Playing online on BBO in a pick-up Team Game, I picked up this nice hand Vul vs Not, 2 AKQT75 KJ752 T and heard the auction go 2 passes to me. This is something I do that is very different and strange to most people, I hate the opps exchanging information, and finding a sack on hands like this. So in 3rd Seat, I opened 4H. First, I wanted to play in game if partner had virtually anything, and I was willing to trade the chance that partner had a fit with 2 Aces to make a slam, against the possibility that the opps could find a Black Suit Fit and a profitable sack.
This now went all Pass, and the opening lead was the 9 of Spades, with partner putting this hand down. I see he had the Black Suit Sacks well covered, sigh.
With the Diamond Q onside and going 43, it was fairly easy to score up +620 in the hand. In the other room, my hand opened 1H, and over 1S, bid only 2D. The other hand now made one of those 'I am a better player than you' bids of 2S, over which my hand bid 3H. East now passed, and the hand made the same 10 tricks on the same lead for an easy 10 IMP Pickup.
I just do not like opening 1H or not getting to game on hands like this. Almost anything in partners hand, 2 small Hearts and Qx of Diamonds gives you play, but you might get passed out in 1H. And partner does not have to have the Black Suits covered like that, Change E and N hands around, and we can make slam if you find the Q of Diamonds, but have to be allowed to get there and play there when they are bidding super agressive in Spades.
So I guess I will continue to open 4H in 3rd seat on these hands and continue to get lectured why it is wrong.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Not Something I would do
Had a neat hand this weekend in a qualifying game against a good team. With no one Vul, I picked up K KQ9753 KJT752 ---, your standard 6-6 hand at Imps. In 3rd seat, I opened 1H, LHO overcalled 1S, partner bid 2C, and RHO bid 2S. I now bid 3D, LHO bid 3S, P, P to me. Decided to hope for something, and bid 4H, sorta what I was intending to do when I picked up the hand.
The opening lead was the 9 of Diamonds (Gee, think that is a singleton?) and a pretty sad dummy hit.
QJ97 J6 6 KJT653
Not what I really wanted to see, lots of defense and virtually no help on offense. And about the worst hand pard could have for 2C.
Turns out the Diamond was a singleton as I suspected, but when RHO won the A and exited A and a Heart, there was not much hope on the hand, and I pretty quickly drifted off 2.
The interesting thing was what happened at the other table. The auction started the same, with 1H - 1S, but this S kept silent, and it went 2S by RHO. This hand bid only 3D (I would have bid 4D here), and LHO now bid 3S. This went Double, P to N, who ran to 4H, what I would expect normally, On a lead other than the Diamond, our partners only beat this 1 trick, so not a serious loss, and we won the match by 6 Imps.
But after the hand, this N stated first, he did not see the Double (This is why the Double cards are RED), and if he had, he would have passed 3S Doubled in a second. With a 66 hand that makes game opposite the right Q. I have to admit, passing 3S Doubled would never really occur to me. You have no defense for your 2 bids, and the liklehood of missing a game is so high. Turns out you will beat 3S 1-2 tricks, and game does not make. But I do think this is playing the wrong end of the probability tree.
There was another interesting hand in the 3rd match we played. I picked up J75 AJ83 K74 JT9 with everyone Vul. Partner opened 2N (20-21) in first seat and I had to think a sec. But finally deciding that pushy slams are not a good idea with a 4333 hand, I started to sign off in 3N. Due to the way we play over 2N to look for minors, 3S is a relay to 3N, either to play or a 1 suited minor hand, 3N is both minors, so I started with 3S. This now got interesting as it went Double on my left, P, P to me.
What my partner and I had talked about was that Pass here said pard had some Spades, but not good enough to Redouble. I finally decided it was time to have some fun, and passed out 3S. The opening lead was a small Spade and partner tracked with
Q84 QT3 AQ AKQ64
J75 AJ83 K74 JT9
So 3N was a little better spot than our 3-3 fit, but I knew I had passed for the fun aspect, and to keep LHO under control in the future. So that meant I needed to make this. Assuming LHO had AKxxx of Spades (I assume with 6 he would start an honor), that gave me some hope, even if the K Hearts was offside. Although I was likely going to need that card onside, unless the distribution was friendly.
I ducked the Spade on board, and RHO contributed the 10, which I won with the J. Starting by cashing the Diamond AQ, I came to my hand with a Club and led the K of Diamonds. LHO now made a strange play of ruffing this low, allowing me to over ruff. It was looking more like LHO was something like 5323 or possibly 4 cards in either rounded suit. Either way, I needed to prevent a Club ruff by his partner, so exited dummy with the Q of Spades. Sure enough, RHO followed with a small Spade, and LHO cleared the AK of Spades (a better lead) before exiting a small Heart. Looked like I now had him, so played the 10 of Hearts, holding the trick, and started running Clubs. RHO showed out on the third round, so LHO was the 5323 and I was now making an overtrick.
LHO eventually ruffed a Club, and I was able to claim on the Heart return, making 10 tricks and a lucky +930. RHO now complained that the explanation of 3S was not sufficient. My partner had actually stated it was a minor oriented try, had not said that it might be a sign off in 3N as well. She said she would have run to 4D if it was explained correctly. Although after deciding that -1100 was not a good thing to bring back either, we settled for the 930 score.
And now, next time this hand comes up and I want to bid a silly slam off an AK, LHO may not make that double to give away the good lead. Or we can always hope, since the bad slams will still be there.
The opening lead was the 9 of Diamonds (Gee, think that is a singleton?) and a pretty sad dummy hit.
QJ97 J6 6 KJT653
Not what I really wanted to see, lots of defense and virtually no help on offense. And about the worst hand pard could have for 2C.
Turns out the Diamond was a singleton as I suspected, but when RHO won the A and exited A and a Heart, there was not much hope on the hand, and I pretty quickly drifted off 2.
The interesting thing was what happened at the other table. The auction started the same, with 1H - 1S, but this S kept silent, and it went 2S by RHO. This hand bid only 3D (I would have bid 4D here), and LHO now bid 3S. This went Double, P to N, who ran to 4H, what I would expect normally, On a lead other than the Diamond, our partners only beat this 1 trick, so not a serious loss, and we won the match by 6 Imps.
But after the hand, this N stated first, he did not see the Double (This is why the Double cards are RED), and if he had, he would have passed 3S Doubled in a second. With a 66 hand that makes game opposite the right Q. I have to admit, passing 3S Doubled would never really occur to me. You have no defense for your 2 bids, and the liklehood of missing a game is so high. Turns out you will beat 3S 1-2 tricks, and game does not make. But I do think this is playing the wrong end of the probability tree.
There was another interesting hand in the 3rd match we played. I picked up J75 AJ83 K74 JT9 with everyone Vul. Partner opened 2N (20-21) in first seat and I had to think a sec. But finally deciding that pushy slams are not a good idea with a 4333 hand, I started to sign off in 3N. Due to the way we play over 2N to look for minors, 3S is a relay to 3N, either to play or a 1 suited minor hand, 3N is both minors, so I started with 3S. This now got interesting as it went Double on my left, P, P to me.
What my partner and I had talked about was that Pass here said pard had some Spades, but not good enough to Redouble. I finally decided it was time to have some fun, and passed out 3S. The opening lead was a small Spade and partner tracked with
Q84 QT3 AQ AKQ64
J75 AJ83 K74 JT9
So 3N was a little better spot than our 3-3 fit, but I knew I had passed for the fun aspect, and to keep LHO under control in the future. So that meant I needed to make this. Assuming LHO had AKxxx of Spades (I assume with 6 he would start an honor), that gave me some hope, even if the K Hearts was offside. Although I was likely going to need that card onside, unless the distribution was friendly.
I ducked the Spade on board, and RHO contributed the 10, which I won with the J. Starting by cashing the Diamond AQ, I came to my hand with a Club and led the K of Diamonds. LHO now made a strange play of ruffing this low, allowing me to over ruff. It was looking more like LHO was something like 5323 or possibly 4 cards in either rounded suit. Either way, I needed to prevent a Club ruff by his partner, so exited dummy with the Q of Spades. Sure enough, RHO followed with a small Spade, and LHO cleared the AK of Spades (a better lead) before exiting a small Heart. Looked like I now had him, so played the 10 of Hearts, holding the trick, and started running Clubs. RHO showed out on the third round, so LHO was the 5323 and I was now making an overtrick.
LHO eventually ruffed a Club, and I was able to claim on the Heart return, making 10 tricks and a lucky +930. RHO now complained that the explanation of 3S was not sufficient. My partner had actually stated it was a minor oriented try, had not said that it might be a sign off in 3N as well. She said she would have run to 4D if it was explained correctly. Although after deciding that -1100 was not a good thing to bring back either, we settled for the 930 score.
And now, next time this hand comes up and I want to bid a silly slam off an AK, LHO may not make that double to give away the good lead. Or we can always hope, since the bad slams will still be there.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Nice Hand
Playing on BBO the other night, I got to hold the strongest hand that I have ever held. Not sure if a loser count applies when it works out to 1/4 loser total.
Playing IMPS NV vs V in a fairly decent game, I picked up AKQT85432 --- AKQ6 ---, a fairly nice holding. The auction got fairly simple, P, P, 1H to me. Since I know of no method of asking for specific J's, I just bid the (to me) normal 7S over this.
I like to fool around on a hand as much as anyone, but I did not want to be dropped anywhere when even Partner must be short in Spades with some Hearts. He might not get the joke.
7S went back to the opener, who doubled, guess we found those missing A's. Not knowing still about Diamonds, this was passed out. The opening lead was a small Heart, and partner put down 2 nice cards, a Spade, and the J of Diamonds. This meant the play did not take long.
I looked at the score later, 3 people bid 4S with this hand, 1 in 4th position after 3 passes and 2 others after a Heart opener on their right. I noted their names, planning to never double anything they play in. Out of 16 people that played it, only 5 bid 7S, 2 did not get doubled, and the other 2 redoubled, assuming the Diamonds would work out. Guess if you are going to bid it, the redouble is fun as well.
I don't assume I will see too many hands like that again, but will keep watch :)
Playing IMPS NV vs V in a fairly decent game, I picked up AKQT85432 --- AKQ6 ---, a fairly nice holding. The auction got fairly simple, P, P, 1H to me. Since I know of no method of asking for specific J's, I just bid the (to me) normal 7S over this.
I like to fool around on a hand as much as anyone, but I did not want to be dropped anywhere when even Partner must be short in Spades with some Hearts. He might not get the joke.
7S went back to the opener, who doubled, guess we found those missing A's. Not knowing still about Diamonds, this was passed out. The opening lead was a small Heart, and partner put down 2 nice cards, a Spade, and the J of Diamonds. This meant the play did not take long.
I looked at the score later, 3 people bid 4S with this hand, 1 in 4th position after 3 passes and 2 others after a Heart opener on their right. I noted their names, planning to never double anything they play in. Out of 16 people that played it, only 5 bid 7S, 2 did not get doubled, and the other 2 redoubled, assuming the Diamonds would work out. Guess if you are going to bid it, the redouble is fun as well.
I don't assume I will see too many hands like that again, but will keep watch :)
Monday, August 13, 2012
Wierd Slam Hands
Have not posted in a while, was on a trip to England, but not for the Olympics. We went prior to them starting and had a great time for a few weeks.
Had a couple of very wild hands in the last week where distribution and wildness was the order of the day. On the first, playing in our weekly IMPS League, I picked up the following with no one Vul. AKJT83 8 753 A94 and after a Pass by partner, heard it go 1H on my right. The opps had gotten a good board on the first board, and since I have a bit of a rep for light pre-empts, it was time to change some things around. I jumped to 3S, and it now went 4D on my left. Pard now got into the act with 5C, which interested me a lot, since it should imply Spade tolerance to introduce a new suit like this as a passed hand. RHO now went 5D, and I assumed that they prob had a 2 suited fit like it appeared we did. Not wanting LHO to be able to bid 5H, I bid 5S, really hoping partner had that Spade Support I assumed he had, rather than have a normal assume situation.
LHO now bid 6D over that, and partner showed the Spade Support with 6S. I had kinda hoped to be able to defend 6D, but here we are. RHO passed, I passed, and LHO doubled, ending the auction. LHO led the 9 of Hearts, and this dummy appeared.
6542 T7632 --- KQT6
AKJT83 8 753 A94
RHO won the Q of Hearts and led the K back. Since it appeared I needed 2 Hearts on my left, since the Q of Spades was more likely to be there, I ruffed with the J of Spades, LHO following with a low Heart. It was a pretty simple matter to ruff two Diamonds now and claim +1250 on the board.
The next occurred on BBO, and resulted in some hard feelings on the hand, and a complaint from me. I picked up AKT5 98743 Q943 --- with everyone vul. Partner opened 1D, which I liked, and I responded 1H. Partner now jumped to 4H, making my hand a gold mine, so I jumped to 6H, giving up on the grand since we were not an established partnership, and I have pretty awful Hearts. The opening lead was the Q of Spades, and this was dummy.
83 AK2 AK75 AJ86
AKT5 98743 Q943 ---
All in all, a very nice slam to be in. I won the A of Spades, and played the AK of Hearts, with everyone following. So far so good, now if Diamonds are 3-2, it is claimers, and if a Singleton J or 10 falls and I guess which side, I can also make. Since there is a slight extra chance with the stiff 8 fo Diamonds on my right, I decided to play for that side having a possible singleton. I now played the A of Clubs pitching a Spade, a Spade to the K, ruffed a Spade, and a small Diamond off board. RHO popped with the J of Diamonds (YES!) and I won the Q. Hoping that was not a nice false card, I advanced the 9 of Diamonds to hope for a cover.
LHO covered with the 10 of Diamonds, I played the A, and RHO ruffed with the last Heart. I now claimed, saying I was taking the marked Diamond hook.
At this point, everything fell apart. The opps rejected the claim (of course) and then stated I was cheating when I now took the Diamond hook, since I had claimed. LHO stated very clearly that I was cheating, since I could now see all 4 hands ( Declarer can not on BBO ) and that I had not said I was taking the Diamond Hook. Well I was stating that his partner had SHOWN OUT on the Diamond, my partner stated I had said I was taking the Diamond hook. Both opps now left the table of course, not wanting to finish the hand.
LHO left the game, but came back on a few minutes later and started swearing at me and claiming that I was a cheater. Since this annoyed me a lot, I sent in the hand with the recording of the conversation to BBO and thier abuse group. Will see if anything happens.
At least the 2 hands were a lot of fun to get right, and nice to remember how to play still :)
Had a couple of very wild hands in the last week where distribution and wildness was the order of the day. On the first, playing in our weekly IMPS League, I picked up the following with no one Vul. AKJT83 8 753 A94 and after a Pass by partner, heard it go 1H on my right. The opps had gotten a good board on the first board, and since I have a bit of a rep for light pre-empts, it was time to change some things around. I jumped to 3S, and it now went 4D on my left. Pard now got into the act with 5C, which interested me a lot, since it should imply Spade tolerance to introduce a new suit like this as a passed hand. RHO now went 5D, and I assumed that they prob had a 2 suited fit like it appeared we did. Not wanting LHO to be able to bid 5H, I bid 5S, really hoping partner had that Spade Support I assumed he had, rather than have a normal assume situation.
LHO now bid 6D over that, and partner showed the Spade Support with 6S. I had kinda hoped to be able to defend 6D, but here we are. RHO passed, I passed, and LHO doubled, ending the auction. LHO led the 9 of Hearts, and this dummy appeared.
6542 T7632 --- KQT6
AKJT83 8 753 A94
RHO won the Q of Hearts and led the K back. Since it appeared I needed 2 Hearts on my left, since the Q of Spades was more likely to be there, I ruffed with the J of Spades, LHO following with a low Heart. It was a pretty simple matter to ruff two Diamonds now and claim +1250 on the board.
The next occurred on BBO, and resulted in some hard feelings on the hand, and a complaint from me. I picked up AKT5 98743 Q943 --- with everyone vul. Partner opened 1D, which I liked, and I responded 1H. Partner now jumped to 4H, making my hand a gold mine, so I jumped to 6H, giving up on the grand since we were not an established partnership, and I have pretty awful Hearts. The opening lead was the Q of Spades, and this was dummy.
83 AK2 AK75 AJ86
AKT5 98743 Q943 ---
All in all, a very nice slam to be in. I won the A of Spades, and played the AK of Hearts, with everyone following. So far so good, now if Diamonds are 3-2, it is claimers, and if a Singleton J or 10 falls and I guess which side, I can also make. Since there is a slight extra chance with the stiff 8 fo Diamonds on my right, I decided to play for that side having a possible singleton. I now played the A of Clubs pitching a Spade, a Spade to the K, ruffed a Spade, and a small Diamond off board. RHO popped with the J of Diamonds (YES!) and I won the Q. Hoping that was not a nice false card, I advanced the 9 of Diamonds to hope for a cover.
LHO covered with the 10 of Diamonds, I played the A, and RHO ruffed with the last Heart. I now claimed, saying I was taking the marked Diamond hook.
At this point, everything fell apart. The opps rejected the claim (of course) and then stated I was cheating when I now took the Diamond hook, since I had claimed. LHO stated very clearly that I was cheating, since I could now see all 4 hands ( Declarer can not on BBO ) and that I had not said I was taking the Diamond Hook. Well I was stating that his partner had SHOWN OUT on the Diamond, my partner stated I had said I was taking the Diamond hook. Both opps now left the table of course, not wanting to finish the hand.
LHO left the game, but came back on a few minutes later and started swearing at me and claiming that I was a cheater. Since this annoyed me a lot, I sent in the hand with the recording of the conversation to BBO and thier abuse group. Will see if anything happens.
At least the 2 hands were a lot of fun to get right, and nice to remember how to play still :)
Monday, May 28, 2012
GNT District Finals
The district finals of the GNT was help this last weekend. It was the first time the district tried holding the event on BBO, primarily due to the size of our district. I will not say it was an unqualified success, a lot of potential teams did not play in the event, especially in the Open Category, but it worked and those people that did play enjoyed the experience a lot. It was very well run by the District Coordinator, and everyone pitched in to make it a success.
We played in the A category, with me playing with Ray again. I thought we played quite well, but we lost the last match, and missed the 2 team playoff by 1 VP, ouch. There were a bunch of interesting hands, some good for us, some not so good. Here is the first interesting decision.
I think once you force a cue bidding sequence, and hear the perfect response, no Club cue and a Diamond cue, instead of 4S, you need to make a forward going move. 4S, expecting partner to bid again, is just a little too pessimistic. They had no problem bidding the slam at our table, so we lost 11 to start.
They got it back fairly quickly on this board. At our table, the West hand only bid 2D, buying the contract. With the A's and the 6 card suit, I really like our partners choice to upgrade the hand and get to 3N. With the K of Diamonds singleton onside, there was not much to the play.
We got a gift on the last board to win the first match by 16. A nice start, especially after losing 11 on the first board.
In the 2nd match, our team mates had a hard time on a couple of boards, bidding a close slam off 1 on a losing hook, then doubling a part score that made with an overtrick on a bidding misunderstanding, not getting to a cold game after a 2C opener, and finally, letting the opps off the hook when they bid the wrong game. This was our worst match, we wound up losing by 27.
The third match was fun, 3N was the contract of the match. If you got to it, it seemed to always make, even if it did not look nice from the bidding. The first one, I picked up 10852 AK85 974 K9 and after 3 passes to partners 1D call, I bid 1H. Partner bid 2C and I have a close decision. Being Vul, I upgraded my hand slightly, and partner raised my 2N to 3N, ending the auction. As you can see, the opps took their 4 Spades to start, but we had an easy 9 tricks and 10 IMPS when my hand bid 2D over 2C at the other table and they played there.
The last hand of the match was a good decisions by my partner not to hang me after I bid over an overcall. As he said after, no fit and a pre-empt meant bad splits around, and i was under some pressure with Spades over the pre-empt.
My 3N was based on having a Diamond Stopper and a fit for Clubs, not on any great confidence in making it when I bid it. A funny (mostly) thing occurred on the lead. East led the 10 of Hearts, then typed in, without being asked, that it showed 0 or 2 higher. I finally decided that I needed either it to have the Q, or West not to have too many Hearts. I was quite happy I ducked when the J of Hearts won the trick. Wound up not even needing the Clubs to break when Spades set up. At the other table, West passed, and North opened 2S. Not sure if they had an accident or not, but they got to 5S, definitely too high on the 3 of Diamonds lead. So we won this match by 15 Imps, to be in a virtual tie with the teams from our first and third matches for the lead at half time.
After lunch, we played the 2nd half of the round robin against the same opponents. We lost 6 Imps against the first team to still win a close match, but gained back all we had lost in the 2nd match to also win that. Mostly due to the opponents having a disaster bidding on 1 hand, and when the smoke cleared, they were -1700 on what should have been a part score hand, our partners played it in 1N at the other table, which can be but was not beaten.
The last match, we were in the lead by 7 VPs on the 2nd and 3rd place teams when 1 of our partners at the other table had a blind spot in a good 6H contract and went down for a 14 IMP loss. Combine that with a probable 6 IMP loss on the next board, and it set the stage for the next to last board. Do you double 4S with the East hand, knowing that you are basically down 20 at this stage?
It turns out this would have let us make the finals, by 1 VP. Instead, we missed out by 1 VP, on a really close score between the 3 teams at the top.
All in all, it was a fun event, that worked out quite well, and showed how BBO can aid in solving geography problems with medium events. For large events like the CNTC's, it will almost always be face to face, but for other events, we now have some other options for our large district.
We played in the A category, with me playing with Ray again. I thought we played quite well, but we lost the last match, and missed the 2 team playoff by 1 VP, ouch. There were a bunch of interesting hands, some good for us, some not so good. Here is the first interesting decision.
I think once you force a cue bidding sequence, and hear the perfect response, no Club cue and a Diamond cue, instead of 4S, you need to make a forward going move. 4S, expecting partner to bid again, is just a little too pessimistic. They had no problem bidding the slam at our table, so we lost 11 to start.
They got it back fairly quickly on this board. At our table, the West hand only bid 2D, buying the contract. With the A's and the 6 card suit, I really like our partners choice to upgrade the hand and get to 3N. With the K of Diamonds singleton onside, there was not much to the play.
We got a gift on the last board to win the first match by 16. A nice start, especially after losing 11 on the first board.
In the 2nd match, our team mates had a hard time on a couple of boards, bidding a close slam off 1 on a losing hook, then doubling a part score that made with an overtrick on a bidding misunderstanding, not getting to a cold game after a 2C opener, and finally, letting the opps off the hook when they bid the wrong game. This was our worst match, we wound up losing by 27.
The third match was fun, 3N was the contract of the match. If you got to it, it seemed to always make, even if it did not look nice from the bidding. The first one, I picked up 10852 AK85 974 K9 and after 3 passes to partners 1D call, I bid 1H. Partner bid 2C and I have a close decision. Being Vul, I upgraded my hand slightly, and partner raised my 2N to 3N, ending the auction. As you can see, the opps took their 4 Spades to start, but we had an easy 9 tricks and 10 IMPS when my hand bid 2D over 2C at the other table and they played there.
The last hand of the match was a good decisions by my partner not to hang me after I bid over an overcall. As he said after, no fit and a pre-empt meant bad splits around, and i was under some pressure with Spades over the pre-empt.
My 3N was based on having a Diamond Stopper and a fit for Clubs, not on any great confidence in making it when I bid it. A funny (mostly) thing occurred on the lead. East led the 10 of Hearts, then typed in, without being asked, that it showed 0 or 2 higher. I finally decided that I needed either it to have the Q, or West not to have too many Hearts. I was quite happy I ducked when the J of Hearts won the trick. Wound up not even needing the Clubs to break when Spades set up. At the other table, West passed, and North opened 2S. Not sure if they had an accident or not, but they got to 5S, definitely too high on the 3 of Diamonds lead. So we won this match by 15 Imps, to be in a virtual tie with the teams from our first and third matches for the lead at half time.
After lunch, we played the 2nd half of the round robin against the same opponents. We lost 6 Imps against the first team to still win a close match, but gained back all we had lost in the 2nd match to also win that. Mostly due to the opponents having a disaster bidding on 1 hand, and when the smoke cleared, they were -1700 on what should have been a part score hand, our partners played it in 1N at the other table, which can be but was not beaten.
The last match, we were in the lead by 7 VPs on the 2nd and 3rd place teams when 1 of our partners at the other table had a blind spot in a good 6H contract and went down for a 14 IMP loss. Combine that with a probable 6 IMP loss on the next board, and it set the stage for the next to last board. Do you double 4S with the East hand, knowing that you are basically down 20 at this stage?
It turns out this would have let us make the finals, by 1 VP. Instead, we missed out by 1 VP, on a really close score between the 3 teams at the top.
All in all, it was a fun event, that worked out quite well, and showed how BBO can aid in solving geography problems with medium events. For large events like the CNTC's, it will almost always be face to face, but for other events, we now have some other options for our large district.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Ooh, Those Nasty Queens
In the 2nd of 8 sets in the CNTC Final between the Todd team and the L'Equyer team, there were 2 hands where a very specific scenario occurred twice in 3 hands, with the same strange result both times.
Both hand were played by Don Pearsons in 3N, with an effective holding in Spades of KJxxx opposite 2 small, and probable 8 outside tricks. He had a 2nd stopper in the suit the opps led, so he needed 1 Spade trick early before setting up his long suit.
This is the first hand, Board 8.
Don Pearsons got the lead of the 7 of Diamonds, and won the Q with the A. He then led the 7 of Spades and allowed it to run. It proceeded to win the trick when Danny Miles ducked the Q of Spades. Don now had his Spade trick he needed, and could make the hand by playing on Hearts, which is what Demuy did at the other table. (He played a Spade as well, but put up the K, then played on Hearts) But he thought the Spades were positioned well now, and led another Spade to the J. Danny won this, cleared the Diamonds, and now the hand can not be made.
2 Hands later, this earily similar hand came up.
This time, Don got the lead of the 5 of Hearts to the J and Q. He led the 10 of Spades, and again it was allowed to hold the trick. And again that was the elusive 9th trick due to the lucky lie of the Diamonds. But again, Don repeated the Spade hook, Danny won the Q, cleared Hearts, and Don again wound up down 1.
At the other table, the result was the same, 3N down 1. So Don lost 11 Imps on the 2 hands, instead of having a chance at winning 13.
The Finals of the CNTC continue on BBO today.
Both hand were played by Don Pearsons in 3N, with an effective holding in Spades of KJxxx opposite 2 small, and probable 8 outside tricks. He had a 2nd stopper in the suit the opps led, so he needed 1 Spade trick early before setting up his long suit.
This is the first hand, Board 8.
Don Pearsons got the lead of the 7 of Diamonds, and won the Q with the A. He then led the 7 of Spades and allowed it to run. It proceeded to win the trick when Danny Miles ducked the Q of Spades. Don now had his Spade trick he needed, and could make the hand by playing on Hearts, which is what Demuy did at the other table. (He played a Spade as well, but put up the K, then played on Hearts) But he thought the Spades were positioned well now, and led another Spade to the J. Danny won this, cleared the Diamonds, and now the hand can not be made.
2 Hands later, this earily similar hand came up.
This time, Don got the lead of the 5 of Hearts to the J and Q. He led the 10 of Spades, and again it was allowed to hold the trick. And again that was the elusive 9th trick due to the lucky lie of the Diamonds. But again, Don repeated the Spade hook, Danny won the Q, cleared Hearts, and Don again wound up down 1.
At the other table, the result was the same, 3N down 1. So Don lost 11 Imps on the 2 hands, instead of having a chance at winning 13.
The Finals of the CNTC continue on BBO today.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Off to the CNTC
I will be in Montreal this week for the CNTC's, Canada's annual week long extravaganza to select Team Champions in Open, Women's, Seniors, and Flt B/C groups. Will try to post a few hands and results as it goes along.
If want to see results, they are available here http://www.cbf.ca/BWeek/12files/
If want to see results, they are available here http://www.cbf.ca/BWeek/12files/
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