Bridge of AngST

Somehow I managed to find 4 players.

We won the first set 22-19 which translated to 16-14 in VPs, but lost the second 10-35 (8-22 in VPs). Not too bad I would say.

More to come later.

Went down last Sunday to kibitz the finals of Open Teams since the RJ team was withdrawn due to lack of J1s available.

Finals was between Open Team and Youth Team. No prizes for guessing who won. Particular interesting was 1 hand which CC Loo used Stayman with only 6(!) HCP opposite a 14-17 1NT and bid till game. 3NT made and YH Ng was flabbergasted beyond words. The kibitzers had a good laugh.

The consolations were more exciting. Going into the last round, Ladies team was leading with 187 VPs, followed by Mouse minus Moky with 184 and U21 team with 182. U21 had no say as they had a walkover in the last round, so they ended with 200 VPs. The top 2 teams faced off against each other in the last round though with the Ladies Team losing 20-37 for a 10 board match.

After that, went home for the BBO ITL match against blitz, a Canadian Team.

We lost badly, and got blitzed (forgive the pun), but truth is, we were unlucky. I couldn’t really find any plays/bids that could really be faulted.

Thanks to Yichen, Eric, Matthew, Emm, Andre and Xiaolu, especially the latter for being a sub when I couldn’t get Andre on MSN.

No match this weekend, as the team which we are supposed to play has been MIA all the while. Helen Aces has yet to get back to me on when we will play that match.

J1s are having a mini league on BBO as well. The first match was on Sunday night as well. Match analysis and results all posted on my bridge site.

2nd match for the J1s later. Hopefully it will be a good match to watch.

Maybe it was a bad thing that I was stressed out trying to find another pair before the match.

One thing I have to say though: I think the J1s did well.

Will add the link to the match package later.

Now I was faced with a new problem. Samuel had to leave due to parents complaining so I had to find a substitute. Eric kindly agreed to partner Yichen for the second round.

Board 1

Impossible to visualise slam without E showing the C splinter. 4S+2 making on both sides. 0-0

Board 2

Ouch, we didn’t double their 3S while the other table would have done well to defend in 3D. 0-5

Board 3

Our opps reached 4S. I had no idea why E made that bid. This confirmed my earlier thought that this pair is not very good in competitive bidding decisions. Actually 4H is making but impossible to find. 3S made at the other table. 6-5

Board 4

Emm signed off in 4S after my Jacoby 2NT. Opps did not lead diamonds and she established hearts to make all 13 tricks. Other table made only 11. 8-5

Board 5

After partner opens: 1C(1D) 1H(3D) and two passes to you, what would you bid with:

J82
AJ97532
3
AK

My though was that partner might be void in hearts and 3H might even have difficulty making, so I bid 3H to show enough length to compete by myself on the 3-level. Emm raised to 4 holding QT in H and 11 tricks was cold. Other table relayed to 4H making 11 tricks also. 8-5

Board 6

Flat board with 3NT+2. Both sides reached 3NT via very similar auctions. 8-5

Board 7

For some reason, declarer at our table allowed Emm to score 2 tricks with KQ stiff in diamonds. Other table made 11 tricks so 1 imp to us. 9-5

Board 8

Would you be able to find 4H as EW? I doubt so. I opened at our table and we found our S fit to compete to the 2 level which went down 1. Opponent didn’t even find their H fit. Other table Yichen opened a weak 2H and made 10 tricks in 3H. 12-5

Board 9

Both tables had the auction 2H(X)4H, then W at our table bid 4S while Eric passed at the other table. I don’t blame him since he has never partnered Yichen before. 11 imps went to them. 12-16

Board 10

We made 3H after I opened a weak 2H. I watched the other side play this as we finished first. Yichen for some reason did not support diamonds and 1NT went off 3. 12-20

Board 11

I had to watch 2D go down 2. Should be down 1, but then again, a hard contract to declare. Imagine my relief when I saw the other side go down 4 in 2S. For a moment I thought we would lose again from 1 big swing. 15-20

Board 12

This was the board that decided the second 12 boards. I held:

KJ752
Q974
AJ9
4

After Emm opened 1H, RHO rudely intervened with an Unusual 2NT overcall. Having no device to show spades + H support (I wasn’t sure what Emm would take 4S as) I bid 4H. What would be best here I have no idea. In any case, LHO overcalled 5C. Emm thought for a long time and bid 6H, which was cold.

At the other table, Eric opened with 3C, noting the favourable vulnerability. N overcalled 3H, Yichen bid 5C with his 5 card support and S ended the proceedings with 5H. Whew. 13 imps to us. 28-20

The decisive moments of the match was not down to any spectacular skill of declaring. Rather, it was in the competitive bidding and defence which resulted in swings here and there, particularly my misdefence in the first set. I have been reiterating the point of competitive bidding and defence, and this match proves my point again.

I am also particularly happy that our team, despite coming from 4 different batches of RJ Bridge Club, managed to pull together a decent result despite not having partnered each other before.

To Eric: Thanks for being a great sub! One of the opps commented that you changed the complexion of the game LOL.

To Emm: Sorry you had to rush your dinner, and sorry for our great defensive blooper.

To Yichen and Samuel: Thanks for helping out, especially Samuel who got into trouble, sorry for that. And Yichen, I didn’t know you had SPA today! Plenty of room for improvement, but great job nonetheless playing against unfamiliar opponents who had more experience than you two.

Hand Records (2 .lin files + Double Dummy in .pdf format)

I mentioned in the previous post that our team was seriously depleted due to the timing so I was left with Samuel, Yichen, Emm and myself.

We had the players, now the problem was that for some reason, the organisers did not receive our emails so we had no director present. After a long discussion with the other team captain, we managed to get “BBO HELP” to be the director in case of any incidents. Thankfully there was none.

TeamLeo consisted of:
Pinokiss (their captain) – SeoLeo (Both Lithuanians playing Relay Precision)
Beverly h – Aces_pat (Both US, playing 2/1)

I wanted to have a feel of their relay precision. Being the home team, I set up the first match to be Emm-Myself vs their precision pair, Samuel-Yichen vs their 2/1 pair.

I sat South throughout the entire match. So hands below have NOT been rotated because there is no need to. (Actually I was just being lazy)

Board 1

I held:
K32
A97
AK42
AT4

After showing 1D-1S-2NT-3NT the bidding was over. Dummy held:

T985
K42
5
KQ876

Clubs broke 4-1 with the J being singleton. When A of S was onside, I made 10 tricks easily. Other side made 9 exactly. +1 imp. 1-0

Board 2

I misbid while interefering with their 1NT hence resulting in our H contract being too high. Curiously enough, we went down 1 only. It seems that the S return on trick 2 by W was wrong.

2NT was cold for the J1s on the other table. +1 imp. 2-0

Board 3

I had no idea how to deal with their 1D opening which was alerted as a 2 or 3-suiter with 11-15 HCP. If this was a major face to face tournament, I would have no hesitation asking them for their suggested defence. As it was I decided to bid 2D since Dbl might be unclear. Emm took it as showing 5 and competed to 3D. The declarer play was not perfect it went down 2. The juniors went down in 3C after W opened 2S. -5 imps. 2-5

Board 4

I thought this was a good board since we knew declarer’s exact hand due to the relaying by them. Somehow the J1s went down 3. -5 imps. 2-10

Board 5

Flat board, due to some poor declaring at the other table. 2-10

Board 6

As luck would have it, both 2S and 2NT went down so that was 4 imps to them. 2-14

Board 7

I think we took the correct decision to defend 4H. However on the layout, 4H is only down on a lead of the singleton S or A of C. 11 imps to them. 2-25

Board 8

3NT should be down. However, Emm mistook my 9 of C lead and didn’t cover, thus allowing them to take 9 tricks. 3H is the correct contract to be in. 5 imps to them. 2-30

Board 9

We correctly reached 3D after I pre-empted in competiton while the other side went down in 3NT. 5 imps to us. 7-30

Board 10

This was the most horrible board in the whole match and it was my fault. After 1NT was doubled by Emm, opps went into their escape sequence and dummy passed the redouble for blood. 1NT should go down 2, however this was what happened:

I was left with S KJ86 H – D T9432 C – in hand. When Emm led a club, I should have let go of a diamond. However, I discarded the 6 of S, which Emm took to be lavinthal in D and the resulting D return let them make with an overtrick. Expensive. 16 imps to them. 7-46

Board 11

We managed to shut them out 1NT(2S)3C*(3S)AP. 3C was alerted as a transfer to D. Down 1, but a perfectly good sacrifice since the diamond contract had 10 tricks. The J1s bid to 3D and made 10. 2 imps to us. 9-46

Board 12

Both tables had a weak 2S opened in third seat. I doubled for takeout and Emm bid to 3NT after W bid 3S. 12 tricks were cold, due to the very favourable layout. (Yes, on a combined total of just 27 HCP!) Other table passed out 2S. 11 imps to us. 20-46

I was expecting a bigger margin of loss. Granted this was 22-8 in VPs, but given the players I thought it was not bad. Also, the opposition team did not seem as good as I had expected them to be. I was thus quite optimistic of getting a decent result in the 2nd set of 12 boards.

Out of the 8 original players, I was only able to find 2: Myself and Emmaline.

Andre is at the Spring Fours, where his team lost in the first 2 rounds, sadly.
Danen has combat shoot so he has to book in early tonight.
Jychee is MIA, presumbly stuck in camp/his com is down.
Shih Hsien has to book in early as well.
Matthew is not free.
Petrina is not free.

After asking the J1s, I have managed to get Samuel and Yichen to play.

On paper, this may seem to be bad for us, but well, all for the experience!

Outstanding things to settle:
- Get the two J1s to finalise their CC.
- Grab Emm and ask her what the hell we are playing.

After seeing a promotional broadcast on BBO, I got interested and decided to rope in 7 other people so far to form R-patzers (Name courtesy of myself and )

No idea how it’s done but we’ve been placed in the First Division, Group 4.

So far the team roster consists of:
Myself (Captain)
Andre

Yong Sheng aka Danen
JYChee
Emmaline ()
Petrina ()
Shih Hsien
Matthew

4 more open slots, so will probably use them if we got not enough people for whichever week.

Alright! This week is week 1 of the first series of 07/08. We are playing against Team Leo. Don’t really know much about them except for the fact that some of their players are in the GMT+2 and GMT-3 timezones. I am guessing US/Eastern Europe? Their captain says they have a pair playing Relay Precision. So need to prep the team up to deal with that. Match tentatively fixed up for Sunday night.

Will be a challenge trying to juggle the timezones!