 IMPs, but it wasn't enough.

In actual fact, Les and I had a splendid auction to get to a very hard to bid slam that required little more than the Gambling 3NT opener not to have a Qx on the side. He did, however, and we lost 9 IMPs instead of winning 16 -- we would actually have pulled the match out!

On to the evening. We sat out the first half and came in with a +4 IMP lead. You'd think in the 2nd half of a 4-way we'd get an easy draw, right? Not! We had to play a tough team including Ed Davis - John Swanson. Les and I played almost perfectly and we picked up 6 more IMPs in the second half to squeak into the round of 64.

This time we were up against Bruce Ferguson - Bob Hollman, Jerry Clerkin - Dennis Clerkin, and Krzysztof Buras - Grzegorz Narkiewicz from Poland. We came in to the second quarter to find out we were up by 1 IMP, 57-56! Not exactly a low scoring match.

Les and I had basically a spectacular set in the 2nd quarter -- even our one bidding misunderstanding led to +13 IMPs!

Here are three hands where we did great:

This was the first board of the set. Les listened to the auction and found a double dummy lead of a low heart (!), upon which Bruce naturally misguessed and we cashed four tricks. Win 10. (Incidentally, at the other table, one of the players joked about finding a low heart lead at trick one and the other players laughed! Little did they know ...)

I judged with my flat hand and poor suit simply to transfer to hearts and bid 3NT, which worked out well here with hearts this foul. 4H had to fail at the other table for 11 more IMPs.

The following hand may be the best defense I have ever perpetrated, and it came against a lowly 2H contract for a mere 4 IMPs! Les led the dK, and Bruce won in order to lead a heart to the king and another heart. I overtook Les' hT with the hA in order to fire a club through. Bruce misguessed clubs (who wouldn't?), putting up the king. Les won the ace and fired a club back. I switched to a spade, and Les cashed the sA and dK before leading another club for me to ruff with the h9 for a trump promotion, getting back the trump trick we had lost earlier.

In any case, we picked up 34 IMPs this set to lead by 35 IMPs at the half.

Unfortunately the third quarter was a disaster at our table and wasn't much better at the other table. Our team coughed up 47 IMPs to have a twelve IMP deficit going into the fourth quarter. How quickly the tide turns!

Les and I sat out the fourth quarter, but we were rooting for our teammates. The set wasn't any help as we lost another 24 IMPs to get unceremoniously booted from the Spingold. Ah well, on to the Fast Pairs!

We qualified handily for the second day of the Fast Pairs, qualifying in the top 25% of the field. Our final two sessions went very well, and we ended up 5th overall. Although 2nd overall was only half a board away (very achievable, of course), 1st was something like 3 boards ahead and basically uncatchable. Still, a top 5 finish in this event is something that Les and I were both happy with.

Here is a hand from the final day of the Fast pairs:

I guessed to lead a heart rather than a spade, which was already guaranteeing us an above average score. However, Les found a way to garner almost all the matchpoints: when declarer led the c9 from dummy, he covered with the cK! Declarer now crossed back twice to dummy to finesse twice into my cJ and cT, eventually going one down. A farsighted play by Les for a great board. (Les was fairly confident that his play would not crash a doubleton AQ or singleton club honour because I had led a heart from what was obviously a weak four card suit, marking declarer with 4 or 5 spades; thus, having 5 or 6 clubs was practically an impossibility.)

All in all, a successful Nationals. I adore Las Vegas (Susie and I even got married there -- no not in a drive thru chapel and our minister wasn't Elvis!) and had a great time outside of bridge too.

Las Vegas Nationals

2008-07-17T00:21:00.002-04:00

Dan has left for Las Vegas! Wish him luck!

I am not sure if he has internet access while he is there but we'll be posting hands and results from the events as soon as we are able.

Pentiction 2008 Recap

2008-06-22T22:00:00.005-04:00

Jonathan Steinberg and I spent the week of June 9-15 in sunny Penticton, B.C. As luck would have it, we ran into friends and Winnipeg Regional teammates Bob Todd and Mike Yuen at the Safeway before the first session, and we found out they were staying in the same hotel as us -- in the room next door! So we had plenty of company for the week.

The bridge went very well all week. Both Jonathan and I set a new personal regional best with over 111 masterpoints for the week; congratulations go out to our teammates, Gerry Marshall and Bernie Lambert as well (Bernie won the tournament with 117 points as he played on a different morning KO team that outperformed us).

L TO R: Bernie Lambert, Gerry Marshall, Daniel Korbel, Jonathan Steinberg.

There weren't that many hands throughout the week that I found to be spectacular, but here are a couple of slams where Jon and I did well on. Both were large swings in our favour.

I found the South hand awkward to bid and am not really sure what the best course of action is. I really don't like opening these hands 1D and rebidding 2C, so I decided to open 1C, planning to raise 1S to 2S if partner were to bid it, and just bid 1NT over 1H. Jonathan's 3H jump rebid was forcing and slammish, so I upgraded my hand and my hQ and drove to the five level. Jonathan knew that his hand was gold (nice cQ!) and bid the slam. 6H and 6C are both excellent contracts, much better than 6NT, but with both key suits splitting 3-3 any grand slam makes! The other table played 3NT, making only 6, so we won 13 IMPs.

This is another awkward hand, but there was nothing wrong with the final contract. Jonathan received a low spade lead, which he decided to duck around to his ten. Judging the lead to be from length, Jonathan made the great decision not to make the normal club play of leading a low club toward the Jack, as he was afraid of a spade ruff. Instead, he cashed the cA, dropping the cQ, and from there was able to claim his slam in top tricks. +920 was worth 14 IMPs as declarer misguessed 6NT at the other table.

No more bridge until Vegas -- hope to see everyone there! Vegas, baby!

Canadian Bridge Week Wrap Up

2008-06-07T20:29:00.003-04:00

Congrats to these winners of Bridge Week events:

Canadian National Teams Championship

1. Nicolas L'Ecuyer, Marc-André Fourcaudot, Dan Jacob, Kamel Fergani, Robert Lebi,
Vincent Demuy

Canadian Womens' Teams Championship

1. Pamela Nisbet, Karen Cumpstone, Martine Lacroix, Pascale Gaudreault, Kismet Fung, Susan Culham

Canadian Seniors Teams Championship

1. Stephen Brown - Edward Zaluski - Bill Bowman - John Bowman, Ottawa ON; Jurek Czyzowicz, Gatineau QC; Doug Fraser, Victoria BC

Canadian Open Pairs Championship

1. Cameron Doner, Richmond BC; Bradley Bart, Burnaby BC

Full results can be found here.

Jonathan Steinberg and Bert Eccles placed 4th in the COPC event this year. Although they were leading after Day 1, they were unable to resist a strong surge by the eventual winners, Cam Doner and Brad Bart. Here is a hand that Jonathan played on day one:

Jonathan arrived in 3NT (Bert's double of 1S showed 4 hearts) and was greeted by a low club lead from West. He won the cK in the dummy, crossed to hand with a diamond, and led another club up. When West rose with the cA and continued clubs, Jonathan was pretty sure that West was 5=5 in the black suits. It seems that he is simply a trick short, but do you see how he made his contract?

Jonathan won the cQ, and exited a club, allowing West to cash the rest of his club suit. East, feeling the pressure of having to protect both red suits, discarded a spade on the run of the clubs. When West played a spade next, Jonathan ducked! Now he had lost 4 tricks, which rectified the count for a squeeze against East. East played a heart now, but nothing mattered and East had to surrender in one red suit or the other when Jonathan cashed the sA. Well played, and this board was worth 18 / 24 matchpoints en route to a solid 67% game.

It's off to Penticton shortly for the regional there, where "squeeze expert" Jonathan Steinberg and I will be playing all week with Bernie Lambert and Gerry Marshall. Wish us luck!

Montreal CNTC, Semi-Final Results

2008-05-29T23:39:00.003-04:00

Today was the semi-finals of the CNTC-A, as well as the finals of both the CNTC-B and CNTC-Womens'.

In the CNTC A, L'ECUYER defeated KORBEL by 37 IMPs after winning the first set 55-0! In the other match, FRASER came from behind to defeat SINNO by 3 IMPs in a thrilling finale.

So tomorrow and Saturday will be L'ECUYER vs FRASER for the CNTC and the right to represent Canada in the Olympiad later this year in Beijing.

In the women's event, NISBET defeated CIMON to take the title. Congratulations!

Montreal CNTC, Quarterfinal

2008-05-28T22:04:00.003-04:00

We were tied at the half against the ZALUSKI team, 62-62.

The third set went poorly for us; we bid a lot of reasonable but thin games, and they all went down. Then, we bid a 53% slam that also went down. Darren and Jurek had a normalish set, but we ended up losing 18 IMPs on the set.

We sat down for the fourth quarter, and this was the first board:

Our opponents propelled themselves into 3NT, which has far less than a 1% chance of making (it needs hearts blocked, the dA onside, and the sQJ to drop), but as you can see it was all there, and we knew we were in a 28 IMP hole with 15 boards to play.

Fortunately, it went much better from that point on, and we ended up winning the rest of the set 79-27!

Here are a couple slams where David and I did very well on:

I decided to splinter the East cards once partner responded in diamonds, since my trump support was so wonderful. Also, this way he would be able to choose the right strain. David's 4H cuebid did not excite me, but my failure to cuebid 5C led David to believe that I had very good diamond support. He bid 6D, which made with the clubs coming home, and that was +1370, 12 IMPs for us.

David opened the West cards 1D (a little light, don't you think!!) and my 2D was game forcing. David showed his hearts, and I bid a forcing 2NT. His 3D rebid let me know that he had extra distribution. At this point, I was thinking that we could easily have a grand slam. I cuebid 3H, and he bid 3S which was ambiguous as to whether he was just trying for 3NT or if he was actually cuebidding spades. When I cuebid 4C, David redoubled to show a void. At this point I knew my cAQ were wasted, but we could still have a grand slam if he had a similar hand with the Ace of diamonds. When David wouldn't cooperate with my grand slam try of 5H, I gave up. +920 was worth 10 IMPs as the other table played in 4H, making 5.

Here is a board where we manufactured IMPs out of nowhere:

I doubled 3NT for a spade lead, on a wing and a prayer. David led a spade, and I switched to the h5. David won the hJ and played another spade to my sQ. I played another heart, and declarer guessed to win the hA and try cashing clubs from the top, pitching two diamonds from dummy. When the cJ didn't fall that was +800 for us and 12 IMPs, as our teammates went two down in 4NT.

When all was said and done, Darren and Jurek had a very solid set and we won comfortably. Tomorrow we face the tough L'Ecuyer team; may the best team win!

Montreal CNTC, Quarterfinal Results

2008-05-28T21:58:00.003-04:00

The results are in. We survived a 3rd quarter scare to come on strong in the 4th set to make it to the semi-finals.

SINNO...................214
BALLANTYNE......87

KORBEL..................153
ZALUSKI.........129

L'ECUYER........128
WILLIS.............109

FRASER..............102
GARTAGANIS.......96

Tomorrow's matchups:

SINNO
FRASER

KORBEL
L'ECUYER

Stay tuned for hands from our match. It was a wild fourth set!

2008 CNTC Quarterfinal

2008-05-28T14:57:00.002-04:00

The final event standings looked like this:

1. Sinno
2. Korbel
3. L'Ecuyer
4. Fraser
5. Gartaganis
6. Zaluski
7. Willis
8. Ballantyne

Sinno chose to play against Ballantyne, and we chose to play against Zaluski. This left L'Ecuyer to choose Willis, and Fraser got Gartaganis.

At the half, the scores look like this:

SINNO...............51....43......94
BALLANTYNE....2.....18......20

KORBEL.......31.....31.....62
ZALUSKI......25.....37.....62

L'ECUYER.....37.....29.....66
WILLIS.........15.....12.....27

FRASER...........14.....44.....58
GARTAGANIS...38......6......44

As you can see, our match is extremely close. I'll show you a couple interesting hands:

David responded to my 1D opening bid with a game-forcing 2C bid. I was forced systemically to rebid 2D, which promised at least 5 diamonds and said nothing else about my hand. David raised to 3D, and I chose to bid 3S. David tried 4C, and when he cuebid 4H over my 4D bid I knew he had a good hand (he didn't try 3NT even though he had a heart stopper). I bid blackwood, heard about his three aces, and asked for the Queen of diamonds. When he showed it plus the cK, I decided that 7D would probably be laydown or very close to it. The actual layout made it very simple to take all 13 tricks by ruffing two spades high in the dummy. We won 10 IMPs when the other table stopped in 6NT, which could be beaten, but was made on a double squeeze.

I realize I haven't had much opportunity to post hands from the event so far, but rest assured if you want to see them and can wait, you will see plenty here. Here's a hand from the round robin where we won 10 IMPs:

I opened a strong notrump (ok, ok, a little light!) and my left hand opponent doubled, which artificially announced a 1-suited hand. The rest of the auction was standard and we got to 4S. My LHO led the dA and another diamond, and I stopped to think about the hand. The opponents were playing standard carding, and East had played the d9 then d7, so based on the auction, lead, and defense, it looked for all the world that diamonds were 7=2 and West was hoping to give East a diamond ruff.

Well, if West had seven diamonds, and led from a dry ace (an ace with no other help in the suit), he probably didn't have a singleton to lead. Or, at least, he would have thought a lot longer about leading, say, a singleton heart or club. Accordingly, I decided that he was likely to have a singleton spade! The only way he would have more than 1 spade, if my inferences were correct, would be if he was specifically 2=2=7=2.

In any case, I led a spade to the Ace and a spade back down, putting in the s9! This won and with clubs breaking (as expected), I had 10 tricks.

I'll post results as soon as we get them tonight.

2008 CNTC Days 1, 2, and 3

2008-05-27T12:03:00.003-04:00

This week we are in Dorval (the airport suburb of Montreal) for the Canadian Bridge Team Championship event. Our team consists of myself, David Grainger, Arno Hobart, George Mittelman, Darren Wolpert, and Jurek Czyzowicz.

Sorry the blog hasn't been updated, I've had difficulty finding an opportunity to update. The updates will be more frequent from this point on for sure.

The first match of the event we played against a pre-tournament favourite, Nic L'Ecuyer's team, and lost a close match to them. It got better from there, though, as we ended the first day comfortably in the top 8, and by the end of day two we were a comfortable 2nd place.

After 5 of the 6 matches on Day 3, we had snuck into first place, but unfortunately this wouldn't last as we lost in the 6th match to the 2nd place team, who then overtook us for the lead. After 3 of 4 days in the round robin, the top 10 look like this:

1. Sinno............295
2. Korbel...........286
3. L'Ecuyer.........284
4. Fraser...........269
5. Gartaganis.......260
6. Zaluski..........258
7. Willis...........251
8/9. Rayner.........244
8/9. Brough.........244
10/12. Chan.........232
10/12. Ballantyne...232
10/12. Anderson.....232

Full rosters of the event can be found here.

Only 8 teams qualify; it is a dogfight.

Here is a cute hand from the match against Bryan Maksymetz's team:

The auction may look like an error, but it wasn't. Bryan's 1H bid actually showed spades, and Ziggy's 1S bid showed hearts! 3S was invitational, and Ziggy accepted the game try. This left me on lead, and I tried a low club. Declarer won with the cQ and led the dJ, to the 8, 4, and ... Ace! I decided that since the diamond position was basically known (David's 8 showed an odd number), declarer would probably be able to ruff out my diamond ace and throw his heart losers away. I also knew that spades weren't breaking for declarer, so I could hope for partner to have 2 spade tricks in his hand. If declarer thought that David held the dQ, I hoped that he would just go after trumps and go down. This is in fact what happened, and we won 11 IMPs on the hand as we were +50 and our teammates were +420.

I don't have time right now for any more hands but there will be more hands and score updates in a little while. Time for match 18!

Canadian National Team Championships

2008-05-24T13:53:00.002-04:00

Dan is off to Montreal to play in the CNTC starting today. His team is himself, David Grainger, Arno Hobart, George Mittelman, Darren Wolpert, and Jurek Czyzowicz. Wish them luck!

Dan will update as frequently as he can with hands and standings from the matches, so check back often!

Winnipeg Regional 2008 Recap

2008-05-12T21:30:00.003-04:00

Last week Jonathan Steinberg and I traveled to Winnipeg to participate in their regional. Although the tournament was small (especially coming on the heels of Gatlinburg, which gets more tables in one day than Winnipeg does all week!), I found it to be enjoyable and the people were extremely hospitable. I made many new friends this week and am looking forward to heading back to Winnipeg sometime soon for another tournament.

As many of you know, Jonathan keeps a large album of photographs of bridge players and the Winnipeg tournament was no exception. Heck, most tournament players have probably been photographed by him at least once!

The bridge went very well in Winnipeg for us. We ended up playing with a variety of players, coming 1st in all three KO events we entered, and 2nd and 3rd in the two swiss events we entered. This added up to something like 92 points, a spectacular result for such a small regional.

Here is a nice slam that helped us to victory in the first knockout:

Jonathan, as North, made the key decision to bid 4C, bypassing 3NT, and now getting to 6D was easy. The player on my left found the best lead of a club, but it didn't matter with hearts 3-3. This slam was missed at the other table, and we won 10 IMPs.

Here is an interesting situation that our teammates encountered while we were sitting out (on a 6-person squad):

At one table, with North / South vulnerable, the bidding went:

And our teammates went -300, an excellent result with the opponents cold for 5C and with 6C makeable.

At the other table, the bidding was more ambitious:

North's double of 5D should not be played as penalty in my opinion, but rather as responsive, showing some working values. Some people might describe this double as scraping the bottom of the barrel, but on this deal it worked beautifully when South correctly took a shot at 6C.

On the opening lead of a diamond, East put in the queen as South, Ken Sired, ruffed. After messing around a bit, Ken discovered that East's distribution was 1=4=6=2, and that West therefore had a doubleton heart. Because of East's dQ at trick 1, Ken decided that East had all of the top diamond honours and dropped the hK offside instead of taking the finesse. Well played, but as I'm sure all of you agree with, East should have just played the dA at trick 1 to conceal his strength in that suit.

I find this hand interesting, because against a top-class defender who plays the dQ, you have a very interesting situation as declarer. A great defender in the East seat would virtually never reveal the dAKQ at trick 1 unless he had a reason to; it follows that if a very strong East plays the dQ, he may actually hold:

However, if East knows that you know that he is a super defender, he may put in the dQ after all from the layout that really existed, playing for a grosvenor gambit! A classic case of the "spy vs. spy" tactics that can exist at the higher levels of bridge.

Here's a declarer play problem to test your mettle. I will only show the North South hands so you can try your hand at it.

You have reached an aggressive 6H contract through optimistic bidding. The opening lead is a small diamond; how do you play? (Answer at the bottom of the post.)

Here's another nice slam we reached, even though this one was a push board.

I opened 1H, and Jonathan bid 2S, which in our system is the same as most people's Jacoby 2NT (a game-forcing heart raise). My RHO bid 3D, and I bid 3S, which conventionally showed at most 1 spade. Jonathan cuebid 4C, and I passed 4D around to Jonathan to see what he would do. When he signed off in 4H, I felt I was still worth more so I tried again with 4S. Jonathan showed he had clubs well under control, and that was enough to get me to bid the slam.

It looks like you have a heart loser and a diamond loser when trumps unluckily break 3-0, but with the cQ falling there is a parking place for dummy's diamond and 6H cruises home. (For any declarer play mavens out there, you could actually make 6H even if the cJ were a small club by forcing West to ruff East's winning diamond at trick 13, which is pretty cool in and of itself).

This is a bit of a sidenote, but I wanted to write about it anyway. Gim Ong was telling me about a mentoring program that is run in the Winnipeg area. I thought it was really worthwhile so I wanted to share it here. The way it works is that any level of player short of newcomer can sign up to be a mentor for a 6-game block at the local club. These 6 games are free for the mentor, with the club paying half and the unit subsidizing the other half of the entry fee.

The mentor gets matched up with a player of lower ability (an A player would be matched with a B player, and a C player would be matched up with a newcomer) and is expected to spend 15-20 minutes before and after the session discussing whatever he feels is an area he can help the "mentee" with, or answering questions the newer player has. Alternatively, some partnerships receive coaching from a more experienced player rather than individual attention.

Gim says that this has helped the players in the area tremendously; in fact, in the IMP Pairs, he played against a pair that he coaches, and they bid accurately to two superb slams against him! There are over 85 matchups made in Winnipeg with another 20+ players waiting to be paired up with a mentor. This program sounds like a smashing success in Winnipeg and can only improve the caliber and enthusiasm of players. Needless to say, this idea might not be as workable in a larger metropolis, at least where expert players are concerned, but certainly the lure of free sessions would be enough to attract some mentors.

Anyway, another successful regional tournament gone by; next stop, the Canadian National Team Championships (May 24-31), where David and I, along with Darren Wolpert, Jurek Czycowicz, George Mittelman, and Arno Hobart, hope to earn the right to represent Canada in Beijing in the fall!

ANSWER TO PLAY PROBLEM: I hope you discarded at trick 1. No line will work unless you can pick up hearts 3-2 onside. If you ruffed trick 1, intending to lead a spade to the queen, you will realize after some more thought that this line is essentially the same as discarding at trick 1 and setting up the dK for a trick, except that you also need the sK onside, which it wasn't.

On the actual hand, both declarers went down by ruffing the diamond at trick 1 instead of discarding, which would have worked (clubs broke and Qxx of hearts was in the slot).

Some hands from tonight

2008-05-04T23:59:00.002-04:00

Tonight, David Grainger and I played a pleasant match against Jason Chiu and Harmon Edgar.

The match went well, with both sides playing very well. We ended up getting slightly the better of it, largely on the back of these three slam deals:

I was kind of stuck for a bid over 3H, so I decided to compromise with a 3S bid, which at least gave David space to describe what his hand was all about. Thinking we probably had no heart stopper, David told me about the club fit with his 4C bid. 4D was a cuebid, and 4S was passable, but also sort of a cuebid, since he had to have good spades. My 4NT bid was a bit of an oddity: in our system, when the auction gets very crowded, 4NT is not blackwood. It was intended merely as forward-going with clubs, promising a heart control and David took it as such. He bid 5H on the way to 6C just in case we had a grand slam (he knew that I couldn't misconstrue his 5H bid).

With everything breaking, there was nothing to the play and we chalked up +920 for +10.7 IMPs.

Then:

My double of 1H showed 4 or 5 spades in our system, and Jason's leap to 4H really put the wood to David. He thought for a while and eventually decided to take a shot at 6C. He knew that I would know he couldn't have a heart loser, and this sort of sequence (opening at the 1 level, then blasting to the moon opposite a simple 1-level response) usually shows a good fit for partner's suit. Therefore, had I held the sAQ and the cA I would have been able to find the good raise to 7C based on this logic. In any case, he bought very well from me and we played in 6C making, for +8.5 IMPs. Note that the 4-4 spade fit goes down if the defense finds its club ruff, which it should probably find because declarer can't just pull trump and knock out the cA on the bad spade break.

I saved the best for last. This is the kind of result you dream about having when an important match is on the line; too bad it came up in an online fun match.

We play a 4C response to any preempt as a keycard asking bid. I decided to trot it out on the theory that a 2NT inquiry didn't rate to help me much, and if we had enough trump solidity we might be cold for 6S even if there was work to do elsewhere. David's unusual 4D response promised 1 keycard but also a diamond void. I asked for the sQ with 5H, and he denied it with his 5S bid.

At this point it would be easy to give up, figuring on a trump loser (or two!) and maybe even another loser in the wash, but I tried to picture his hand. He was vulnerable, so he wouldn't have garbage, and he should probably not have a 4-card heart suit on the side. Therefore, he was very likely to be 6=3=0=4 (6=2=0=5 is possible also, but I would not complain if he had that either!!), and we probably had a 4-4 club fit that may play a lot better than spades.

So I bid 6C, which David worked out was an offer to play (based on the fact that we both knew we were off the sQ, I was not trying for a grand slam).

I got the s4 lead to the s2, s5, and sK. Based on the lead, it seemed very likely that spades were 5-1 one way or the other. I thought for a long time and eventually decided I was probably just dead in the water if Jason was leading a singleton spade. I played the hand on a crossruff, eventually coming to 12 tricks easily when the cK was onside. True, a trump lead might set 6C based on the vicious spade split, but Jason understandably thought his partner was probably ruffing the first spade (a trump lead doesn't look very dynamic in any case). Well, this was +1370 and +14.7 IMPs, as nobody else who attempted a slam made it (nobody was in clubs, as a matter of fact).

In my opinion, slams are the hardest part of bridge and it's always nice to get some of the harder ones right and know what you are doing.

Gatlinburg 2008 Recap

2008-05-01T22:30:00.005-04:00

This year, in beautiful Gatlinburg, Tennessee, I played on a team with David Grainger, Mike and Jon Rice, and Joyce Hampton and Lucas Lebioda. As it turned out, our masterpoints averaged out to about 3200 per person, so we ended up in bracket 4 every event. Gatlinburg is really a huge tournament; every knockout had about 30 (!) brackets (that means that close to 480 teams were entering each knockout every day!). Bracket 1 is filled with household name players and is very tough, and even down in bracket 4 where we were, your average opponent is comfortably a Gold Life Master.

Here is a picture of our team:

STANDING: David Grainger, Mike Rice, Daniel Korbel, Jon Rice.
SEATED: Lucas Lebioda, Joyce Hampton.

The Rice brothers are twins, but they are not identical twins, believe it or not. (If you have trouble telling them apart, Jon always wears a hat).
We started out with a bang, winning the first match on Monday evening handily, then cruising to victory to win the first event. Here is a slam from the final where we won a swing:

I had a problem how to treat my hand, since it didn't fall neatly into any particular category. Probably the right sequence is 2C then 3C, but because my hand was so great for either major I decided to treat it as a game-forcing balanced hand (2H forced 2S, then 2NT showed that hand type). In any case, David knew his hand was enough to drive to slam, and he was probably disappointed that we were off a keycard. The hK was onside, though, and we were a little worried about losing 11 IMPs, since this occurred in the second half and we were substantially ahead in the first half, so our opponents might be swinging. However, they failed to reach even the small slam at the other table and we chalked up 11 IMPs instead.

Unfortunately, the next morning was a bit of a hiccup as we lost in the morning KO to some members of the same team that we had dismantled the night before in the final.

In the second primetime KO, we won our first match handily, then came back from a 16 IMP deficit to win by 7 against a strong team of both local and South American players. Here was a board where everyone did well:

David Grainger, as West, did very well not to bid 4H, a contract that many pairs might get to. The defense against 3S doubled was tricky, however; David found the best lead of his doubleton diamond, and I won trick 1 to try to cash the hA at trick 2. When this got ruffed, we both knew declarer was 7=0=2=4 and that beating this contract would be difficult. Declarer led a spade toward dummy's jack, and David found his first excellent play of rising with the sA. He then returned his other diamond to me, and I played a third diamond, which declarer ruffed. David continued his excellent defense by overruffing, and exiting in trumps, leaving declarer to open up the club suit. We collected a nervous +100 for down 1.

At the other table, Joyce Hampton played 3S nicely, and when the defense didn't find one of the necessary sequences of plays to set the contract, she took full advantage. +530 and +100 added up to 12 IMPs for the good guys.

Our team was in good form in the 3rd match of this KO. Here is a hand from that match where David and I did remarkably well:

This slam is neither easy to get to nor laydown, and as it turns out a lot of IMPs were riding on whether I could guess the queen of trumps after a heart lead to RHO's hA. It is at times like these that I am grateful for my hours at the poker table, as I just got the vibe that my LHO had the sQ. Accordingly, I ran the s8 on the first round, and when the rest of the hand was friendly, quickly claimed +1430 for a 13 IMP gain.

In the final match of this KO, we played against a tough team that did almost everything right against us in the first half of the match. David and I had one soft board and we found ourselves stuck 31 IMPs at the half. The second set of boards were pretty flat, although we had nothing bad and a few good boards, but we were still all surprised to pick up 33 IMPs and win the match by 2! Needless to say, our opponents were not exactly happy after this match.

I will show you the fateful final board on which we won 15 IMPs:

At our table, I led a club from the West hand based on the opponents' informative auction. Declarer ducked the first round, won the second in dummy with the Ace, and unblocked the hQ. He then crossed to hand with a third round of clubs, tried to drop the hJ, then finessed the sQ. When that lost, we had the rest of the tricks for +400.

Did you spot the 100% line? Our teammate Jon Rice did, after a few moments' thought: winning the first (or second) club in dummy, unblocking the hQ, and leading a low spade toward the sT. This preserves all the needed communication (if the sT holds, you can power out the hJ for a ninth trick).

We were all thrilled to have won this match after being down 31, but the rest of the tournament wasn't as sweet.

We lost in the 1st round the next day after being up 25 at the half! (Ouch.) That was not one of our better sets. In the evening, we played in the huge 1-session swiss and ended up winning X. Actually, nobody on the team made a mistake in the entire event, but we were cursed with flat boards in our final two matches (we won them both by ONE imp against strong expert teams) so we never had a shot at winning the event. Here is a hilarious story from the Swiss:

The auction at our table ended with us defending 3Dx. We took six tricks for a 2-trick set, +300. This was a strong result but it didn't seem all that remarkable at the time -- until we got back to compare with Joyce and Lucas. "Plus 300," read Joyce. Plus 300? We took a peek at her scorecard: 3D -3. We asked, "You mean minus 300?" "No," she repeated, "Plus 300." So we scored it up as win 12 IMPs.

I have a hard and fast rule during comparisons never to discuss a board until all the boards have been compared and the result of the match is known, but this time I could barely restrain myself. Finally the comparison was done, and David and I simultaneously asked, "What happened on this hand??" Well, the opponents had a major mixup, ending up in their 4-0 fit, and Joyce was right on the money not doubling, knowing that she had them right where she wanted them!

It's not very often at all that both tables play the same contract in each direction for the same result!

Joyce and the Rices left the tournament a day early so that was that, but winning 2 Regional events can never be considered bad! I really had a great time (Tennessee is a beautiful place full of friendly people) and look forward to more tournaments with this bunch.

My next tournament is the Winnipeg regional, starting on May 6, where I will be playing with Jonathan Steinberg. I'll post an update most likely after the tournament (not owning a laptop makes it very difficult to do on the spot updates, unfortunately).

GNT Qualifier

2008-03-29T15:10:00.005-04:00

Last night myself, Robert Lebi, Darren Wolpert, and Nader Hanna arrived at Hazel's bridge club at 7:00pm sharp in order to qualify for the Grand National Teams event (held in Las Vegas at the start of the Nationals in the summer). To be honest, we weren't even sure any other team was going to show up -- up to the night before, we were the only registered team in the Championship Flight!

It turns out that there was another team, consisting of Paul Janicki - Ian Findlay, Barry Senesky - Richard Chan, so we ended up playing against them for 28 boards to determine the District 2 representative.

Our team played extremely well and we won the match 86-12.

Here is a hand that is a good defensive problem:

Firstly, Robert Lebi (as West) had a difficult lead problem and it took him quite some time to settle on the d8. This card told me that declarer had the whole diamond suit between him and dummy (we lead 2nd-highest from bad holdings).

What is the best line of play? The three contenders are, a) go after hearts, b) go after spades, c) go after clubs. Going after clubs will usually need a 3-3 break there, and going after hearts will usually need the hT to fall in three rounds if the defenders aren't asleep. Running the sT at trick 2 seems like as good a shot as any, making the contract whenever 2 honours are on your left, or one honour is tripleton or shorter on your left.

In any case, the declarer at the table won the diamond in hand to lead the hQ at trick 2. I stared at this (as East) a long time before winning the hK. Declarer was marked with the hAQJ, dAJ for the play up until now (there was no way he's going after hearts without the hA when I was looking at the hT). Therefore, I thought it reasonable to place partner with the sK and cQ to give us a chance of setting this contract.

I switched to the cK (in case declarer had a singleton Q), and when that held the trick, shifted to the sQ. Declarer could have gotten home by ducking that trick, but he did not, so we were able to untangle our black suit tricks for one down. As it turns out, to beat the contract legitimately at that point I have to switch to the sQ immediately, and if that is ducked, switch to a low club (to put partner in for another spade play, after which I have to switch back to clubs!). Not an easy hand. If you spotted the optimal sequence of plays, well done. In practice, the cK was good enough for 12 IMPs.