Zeroes left and right, zeroes all night

I used to fly American Airlines all the time, but have now switched to United, and one of the advantages of flying United is that there is a non-stop flight from Oklahoma City to Newark.  And an advantage of flying non-stop is that I get into New York early enough on the travel day to catch a game of bridge. My usual partner in NY, B., was unavailable and so I thought I'd walk into the club and see if they could find me a partner for the evening game.

"What kind of player are you?", asked Jeff Bayone, the owner of the Manhattan bridge club.

"Well, I've got only 200 points," told him, "but I am a pretty decent player. I typically place in regional pairs and teams events.  I usually play with B. when I come into New York."

"B. B.?", he asked incredulously.  I nodded.

"What are you doing the rest of this afternoon?"

"Nothing."

"Would you mind filling in? One of the players had to leave and the director is having to play."

So, I got to finish off the afternoon session. "This is one of B's regular partners," Jeff told my new pard, "so he's pretty good."  We had the usual disasters (for example, I doubled their bid and partner with no points and 3-card support for my suit passed the double for penalty) but mostly, we reached the right contracts and played the cards well.

We finished the afternoon session with 56% which was good for 3rd place and a whopping 1.3 master points. In the Norman game, you would need to win 3 weeks in a row to get 1.3 MPs.  Not bad for half an afternoon's work!

As I was leaving, one of the players asked if I wanted to play in the evening game. Of course, I did. That was the whole reason for going to the club in the first place. He was a visitor too, from the West coast, where he directed and taught bridge.  In other words, he was a very good player. We quickly decided on what to play -- 2/1 with a few trimmings.

The evening game comes around, and with this partner (who was a much better player than the one I played with in the afternoon), it was one zero after another.  The club had bridgemates, and so there was no escaping the comparison after every board and the realization that we were completely out of step with the field.

We were preempting when the others were not. We were raising to game when they were not. We were in NT contracts when they were playing in a suit. We were playing in a major when they were playing in a minor. And each time, our decision did not work out.

Were we just bidding terribly? I posted a couple of the hands (where the primary decision was mine) as polls on Bridge Winners.

In this one, the field was in 3NT making 3.  76% of BridgeWinners would not have been in game -- 100% would not have overcalled with my hand, and 76% would not have raised partner's balancing action to game.  2C making 5 or 1NT making 3 were worth zero matchpoints.

In this hand, the decision is whether to open 1H or 1NT.  88% of BridgeWinners would do as I did, and open 1NT.  The field, though, opened 1H and were rewarded by partner raising their bid to 2H.  They make 8 or 9 tricks.  1NT went down 1 for another zero.

We finished the game with 47%, well out of the standings.  Towards the end of the evening, I wrote down my BBO username for partner just in case he wanted to play online sometime.  He took it politely, but did not proffer his username in return.  Who can blame him?

Keep the kibs from chortling

I was playing a friendly table with a pickup partner against two experts.  Because the experts some times play in the Jimmy Cayne matches, they are well-known in BBOland.  Therefore, our table had something like 50 kibitzers and I had to hope the kibs were not being too harsh on pickup-pard and me.

After three passes, North-South vul, it comes around to me and I hold:

What's your bid?

I have 15 high-card points and a semi-balanced hand. But I do have spades and an easy club rebid, so I have an easy 1S bid.  Partner now raises to 2S.  What do you do?

My KQ tight and J-doubleton are poor values, but I let my good club and spade spots convince me to make a 3C game try.  Partner accepts and we are in 4S.  I get the lead of a low spade and this is the dummy:

Plan the play.  Do you have a chance to make this thing?

Well, there is no need to put off pulling trumps, so I pulled trumps.  What's the right way to play clubs for only one loser?

First of all, there is no harm in seeing who has the Ace of hearts.  I therefore led a low heart to my King. North won the trick and returned a heart.  Now, clubs.  How do you play it?

Taking the suit by itself, the best way is a low club to the Ace (to capture any singleton honor) and then a low club to the 10, finessing the Jack with south.  But table feel told me that the expert sitting north had chosen a passive spade lead because he expected club tricks to be coming his way.  Ergo, he rated to have KJx of clubs.  I therefore led a low club to the 9, was gratified to see it hold the trick. I then played the Ace of clubs and another club.  North took this trick and returned a heart for me to ruff.  He was not breaking diamonds.

So, now you have to play diamonds for one loser.  You lead a low diamond towards dummy and north plays low.  Your call.  Make the right decision and you get a few imps for pulling off this thin game.  Maybe the kibs stop chortling.

I made the wrong decision at the table because I thought that North's passive defense must have been predicated on holding three suits he could not lead away from.  So, I put up the king.  Better than vague psycho-babble would have to count the points that North had already shown up with:  KJ of clubs and A of hearts.  With the Ace of diamonds, that would be 12 points and he would have opened.  Ergo, south had the Ace of diamonds.  Putting up the King has no chance. I should put in the 9 of diamonds and take my only chance.

The whole hand was: (click Next to see the play)


p.s. After I wrote the blog, I noticed that North had not played a low diamond, but had put in the 10 of diamonds.  I had no chance on this deal.  There's a reason he's an expert and I am not.  But if he had played low, I should have put in the 9.

Defending low level contracts is hard

At the club game, we are at 65% and leading with the last board to go, although we don't know that at the time.  The hand is:

.

Vul: None

Dlr: North

N

Pard

♠

x

♥

AQxx

♦

K10xx

♣

Qxxx

.

W

West

♠

KJ109xx

♥

xx

♦

Qx

♣

Kxx

E

East

♠

xx

♥

KJ10xx

♦

AJxx

♣

Jx

.

S

Me

♠

AQxx

♥

xx

♦

xxx

♣

Axxx

.

Partner deals and starts off the bidding:

W

West

N

North

E

East

S

South

—

1♦¹

1♥

Dbl

2♠²

Dbl

Pass

?

(1) 2+ diamonds, 10-15 points

(2) natural, weak

What do you bid?  I passed and we were defending 2S.  Is that what you would have done?

Now put yourself in my partner's shoes.  What do you lead?

Partner led his 4th highest diamond.  Declarer ran it to his Queen and took a diamond finesse. On the Ace of diamonds, he threw a club. Then, he led a low spade to his 10 of spades, which won. Then, he led a heart.

Partner jumped up with the Ace and led the king of diamonds. I threw away my remaining heart and declarer ruffed.  The position was now:

.

Vul: None

Dlr: North

N

North

♠

—

♥

Qxx

♦

♣

Qxxx

.

W

West

♠

KJ9x

♥

x

♦

—

♣

Kx

E

East

♠

x

♥

KJ10x

♦

—

♣

Jxx

.

S

South

♠

AQx

♥

—

♦

—

♣

Axxx

.

At this point, declarer led a heart to the king, I ruffed.  What do you play at this point?

I led a low club from my hand and put declarer to the guess. He guessed wrong.  Partner won with the queen.   He then played his queen of hearts. I threw away a club and declarer threw away his king of clubs.  At this point, we have won a heart ruff, two hearts and the club queen.   We need to win two of the remaining three tricks.  If partner had led a club, we would have set it since declarer would ruff and then lead into my ace-queen, but partner ended up leading his low heart, forcing me to ruff in front of declarer.

2S doubled and made was a bottom of course. We dropped to 61% but it was still good enough to win.  So, as mishaps go, this turned out okay.

In spite of the misdefense at the end, the real problem with this hand is the bidding.  Partner's hand goes down in value once his LHO bids hearts and my hand goes down in value once my LHO bids spades. We should have gone quietly into the night. Note that declarer would have made legitimately if he had guessed either the clubs or the hearts right.

Secondly, once they bid a suit I have implied, partner's double should have been 100% penalty, but he thought it was for takeout. At the table, I thought that this might be the case, and knowing this, I should have bid 3C.  Defending low-level contracts can be hard, and I should not have been torturing partner by leaving his double in.

Another online bridge tournament program

For most people, playing bridge online is synonymous with BBO.  I like BBO too, but there is a new game in town and if you have not tried it out, you should.

Every day, bridgez.net runs a matchpointed bridge tournament.  Although you can play online, the website is experiencing growing pains, so a much better avenue is to download the bridge software wbridge5 and play the bridgez tournament using it.

From what I can tell, the wbridge5 robot makes killer leads and messes up defensive signals just as often as BBO's GIB program.  Its card-play and bidding are uncanny. However, when it is your partner (rather than your opponent) the bidding is a lot stranger.  The software provides an explanation of sorts, in terms of high card points and distributions, but that explanation is often quite wrong.  For example, although the robot marked my fourth suit bid as artificial (0-4 hearts), it had no problems raising me to game in hearts. However, everyone else playing the tournaments is having the same problems (everyone plays 2/1), so I think of it as playing with a slightly unpredictable partner.  Which is, of course, always the case.

An advantage of long-running tournaments like this is the size of the field -- every day, the tournament attracts about 500 users, so you have a large field to gauge things against. For example, you can experiment with different styles to see what works. Thus, I have been trying more speculative matchpoint doubles.  At the end of a hand, you can also click on how someone else played the hand to see why you dropped a trick.

Another very good thing about playing the bridgez tourneys is the monthly reports you get at the end of the month. For example, my monthly report at the end of June told me where I ranked in total ability:

i.e. above average, but nowhere near expert-level.

It also analyzed my bidding in a rather cool manner:

The y-axis ("efficiency") indicates how good I am at analyzing the playing strength of both hands and bidding the right contracts. I am not sure what the x-axis ("frequency") denotes -- it is explained as "mastery of bidding system", so perhaps the below-50% reflects the times the software leaves me in my control-bids and fails to take preference to my first bid suit.

Yup, I am in total denial about my bidding ability.