Just got in from Vegas an hour ago. I'd give it a 5/10. I'll post more tomorrow but here are the highlights.
On the bright side, I won my last ever flight B event (unless they raise the cap to 2500 or something before I get there.) On the not-so-bright side, it wasn't the GNT-B.
On the bright side, I met Bill Gates. On the not-so-bright side, I didn't meet Warren Buffett.
On the bright side, I won the Swiss that started on Saturday playing with Gates, Rosenberg and Schwartz. On the not-so-bright side it was the Swiss that started and ended on Saturday night, stratum B, playing with Joanie Gates, Kevin Rosenberg (Michael's son) and Jeffrey Schwartz (Alan's son.)
On the not-so-bright side I had to put up with Jonathan Steinberg's needling most of the tournament. On the bright side in spite of my mediocre performance (and not infrequent decisions to kibitz rather than accept what the partnership desk had to offer) I still somehow managed to rake in a few more masterpoints than the universally beloved Mr. Steinberg.
On the bright side the Hilton didn't have a room with two twins and so gave us a free upgrade to a pretty sweet suite. On the not-so-bright side the daily search for a caffeine fix when I was in no mood to leave the room was more than a tad annoying.
On the bright side I get to post more on Vegas tomorrow. On the not-so-bright side you'll probably have to endure reading about it. |
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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Had another practice set tonight with Jimmy. It went better than the last couple have gone. I wish I'd bid this one a little differently:
White vs red
T5 / K8752 / 972 / J42
You pass in 1st. Pard opens 1NT in 3rd. 2 Spades (natural) on your right.
Do you double (takeout/negative) or bid 2NT lebensohl or pass?
Answer over the fold. That hand wasn't really what I wanted to talk about, though.
This auction came up tonight. Does it exist and if it does, what kind of hand do you expect opener to have?
1C - P - 1S - X
P - 2H - X - P
3H - P - 3N - P
4S |
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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Had a rocky set with Mikey tonight. The last hand is the one I want back the most, though.
Playing on a team with Justin and Echognome against some Ecuadorian guys. We were tied after 16 boards and down 8 with 1 board to play in the 4 board playoff.
T2 / A64 / AK87 / AQ43
I opened 1NT and Mikey transferred to Spades and then bid 3NT. I was bummed to have a max as we needed a swing on the board and it sounded like 3NT would be cold.
Ten of Hearts was led.
AKQ64 / 32 / J653 / J7
T2 / A64 / AK87 / AQ43
I ducked a couple of Hearts and the first decision is what to pitch on the 3rd Heart. Pitching the 5th Spade looks silly (the 5th Spade is your 9th top trick if Spades are 3-3.) Pitching a Diamond looks okay, but if Spades don't break that 4th round of Diamonds might be your only reentry to the board. I think it's right to pitch a Club and that's what I did. Righty approved, as he pitched one too.
AKQ64 / - / J653 / J
T2 / - / AK87 / AQ43
Next?
I think it's right to test Diamonds now. If the Queen is doubleton you have 3 Spades, 1 Heart, 4 Diamonds and 1 Club so you don't need to take risks in the other suits. I cashed the K-A of Diamonds and everybody followed but the Queen didn't make an appearance. Righty probably has the Queen, but no sense in continuing them because if Lefty has her, down I go and Spades might have been 3-3 all along.
I turned my attention to Spades next. I cashed 3 rounds and somewhat to my surprise, RHO showed out on the 3rd round. Now what?
Here's the hand with the Queen of Spades about to be played. The Queen of Spades is our 6th trick. Plan the play.
Q64 / - / J6 / J
- / - / 87 / AQ43
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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I was kibitzing Hamman last night when this hand came up. He thought it was special. Here it is.
AT5 / A5 / AKQ3 / AQ76
RHO opens 1 Spade. You double. The auction proceeds:
1S - Dbl - P - 2D
2H - 2S - P - 3D
P - 3NT - Float
LHO (Hamman) leads the 8 of Hearts. Plan the play.
Q3 / T32 / J9872 / T42
AT5 / A5 / AKQ3 / AQ76 |
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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So today was the last day of the regional and here are a couple more problem hands I had:
Red vs White
QT864 / - / KT8643 / T6
Lefty opened 1NT (16-18) and pard bid 2 Clubs, showing Clubs and a major. Righty bid 4 Diamonds (Hearts) and I doubled for the lead. Lefty bid 4 Hearts passed back to me.
Well, it seems like pard's major is Spades so I bid 4 Spades. Lefty doubled. Pard bid 5 Clubs. I guess his major wasn't Spades. Righty doubled. -1400 Lose 14 (this was the penultimate match against the eventual event winners and we lost the match by 1.)
Here's a hand I played in the last match:
xxxx / Qx / AQJ / QJxx
KQTxx / JTx / xx / AKx
I opened 1 Spade. Pard bid 2 Clubs. I bid 3 Clubs. Pard bid 4 Spades.
LHO led a Heart to Righty's King and Ace and RHO led a Spade back. I played the King and LHO won the Ace and played a Diamond back. I finessed the Diamond, losing, and later lost another Spade for down 2. It seems like partner should have just given me a limit raise, I think. Do you agree? |
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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... otherwise known as 'All good things come to an end.'
We got a very favorable draw for the semi-final against the weakest remaining team in the field. That left Narasimhan and Gary King (playing with Donna Compton) to slug it out in the other semi-final.
Unfortunately, the bridge gods were unkind today. I had 6 decisions that I considered agonizingly close and got all 6 wrong. We lost the match by 14. Here are the 6 decisions I got wrong, in order:
1. All white
AQTxxxx / A98 / xx / x
I opened 1 Spade, LHO bid 2 Spades, pard bid 3 Spades, I bid 4 Spades. LHO bid 5 Hearts passed back to me.
To me, it's awfully close between bidding one more for the road and passing (since we aren't broke on defense.) Your mileage may vary (yeah, I know, I need to come up with some new ways to express that.)
2. All red
AKQ9xx / Kx / Qxx / xx
Pard opened 1 Heart. I bid 1 Spade. He bid 2 Clubs. I bid 2 Diamonds. He bid 2NT. Do you bid 3 Spades or bid 3NT? If you bid 3 Spades and pard raises you to 4 Spades, are you done? Do you want to be in slam opposite Jx / AQxxx / Kx / Axxx or is that too much of a perfecta?
3. The very next board after getting #2 wrong:
AKJTxx / Ax / AKTxx / -
You open 2 Clubs. Partner bids ... of course ... 3 Clubs. Sigh. You bid 3 Spades. He bids 4 Clubs. You bid 4 Diamonds. He bids 5 Clubs. What do you do now?
4. 2 boards after getting #3 wrong:
All red
x / Axxx / KQxx / AQxx
Pard opens 2 Spades in 2nd seat passed to you (you play Ogust, fwiw.)
5. Righty opens 1 Heart and the uncontested auction proceeds:
1H - 2D
2N - 3H
4H - 4S
4N - 5D
6H - P
You hold
9xxx / x / 7xxxx / ATx
Your lead?
6. All red
Axxx / AQxx / Axx / Ax
Righty opens 2 Diamonds. Do you double or bid 2NT?
If you double, pard bids 4 Spades.
If you bid 2NT, pard bids 4 Spades (yes, transfers are hard.)
Are you done? |
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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Day 3 of the Austin Regional (for me, at least, I took yesterday off.)
Showed up about 20 minutes before game time. For some reason I felt confident that a solid squad would magically appear around me. I didn't want to play pairs. Billy Marshall, who played with Ellen Hessel on our victorious Tuesday-Wednesday squad asked me if I was playing with Buddy again. I told him that I was alone, just there on spec.
He came back about 5 minutes later and asked if I wanted to play with him. I told him I didn't want to play pairs but that if a reasonable team could be found that I was game. He quickly discovered that George Pisk (Austin's masterpoint leader, with 15K+) and Kerr Godfrey (from Houston,) teammates from the team we beat in the final on Wednesday, might be looking and soon we had bought an entry.
About the only rock-crushing team at the tournament is Passell-Bramley and Wold-Morris playing on Hansa Narasimhan's squad. They weren't in the Tuesday-Wed KO (they won the Mon-Tues KO and Wed-Thurs KO) and would probably make an appearance in this event, but they weren't really on my radar after our favorable draws on Tuesday and Wednesday.
I made a few boards and my RHO showed up at the table. I glanced up to say hello and it was Bob Hamman!
Oh ...
He was playing with Petra on a team with Hemant Lall and some guy I've never heard of. Here's an interesting hand from the match:
QJxxx / KJxxx / - / xxx
Petra opens 3 Clubs on your left. Pard doubles. Bob slams it into 5 Clubs. You're up. |
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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Great day. Won the semi-final by about 20 after being up 1 at the half. Won the final by 6 or so after being down 21 at the half. Here was a neat hand from the second half of the final:
All red, 4th
Kx / AQ976 / A / AQTxx
2 passes to Righty who opens 2 Hearts.
What do you bid?
Well, if I pass and can convince pard to reopen, we might make all 21 IMPs back on this board, but how likely is pard to reopen? Your mileage may vary but I decided to just shoot 3NT.
8 of Diamonds was led:
Jxxx / J8 / T7xx / K9x
Kx / AQ976/ A / AQT8x
What's the plan? |
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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Had a reasonably successful day. Buddy called me this morning and we decided to play pairs if we couldn't find another half. Luckily, Gerg (Greg Hinze) was there and he hooked us up with a nice pair.
The first half was pretty rocky. We went for 5 bills into a white game on the first board. They made a thin red game on the second. A few flat boards and then I faced this decision.
K8 / T83 / KJ32 / A832
All red in 4th
1C - 2C - 3C - ?
Give me
K8 / KJ3 / T832 / A832 and 3 Hearts is pretty automatic, but with pard probably 5-5-2-1 am I worth a LAW-breaking bid with only 3 points in his suits when we may or may not own half the deck?
I passed and we missed a thin 4 Hearts (Buddy was 5-6-2-0, which obviously made bidding a more successful proposition.)
More flat boards followed and then I felt like I could have beaten a partscore that I let through. I felt like we had about a lose 15 card.
Luckily, our teammates brought back a moose (we lost 3 on the 500 hand as expected, and lost 11 on the missed game, but they had generated lots of fat plus positions seemingly out of thin air) and we won the first half 43-15.
Second half and this problem arose:
Q98 / K6 / T9752 / A43
Buddy opened 1 Club and I chose to bypass my glorious Diamond suit in order to protect my major suit holdings and bid 1NT. Buddy now bid 2 Hearts. Fair enough, my Ace of Clubs is a huge card, my King of Hearts is a huge card, slam isn't out of the question, so I cooperated with 3 Clubs. Now Buddy bid 3 Spades. What now? |
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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Happy Canada Day!
The good news is I cancelled my LOTRO account. The bad news is I've been playing more than ever lately, knowing that when my subscription runs out next month, that's it. MMO's are fun, but way too addictive for me.
Austin Regional is this week. Might play a couple of events but mostly looking forward to Vegas in 2 weeks.
Had an interesting set with Mikey against Jeff and Izzy a couple of weeks ago. Here's an interesting hand from that set.
1st seat all red
A / Q842 / KQ98753 / T
I opened 1 Diamond, the auction proceeded:
1D - Dbl - P - 2D
3D - Dbl - P - 4D
P - 4S - P - 5D
P - 5H - P - 5S
P - 6S - Float
Mikey decided to trust the opps and tried the effect of a Club lead (the 9.)
QT42 / AT53 / 4 / KQ42 Dummy (RHO)
A / Q842 / KQ98753 / T
Izzy won on the board and led the singleton Diamond off dummy. Think fast, do you split? |
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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