Regional

So the 2010 Edgar Kaplan Winter Regional is done, severely impacted by the weather. I originally planned to play three days, and finished up playing just one, a bracketed round-robin event yesterday. We won the top bracket, winning 6 out of 7 matches, and collecting oodles of gold points, so it was a good day.

But it was a tough day's bridge. I only remember one slam in the 49 boards, and that was the other way from where Elwood and I were sitting. (Our opponents made no attempt in the bidding, so that was a swing in our favor.) There were a few game swings, but we spent most of the day grinding out smallish victories with part-score swings. That's a perfectly good way to win, of course, but it means you know the match is close all the time and you don't dare let your concentration slip for even one board.

One interesting decision came on this hand. I picked up
JTxx
AKTxxx
-
KTx
as dealer, vulnerable against not. Opening 1H is obvious enough, but the auction rapidly escalated.
N E S W
1H 1S 3H 3S
4H 4S P P
?
If you are a point-count junkie, you probably are confused at this point. Elwood's 3H raise is pre-emptive, meaning that he has some hearts and some distribution, but not too much in the way of high cards. You have already opened the bidding and raised to game on your 11 points, knowing that the opponents probably have more points total than our side. So what is there to think about? Of course, points are meaningless for a hand like this. I knew Elwood had at most one spade, and very few high cards in the majors. There was no way to tell until I saw the dummy, but if he produced one or two good cards in clubs, this hand could easily generate eleven tricks and a vulnerable game. Conversely, what have we got in defence? No more than one heart trick. Probably a spade trick. Can we get a couple of tricks in the minors and so beat 4S? Probably, but it's not a sure thing. I think that if you look at this hand the right way, the scale tips very heavily in favor of bidding 5H.



At the other table, the opposing N-S elected to defend 4S, and collected 100. When hearts showed up as 2-1, I was quickly claiming 11 tricks and 11 IMPs.

Here's another high-level auction where I perhaps chose to live dangerously. In second seat, nobody vulnerable, I picked up
x
AT8x
Axxxx
J9x
and saw the auction start
N E S W
P
P 4S Dbl P
?
On the one hand, if Elwood has enough to double, my two bullets guarantee a reasonable plus score, and risking the sure plus by bidding has to be a questionable decision. On the other hand, if he doesn't have the aces, Elwood must have some meaty middle cards, and if he has a really good hand we might well have 11 or 12 tricks. This is the first board of the final match, and the opponents are one of our strongest competitors. I decided to go for it, and was lucky to survive.



4NT indicated that I had two places to play. If I was going to bid, I didn't want to pick one of the red suits unilaterally. The problem with responding to a takeout double of 4S is that you can't assume that the doubler has four hearts. He is bidding under pressure, and you have to allow for that. We settled into our best fit, but the contract is far from cold. I won the spade lead and took a losing trump finesse. Now I could ruff the next spade and draw trumps, but they had to be 2-2. When that passed off successfully, I could eliminate clubs and run the QH, guaranteeing only one heart loser. (As I look at it now, I'm thinking that it would have been smarter to play AD and a diamond, rejecting the finesse. But at the table I “felt” that the KD was onside. So much for table presence!)

So the game came home. Our opponents at the other table took 300, so that was a 3 IMP swing to us. A heavy blow, considering that we won the match by 2 IMPs.