Bridge of AngST

Along the way back from the Gold Cup match, and during the next morning, a thought popped up in my head to start writing down what I have learnt in my 6 years of playing bridge thus far. Along the way I have taken some detours, learnt many things, met many great people and not-so-great ones as well. Hopefully, one will find this useful in any way possible.

I mean this to be an objective and constructive piece. No personal offense is meant towards anybody in this. Where possible, I will try not to name names if I feel that I am referring to something not very glorious. In any case I will try my best to make this as positive as possible. Yes, this is a disclaimer.

I would like to think of my bridge career as being split into:
1) RJC Days (2004-2005)
2) Restarting in NS (Jul 2006-Sep 2007)
3) Between NS and Uni (Oct 2007-Sep 2008)
4) Life in Uni thus far (Sep 2008-present)

Each section is rather different, and in fact I would say the first part has contributed very little. This is the objective truth – it is not to say that I did not learn anything during those 2 years, but it would be more right to say that for practical purposes, I “started” in July 2006.

How did I start bridge? I learnt what is commonly referred to as “floating bridge” in 2000 in RI Choir. So in 2003, right before graduating and going onto RJC, I heard of the bridge club where they play contract bridge. Thus towards the end of 2003 I started picking up contract bridge. 2004 came and I joined the bridge club in RJC. The main problem I had at this point in time was having a partner and I ultimately ended up with Andre.

(to be continued)

We won the 1st round match of the Gold Cup on Saturday, by a margin of just 17 imps….This was largely due to my inept defending.

Partner leads the 8 of clubs after bidding goes 1H-2D-2H-3C-3NT. Dummy’s clubs are QJT76 and you hold K954. What do you play on the first trick after declarer plays an honour from dummy?

You hold 9874 in a side suit in 4H. Declarer leads the suit from dummy and partner rises with the Ace. Which card do you play to show standard count? (You are in a situation where you have to tell partner which winners are cashing before declarer discards his losers on an established suit.)

Again you are in 3NT. You hold Jxx, partner leads the spade 2 (playing 4th best leads) and declarer holds up his ace until the 3rd round. Declarer cashes a winner in dummy and leads a diamond from xxx. You hold AKxx in diamonds. Your play?

Believe it or not I got all 3 wrong.

Thankfully, my declarer play was not too bad…or was it? What would be the optimal line to play this hand?
xx
QJxx
Jx
AQ98x

Kxx
Ax
AKT9x
Jxx

After an auction which went 1NT(15-17)-2C-2D-3NT, opponent leads the spade 5, which goes to the T and K. Your play now?

I am not convinced the best line was found at the table: club to the Q, J of D to the A on which RHO plays the 8, now club to K and A, and then a diamond back, which RHO plays the 2. I now go into the tank and produce the K which drops the offside doubleton Q! My reasoning now was that I can only make the contract if the Q doubleton drops offside so I played for it. 10 tricks and 13 imps in. Darren suggested I could have played the Q of hearts first to tempt a cover.

Well, at least this meant our car trip to Bessingham and back wasn’t futile.

We won our match last night convincingly 82-24, just 3 imps shy of making it 12-0 in VPs!

The first half was a dull affair, ending 11-13. The second half though, threw up 2 interesting boards. How would you bid these 2 sets of hands?
(RHO passes)
Q973
AK4
Q
AKJT6
facing
K
Q96
AKJT7542
4

and
(RHO passes)
AK
K9432
AQ986
A
facing
T95
AQ8
T5
QT765

Reference: When Shouldn’t you think at bridge (Cathy Chua)

I find it quite funny that I only saw the post now, and the fact that I’ve just played chess yesterday for Warwick Singsoc at the Nottingham Games. What a coincidence then to see something linking chess to bridge today!

Since I quit competitive chess more than 7 years ago, I have never had any tournament play until this year – first One World Week where I got second against a relatively easy field and then yesterday where I only had one opponent. Despite this, I am rather surprised at how little I have depreciated in playing ability compared to what I would have expected. I still remember thinking on the coach back to Coventry if this is somehow linked to the fact that I’ve been playing competitive bridge instead.

A small aside to yesterday: Psychologically, my opponent lost almost as soon as we started. He started showing signs of nervousness as soon as move 3, when it became apparent that I was playing the Scotch Game. I have to say that I did not handle the opening perfectly and almost had my queen trapped but this was soon turned around when he left his bishop hanging! I quickly exchanged off the major pieces (he was getting some counterplay from generating mating threats) and he lost the endgame pretty quickly thereafter, resigning when I promoted a pawn after another mistake of his. The second game had the same idea, lost on the 3rd move after I had responded with the Budapest Gambit after he opened d4. This time round he left his Queen hanging and it didn’t take me very long to come up with checkmate after that!

A few points I realised:
1. Instinct DOES count for a lot. I faced the danger of getting my queen trapped as mentioned, however a possible reply suddenly popped up in my head, I checked through it, it works and so I played it. In the second game, I tried to play for a checkmate, but it was not possible, and a few moves later, I suddenly “saw” checkmate in one move. That saved me the trouble of playing it out any longer!

2. Discipline and routine of thought processes. This was actually drilled into me at chess by my coach John Wong 8-9 years ago. Of course, I was nowhere good at anytime, but I would like to think that this was the difference. I don’t claim to have a perfect routine, but one thing I did do was to check before making any move if I had left any piece/pawn hanging without good reason. My opponent didn’t…

3. Keeping your cool. Discovering 4-0 breaks are almost part and parcel of everyday life in bridge. What happens when opponent plays out of your opening book in chess? Of course, having good preparation to deal with most openings should be part of the preparation, but if you’re out of your book, losing your cool should be the last thing you should do!

Regarding “the zone”: One of the things I enjoy when I’m bored doing work in the Statistics department is to walk around the ground floor offices and see what the various faculty members put on their doors/noticeboards. Outside one of them is the model of learning, which consists of 4 steps – Unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence and unconscious competence. Therefore, it would make perfect sense to say that if you’re really at it, you will be doing the right things unconsciously by “instinct”. From my experience, this is definitely right be it at doing maths, playing the piano, singing, playing chess or bridge!

The other table as in 3HX=. 14 imp swing.

I wonder how many people would bid 4H over the 3NT! Maybe experts will do it, but at my level I probably won’t be seeing it too often!

No idea what their agreements are here, so no idea why 5C was doubled. Otherwise, the 4S bid seemed to have been very well judged in pushing opponents to 5 minor to win an imp since the other table was in 4H.

And finally a nice board to end the match. The other room was in 7S=, there was a lot of kibitzer comments, Larry Lande explaining why 7NT is the best contract: no risk of ruffs. Interesting it would have been a swing had the K of Spades been offside!