Archive for April, 2007

Bridge at SICC – Tues

Wednesday, April 4th, 2007

Yesterday night, I went to SRC and played bridge with Robert Cheong.  I dun think we came in last this time… as there were quite a few weaker pairs.  On the whole I made 2 mistakes.  I cannot remember any hand I played extraodinarily well.  One hand was a 6-4 hand with 13 points.  When customer when 4â™ , I asked for roman key card and when all the keycards were present (including the Qâ™ ) I went to 6.  Unfortunately, the hand was simply not strong enough.  I went down 1.

HAND 1

Bidding

North
 East (Me) South West (Robert)
- 1♠ - 2♦
-
 3♣ - 4♠
- 4NT - 5â™ 
- 6â™ 
Dummy
â™  KQx
♥ Jx
♦ AJxxx
♣ 10xxx
South
â™  xx
♥ not sure
♦ not sure
♣ Kxx		 North
â™  xx
♥ KQx
♦ not sure
♣ Qx
East (Me)
â™  Axxxxx
♥ Ax
♦ x
♣ AJxx

Upon a heart lead, North was marked with the KQx♥.  So I played a small heart to the A♥. So that I can throw him in on my heart assuming that he does not have 5 diamonds.  So I played A♦, rough small.  Play to Kâ™ , rough small ♦ play to Qâ™ , rough small ♦.  After that, played a ♥ to the jack ♥ which was won by North’s K♥.

North proceeded to under lead his Q♣, I played small.  South’s K♣ took and all the rest were mine.  Down 1.  An interesting thing was… I realised that in such hands, maybe it was better for North to give me a rough and discard rather than play the ♣ back.  By giving a rough and discard, there is still a high chance I will need to lose 2 club tricks as I was missing ♣KQ9.

Alternatively, by underleading her Q, I only lose 1.

Anyway, the mistake was not in the play, but the bidding.  By bidding 3C, i have already shown 16 pts.  Partner should be able to put me to slam if he as the points.

HAND 2

Bidding

North (Me)
 East
(Women with son in her forties)		 South West (Trevor)
1♥ - 2♥ 2♠
-
 - 3♥ All Pass
Dummy
â™  Kx
♥ x
♦ Q10x
♣ -
South
â™  not sure
♥ not sure
♦ not sure
♣ not sure		 North
â™  AQxxx
♥ -
♦ KJx
♣ x
East (Me)
â™  xx
♥ xx
♦ A9x
♣ -

I kept thinking of how to throw Trevor in.  And since he bid spades, and partner lead a high club (signalling doubleton, the Kâ™  looked like a good card to throw in.  In end with the above end positions, i did a throw in to the right with the K of spades.  Trevor lead a J♦ from his holdings of ♦KJx and I ended up with all the diamonds good.  Very very strange.  I also dun know why he did that.. but a simple rough and discard, small diamond or even K diamond… would have left him with 1 trick in diamond.  The only way we could win all 3 diamond tricks was for Trevor to lead the J♦ from the KJx♦ and he did just that….

Strange.

HAND 3

Bidding

North (Me)
 East
 South West (Trevor)
1NT - 2 ♥ -
2â™ 
 - 3NT
Dummy
â™  AKxxx
♥ xxx
♦ xxx
♣ KJx
East
â™  not sure
♥ not sure
♦ not sure
♣ Axxxxx		 West
â™  -
♥ -
♦ not sure
♣ xx
North(Me)
â™  QJx
♥ AKxx
♦ Axx
♣ Qxx

Opponents lead the small ♣.  I took with the Q♣ and continued club.  Opponents got the A♣ and continued to lead another ♣.  East showed out!  In my mind, I kept thinking on how to develop the fourth heart.  Whilst running the spades, East pitched a heart.

As such, my fourth heart should be good… and with the diamond stopper what else should i be afraid of?  Instead I proceeded to cash all my winners… and did not establish the fourth heart.

This is pure stupid play.. as East had no spades, no clubs (showing out on the third round) so there is no risk of him crossing over for West to run the long club suit.  His best return is diamond.. and even then I had the A of diamond.

                 
West
â™  -
♥ Qxx
♦ Kx
♣ -
North(Me)
â™ 
♥ AKxx
♦ A
♣

The end position was as above.  I should have just played all my hearts and establish the last heart trick.

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Bridge at Serangoon Garden Country Club

Monday, April 2nd, 2007

Recently, I have been playing a lot. Doing absolutely zero in terms of economic productivity. Dun know how to explain also… but maybe lost a bit of direction in life… so just wanted to idle away some of my time… :P

Hmmm… or maybe I should come out with some half-truths to explain away such idleness:

a. My team in China is in chaos…as the capable lead coordinator has left for some important project.. and thus… all my projects are stuck. As such, there was absolutely no need for sales.
b. Suddenly, my lead coordinator came back.. and he was so capable that he settled most of my 5 cents – 10 cents problem. However, he is spending so much time doing it that there is really no spare capacity left on his side. As such, also no point doing sales.

But what the heck. Idleness is not part of today’s topic. Lets focus on bridge….

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, I was part of the NUSS (blue) team to play at SGCC. I played with Kok Poh… one of the better players on our team… so thought a little harder than usual…. However, somehow, still played pretty badly in 2 hands during the second half of the section. (For the first half, we did not really get much chance to play badly as we were playing against a really weak pair…)

HAND 1

Bidding

North East (Kok Poh) South West (Me)
1♥ - 1♠ -
2♦ - 2NT -
3♥ - 4♥ All Pass
        Dummy
â™  Kxxx
♥ Jx
♦ QJxx
♣ KJx		        
Kok Poh
â™  QJxx
♥ Qxxx
♦ Kx
♣ xxx		 Me
â™  Axxx
♥ x
♦ xxx
♣ Axxxx
Declarer
â™  x
♥ AKxxxx
♦ Axxx
♣ Q10

Kok Poh lead a small club. Dummy came in small and I took the A of club.

Declarer has probably a 6-4 distribution. On second thoughts…. he might have bid that way even if he had a 5-4-3-1 or 5-4-4-0, afraid of the singleton in Clubs… but that will be another story… It did not occur to me at the bridge table.

Assuming that it was a 6-4 distribution, declarer will have another 3 cards in the side suits. It is either 6-4-1-2 or 6-4-0-3.

Generally people tend to prefer to lead double turns over a three card top or nothing. As such, I felt that partner lead from a doubleton club and placed declarer with a 6-4-0-3 hand. To break the contract, we need another 3 tricks. My A spade will not take a trick in 6-4-0-3 hand, and it does not seem very likely that partner can take 3 tricks from the diamonds and hearts alone. So I thought… the only way we can probably down the contract was to hope partner has a heart stopper and could get a club rough on the 3rd round.

Indeed partner only had 2 tricks in diamond and heart suits. Unfortunately, by returning a club, I gave the opponents a chance to discard his singleton spade in his hand.

Hmmm…. partner ask how come I did not take the A of spade. I think that is quite a hard call to make… especially when u see the K in dummy. And for this hand… any other return would have been fatal. Declarer can easily use his clubs to discard the singleton spade by winning my return.

But of course, if I knew partner had a 3 card club, I will cash A spade… and just hope for 2 winners in hearts and diamonds. What else can I hope for?

HAND 2

Bidding

North East (Kok Poh) South West (Me)
- - - 1♥
- 2♥ - 4♥
All Pass

        Dummy
â™  109xx
♥ xxx
♦ AJxxx
♣ x		        
North
â™  (not sure)
♥ J10x
♦ (not sure)
♣ (not sure)		 South
â™  Axxx
♥ x
♦ xxx
♣ Axxxx
Me
â™  AKxx
♥ AQxxx
♦ K10
♣ Qxx

I had 18 points. So when partner responded with a 2H, promising 8-9 good pts, I flew to 4H. This contract is almost cold except for the H lead. But the irritating opponents led just that.

So now I had a problem. I had 4 hearts, 2 spades, 2 diamonds… 8 tricks. I needed 2 more tricks.

The chances of getting them from 2 club roughs is … impossible. If I lead a club… opponents will sure win it and draw trumps… so i will get 1 club rough… and must finesse the diamond for the 10th trick. (By finessing the diamond, I am putting myself at the risk of losing an extra trick… as I have no entry into the dummy’s hand to cash the diamond ace should the finesse fail).

Is there another way to go about playing this? I decided to try to establish the diamond suit first. I believe this will cause more confusion. If the finesse works, I can still play the singleton club and get my 1 club rough, 3 diamonds.. blah blah blah.. 10 tricks. However, if the finesse fail, the defenders’ will have a problem. They might not draw trumps. Why? Because they see a fully establish diamond suit.. .which can easily be used to discard away all the other losers… (including possible ones in spades). For all they know, I might have:

â™  Qx
♥ AQxxx
♦ K10x
♣ AKx

If I had the above holdings (spade losers with a diamond entry to dummy), it would be imperative that our opponents quickly lead a spade back to cash all their spades tricks before I have a chance to discard them on my long diamonds.

Anyway, they drew trumps and I was down 3. Yeap. The finesse failed.. they drew trumps and took all the clubs. So they took 3c, 1d, 1h, 1s. Down 3.

If I played a club immediately, I still would need to take the diamond finesse and failing so will be down 2. (no entry to A diamond)

If I played a club immediately, and just cash AK diamond, I will be Down 1. So what the heck. This is teams… so lets take the risk…. Unfortunately, the other side played 1H + 3. Sigh.. the opps must have forgotten to count distribution points.

At the end of the game, I think Kok Poh was telling me my RHO had 4 card diamond… hmmm… if that is the case.. then it was pure crappy play… as the RHO will be able to figure out that I started with a doubleton diamond and as such have absolutely no entry inside to work on the established diamond suit… and will continue to happily pull trumps.

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