Bridge of AngST

Last night, some of the juniors asked me for a team match in preparation for nationals today and tomorrow. I managed to grab Andre to play.

The 2nd board was rather interesting:

Dealer E Vul N/S &nbps;	♠ 7 ♥ Q93 ♦ T9753 ♣ J952
♠ AKT864 ♥ JT6 ♦ QJ6 ♣ Q		♠ 53 ♥ K742 ♦ K2 ♣ A8743
	♠ QJ92 ♥ A85 ♦ A84 ♣ KT6

At my table, the bidding went:

Let me explain the bidding. I was West. Now 1NT was for takeout, 2NT should show 5-5 in 2 unknown suits. We had no agreement after that, so 3C was pick a suit I hoped, but it turned out that Andre forgot about 2NT and thought it was invitational. (As 1NT could be passed out with a club stopper to play.)

I received the lead of the 2 of clubs.  I ducked the first round, South returning a spade. I inserted the T and it held. Now I cashed the King and received the news of the 4-1 split. I ducked a spade, South returning a diamond which dummy’s K won. Now I made the mistake of not counting, and ducked a club which I could not afford to do. Actually I was in BIG trouble now since I could not return to hand to my spades. However, South returned another diamond and I made 8 tricks. This was better than the other table which made only 7 tricks (which rightfully should be).

The rest of it was a scrap. We ended up in 3NT next after a weak 2H opener by me, other table reached 4H. Both games were good, but they somehow went down 1 doubled.  We passed out the next board, while opps in our position reached 3NT down 3. A 3NT vs 2NT game swing to us, and it was already 30-0.

Next 3 boards were bad, as Andre and I had a misunderstanding and let opps play in 2DX+1, then a game swing against us, as I thought Andre had wasted values and hence passed the invite, when he had a pointless 5 card suit! Then a partscore swing against us.

Last 3 boards saw a partscore vs passout swing to us, some misunderstanding (again!) which let them made game doubled, last board was a game swing to us.

Final score: 40-30, but it was marred by the fact that the opps at our table were having connection problems.

Not the best definitely, but it goes to show that our overcall structure notes are still not comprehensive enough. Time for a rethink/further extension?

Dealer E
NS Vul
MPs

West North East South
2H   X
3H(1)  3S     4H   4S
5H AP

(1): 3H was explained as 11+ HCP with support

South asked East a what 3H was and received the explanation above. The director was called to the table as soon as dummy was on the table. The players were advised to play on.

5H went down 2. South called the director and argued that she would have doubled if not for the given explanation of the 3H bid. The director ruled that no damage was done and hence, no adjustment.  He also informed NS of their right of appeal.

NS were considering appealing, but they had an argument as well. South argued that if North had bid 4S, she would have doubled 5H.  Even with the bidding, South’s line of argument was that “the double had already showed the hand” and North had the onus to double. Is this correct? I disagree on the following points:

1) This was MPs, so South should have doubled anyway if she thought 5H was going down. (And she should have done so in my opinion)

2) The double did NOT show the hand. South could easily have a rotten 12 count.

Perhaps a different TD would have allowed an adjustment (but difficult for a full adjustment to 5HX-2 I think), but I think NS would have stood a stronger case if North had bid 4S instead of 3S. Now South would be able to gauge more accurately that West did not have what he promised and doubled instead. Even if West had the correct points, South would be able to gauge that North had a unbalanced weak hand and  double 4S as well.

Any ideas on how to prove any damage if present?

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.