Thursday, January 09, 2014

Diamonds are not this mans best friend

Last night I played in Malahide Regional Bridge Club in a 5 times a year partnership.
However we do have 4 Word documents which amounts to about 8 pages of notes but its
fairly large text so just the basics covered.

All semi regular partnership (as well as regular partnerships ) should develop a small document containing their understandings and add to this document as stuff comes up. In this day and age one can maintain this document on their phone and send it to partner as it is updated. One could even record it in a sound file and play it back to oneself.

I remember back in the early 1990s I read the whole Carrot Club system onto a tape cassette and used to play it back to myself on trips to bridge events or even on the way to work. What kind of dude was I ..

So onto Malahide and off we go ..

Round 1 was a sitout so that was boards 25-27 done
Round 2 Boards 4 and 5 went fine but on board 6 our pard had a go at declaring 1 club.

9743........................AQJ
J32..........................Q94
KT5........................A98
JT2.........................K876

A poor score as pard only managed the 6 tricks. Clubs broke 5-1 with AQ953 over the King

Round 3 was most of the matchpoints
Round 4 boards 16-18

Board 16 we competed into 3S at unfavourable and escaped the matchpoint double and arrived at
the double dummy total of 8 tricks for 80% of the matchpoints.
Board 17 the male opponent over ruled his partners suggestion of a weak hand with 2S and declared 2NT. A heart finesse worked and I was looking at the bare Heart King and a grim outcome but the man failed to cash Heart Ace now and unknown to himself could have taken 9 tricks for all the matchpoints but emerged with 5 tricks.
Board 18 my man decided to angle for 3NT with a passed hand facing a 3rd hand opener (I did have a full 14 count but with both opponents advertising spades my man decided he would tough it out in 3NT. The opponents holding 10 spades between them decided to lead their suit and that became minus 2 and not much matchpoints.
Round 5 boards 22-24

On 22 I chanced bidding 4H when I should'nt and it only fetched 9 tricks and 30%. Passing 3S for off would have worked better . 23 and 24 were fairly quiet for 57% and 93%.

Round 6 boards 1-3

Board 1 saw our opps languish in a 4-2 2D contract and that was not a success
Boards 2 and 3 were quiet collections of 60% and 80%

Round 7 7-9
Board 7 saw the opps roar into 5D despite owning a 5-4 heart fit so despite being left with
my spade Ace it remained 100% ..
Board 8 saw the Diamond man emerge from his shell.

Playing Tartan 2 bids I opened with 2S holding a spade diamond 2 suiter..

2S P 2NT Asks my man with a flourish ... Despite rarely playing Tartan 2 bids I managed to make the correct bid of 3D showing a weak Tartan hand with diamonds as my minor.
Now my partner started to squirm and wriggle in his chair .. then he started to mumble and for a few minutes the opps and myself thought he was going to get sick or explode or something.
I offered to make a different bid if it would ease his discomfort .. One of the opponents offered to go around and help him with his bidding..
My man continued to wriggle and squirm.. Now this lad is well over 6 feet tall so the poor chair was probably struggling but eventually he placed the 3S card on the table ...
A man of my integrity quickly passed ... and was declaring 3S ..

I think they led Club Ace ...

And the great wriggler placed his dummy on the table

AT
764
AKQ to loads of diamonds
K

and mutters well if only you knew the system and made your correct bid I could maybe reach a better contract. You cannot possibly have diamonds like you said you have ..

with a little help I quickly gathered in 12 tricks ... despite the 5-1 trump break

KQ943
Q
JT92
JT9

Ok I was a diamond short but I did not think lacking 1 diamond piece would stretch the auction by about 7 minutes. Best defence would beat me one off in 3S but they allowed me win the Heart Queen and when one round of diamonds stood up I was motoring.

Board 9 saw me ease home in 3C

Onto round 8 and we are on the home stretch.

The opponents were Porridge and his wife. He is called Porridge as when setting him up on WBridge5 we gave him the name Porridge as a pack of Odlums Porridge oats were in sight.
He plays Wbridge5 most days as does the Great Wriggler of Diamond fame ..

http://bridgez.net:3002/connexion.html   ...

anyway board 13 saw Porridges pard declare 1NT and gather in 6 tricks for about average
Boards 14 saw Porridge holding 6 clubs to the KTxxxx and nothing else and hearing his partner show 21-22 balanced via 2C 2D 2NT .. Mr Stirabout decided to try 3C ....getting a 3S response
....Porridge continued with a 4C bid ...hoping his partner might pass it ..but that brought 4NT ...
Porridge wriggled briefly and decided rather then declaring 6 or 7 clubs it might be prudent to pass.

Mrs Porridge went to work in 4NT and noted the fall of the Club Queen on her Ace ... hooked the Club 10 (not muttering restricted choice) ...and claimed 11 tricks .. for most of the matchpoints ..

On 15 Mr Porridge had a go at declaring a 3NT that makes double dummy but he ran into some clouds and rain fell on him as he drifted 2 off ...as the Great Wriggler was allowed in to cash some tricks.

Finally the end ..

Board 19 saw 1D 1H 3D all pass ...the opponent thought stop 3D was a shut out bid so we got lots of matchpoints
Board 20 saw my man demand a diamond lead ...holding QT643 ... one wonders at his logic as well as his suit ... where he got the idea of a lead directing double one can only struggle to imagine.
I duly led my K of diamonds and when back in I followed with my diamond 9 ... That was not a success so 7% ...
Board 21 .. I declared 3S .. and hooked a spade losing ..
I owned a 5-4 fit in diamonds ...with AJxxx in the dummy ...
The Diamond 10 came back ... I rose Ace as I was not prepared to lose some ruffs ..
10 tricks made ... The woman held KT doubleton ... BAH ...
Got 36% so not too bad ...

We managed to emerge at the top of the page so we kept our equity.

Last night we were playing an online game of poker and we were nearly bust ..
However as it was closing time ...we put on a push and got up to 3600 chips ..(we started with 1500) .. I rushed home to log back on and finish the tourney. Built up to 5100 chips and was doing ok. Dropped back to 3000 chips and was dealt pocket 77 ... Needed to make a move so ALL IN ..
6 player tables ... Got called by the BIG BLIND who owned 5000 chips .. 

He had AK .. 

AK versus 77 .. 

flop ..I am still winning 
turn ... I am still winning 
river .........was a King ...just as I was reaching in for the money ...

...................................

Yesterday I saw a woman analyzing her partnership hands with Excel .. thats pretty good I thought ..She downloaded a pile of hands from Bridgebase Online and then used the Double Dummy Program to produce some data and then used 

We finished +0.21 but -50 against par.
Missed 7 slams, 13 games and 7 partials against par.
(use excel formula  =COUNTIF(M2:M140,"WmSlam") )

Thanks 
Eamon Galligan 







No comments: