Month: March 2007

Hi all

Another one from last Saturday. With drawn lightsabers and a merciless grin we sit down against Jabba and another loathsome creature.

Your RHO opens 2, either some strong hand or weak with . You didn’t agree preempt over preempt so pass. LHO waits with 2 and Hendrik mentions his on the 3 level. Now RHO bids 3, a strong red twosuiter. I like that, opponents who have solid agreements, even after intervention.

 

 

21

pass

22

3

33

4

5

5

double

pass

6

6

double

a.p.

1. Weak with or some strong hand
2. Waiting bid
3. Strong twosuiter, and

Hendrik did very good to take his 100 point insurance against 6 red. If East holds the Queen of , slam makes on a double finesse.

Points are divided 20-20, but both sides can make a 5 level contract. I’m not a big fan of Larry Cohen, but he’s right here, 22 trumps together, double fits, so there are a lot of tricks to take.

Hi all

Last Saturday I played with Hendrik in a teams tournament. Bridgeclub Star celebrated its 65th birthday and organized a large teams event: “Star Wars”. Dust off those lightsabers, refresh your jedi skills and rekindle your love for Leia.

Hendrik wore a stylish ultrapink shirt that combined so well with my blinding green pants that some opponents called the tournament director. You gotta hurt them where you can.

I opened the South hand with 1NT, (11)12-14. West preempted with 3 and now Hendrik had a problem. Praying for some fit and a stopper he bid 3NT. West started with the King. Now what?

I could have tried a Bath coup, but I figured West would find the killing switch to . So I took it and put the Queen on the table. West plays small smoothly. Cash out for down 1 or risk a losing finesse?

I was so blinded by the possibility of 9 tricks that I took the finesse. It lost. The opponents granted me 1 more trick in the end for down 7.

What I should have done is ask. Ask myself what our teammates would do. Some partscore in a major probably. So cashing out will gain a few imp, while taking the finesse risks a lot. Grabbing 8 tricks would have gained 3 imp, for our teammates did score +140.

Hi all

I have a lot of nice deals, keep in touch this week. Here’s one from Friday where I played with Dennis.

Your RHO opens a 15-17 NT. All vulnerable I didn’t dare to enter the bidding with this garbage. LHO passes too, but Dennis doubled, showing and another suit (Lionel). RHO bids 2 and now I had something to think about. My lack of points was more than compensated by my distribution and major fit, so I jumped to 3, invitational. Dennis raised me to game.

There was nothing to the play, the Queen was where I wanted her to be. So, what about this law of not bidding game when the opponents open a strong NT? Here there are ten cold tricks with just 18 hcp together.

We finished first smoothly: +53 imp.

Hi all

Last night, after 16 boards René and I had collected an impressive amount of 61 imp. Minus! I just sat there and wave after wave kept hitting me. Evenings like this make you want to crawl back into your cave and sleep until spring. But things changed in the last twelve boards, we clawed back 38 imp. Still leaving us at a very meager total of -23.

Is this hand worth a strong ? It has a lot of playing strength, but it’s just . So I opted for 1. René starts the party with a gameforcing 1NT.

 

 

 

11

pass

1NT2

pass

23

pass

24

pass

35

1. 11-13 balanced, 10-15 unbalanced 4+ , or 12-15 any 4441
2. GF relay
3. , unbalanced
4. relay
5. Singlesuited

3NT is end, but I had a lot of playing strength I had not shown yet. I overruled René’s 3NT with 4, showing a very good suit with strong slam aspirations. René cooperated with a cue, I cued in , René continued with 5 and that was enough to launch me to slam.

You can combine your chances of a 3-3 split (or Jack doubleton) with a finesse in . A few pairs reached the slam in but failed due to the bad break in trumps. This 13 imp gain was definitely the turning point in the evening.

Hi all

Last Thursday at Dombo Sjoerd and I agreed to play something Fantunes-ish. For those who are not familiar with the (surprisingly natural) Italian system: all 1-level openings are 13+ hcp and forcing for 1 round, all 2-level openings are natural, 5+ card suit with 9-12 hcp. Constructive all the way. There were some gadgets and tricks involved, but 20 minutes of system talk is hardly enough to discuss every implication of a forcing NT, let alone all the inversions and transfers that Fantoni and Nunes play together.

Here’s a 3NT:

Sjoerd (North) opened 2 showing a 5+ card suit, 9-12 hcp. I looked for a fit and ended up in 3NT. I liked my King a lot, otherwise an invite on a not so special 12 count is frivolous at best. I was spared a  lead, West led a small . Plan the play!

Source of tricks: . Three can be developed there, but the defence will surely shift to  when they see the massive NS holding. Put some smoke up, try to obscure things.

Let the lead run to your Queen, now play a small to the 8. East takes it and will try to clear partner’s suit. Now play a from dummy and you will probably have enough information to do the right thing. I think tackling the suit this way obscures things best for EW. But you have to hope West doesn’t (or can’t) rise on the small , because West can see there is no future in .

So the plan above will probably work out. My plan was a shade different, but along the line I took a wrong guess and went off.

What about the system? I like it a lot, a very natural touch, but with a robust relaying engine and enough gadgets to keep my convention hunger satisfied. Feel free to drop me a line (see the “About me..” page) if you have any suggestions, or if you are just interested in developing/following something fun and working.

Hi all

Little to tell. Here’s a +12 imp story from Star yesterday.

René (North) opened a strong . He found out the giant fit in before the heavy interference in obstructed too much. Imagining a stiff in my hand was a bit of a gamble, but paid out very well when he jumped to the cold slam in (only 24 hcp together!).

Here’s a nice Dutch Squeeze from (and by) Martin:

A normal board from just another night at the bridge club.

The auction was not very exciting: pass – pass – pass – 1 – pass – 2 – a.p.

I was declarer and West started with three rounds of and switched to a . With five obvious losers (three , one and one ) it seems normal to take the with the King, pull trumps and play a diamond. However, not completely awake on this partscore, I took the with the Ace after which I started thinking. As I had removed the safe entry to the King, the best line is probably to play two rounds of trumps, before surrendering a to maximize the changes in case the split 4-1. I, however, played three rounds of before I played the Queen. North took and returned the fourth .

On the last West was caught in a Dutch squeeze (patented by Bob Slavenburg). If I would have had a less and the Jack instead, West had to keep the Ten guarded to prevent declarer from overtaking the Jack. In that case East still has a stopper. West had no idea, discarded a and there it was: the overtrick.

Hi all

Yesterday Martin and I participated in the qualifiers for the Open Dutch Championships Pairs. It was a rough night, we crossed about every strong opponent in the room and took some less fortunate decisions. What do you think about this one?

All vulnerable, my RHO passed and so did I. LHO opens 2, either weak with or any semiforcing+. Martin overcalls 2 and I jump to game. Without taking a split second pause LHO bids 4. Martin competes with 5, RHO 5 and I was willing to compete to the 7 level. I bid a descriptive 6 and Martin finally got doubled in 6.

Well, don’t you just want to claim twelve tricks? East certainly has everything for his gameforcing hand in , doesn’t he? Martin took a confident finesse in . Bad news: it was offside. 

I have seen this before, people thinking a solid suit with an outside trick is worth a semiforcing.

Sigh!

I could barely suppress the urge to put a flamethrower on my opponent when he mentioned he did good this game. We scored 54%, occupying place 5, about 1% short in qualfying for next round. Better luck next year.

Hi all

Yesterday I showed you a game where Sjoerd was looking for gold. Today it’s about hitting gold:

Again an “Utrecht strong 1NT”. Sjoerd answered 2, showing 6+ hcp but less than three Napolitan controls. Wim bid his and Sjoerd bid a semi-positive 2NT, Wim 3 (nothing else to bid). Now Sjoerd gave one little push with a 4 cue. Wim blasted straight to the slam.

Wim had no real troubles after a lead. Va banque he played: Ace of , Ace and King of , to the Ace, discard a loser on the Queen and finesse against the Queen of trumps. Agreed, slam isn’t really odds on, but a slam that makes is a good slam.