I am at a loose end this evening because my partner cancelled a play-date because of the weather. It's snowing. It's winter! Well, I suppose I can't blame him. But when I turn to the internet for entertainment, what do I find? My favorite blogs all seem to have gone dormant, for months now.
Paul at The Beer Card still posts, but almost all my other favorites seem to have gone on sabbatical. I need some input - preferably from players who are better than me! Come on, you stars, talk to the internet. Your public awaits.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Grand National Teams
I'm just back from playing in the GNT (busy weekend!). Last year, I played with Elwood and our usual Regional team, and we crashed out early. This year, our teammates weren't available, so Elwood and I teamed up with the Feuer brothers. They don't go in for fancy bidding, but they aren't bad, and we felt that we made a reasonable foursome.
There were 8 teams in Flight B, apparently, so today was the quarter-final and semi-final. We started out with an easy match against a team that probably should have been in Flight C. It was supposed to be 28 boards, but the director pulled a board from us in each half because of slow play. (It wasn't all our fault, one of the opponents at our table was even slower than Elwood). But even so, we racked up +87 IMPs in the first half and added another good chunk in the second half. So, on to the semi-final. The second match was scheduled for 26 boards, and we knew that our opponents were not push-overs. But we also figured to be in with good chances to win.
In the first half, Elwood and I felt rather unhappy with our performance, figuring that we were responsible for at least a couple of swings against without really bringing anything in. But the Feuers returned a great scorecard, flattening a lot of dangerous-looking boards and giving nothing away. On one hand, I held:
KT9x
xx
Axxxx
xx
and Elwood dealt and opened 1H. I bid 1S, and he jumped to 3D (of all things). Now what? I decided that there wasn't likely to be much play for slam, even if he had 19-20 points, so I jumped to 5D. Of course, things broke etc, and Elwood made all 13 tricks. He was a little upset, feeling that I should have bid 4D (which would have been Minorwood), because 6D was actually not a bad contract. +640 didn't look too good, but the Feuers came back with +200 from beating 3NT, so our bad board actually was +13 IMPs. We were ahead 42-19 at the halfway mark.
The second half was also not that great from us, and this time the Feuers couldn't make up for it. When the smoke cleared, we had lost the second half 16-39. And when you add it up, that means that after 26 boards, we had fought each other to a standstill, 58-58. The remedy was a 6-board playoff. I promised to bear down a bit more.
The first playoff board was something like:
2C was game-forcing. 3H was a probe for 3NT, but 3S suggested something better. 4C was minorwood, 4S showed 2 keycards without the CQ, and 5S was the SK. We probably both pushed a little, but I liked my controls, and Elwood was determined to win the playoff. He played the hand nicely, ruffing two hearts in dummy and choosing the right path back to hand to finish drawing trumps and concede trick 13. The opponents settled for 3NT, and that was enough to win, although there were a couple of other swings and we actually won the playoff 24-0.
So, one more match to see if we represent NYC in New Orleans (Flight B).
There were 8 teams in Flight B, apparently, so today was the quarter-final and semi-final. We started out with an easy match against a team that probably should have been in Flight C. It was supposed to be 28 boards, but the director pulled a board from us in each half because of slow play. (It wasn't all our fault, one of the opponents at our table was even slower than Elwood). But even so, we racked up +87 IMPs in the first half and added another good chunk in the second half. So, on to the semi-final. The second match was scheduled for 26 boards, and we knew that our opponents were not push-overs. But we also figured to be in with good chances to win.
In the first half, Elwood and I felt rather unhappy with our performance, figuring that we were responsible for at least a couple of swings against without really bringing anything in. But the Feuers returned a great scorecard, flattening a lot of dangerous-looking boards and giving nothing away. On one hand, I held:
KT9x
xx
Axxxx
xx
and Elwood dealt and opened 1H. I bid 1S, and he jumped to 3D (of all things). Now what? I decided that there wasn't likely to be much play for slam, even if he had 19-20 points, so I jumped to 5D. Of course, things broke etc, and Elwood made all 13 tricks. He was a little upset, feeling that I should have bid 4D (which would have been Minorwood), because 6D was actually not a bad contract. +640 didn't look too good, but the Feuers came back with +200 from beating 3NT, so our bad board actually was +13 IMPs. We were ahead 42-19 at the halfway mark.
The second half was also not that great from us, and this time the Feuers couldn't make up for it. When the smoke cleared, we had lost the second half 16-39. And when you add it up, that means that after 26 boards, we had fought each other to a standstill, 58-58. The remedy was a 6-board playoff. I promised to bear down a bit more.
The first playoff board was something like:
2C was game-forcing. 3H was a probe for 3NT, but 3S suggested something better. 4C was minorwood, 4S showed 2 keycards without the CQ, and 5S was the SK. We probably both pushed a little, but I liked my controls, and Elwood was determined to win the playoff. He played the hand nicely, ruffing two hearts in dummy and choosing the right path back to hand to finish drawing trumps and concede trick 13. The opponents settled for 3NT, and that was enough to win, although there were a couple of other swings and we actually won the playoff 24-0.
So, one more match to see if we represent NYC in New Orleans (Flight B).
Friday, February 19, 2010
Pro-Am
I'm just back from playing in the Victor Mitchell Pro-Am. The "Pros" are Life Masters, so I was eligible to get press-ganged this time. And the "Ams" have less than 50 master points, so they mostly have not been playing very long at all.
It was kind of cute. My partner was companionable enough, and seemed to enjoy himself. I found myself in four or five impossible contracts and managed to make them all, while my partner only went down a couple of times when he should have made. So I was thinking we had a fair game, but when the scores came out, we were listed at 48% or so. I guess there was some really funny stuff going on at other tables.
Still, a pleasant evening.
It was kind of cute. My partner was companionable enough, and seemed to enjoy himself. I found myself in four or five impossible contracts and managed to make them all, while my partner only went down a couple of times when he should have made. So I was thinking we had a fair game, but when the scores came out, we were listed at 48% or so. I guess there was some really funny stuff going on at other tables.
Still, a pleasant evening.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The Acol Experiment
I was half-heartedly watching BBO Vugraph the other day when an acid explosion from a commentator caught my eye. He had made a dismissive (and I thought, quite unjustifiably so) remark about the bidding of a Belgian pair on a particular hand. One of his fellow commentators remarked that it was surprising to hear an Englishman condemn a sequence that would be fairly standard in Acol-land. His reply was (perhaps not quite verbatim, but close) “I may be English, but I hate Acol, and detest the weak no-trump, which I consider to be a device to trap British bidding in the Stone Age”.
I find it difficult to fathom where this intensity is coming from. I'm not the right person to advocate for Acol as a top-notch modern bidding system (I don't think it is). But if you learn and play basic Acol for a while, you will not only have fun, you will get some results, and you will learn some sensible bidding judgement and get a good attitude towards bidding. When you decide to upgrade your bidding after a while, you will have a fairly sound basis for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the different systems and gadgets that present themselves. And the weak no-trump? Well, “why not?” is my question. Even if you are playing 4-card majors, a strong no-trump will force you into 3-card minor-suit (“prepared”) openings, and other indignities. The weak no-trump is a perfectly viable bid that has some distinct advantages as well as some attached dangers.
For example, if you have had Acol 2-bids available, “upgrading” to weak twos may be clearly seen as a trade-off that isn't all benefit and no cost (a 2C opening that isn't game-forcing and opening 1-bids that have an even wider range than before are serious detriments). Or, if you “upgrade” to 5-card majors and a strong no-trump a la Standard American, you can see all those 3-card openings surface, and know that minor-suit openings (and minor-suit bidding in general) is compromised, often quite severely. Or, having seen the difficulties presented by a natural system with wide-range opening 1-bids and 2C as the strong opening, you may better understand the concepts of a Strong Club system where the opening 1-bids are more limited and you have more room to handle strong hands.
Over the past year, I've met (and taught) quite a few beginners whose first (and only) exposure to bridge bidding has been a basic Standard American. Almost none of them understands the idea of a reverse, even after special classes where they spend an hour or two hearing about them and bidding and playing example hands. (I have met pairs who “don't play reverses”, as if it were a convention that they could add to their system or not, like New Minor Forcing.) They rarely think in terms of bidding sequences – it's all one-bid-at-a-time with lots of rules to memorize about what bid is the right next one. To be sure, you can blame a lot of this on the teaching methods, but on the other hand, a lot of it comes from the basic system they're being taught. You have to have a five-card suit to open a major. Why? From the beginner's point of view, it's quite arbitrary. So rule one, five-card major, check. And it goes on from there.
I'm more or less convinced that if we made these people play Acol with a weak no-trump for 6 months, where all the openings really are natural and the preference and reversing sequences are clear, they could go back to Standard American and actually have a much better understanding of how to bid in that system. In fact, I've become so sure of it that I've persuaded Agent 99 to participate in The Acol Experiment.
The only way to “put my money where my mouth is” would be to find a volunteer who knows how to bid Standard American somewhat half-assed, teach them Acol, and see if their SA bidding improves. Enter Agent 99. I think her bidding is better than half-assed, but it is still rather weak compared to her play of the cards. And the type of difficulty she has, the type of mistake she sometimes makes, is telling. My hypothesis is that throwing her into the world of Acol, where there are lots of guidelines and few rules, will be an antidote. It should provide a counter-balance, where the weight of memorization will be eased by understanding some under-lying principles.
So far we've played one Acol session, and as luck would have it, we were sitting East-West while the cards ran North-South. Next time, maybe.
I find it difficult to fathom where this intensity is coming from. I'm not the right person to advocate for Acol as a top-notch modern bidding system (I don't think it is). But if you learn and play basic Acol for a while, you will not only have fun, you will get some results, and you will learn some sensible bidding judgement and get a good attitude towards bidding. When you decide to upgrade your bidding after a while, you will have a fairly sound basis for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the different systems and gadgets that present themselves. And the weak no-trump? Well, “why not?” is my question. Even if you are playing 4-card majors, a strong no-trump will force you into 3-card minor-suit (“prepared”) openings, and other indignities. The weak no-trump is a perfectly viable bid that has some distinct advantages as well as some attached dangers.
For example, if you have had Acol 2-bids available, “upgrading” to weak twos may be clearly seen as a trade-off that isn't all benefit and no cost (a 2C opening that isn't game-forcing and opening 1-bids that have an even wider range than before are serious detriments). Or, if you “upgrade” to 5-card majors and a strong no-trump a la Standard American, you can see all those 3-card openings surface, and know that minor-suit openings (and minor-suit bidding in general) is compromised, often quite severely. Or, having seen the difficulties presented by a natural system with wide-range opening 1-bids and 2C as the strong opening, you may better understand the concepts of a Strong Club system where the opening 1-bids are more limited and you have more room to handle strong hands.
Over the past year, I've met (and taught) quite a few beginners whose first (and only) exposure to bridge bidding has been a basic Standard American. Almost none of them understands the idea of a reverse, even after special classes where they spend an hour or two hearing about them and bidding and playing example hands. (I have met pairs who “don't play reverses”, as if it were a convention that they could add to their system or not, like New Minor Forcing.) They rarely think in terms of bidding sequences – it's all one-bid-at-a-time with lots of rules to memorize about what bid is the right next one. To be sure, you can blame a lot of this on the teaching methods, but on the other hand, a lot of it comes from the basic system they're being taught. You have to have a five-card suit to open a major. Why? From the beginner's point of view, it's quite arbitrary. So rule one, five-card major, check. And it goes on from there.
I'm more or less convinced that if we made these people play Acol with a weak no-trump for 6 months, where all the openings really are natural and the preference and reversing sequences are clear, they could go back to Standard American and actually have a much better understanding of how to bid in that system. In fact, I've become so sure of it that I've persuaded Agent 99 to participate in The Acol Experiment.
The only way to “put my money where my mouth is” would be to find a volunteer who knows how to bid Standard American somewhat half-assed, teach them Acol, and see if their SA bidding improves. Enter Agent 99. I think her bidding is better than half-assed, but it is still rather weak compared to her play of the cards. And the type of difficulty she has, the type of mistake she sometimes makes, is telling. My hypothesis is that throwing her into the world of Acol, where there are lots of guidelines and few rules, will be an antidote. It should provide a counter-balance, where the weight of memorization will be eased by understanding some under-lying principles.
So far we've played one Acol session, and as luck would have it, we were sitting East-West while the cards ran North-South. Next time, maybe.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Misadventures In Manhattan
There hasn't been much good to report in my bridge playing lately. I haven't been inspired to select good hands for blogging, either, so you'll have to put up with a bit of a mixture.
I chose to open 2C, which made Agent 99 hesitate a bit. I don't know how we managed to avoid 7NT – I'm sure that's my likely destination if I was in both seats. But I don't think she believed I had a real 2C opening. I suppose it is a bit thin, but unless you're playing Acol 2s, I don't see what else to do. Also, she ought to know you can't psyche a 2C opener (not that I've ever really psyched with her – maybe stretched the truth a bit here and there). Anyway, the end result was that we washed up in 6S. I was disgusted at this, since the grand looks obvious. Then North showed out on the second spade, and it was looking like genius. Then he had to follow suit as I cashed diamonds and shortened my trumps by ruffing a couple of hearts, and I was able to get 13 tricks anyway with a trump coup. But that was an OK score since nobody bid 7S, and 12 tricks is the limit in NT.
Agent 99 didn't like the prospect of 3NT with me having a known singleton and a spade lead marked for the defence. So she went ahead and bid game in the 4-3 fit. I'm not sure I would have done it myself, but actually it's a very sensible idea, and was rewarded with an above average score. Double-dummy, 3NT always makes 10 tricks also, but in practice, played by West, it's most likely only making 9 tricks.
The jump rebid by Agent 99 is perhaps a bit aggressive, but she has a good hand in support of hearts. If she doesn't bid that way, it's going to be distinctly more difficult to get to a fair slam. But I'm afraid I have to report that I played the hand like a real palooka, and went down with 12 tricks cold. After a spade lead, I ruffed a spade and played a heart to the jack. And then I don't want to talk about it any more. I seem to spend half my life telling beginners to count their tricks, and it's distinctly mortifying to fail to do the same when I'm declarer.
This one is from a Thursday evening game. These days, people stretch to answer a 1C opening on almost zero values. Ralph demonstrated that this isn't necessarily the best plan. Double-dummy, I should go down, while we can make 2H. In practice, I actually finished up with 8 tricks in clubs, and a near-top score. If the auction starts 1C – 1H, there is no way for N-S to stop in a makeable contract.
I chose to open 2C, which made Agent 99 hesitate a bit. I don't know how we managed to avoid 7NT – I'm sure that's my likely destination if I was in both seats. But I don't think she believed I had a real 2C opening. I suppose it is a bit thin, but unless you're playing Acol 2s, I don't see what else to do. Also, she ought to know you can't psyche a 2C opener (not that I've ever really psyched with her – maybe stretched the truth a bit here and there). Anyway, the end result was that we washed up in 6S. I was disgusted at this, since the grand looks obvious. Then North showed out on the second spade, and it was looking like genius. Then he had to follow suit as I cashed diamonds and shortened my trumps by ruffing a couple of hearts, and I was able to get 13 tricks anyway with a trump coup. But that was an OK score since nobody bid 7S, and 12 tricks is the limit in NT.
Agent 99 didn't like the prospect of 3NT with me having a known singleton and a spade lead marked for the defence. So she went ahead and bid game in the 4-3 fit. I'm not sure I would have done it myself, but actually it's a very sensible idea, and was rewarded with an above average score. Double-dummy, 3NT always makes 10 tricks also, but in practice, played by West, it's most likely only making 9 tricks.
The jump rebid by Agent 99 is perhaps a bit aggressive, but she has a good hand in support of hearts. If she doesn't bid that way, it's going to be distinctly more difficult to get to a fair slam. But I'm afraid I have to report that I played the hand like a real palooka, and went down with 12 tricks cold. After a spade lead, I ruffed a spade and played a heart to the jack. And then I don't want to talk about it any more. I seem to spend half my life telling beginners to count their tricks, and it's distinctly mortifying to fail to do the same when I'm declarer.
This one is from a Thursday evening game. These days, people stretch to answer a 1C opening on almost zero values. Ralph demonstrated that this isn't necessarily the best plan. Double-dummy, I should go down, while we can make 2H. In practice, I actually finished up with 8 tricks in clubs, and a near-top score. If the auction starts 1C – 1H, there is no way for N-S to stop in a makeable contract.
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