Vandy Lead

Fred Gitelman at the end of his comments about the Vandy Lite posting, suggested using BBO's handviewer program. Let's give it a try here, comparing to pictures.

You have:

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And the bidding is:

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Or, the same hand/bidding with handviewer:



What do you lead?

I would like to mention some nice people I know that finished first in their ACBL categories given in the April ACBL bulletin: Heather Peckett, Michael Myers, Claire Zeitoun, and Allan Graves. Nice can finish first! - the other players who finished first may also be nice, I just don't know them personally (e.g. Gavin Wolpert is a great guy, but doesn't update his blog enough for me to be aware of the latest about him).

Also in the April bulletin, Karen Walker continues a terrific new series, "Improve your opening leads", and Jon Shuster writes about Transfers opposite overcalls (TOO - opposite partner's overcall "all bids except for raises, spade bids and 3NT are transfers" including double and redouble).

On the hand above, did you find the lead Alan Sontag made?

Here is the full hand:


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If you lead anything but a diamond, 3NT can be made with a club finesse. A diamond lead resulted in down 7!

If you are using TOO, perhaps the West hand could double as a transfer to diamonds, but then does North still bid 3NT?

I tried to embedded the handviewer version of the hand, but the blogger software converted all the (straight line character) in the lin format to nothing, and I can't even link to anything with that character in it. Here's an attempt to link to handviewer without going back to blogger "Compose mode":

Link to handviewer

Now without going back to compose mode, here is the handviewer version:



This seems fine except I have to edit completely with html, which is [not pleasant].

Playoff drama

I was under-the-weather for yesterday's IMP league playoff match, and even more under-the-weather today so forgive the mistakes, typos, and drivel you are about to read if you don't stop right HERE.

We started the match down 1.75 IMPs, due to a small loss in the round robin. We played the boards out of order (sharing with the other three tables), and we had some verbal fireworks when we reached board 1. On the previous board, it had started 1NT(RHO, 15-17, unannounced)-P-P-Double, and after Karen's double (10+, a minor OR both majors OR big), I played in 2C making +110. The opponents now didn't pull their cards out for the next board but instead had a discussion of rescues over balancing doubles of their strong 1NT. I didn't think that was likely to happen again in the match but said nothing.

We reached 4H on this layout by 1H-4D(splinter);-4H:

♠ A9653 ♥ QJT ♦ ♣ K9752

♠ 84 ♥ AK964 ♦ KJ64 ♣ 84

(some hands are rotated)

The lead was the spade ten and I ducked to improve communications. The ten was overtaken by the jack, and the spade seven was ruffed by LHO. He returned a diamond which I ruffed. I was fairly certain the club ace was onside, so I ruffed a spade with the heart nine, and led a club up. LHO popped the ace, RHO following with the club queen, and LHO continued another diamond. I ruffed this and started to think. LHO gave me an intense "what are you going to do next" stare. Both opponents had taken considerable time on their plays after the opening lead, and now it was my time.

After a few minutes, the opponents called the TD to complain about the time I was taking. Karen mentioned that they didn't even start the board on time. The opponents explained that their discussion had only taken 30 seconds, while my tank had lasted seven minutes. Both these estimates were out-of-whack. I noted that the opponents had already been taking over a minute per play on this hand. The TD told us to continue as generally we had been keeping pace with the room.

After I had just settled back into thought in about 20 seconds the opponents were calling out to the TD to complain about my thinking again. The TD said to continue.

After another 20 seconds, the opponents called out to demand the TD maintain "a clock" at the table. The TD dismissed this, did not monitor the table, and I took another minute with this:

♠ A9 ♥ Q ♦ ♣ K975

♠ ♥ AK64 ♦ KJ ♣ 8

It seemed a triple squeeze was the best chance, so I overtook the heart queen with the king, and cashed all the trumps - LHO had started with three, RHO two. RHO had also started with QJT of clubs and ace of diamonds and thus could not hold on to everything. Making 4H was worth 10 IMPs as 3H was down one at the other table.

I mention all this poor drama since you may encounter various antics during your bridge adventures. In the Saturday Houston bulletin, Flash Gordon reported this series of exchanges with a charming young woman and her opponents in the Women's Pairs: Round 1 opponent offers wrinkle cream, Round 2 opponent looks at her dress and says that she has a pair of pajamas "just like that", Round 3 opponent asks "How many grandchildren do you have?"

When these antics start up, stay focused on the task at hand. Remember these are your opponents, not your friends, and that they are highly competitive. Certainly the opponents may have thought that I had taken too long on the hand, but they also knew, even if just subconsciously, calling the TD 3 times in short order was a good way to ruin my concentration. Likewise in the same league years ago, when Karen didn't play, a team banned Karen from kibitzing me during our match just to get me riled up.

Don't take these antics personally - it's just competitive spirit. The team that banned Karen realized it wasn't right afterwards, and we are now friends with them. In the case yesterday, even though we could have switched opponents at the half, we continued to play against the same players, and there were no further problems.

Karen later held, not vulnerable against vulnerable:

♠ Q52 ♥ AT4 ♦ KJ43 ♣ T86

The bidding went P-P(Karen)-1S-Double;-Redouble-?

She bid 1NT, and it continued Double-2C;-P-P-Double-All Pass.

Would you bid 2D at some point?

2C smashed was not good spot as I had an obscenely bad takeout double, and cost -1100 and 10 IMPs. 2D doubled would likely cost 800 and 5 IMPs (or gain if the defense slips).

This is actually a system problem - I have been working on agreements for redoubles, but have not implemented anything here yet. After Karen's 1NT is doubled, we need to know how we runout with our own suit, and how we get partner to pick a suit.

I drop an extra -50 in a 4S contract by running trumps hoping the opponents make a mistake. I try to beat a 5D contract instead of cashing out, and it makes a +20 overtrick. We lost 8 IMPs in the first half, and there is a committee pending. Remember the 1NT rescues the opponents were discussing? At the other table it went 1NT(15-17)-P-2C(Stayman)-Double;-2H-P-P-Double-All Pass, and that was down 2 not vulnerable. However there was a BIT (Break-In-Tempo) by the bidder after 2H, and the TD rolled back the final double: 2H down two undoubled was just -100 and a push. The doubler, with 15 points and a 4-1-3-5 shape, appealed this ruling.

A defensive problem against 4S in the 2nd half:

	♠ Q74 ♥ 864 ♦ KQ5 ♣ QJT4
♠ 63 ♥ KT7 ♦ JT986 ♣ 865

You led the diamond jack, and it holds! Your play?

In the second half, we gain 6 IMPs on this board:

♠ A9542 ♥ AT9 ♦ Q95 ♣ 86

♠ Q6 ♥ KJ863 ♦ AK84 ♣ T5

The auction is 1C(East)-1H(Karen)-P-2C;-3C-3D-P-4H-All Pass

Karen's 3D bid gets us to 4H, the queen of hearts is onside doubleton with short diamonds, so Karen is able to ruff the fourth diamond to make, winning 6 IMPs.

Two boards later, our highly active bidding style jams the bidding space out of the opponents, and they miss a nice slam. Our teammates have a clear run, but miss it.

On the hand above where the diamond jack wins at trick one, playing another diamond is fatal, switching to hearts immediately at trick two beats it, and if you play a black suit your partner needs to prevent the queen of spades from being used for a dummy entry - the layout:

	♠ Q74 ♥ 864 ♦ KQ5 ♣ QJT4
♠ 63 ♥ KT7 ♦ JT986 ♣ 865		♠ AT5 ♥ Q92 ♦ A743 ♣ 932
	♠ KJ982 ♥ AJ53 ♦ 2 ♣ AK7

It was down at both tables. A middle set of three boards gives us 16 IMPs - on the last of the three boards I go for -200 doubled (win 7 IMPs) where on a trump lead I'm -800.

On the next board, we have +110 in 3D. At the other table, the opponents open a weak notrump, get doubled by our teammates, who don't find a necessary unblock and its -280 and lose 5 imps. On the last board we played, our opponents reach 5D on this layout:

♠ K ♥ AKQT4 ♦ Q643 ♣ T94

♠ AJ2 ♥ J2 ♦ AKT752 ♣ J3

Our teammates bid: 1H-2D;-3S(splinter)-4S;-5S-6D

A club is led, no surprise, and its down, for lose 10 IMPs. Responder could not bid 4D over 3S as that was RKCB for diamonds, and thus had to cuebid 4S. Presumably over 4S, 4NT would also be RKCB, and thus opener could not express extra values without going above 5D. Thus RKCB had made a mess of the cuebidding.

We won 8 IMPs on the second half, and so a committee was not necessary as we had lost the playoff match by the original carry over.

Vandy Lite

The Katz team unveiled a new tactic for the Vanderbilt - a smaller team! As today's bulletin from Houston notes:

... Sadek said he and his partner, both rather large men, had two reasons to thank Jacobs for inviting them to play. First was the chance to win, which they did. Second, the invitation gave them an incentive to get in better physical condition to be able to stand the rigors of the tough bridge competition. "We went to the gym for three months," Sadek said. "I lost 45 pounds and Walid lost 15. We thank George for the chance to win but also because we are now healthier."

Now, will other sponsors exercise their teams to a win?

As Memphis Mojo reported before, this was not Steve Weinstein's first big final table of 09:

http://pokerandbridge.blogspot.com/2009/02/bridge-player-wins-borgata.html

Poker News Daily notes that the prize amount does not reflect a four-way "chop" that would have split the winnings in some way for the top four players:

http://www.pokernewsdaily.com/steve-weinstein-thorladen-victorious-in-borgata-winter-open-992/

The article quotes Steve Weinstein:

"The structure was tremendous. I'm not a tournament player; I play cash games, so to have a deep stack event like this with so much play was great. For someone who loves post-flop poker, it was excellent."

What he means by all that, is that the format of the tournament avoided the endless "all-in" of quicker tournaments, and thus he could employ his top notch ability to read other players and calculate odds to make the best decisions. Thus Steve Weinstein won an event more like bridge: less gambling and more determining.

The third quarter of the Vandy final effectively decided this Saturday's final table.

On the first board of the second half, Elahmady opened 2H showing a weak hand with Hs & Other, and Gitelman-Moss drove to a very bad 6NT contract:


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They might not have been on the same page regarding 4NT, as to whether it showed or denied extras for the 3NT bid. Gitelman did well to get out for -50, but lost 11 IMPs.

UPDATE: Please see Fred Gitelman's remarks in the comments.

Three boards later Levin-Weinstein would not fold their hands before they got to the vulnerable slam:


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Over Levin's jump to 3S, Weinstein cuebid 4H, and they got to 6S. In the other room, Gitelman simply bid 4S over 3S, and there they stayed to lose 13 IMPs.

On the second last board of the quarter, both teams got to 6D:



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In both rooms North led the spade queen, to declarer's king. Declarer played off the ace and king of clubs, and then ruffed a club with dummy's six, overruffed by South's eight, to leave this:


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In this position, Sadek tried the diamond jack. Moss won the diamond ace, played a heart to the queen, ruffed a spade, heart to the ace, and now could crossruff successfully with the diamond ten onside. Once Sadek returned the high diamond, Moss's elegant trump coup was the necessary play to bring in the slam.

In the other room Diamond, South, kept his remaining diamonds. Instead he fired back a heart into dummy's AQ, and now declarer was down. The Diamond team had recovered 14 IMPs.

However that was the last swing over 2 IMPs for them in the match as the Katz team had an abundance of stamina, and played super tight the rest of the way.

In the semis, the Diamond team beat the #1 seed Nickell. The Diamond team had two pairs playing "Meckwell Lite", a simplified version of the Meckwell Big Club system. In each set that Meckwell played in, the Diamond team had a "Meckwell Lite" pair sitting at the other table in the same direction. In the second and third quarters the Diamond-Platnick partnership were the Meckwell clones.

As Gitelman noted at the start of the event, with great foreshadowing:

John Diamond and Brian Platnick, are quite likely the strongest "sponsor pair" in the event.

( http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=30860&st=0&#entry352670)

The second quarter was won by the Diamond team 71-26, and the third quarter 42-13.

I was not surprised to see a Friday comment on this blog (to an older post) asking for Meckwell Lite notes. These are not available on the net at this time, and generally it is up to Meckwell to decide when and how they will release items with their brand. However if you still want a big club system after watching three pairs playing little 2/1 win the Vandy, you can create your very own Lite system with these steps:

- Start with the system base in the Precision Today book (by David Berkowitz, winner of the Houston Open Pairs with Larry Cohen, and the terrific bridge editor/writer Brent Manley)
- Play 1NT as 14-16, except in 4th seat and 3rd seat vulnerable, when it is 15-17
- Play the 1C-1H response as any 8-11 - this is game forcing, and gives room for both players to fully describe their hands
- Play the 1C-1S/1NT/2C/2D/2H responses as natural with 12+. Now the partnership knows that slam may be in the picture
- Open all 11 counts
- Frequently upgrade based on playing value.

Once you put the system in place, don't waste much time tinkering with it - the key to using a Meckwell type system is declaring and defending like Meckwell. And of course if you want to be in Lite tournament shape, don't forget to go to the gym!

Blasted

To reduce confusion emanating out of the blog I last referenced, two items need to be noted:

1) If you play support doubles, your pass, instead of making a support double, is not alertable in the ACBL, even though some may shout so in CAPS.

2) The "far less" alerts procedure was approved by the ACBL Board of Directors in Las Vegas 2001. The committee responsible for the alert procedure is the Competition and Conventions Committee ("purpose: To review conventions, convention charts, the alert procedure ..."). In 2000 the following were appointed to this committee: Bart Bramley (Chairman), Chip Martel, Sol Weinstein, Howard Weinstein, Richard Colker, and Fred Gittleman. The current committee is Steve Beatty (Chair), Bob Hamman, Henry Bethe, Jeff Meckstroth, Rick Beye, Elaine Said, Mildred Breed, Peggy Sutherlin,Doug Doub, Nadine Wood. These are or were volunteers contributing their valuable time for the good of ACBL bridge.

As to the question raised in a comment to the last post, "do they realize how insulting they are?", I believe they know they are giving out some blasts, but as to their targeting of those against their backward approach, it's all "fire, aim, ready".