Month: April 2011

Hi all

I’ve got a knee slapper for you. How do you call a tiny psychic running away from the police?

Answer at the end…

This deal is from a random night at Quick Tricks, I played with James, a British bio-informatics student studying for a semester at UC Berkeley. We had a good night. South (all red) opened a weak NT and got to play there.

West starts with Ace and King of (East showing out the second round!) and South won the Jack with the Queen. So West has four tricks hanging in the air like Damocles’ sword. South attacked the suit but West smoothly inserts the King to dummy’s Ace.

Declarer probed for vibrations with the Jack but when East (James) unperturbed followed small he went up with the Ace. Another to dummy won the trick, effectively shutting off the suit. The Ten of and South had all his antennas turned to James. A silky small one…

Declarer suddenly got the jitters, he remembered my Jack as suit preference. Too much, he just couldn’t let me win my stiff Queen of and went up with the King. Well, I didn’t have the Queen, James did. Down one was the result.

James correctly ducked the one round and his smooth ducks on the probes deserve praise. It’s not that spectacular a deal, but James and I were beating the defensive drum in the same rhythm. No giveaway pauses or disruptions in tempo to give declarer an edge.

The psychic? …. A small medium at large!

Hi all

Seinfeld in the Paramount Theatre was awesome. I enjoyed his observation what guys expect from their woman is the same as what they expect from their underwear: a little bit of freedom and a little bit of support.

Here’s a deal from a recent teams match. I’ve asked around a bit, and most of the reactions so far range from “Daisy picking” to “What’s the problem, yawn” all the way to “That’s why I play Heeman“.

All white and partner opens an 11-14 NT.

I passed as responder and I see Geoff wrap up eleven tricks! As the cards lie you just had to snap your fingers for a butler to hand over your twelve tricks in on a silver platter:

Trumps breaking, King and Ace on side, and trump length with length so you don’t run into communication problems. Of course bidding slam is 4th dimensionally outrageous, and only fit for certain characters from books by Victor Mollo.

But still, there’s this nagging feeling whether we should have reached the game. The question ultimately boils down to whether it is imp positive to undertake action. Balancing reasonable 4 contracts against featherlight NT contracts, and if the opponents are about to bid we’re better off bidding 2 now. The answer? I still don’t know.

How valid is the approach actually, that if you can make game opposite a perfect minimum, you need to invite? And doesn’t that bite with Mike Lawrence’s advise to never play partner for the perfect hand?

Hi all

Things are not bad here. We made a short trip to Colorado last weekend. Nothing beats fresh powder! And this time I didn’t even break a bone. This weekend I have to sacrifice a Trentemøller session in SF to Jerry Seinfeld in Oakland. Not the easiest of choices, if I may say so.

Here’s a challenging defensive problem from the GNT Open.

West

North

East

South

 

pass

pass

2

pass

21

pass

2NT2

pass

33

pass

3

pass

3NT

a.p.

 

1. Waiting
2. 22-23 hcp, balanced
3. Puppet Stayman

You sit East and await partner’s lead. The 3 (attitude leads) hits the table and this is what you see:

A quick analysis shows that partner holds roughly ten hcp, a five card suit and probably has led from a 3 card suit. Declarer goes into the tank for a full five minutes before calling small in dummy. You add the 8 to the pot and declarer wins with the Ace.

Now declarer plays Ace and Queen, partner winning the latter one with the King. What do you discard?

Before answering that question try to visualize declarer’s hand. If declarer holds three that suit looks far more attractive to set up than those . So declarer holds only two. Well, that paints declarer’s hand almost perfectly: 5-2-2-4.

You can hold on to both round suits now and pitch a . Declarer doesn’t have the entries to set up and cash dummy’s .

In the end declarer will end up one trick short because nothing works out.

So where did declarer do wrong?

If he had unblocked Ace & King before touching the , East would have been caught in a genuine three-suited squeeze. But declarer still needs to read the complicated position correctly.

Hi all

We’re at the end of the match, pretty much drained after 60something boards. One of the last deals could have had a nice twist if I had kept my eye on the ball. Not that it would have changed the outcome, though.

West

North

East

South

pass

21

pass

pass

2

pass

pass

2

pass

pass

3

a.p.

1. Standard weak two

Geoff leads the Jack, and this is what I see.

The Ace is played in dummy and in a pipe dream moment I pitch my 2 … discouraging a switch. Declarer follows up with a to his Queen and Geoff’s Ace. Suddenly the defence is an open book to me. A to me, cashing both King & Ace, a ruff and then the cream on the cake with a third round of promoting my Ten into the setting trick.

Now if only I hadn’t played that 2 in trick one. Geoff returns a trump for dummy [let declarer clean up his own mess] and ten tricks get wrapped up easily with a hook.

So can declarer prevent the promotion of the Ten?
It looks a bit counterintuitive, but if declarer starts with a top from dummy [retaining the Queen in his hand], my Ten wouldn’t get a toxic payload.

Hi all

Here are two slam deals that basically decided the match in team Vishnevsky’s favor. Unfortunately I don’t have my teammate’s scientific Viking sequence available that led to an odds on 7. This was the full deal:

As you can see the 4-1 trump break and the 5-1 split was too much to overcome. You run into communication problems after two rounds of trumps. West at the other table used some new minor forcing sequence and later brusquely jumped to 6. That was a whopping 29 imp swing.

The levee was about to break. Here’s the other one, a lead problem.

West

North

East

South

 

 

2

pass

2NT1

pass

32

pass

6

a.p.

 

 

1. Asking
2. Good hand & good suit

What red suit? The tiny sequence in made the decision for me at the table. Well, that was another minus 15.

Declarer drew trump and claimed thirteen tricks. At the other table the exact same sequence, but South led a . Post mortem I think I should have found the lead. That would only be wrong if it would set up declarer’s Queen as twelfth trick, with no other way of getting to twelve tricks. My bad.