I've been following the CNTC/CWTC action in Montreal. On the men's side, it doesn't look like there's going to be a repeat. With 3 matches to play, Jeff's team is 21 VPs out of the 8th and final qualifying spot for the quarterfinals. They'd have to go blitz-blitz-blitz (or a reasonably close approximation) to have a decent chance of qualifying (I'd estimate the last spot at about 325 and 3 full blitzes would get Jeff's squad to 329.) Their last 3 opponents are all in the top 8 spots, which won't make it any easier. 2 of the last 3 matches will be 'grudge matches' of sorts, with former teammates playing each other.
On the ladies' side, Izzy's squad is almost sure to qualify. They lead the round robin by 5 with 2 matches to play. Both of their last 2 matches are against squads just out of the top 4, so they should be tough. |
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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| Headed up to Richardson on Saturday morning with Buddy and his expecting (due in early July) wife Mindy to play in the District 16 GNT-B finals. My feeling was that the Saturday Swiss would be a chance to iron out bugs (and shake off some rust) as the field was cut to 16 teams and then we'd have to play well on Sunday and Monday to win the knockout phase and the event. |
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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Here's a neat opening lead problem I had playing with Jeff a few weeks ago against Izzy and Linda.
KJ42 / JT6 / 9732 / 95
Two passes to Linda on my right who opened 1 Heart. I passed and Izzy bid 1NT (alerted, presumably semi-forcing.) Jeff whipped and Linda bumped to 2NT. I passed and Izzy's 4 Heart bid ended the auction.
What do you lead?
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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Blog's one-year anniversary today. Time flies.
Hope to be posting more frequently. CNTC is coming up and I hope to be watching/reporting on a lot of that. Plus, LOTRO is losing its lustre (getting old and the developers have nerfed my character class, so that's spoiled a lot of the fun) and I'd like to get some hands in before Las Vegas.
On politics, I'm dumbfounded that these 3 clowns are the best we could come up with for 'leader of the free world.' I'm not looking forward to President McCain, President Obama, or President H. Clinton. None of them are qualified. In a nutshell, McCain is too old, Obama is too green (if he weren't a black man he wouldn't even get a second look) and Hillary is too divisive (though mostly through no fault of her own.) You'd think that the American people would have learned that picking a president is important after 8 years of criminal incompetence, corruption, war crimes, torture, church/state integration and mismanagement under GWB.
Even Keith Olbermann has managed to lose me as a viewer. His blatant pro-Obama anti-Clinton bias is really off-putting.
It's funny, when I started working out one of my goals was to get back to my early 20's weight (170 lbs.) I couldn't get below 175 lbs and then when I quit working out for a couple of months and went back to weigh in, presto! 169 lbs 15 oz (yeah, I know, probably lost mostly muscle, but I'm back working out again.)
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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It's the 19th so time for another update.
Happy birthday (slightly belated) to my wonderful sister. The first of many 39th birthdays to come.
Sorry to see that none of my friends or 'bridge friends' had a particularly spectacular Detroit. I'm looking forward to Las Vegas.
Reading the Lone Wolff (my friend Joanie bought me an autographed copy.) Interesting to read about Bobby's Texas days (we both went to UT,) and his references to Jonathan Steinberg, George Retek, and trying to prevent Ottawa from getting its annual regional. Fie on you Bobby Wolff!  It seems like he names names if he dislikes someone and doesn't name names if he likes someone (for instance, he refers to a convicted bridge cheater but refuses to disclose who that is because that person has since reformed) and so far he hasn't mentioned in any detail the main thing I was interested in hearing about (his removal from the Nickell team.) (Never mind, I just hadn't gotten to the Hamman/Wolff chapter.) But still, overall a good read.
LOTRO still has me hooked. Now I'm playing on the 'dark side' as a rank 6 Uruk Warleader against the players. PvP as it's called (on LOTRO they call it PvMP,) is much more stimulating and interesting than PvE.
Was amused to see a thread get deleted on Stacy's blog. There've been a few heated conversations on there (during the Shanghai Venice Cup thing for one) and she lets people express themselves pretty openly. What got the thread deleted? Obscenity/vulgarity? Spam? Harassment? Gee Jon, you only make 1 post a month, shouldn't you make it a decent one? Yeah, my bad, sorry. I couldn't find this post when I went looking for it again and thought it had been deleted. Anyway, the article below is a good one if you're looking for a pet so I'll keep the link up.
...
http://www.arkonline.com/birkin2.html
Here's a very funny video:
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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Went to Houston on Sunday to play in a 12-team GNT-B qualifier with Buddy. We were on a 5-bagger with Mikey (my partner at the San Antonio Sectional a few months ago) and Jennifer and Jimmy Breihan.
This was my first trip to Houston, in spite of living in Austin for the last 6 years and change. The club there is really nice, but at $8/session instead of $6/session at the Austin club, I'd rather play here.
We got off to a rocky start when we lost the first match because an opponent revoked. Our teammates didn't catch it until assignments for match 2 had already been made and their opponents pleaded ignorance so the original result stood.
This was the first hand out of the box for Buddy and I. A really bad auction.
A / ATxx / KQx / Txxxx
KTxx / J / AJxx / AKJx
Our uncontested auction, starting with the hand on the bottom:
1D - 1H
1S - 2C
3C - 3D
3N - P
I'm not sure what the best sequence is but I know our sequence isn't it. 6 Clubs is almost laydown. I had the 4X1 hand and really don't like my 3N bid, I should probably bid Keycard and shoot 6 Diamonds. Clubs were 4-0 offside so 6 Diamonds was beatable. I think the board was a push.
We lost the 3rd match as well when our teammates played in 4 Spades in a 5-0 fit. At the break we were 2-2, slightly above average.
Buddy and I were each scheduled to sit out once and so Mikey and I played together in match 5. Here's a hand from that match:
Axxx / xxxx / Qxxx / x
LHO opens 1 Club and partner bids 1NT. You're red. Do you bid at IMPs?
This is one of those 'damned if you do and damned if you don't' decisions. 1NT is an almost-sure plus. If you trot out Stayman and partner bids 2 Diamonds, you're headed for a probable minus. Is the parlay of partner having a 4 card major and accepting your invitation and making the game enough to risk bidding? I passed. 4 Spades makes.
We won the 5th match and were in 3rd place, not far out of 2nd, but a full match out of 1st.
I took my sitout in match 6 and tried to take a little nap in the car. That turned out to be the key match of the day. We played against the 1st place team and only left 1 or 2 VP's on the table. All of a sudden we were back in contention. If we won our last 2 matches decisively, we were overwhelming favorites to win.
Match 7 was a disaster for Buddy and I.
Red vs White
AJTxx / QTx / Jxx / AJ
RHO opens 2 Spades and of course I passed smoothly. Buddy went into the tank forever and finally emerged with a red card. What a good partner! Would it be 800 or 1100? Just when we needed a good board! LHO had other ideas, though, and pulled to 3 Clubs. This was passed around to me. Now what?
It seems to me your only logical alternatives here are double and 3NT. Partner is a heavy favorite to have at least 3 Clubs here, so if they're in an 8 card fit whipping 3 Clubs seems reasonable and a more likely plus than 3N, which might only have 1 Club stopper.
Anyway, I whipped, -470. Ouch.
Buddy had something like
Kx / Jxxxx / KQx / Qxx
Later in the same match, all red:
Qxxxxx / Axxxx / x / x
I passed in 1st and LHO opened 1 Diamond. Buddy overcalled 1 Spade! RHO bid 2 Clubs.
4 Spades seems normal, but will almost certainly elicit a 5 Club or 5 Diamond bid from one opponent or the other and then I'm stuck with an uncomfortable 5/5 decision. I decided to operate and trotted out 3NT. LHO now bid 4 Hearts! and RHO asked Buddy about my 3NT bid. 'I guess he wants to play 3NT.' RHO bid 6 Diamonds. Do you now take the dive?
I felt I had too much defense and passed. Buddy might have a stiff Heart or Kx or by some miracle a Spade might cash.
Nope. -1370. Yuck. 6 Spades isn't a fantastic spot, I'm pretty sure it goes for sticks and wheels, but that's still 6 IMPs or so I left on the table.
A couple of boards later, the last board of the match:
AKQxxxx / Jx / Jx / Kx
2 passes to me. Normally I'd auto-bid 4 Spades, but how could we not be losing this match at this point? Maybe 3N makes and 4 Spades goes down. I opened 3NT. Float.
A diamond was led and the nightmare dummy came down.
Tx / Txx / KQx / AJxxx
Wonderful. 4 Spades is a brick and 3NT is hopeless. Buddy and I decided later that he should know I'm coming in a major and with such a good hand, he should definitely not leave me in 3NT but that wasn't on my radar as I played it.
I called for the King of Diamonds, knowing it would lose to the Ace and a Heart would come back.
When it held, I did an inner happy-dance and claimed. Still, that -470 and that -1370 in a 6-board match made the situation look pretty bleak.
We lost 7 or 8 IMPs on -470, picked up 1 IMP on the Diamond slam hand (+1390) and picked up those same 7 or 8 IMPs on a partscore swing. We had won by 1. (Not only that, but we were later to discover that we had moved into 1st place in the event.) I need a few more bad matches like that.
In the last match I picked up:
x / AJ9876 / Kxx / AQJ
I opened 1 Heart, Buddy bid 1 Spade, and I made the slight overbid of 3 Hearts. Buddy trotted out keycard and I showed my 2 without. Now he went into the tank and I knew that we were missing a keycard and the queen.
On a previous board in that match against 3NT on the uncontested auction 1H - 1S - 2H - 3N I had to choose a lead from something like:
KJT9 / xx / xxx / Axxx
Dummy had stiff A of Spades and only a Spade lead beats it but I led a (normal?) Club.
Given that result, I expected Buddy to eventually bid 6 Hearts on this hand and he did.
A Diamond was led to the Ace and a Diamond came back, not ruffed.
AKxxx / Kxx / QTx / Kx
x / AJ9876 / Kxx / AQJ
This hand was probably the match as I didn't expect our opponents to get there. Today was my lucky day and the Heart Queen was singleton, so I claimed quickly.
We only left 1 VP on the table that match (we went +500 defending a freely bid game on another board with no double) and with our 4 VP lead going into that match we had clinched the event. We had a lot more driving to do, so we bid our adieux and hit the road back to Austin.
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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Last night's set with Peter was decent with the exception of one board. But the bad board was a doozy. Here it is:
All red, 3rd, IMP pairs.
Q54 / QJ97 / J732 / 74
Peter opened 1 Club and raised my 1 Heart response to 3. Even Red at IMPs I didn't have anything to thing about. We'd arrived.
Lefty led the 2 of Spades.
J / T652 / AQT / AKJ95
Q54 / QJ97 / J732 / 74
RHO won the King and fired back a trump. LHO won the Ace and switched to a low Club.
- / T65 / AQT / AKJ95
Q4 / QJ9 / J732 / 74
I played the Ace King of Clubs and LHO produced the Queen on the 2nd round.
At this point, there's almost no way to go down on the hand, but I managed to defy the oddsmakers.
I played a trump to the Queen and King and LHO exited with the Ace of Spades, which I ruffed in Dummy.
- / T / AQT / J95
Q / J9 / J732 / -
Now it's a simple matter of ruffing a Club (making the Clubs good,) drawing the last trump and running the Jack of Diamonds for an uptrick. Unfortunately the magical combination of beer night (Friday is beer night in the Ferguson household) Lotro fatigue and possession of the beer card conspired to rob me of my mental faculties and I failed to appreciate that the Queen of Spades was good.
I cashed the Ten of Hearts, cashed the Jack of Clubs, discarding my spade 'loser' and here I stood:
- / - / AQT / 95
- / J / J732 / - |
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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I expected LOTRO (Lord of the Rings Online) to be a lot of fun, but I grossly underestimated just how addictive it would be for me. I've actually had dreams about the game, which is a first for me. Anyway, I've finally got my character up to the top level, level 50, and so I plan to get back to posting regularly here and playing some cards.
I have played some bridge in the last month. Buddy called me a couple of Saturdays ago and asked me to play in the Sectional pairs event that evening. We both could have played a little better but we still played well enough to win by a little over a board.
We played in the Sunday Swiss and I actually played much more consistently than I had the previous night, but our teammates were less than stellar and we finished nowhere (2nd in X being nowhere in my books.)
I've got a quick tourney lined up with Peter tonight so hopefully a couple of decent hands will appear and I'll post them tomorrow.
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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Buddy and I shot 56% in the Christmas Party game. Not good enough for anything. We had our chances, but for a Xmas Party game we didn't get many gifts.
I might blog a few more hands from that night, but here's the one that really set the tone:
Playing against a C pair, none vul, in 4th:
Q43 / AT63 / K / AQT85
Buddy opened 1 Diamond. I don't feel strongly about bidding 1 Heart or 2 Clubs here at matchpoints. 2 Clubs seems more of an IMPs bid, but maybe I'm delusional. Anyway, I bid 2 Clubs.
Buddy rebid 2 Diamonds. Now I bid 2 Hearts. Buddy bid 3 Clubs and I had a problem.
3 Spades is probably the right bid here, but rather than agonize forever I decided to risk 3NT. I figured the quicker I bid it the more it sounds like a halfway decent Spade stopper. I have extras and 3NT should make if they don't cash 5 Spades tricks on the go. If Buddy has Kx of Spades I'm wrongsiding it, but that's a pretty specific holding.
Lefty led the Jack of Spades (sigh) and Dummy tracked:
62 / KQ2 / AQT54 / J93
A typical Buddy opener.
RHO won the Ace of Spades and returned the 5. You're up. |
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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... In case you were wondering, I haven't died. This blog is far from dead (at least as far as new content is concerned.) I've been busy ... well, not in a constructive way, but I've finally succumbed to the temptation to try out one of the massively multiplayer online role-playing games we've all heard so much about.
I tried EverQuest last week and it was okay. I found the combat system pretty boring. Now I'm playing Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) and it's better. The most popular one is WoW (World of Warcraft) but I'll probably stick with LOTRO, I've never been one to follow the beaten path.
I'm playing tomorrow night with Buddy in the BCA (Bridge Center of Austin) Christmas party game (space permitting, I've heard they might be booked) and I'll blog a hand from that. |
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| Posted by Jonathan Ferguson at | | | |
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