psych

Well, times have changed, and yet still things stay the same. More or less, anyway. At the moment, my health is good. I finally shook off the last effects of the near-fatal illness that hit back in 2011. But now my wife is not so well, so we still spend too much time worrying about doctors and insurance and money. The Manhattan Bridge Club closed its doors a couple of months back, and we nearly all moved to Honors, including the management team. So Honors now runs close to capacity on weekday afternoons, and has a healthy set of games in the evenings too. Despite feeling a little sense of loss for the MBC name, we are actually better placed for bridge now than we have been for some time. So perhaps I should start blogging again. But I don't have the enthusiasm for it that I had five years ago. So I think I shall content myself with the occasional interesting hand. I'll start with a classic.


 I talk about psychs on a regular basis, but I haven't actually done one like this in a very long time, years I think. There's nothing original going on here, of course. Third in hand with 2 hcp and a partner who will open all 12-counts, I know the enemy has a game at least. I don't like being vulnerable, but we weren't having that great a game, so stirring the pot seemed justified. And opening the 3-card suit is the traditional approach: you are trying to pick off the enemy suit while reducing the risk of partner raising. I don't play Drury with Agent 99, so a raise would be dangerous. Everything worked according to plan. North had a nice hand, but with us bidding her suits, she decided to keep quiet. If I had opened a spade, Agent 99 would certainly have raised to 3S or 4S, but the 1H opening fetched a 1S response. She actually managed to escape for 2 down when South flew up with the AD on a diamond lead from hand. Perfect.