Sep 21, 2012
Helsinki league R1/9 1st half: The autumn battle is on
- Helsinki league R1/9 1st half: The autumn battle is on
The local Helsinki league starts with a match against Nixu. League has once a week 32 boards match with half time. Scoring uses VPs with maximum victory being 25. There is two division levels where both are playing full round robin to find the winner. The division one where we are playing has 10 teams.
Deals are duplicated between both divisions. Duplicated boards caused our table to start from the board 14.
Nixu has been one of favorites for many years and they are again. Of course players changes a lot in a local teams competition. But the match promised to be a tough start for the league.
Juho is my partner in the match. Our CC and system notes can be found from https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4izKEmfNQIBSzdac19HeGp2Q00 (PDF)
Board 3: Chickens don't fly, do they?
A competitive biding where I hold long bad opponents suit before opponent isn't fun to judge. Either Juho or RHO may have the remaining spades. I don't fear trump promotion from the lead with my ace-jack-ten forth support. But it may cause trouble in lines that involve ruffing multiple spades.
My values look like working help for my partner. I have ace forth support that is over two cards more than my partner expects. I also have singleton in the second opponents suit. I don't know how good fit thy have in clubs but I suspect a good one because we have a good heart fit while they don't have good spade fit. That leaves me with probable two ruffs.
Juho promised a better hand than direct 4 heart bid which places about 8.5-9 tricks to his hand. With my likely 3 tricks we are definitely in close to a small slam. But I don't like my three small diamonds or five card spades. Specially diamonds run risk that finesse in there would be offside making our slam fail because of two diamond losers. Those two side suits made decide to go for a sure plus in a game.
Specially in competitive biding conservative bids are long run winners. None knows what kind of twists biding has taken in other table that may lead to our team mates producing an unexpected score. The unexpected score happening in this hand too when other table did bid to the grand which requires queen-jack doubleton in diamonds to make.
Of course this time Juho had all values working for the small slam making it cold. But only one point less in diamonds would make it below 50 percent slam. I think that we would have a good chance to avoid the slam if Juho has a worse hand. Those my pass for an inferior action compared to a slam invite with five clubs.
Team mates: 7♥ W +100
Result: +680 (13; 0.0)
Possible result: +1430 (17)
Form those results we can quickly calculate that a slam would be worth biding only when odds*17 >= 13 -> odds >= 13/17 = ~75%. Of course that match assumes our opponents going down but it shows why conservative biding decisions do win in a competitive auction.
Total: -4
Board 5: Adventure in card reading.
Juho led the heart jack and declarer dropped 9. Was that lead from shortness? The singleton would give at least 8 cards and like 9 cards to spades and diamonds. We (me, dummy and declarer) have about 28-33 points together leave Juho with enough values to overcall. That makes it very unlikely that lead is singleton. But of course doubleton is still possible from a shape like 4-2-4-3. But Juho failed to lead a spade that would be more attractive from most of combinations than Jx heart lead. That makes also doubleton unlikely.
That leaves only one shift clearly superior. That is setting up our spade trick. Also Juho will have chance to continue with heart if he has the doubleton. In combinations when spade lead comes.
Play continued with spade finesse losing and spade return to declarers ace. Then I'm again winning a trick with my club ace. This time I can play for thee different meaning full holding for Juho that include heart singleton, spade doubleton and the ace of diamond third.
It is easy to see how heart singleton or spade doubleton could gain a trick from ruff. Ace of diamond third can gain a trick if my shift to the suit prevents declarer from discarding two losing diamonds on the majors. Those discard could be possible after either of my major return if Juho doesn't ruff the return. As a bonus the diamond shift also works if Juho has spade doubleton and ace third diamond and four card heart.
In both ruff cases opponents have a higher scoring major contract available that makes playing for those distributions less likely to matter. Combining the scoring with possibility that Juho would bid with many hands that would fall to a ruff category I decided to shift to a diamond. But no shift did actually mattered in the table.
Team mates: 2♣ S +90
Result: -90 (0; -2.9)
Total: -4
Deal 7: Adventures continue
First deal where I have to first talk about Slawinski leads. The lead of diamond 3 denies holding 2 because we never lead the second lowest card. Possible combinations where 3 is led are singleton, doubleton with a higher spot card, three cards with a honor, four cards without a honor and 5 cards with a honor. Singleton isn't practical because that extreme shape wouldn't pass to 2 spades when hearing a fit exists. Also lead of 3 is impossible from five card suit because declarer is marked with HH2 or better diamonds because Juho didn't lead high from his honor sequence.
The second trick provides some more insight to the shape when declarer leads spade jack and Juho gives odd count with the nine. That leaves declarer singleton spade, 5 or 6 hearts, 3 to 4 diamonds and 2 to 4 clubs. That makes trump shift no win play because clubs can be always thrown to the dummy's spade tricks. That made club shift a mandatory play because nothing else could matter.
But latter on I was a bit puzzled when declarer revealed the 5 card club holding which made the club shift incorrect defense. There is no way that declarer can discard club losers when holding 5 of them. But of course defense didn't matter because declarer mis-guessed trumps giving us the fifth defensive trick for heart jack. But in pairs declarer would have taken 9 tricks giving us a horrible score.
I'm not sure if I remember the lead correctly. I do remember that I felt confused after the deal and opponents did mark same lead to the bridge mate. But I quickly made my self to forget the deal completely because it had danger to affect following boards if i started analyzing it in the table. It would be very unusual position to psyche the lead when we are defending a part-score. In part-score contracts declarer has a huge information advantage without defensive signals.
But I may have read the lead incorrectly which shadows the memory of played card. I haven't yet learned to read the Slawinski leads automatically correctly. We played them first time in Hämeenlinna
EDIT: Juho confirmed that he did lead 2 which means I did read the original lead incorrectly and later forgot the actual card.
Team mates: 2♥ S +140
Result: -110 (1; -0.6)
Total: -4
Board 14: Where is the fourth trick?
This time you get to follow Juho defending because he had an early defensive problem. My spade 8 lead followed rule that we lead 1/3/5 in partner's suit. That leaves declarer with either two or three spades. But without entry to Juho's hand defense can't ever take 3 spade tricks making trump shift pointless. Juho cached the second spade to prevent declarer from discarding it to either of minors.
After everyone followed two rounds of spades Juho is in crossroads. Declarer can have many different hands where either club, diamond or spade is required to defeat the contract. Following hands are examples from each case.
Spade matters when it either setups 5th heart to be second trump trick for partner or heart queen depending on where return is ruffed. Diamond matters when that return breaks entries to blocked clubs and setups one of honors to partner. Club matters when ever partner has a trump trick and club king third or forth.
Diamond and spade can matter only in very specific combinations while club can provide the setting trick in a lot more different combinations. Those combinations include slow and fast trump tricks for partner.
But in life deal nothing matters because declarer had too bad trumps. I actually made a defensive error that lost third under trick when I ducked the second trump trick. If I win the second trump I can lock declarer to dummy setting up my heart 4 to be third under trick. But the third under trick wouldn't have mattered to the score when comparing to five clubs making.
Team mates: 5♣ N +400
Result: +100 (11; +7.7)
Total: -4
Half time comparison
We had quick opponents leaving us time to play chess match. We definitely didn't know how to play chess. Both gave free pieces after each others.
But bridge results looked great in half time. We had managed 66-5 lead score in half time. It looked like every decision made in both table had scored our way. But we still have a second half to play where opponents has same amount of chances to produce a come back.
Our buttler score was 1.71 for us. Our team mates scored 2.27. Those scores are clear indicator that both of our pairs played a solid game while opponents made a few errors.
Sep 9, 2012
BBO random game: A fun set spiced with mistakes
- BBO random game: A fun set spiced with mistakes
Sunday evening I logged in to Bridge Base Online. I was looking for a game good to kibitz. But I noticed a table where Dana and Chris were waiting for a second opponent. I didn't need any more encouragement to choose playing instead of kibitzing. I enjoy playing against good opponents.
I didn't know partner's nick name. After I had checked the profile there was very little addition to my knowledge. All I learned was self rated skill telling intermediate but an old active BBO member.
Board 1: 3NT strip squeeze
But then the biding was already going on with a lovely hand. Dana decided to pre-empt after my opening putting our side under some pressure. We managed to find a good contract in 3 no trump. But when there is competitive biding breaks are often bad making play a real challenge.
The long thinking break to 3NT combined with what I saw in dummy caused me a surprise. I would have expected my partner to rebid spades blindly. But pass is a very good judgment call with ace queen doubleton in clubs. There is real club ruff risk in 4 spades. 3NT has a risk that hearts are wide open when we have wasted values in clubs. I had a feeling that my partner skill level would be far above average intermediate BBO player.
But I needed to short my toughs quickly for the declarer player. I quickly counted only 2 clubs, a diamond and a spade. That means I need to score 5 more tricks from somewhere. Options are playing for minor tricks from my hand or spades from dummy.
I would like to play diamonds from my hand towards the jack doubleton to gather for chance that Dana has the diamond king doubleton. But I don't have any entries to my hand that don't risk losing more often than they win. That means I can only count for 4 diamonds trick if suit breaks 3-3. If diamond breaks 4-2 I have still chances that either spades or heart provides me the night trick. But there is very large risk that defense manages to score 3 plus hearts and 2 diamonds before I can setup diamonds. That makes playing diamonds only a bit more than 3-3 break. I estimate diamond to be less than 40% because of club break from biding.
Spades provide 5 more tricks always if I just have entry to them and defense haven't scored 5 tricks before I have spades setup. But again the problem is that defense is very likely to score too many tricks if they manage to win two spades. That leaves home going chances to a single loser spade play. Having spade king onside is about 6 chances of 18 possible based on free slots. But it is enough that Dana has either of honors (I would lose to Kxx) or spades are breaking 2-2. That raises spade play odds to be about 50 %.
After deciding to play for spades I'm back in my original problem that I don't have good entries to my hand. When playing for spades I could over take club queen because I'm unlikely to score club king anyway. But I declined to do over take fearing going for many under tricks if opponents managed to setup Dana's clubs. I suppose that was a fear based on purely impulse instead of any facts.
After impulsive failure to overtake clubs I was left with diamond entry, heart entry and ducking the first spade trick. The duck was also quickly eliminated because there is real danger that Dana would gain lead and kill my club entry to dummy. Also heart has huge problem that even if ace is onside I maybe setup too many heart tricks for defense before my spades are good.
There is one last issue of diamond finesse. Taking losing diamond finesse would be catastrophic allowing Dana to kill my dummy entry. But more important is to analyze the effect of not taking a working finesse. That leaves defense with a diamond trick, a spade trick and one or tow heart tricks. That means not taking diamond finesse works regardless of the diamond king position.
How long it took me to start playing the hand? I probably took a bit over one minute thinking break to wonder the issues. Most of details that I wrote about here are automatic reflexes to the position making thinking process a lot faster than presenting same in written text. Those who think I'm slow player base their judgment on thinking breaks like this. I admit that I can take longer than usual thinking breaks but outside those I'm fast player.
The hope gets crushed
After playing diamond to the ace and leading the spade I got the bad news. Dana showed out making contract even theoretically unmake-able. I simple didn't have any entries to any tricks in the hand. I won't have any chance to setup diamonds or spade before defense has too many tricks. But to keep better control in the hand I decided to duck the spade.
Chris played a diamond back to Dana's king. That play woke up a hope that diamond would be 3-3 providing me home going chances. Of course my minor hope was crushed again two tricks later when 4-2 diamond break was revealed. I have my blocked 8 tricks if I setup diamond.
But missing entries presents a better option. I could play for strip squeeze to score two spades, a heart, two diamonds and 3 clubs. One down but I'm happy to go one down with a style in a hopeless contract. Playing well when going down often produces a minor positive score in teams.
I need to duck a trick to rectify the count for strip squeeze after unblocking clubs. That means ducking has to happen in hearts. Luckily heart duck is safe in the hand where I'm 99.99% sure that heart Q and J is split or in Dana's hand. Of course Chris can prevent the heart duck if he plays his honor to the heart trick but that is very unlikely defense. After gaining lead back I cashed my tricks. Chris threw hist last heart and I played a diamond to force a spade return to the ace-queen doubleton..
I made a minor mistake in the ending when I didn't unblock spade queen. The unblock would have given me a chance to score the last trick with diamond seven.
Board 5: One entry defensive decision
Defending with the weak hand is real challenge sometimes. There is two many unknown factors and very few won tricks. In the fifth deal I was put to face one shift problem early in the hand.
When taking first look to the dummy and the opening lead I feel that lead is a bit surprising but lucky. I happened to have perfect clubs to help. I played club jack to the first trick to tell my partner that lead did strike gold.
But then second trick is a bit surprising when a club comes back. After my partner plays a low club it has to mean that lead was coming from king-queen third. Too bad that means clubs are blocked and we can't take 3 tricks from it.
Partner also has either one or two diamonds based on biding. That leaves 8 or 9 major cards. Based on play so far partner should exactly 5 spades. That gives possible shapes 5-3-2-3 and 5-4-1-3. In extreme case 5-5-0-3 would be possible but then I would expect a heart lead.
I can also see that this is very likely to be my only time in lead. What shift would help us defeat the contract? I know that single time leading spades won't open the suit so that lead feels very unattractive. Spade play can easily make my partner choose a active defense that gives Dana a trick that she couldn't make on her own.
Club could help eliminating my partner from minors for a endplay after diamonds. Hearts and spades both rate to help avoid the endplay by setting fifth trick for defense. But playing hearts feels dangerous if Dana has KJT(x). That could backfire when partner returns the suit. That led me to choose the spade play which I didn't like at all.
My fear did materialize even tough it only meant eight trick for the declarer. Later my partner tough to be in three suit squeeze and discarded club queen to diamonds. That allowed Dana to score ninth trick in clubs.
So I can take blame for signaling with a trick in the first trick. Also my spade play gave a trick as I feared. If I would go for passive line by playing club back we wouldn't be able to forfeit two tricks for Dana.
Board 9: Brilliant or stupid? But no bulleting to write about it.
I would rate that two most common actions are pass and 5 clubs. I felt that my partner has to have a bit extra HCP to 12-14 take out double. Unless opponents have all honors in hearts that eliminates balanced hands. Those I expected partner to hold 4 spades more often than in average takeout situation. I made a bulletin bid of 4 spades.
I got what I deserved (expect missing double) when partner put down 15 count 3-3-4-3.
Board 14: Questionable penalty pass.
I was put into horrible situation when my partner decided to make balancing double to a biding sequence where opponents haven't promised any fit. On top of that I could see that opponents probably held majority of points. At least they would be better values than mine. Not fun moment to choose between action that all look losing
In this kind of auction balance double is a penalty double! Ok. It still is take out double but partner is likely to pass it often. That means you should have good values for defending if you balance.
Passing to a contract that I expected making didn't feel good. It felt even worse when I have to lead something with all leads looking bad. I ended up to spade lead even tough opponents looked likely to have 7 cards in there. With my ten doubleton it was very likely to cost a trick. I suppose I should have selected some other lead but they all looked having potential to give a trick.
Play continued with diamond jack- I ducked because I had worse spot cards than dummy. Partner returned spade 7 that was probably signaling for diamond. But message didn't come over the table because I couldn't see the 6-4 shape for the double. I might have understood the message if return was the spade jack.
But now Chris made a error that gave defense chance to beat the cold contract. He played spades voluntary giving me a ruff. But as I said I couldn't see 6-4 shape which made me play clubs in hopes we could setup a trick there before diamonds could provide another discard if declarer had jack-ten doubleton.
But I should play for 6-4 shape because any 5-4 shape is doomed to let the contract make. We had already lost the tempo in my spade lead. But it is hard to play for extreme off-shape bids when defending. There is too many unknown variables to solve without taking time thinking possibility of surprising biding choices. But I'm still to be blamed for letting that two heart make when I was given chance to beat it.
Board 15: My finesses work more often than yours!
There is good reason why some people have more working finesses than others. This hand is a good example why.
I pass over 2 diamond to test if my partner can double it. If partner fails to double 2 diamond I'm happy to defend to collect hundreds. But after double I expect partner to hold shortish diamond and some spades. That improves my hand I want to make an invite with 3 spades. Too bad my partner didn't like my invite with minimum values.
After second trick wasn't ruffed by Dana I'm practically making 9 always and very often 10. I also need two diamond ruffs that makes Kxx trump always score a trick. That combination made me play for singleton king offside. The singleton king felt the best chances for game bidders to fail making 4.
Of course there wasn't any matter how I play trumps this time because Dana had Kxx onside which makes me always score 10 tricks what ever I play. But I took the extra chance that I could win if finesse wasn't on but made same number of tricks when it was on.
Board 19: Fun with complete count.
Sometime there is a lot fun in hands where cards are easy to read. That makes it possible to choose lines that would be very risky without the information. That includes most of strip squeezes and throw in plays.
First I decided to eliminate heart from Chris hand. Hearts are likely to be 6-1 but there is small chances that they would be 5-2. But in either case Chris probably has Q because Dana didn't lead hearts. I decided to play a small heart from my hand to keep Chris in play towards dummy.
The next play was spade back that I mis-guessed. I don't know if I should have guessed correctly. Biding in those zones doesn't promise much values. Also I tough Chris would shift to spade from queen
Guessing wrong didn't really matter in my option. I was still destinate for elimination end some fun. I continued playing clubs. When Chris showed out in third trick I had close to complete count. Only two cards were unknown and it would be easy to discover before committing to the throw in.
I played diamond ace to make sure Dana didn't have diamond void. After that it was trivial to play two rounds of spades hoping for a diamond back. But no diamond was coming back when Chris threw spade ten under king. But I still got my fun when I ducked the diamond forcing a diamond return to king-jack doubleton.
Defense would have been good if I had only doubleton spade. But Chris admitted that he should have know the count and avoid the second over trick. But I failed my second over trick chances already in spade return with my wrong guess. That means two wrongs cancel each others.
Board 22: An optimistic minor game
I have to present a great defense from my partner. Chris and Dana reached an optimistic 5 clubs that has chances to make.
Not an easy decision in trick two. If jack is from doubleton the shift must happen now or it is too later. While there might be 3 first trick coming from spades if the jack is a singleton. Playing for the singleton spade fails if declarer has Ax diamonds and xx spades. While playing for doubleton fails if partner doesn't either of diamond king or ace.
But it has to be remembered that jack played from doubleton is more likely than singleton jack. There is more doubleton holdings than singleton holdings making doubleton over twice as likely as singleton. The money is near even after accounting for expected values from the biding because declarer may hold more than 14 count or less heart values than in actual deal.
Board 29: Simple biding or not?
Biding a slam can look simple but none else managed to bid it. I know it is BBO but still there is some optimistic pairs quite often.
The play needs to be a bit careful if diamonds were splitting 5-1. But this favorable position allowed easy cruising to 13 tricks.
Fun is over
I was very happy about my decision to play. My partner was dependable in away that I knew most of time what everything meant and what was going to happen next. Dana and Chris played well making playing against them pleasure. As a bonus the BBO dealer had generated some challenges into the set.
Aug 26, 2012
Hämeenlinna Round 5: Does the lead stand the tough opponent?
After 4 rounds score is a bit surprising in top 3. We have clear lead to other strong contestants.
| Team | VP |
|---|---|
| We | 81 |
| Miramisu | 72 |
| Vilttiketju | 70 |
15 VPs is enough to quarantine our victory when we play against second placed Miramisu. But they are a strong team collected from Finnish open and women national team players since 90s. In the last years they haven't been traveling to international events any more. Our opponents will be Mika and Antti
Board 33: Cards follow the odds
There is one advantage in playing against strong opponents. One can always trust to understand opponents bids and plays. Too bad that didn't help much in my declarer play here.
1NT with only one entry to dummy but 3 suits to play from dummy doesn't sound like a fun contract. This time it was simple because only one suit provided alone home going chances.
That left only question how to play the club suit. I knew that my club queen would be covered if king was onside removing chances for a BBO style defense. Opponents leads were 3rd/5th that told clearly how hearts were. With less free slots behind my club suit I decided to play for ten doubleton offside.
After clubs provided me second entry to dummy I was in crossroads how to play for a over trick. But I decided to abandon dummy entry because there was minor chance of going down if I played spades or diamonds my self. Also playing clubs would leave me some end-play chances in some layouts with my heart 9. The actual layout and defense didn't provide the over trick.
When looking the results I was a bit surprised that none beside me made 1NT after a heart lead. A declarer managed to success after diamond lead when playing from north.
Team mates: 1NT S +50
Result: +90 (4; +3.2)
Total: -57 / +47
Board 36: A part-score battle with plenty of mistakes.
We are going to return back to the usual situation. That is defending a part-score. But this hand had a twist already before opening lead.
| Bid | Meaning |
|---|---|
| X | At least mildly invitational balancedish. |
| 1NT | Semi-forcing as unpassed hand |
| 2♥ | 3+♠ support 9+ |
| 2♠ | 5-8 |
It is actually no problem with our agreements but I decided to make it a problem. I have a mildly invitational hand but not very good for spade contract. That made me look for 1NT instead of supporting partner. I violated the "support partner with a support" -rule in a competitive auction. I deserved to end up defending when partner has good playing strength.
I made a big counting mistake in defense. I managed to forgot that Antti had ruffed twice which led me to think he had one more trump left. My slip actually gave declarer possibility to manage shorten trumps enough to end-play me. But luckily Antti was sleeping too and failed to end-play me in the end position.
That is my second defensive error that didn't cost anything. This time my error had chance to matter to results that makes me score it accordingly in totals.
Team mates: 4♠ S -100
Result: +100 (+5; +2.6)
Total: -63 / +47
Board 37: Lead that doesn't matter but matters
The last sips of cup holds the most sugar. In this event sugar is a lead problem.
To solve the best lead I would need to do a statistical analyze for many hands matching the biding. But I'm not prepare to do it for this deal just yet. I may do it in future to provide a bit more depth to the lead problems.
But lets go through my in table analysis. I have 9 points while opponents are trying to stop into 2 hearts. That puts their maximum hcp around 22. That leaves Juho with at least 9 hcp but no more than 11. That made me thing it was odds dummy wouldn't have minimum bid because there was no invite.
My shape doesn't promise to provide any ruffs and Juho rates to have two or one heart without much shape. Also my slow values are warning about possibility that they would be ruffed unless I play lead a trump. That thinking process made me pick a trump.
Dummy didn't delight me at all after lead when it came down with 4333 shape with spade king and diamond ace. My lead didn't have any effect on double dummy results. But in practical play it eliminated Mika's need for second dummy entry. Mika would want to play trumps from dummy because he was missing king and jack but after my lead he could use the diamond entry to take the working diamond finesse.
Team mates: 2♥ W +110
Result: -140 (-1; -0.6)
Possible results: -110 (0)
Total: -64 / +47
Match results
The last comparison has special tension when there is victory at stake. This time I was expecting a very even match based on our table play and skill level of opponents. But our team mates managed to surprise me producing score card that compared 22 point victory.
Tournament results
I have to thanks my team that produced an excellent score.
| Team | VP | avg |
|---|---|---|
| We | 103 | 20.6 |
| Vilttiketju | 86 | 17.1 |
| Miramisu | 80 | 16.0 |
We managed to produce +1.15 to the butler. But after doing postmortem I feel that I was probably the weakest player in the team. There was possibility to score about 64 IMPs more for our team. Some of those IMPs would have just pushed our score beyond the 25 maximum in VP scale. Of course it isn't practical to except no mistakes in bridge table but the cost of errors in this short match should be less than half what it was.
Hämeenlinna Round 4: Back in action after a "silent" round
The second last round we faced the local team who were behind others after 3 rounds. The match is a must win game where errors shouldn't happen.
Board 25: A safety play pays off
Juho ended to ordinary looking 4 hearts where he have to do a full day work. I think this deal is the best one of day.
Defense didn't play diamonds voluntary which put maximum pressure on Juho. But Juho spotted and executed the safety play nicely. In end he could just note that the play was worth executing.
I'm sorry for Juho if I missed any other great plays from him. But I try not to follow too carefully when my partner declarers.
Team mates: 5♥XN +300
Result: +420 (+12; +8.4)
Total: -39 / +43
Board 26: Error is to play for a error
It's my turn to declare 4 hearts. But it is hard to match Juho's previous show
That was horrible start! In first trick I can only see 1♦+2/3♠+4/5♥. Even in the best major suit case I still have to score one trick from clubs. It looks very unlikely that club ace and heart king would be onside. Also getting a ruff with heart 9 doesn't look very likely. Without diamond lead there would fairly good chance to setup fifth spades for tenth trick. It also looked unlikely that overcaller would have 7 card suit. I decided to play for a bad defense instead of the best possible odds when my jack-ten diamond holding offered some possibility that defense wouldn't want to continue diamonds.
Too bad this time club ace was doubleton. Also heart and spades behaved making my line only way to go down in the contract. I felt stupid after failing a contract because playing for a poor defense.
Team mates: 4♥S +100
Result: -100 (0; -9.8)
Possible result: +620 (+12)
Total: -51 / +43
Board 29: Impulsive biding leads to wrong contract
I think that biding is overvalued in many postmortems. It is generally easy to spot where biding scored badly even tough EV defense between winning and losing bid might be relatively small. Same time noticing the small playing mistakes that can have huge EV value is a lot harder. But here I must present a biding error that has clearly negative EV.
Holding poor spade suit isn't favorite to play well in a Moysian fit. Specially holding 4 clubs promised trump control problems. Of course partner may have 4-4 reds or 3-3-4-3 making diamond hard to play. But in long run diamonds are clear favorite to produce more tricks with my AQx support to probable 5 card suit.
My two spade bid got what it deserved with 5-1 spade break defeating me. To increase the insult the lucky 3NT makes from my hand.
Team mates: 2NT N -120
Result: -100 (-6; -6)
Possible result: +110 (0)
Total: -57 / +43
Match results
Our opponents managed to make their share of errors too. That gave confidence to me that score would be good despite my two serious mistakes.
We managed a comfortable 25 IMP victory. That was enough to raise us to the pole position with 81 VPs from 4 matches. The lead became very clear because Vilttiketju lost heavily to Miramisu who are our last opponents.
Hämeenlinna Round 3: The most effective game is quite and solid
Third round matches us against a team from east Finland. The match promised to be challenging but I was expecting a victory.
Board 17: Splinter leads to a slam
The match was quite game for us where we managed to avoid mistakes. There wasn't anything much to report because our good boards were just errors from our opponents except this one.
The hand and biding isn't any how special. But surprisingly only 3 pairs managed to bid the slam that can be claimed after testing trumps.
I got diamond 6 lead. I took quite long thinking break before playing to the trick two but I couldn't found any major chances if trumps would break 3-0 either way. Both opponents would be likely to be in position to over ruff me before I could afford to ruff high. The best possibility looked like one of club honors in east.
Team mates: 4♠S -480
Result: + (+11; +6.6)
Total: -39 / +31
Match results
There was some mistakes by our opponents and we played good game. I was expecting a win from the match but after scoring I was surprised.
Our team mates managed to produce awesome score. The comparison produced us 42 IMPs more than opponent managed to score. That was again clear proof how our team mates can generate good results from nothing. We scored maximum 25 VPs making come back to the victory battle.
Hämeenlinna Round 2: Every mistake counts in a tough match
The second round tested us a bit more. Vilttiketju could be counted as a pre-tournament favorite. As we were also a strong contestant match promised to be a tough one for both.
Board 9: Unlucky lead makes bad defense correct one
I didn't have much impact on board 9 results with my 2 points. My second best (spade ten) card had a strong influence to the lead.
The lead gave declarer temp and an easy trick. Also raising with club ace made setup clubs easier when declarer has only 2 losers.
Optimal spade lead and club duck would put declarer into a test. Declarer would have only 3♠+1♥+2♦+1♣ before defense has managed to open spades. 3-suit squeeze won't help much because declarer has to discard first or when Juho cashes the last spade.
That leaves declarer with only two winning plays in club. Either play to king and/or duck the second club to the singleton ace. After club to king declarer has better tempo letting him score 3♠+2♥+2♦+1♣. After those 8 tricks it would be trivial to end-play Juho with a spade to give the night trick with diamond.
Team mates: 2♦W -100
Result: -630 (-12; -7.4)
Possible result: -600 / +100 (-12 / 0)
Total: -33 / +11
Board 12: Defensive error didn't matter to trick totals
Twelfth deal provide again some challenges to solve. East-West misjudged our playing strength and pre-empted us in uncontested auction. But when opponents are making mistakes defense has to be extra wakeup to score on the mistakes.
The start of hand was good for defense setting up heart ruff. I had a good plan that involved keeping trump control, getting heart ruff and pulling trumps to limit declarers tricks. Plan was executed flawlessly up until I had my heart ruff.
After the heart ruff my thinking changes that I should prevent declarer from setting up spades with club continuation. But that is hopeless idea when I held too many and too good spot cards to interfere spade cashing or cross ruff.
That leaves only possible defense to pull trumps and hope that declarer doesn't have enough spade tricks to score rest. But I got away in the live deal because there was nothing that would have mattered in the ending.
Team mates: 3♦E -50
Result: +100 (+2; 0)
No effect on result.
Total: -33 / +11
Board 14: Right defense needed declarer to help
Again I'm picking up a hand which I'm defending. It starts to look like defending has most option for potentially improved score.
The singleton trump lead felt good one when dummy game down. Even tough declarer wouldn't have chance to cross-ruff from lead unless he had club void. Declarer soon confirmed that there was no cross-ruff chance by playing club to trick two.
At this point I failed to count declarer's tricks. I should count them already in trick 3 because I had enough information for complete count. Too bad I failed to notice that my information was enough for the count.
If I would have counted the tricks it would have been clear that I have to play declarer for 5 card diamond only. With 6 cards diamonds declarer can always score 9 trumps and 2 black tricks or one black and HA. That leaves following possible hands for declarer.
In left variant declarer can have 2 major aces, 3 heart ruffs, 5 trumps and last trick with club jack. But I can prevent spade entry to clubs by playing spades now.
While in right variant declarer can score only one major trick, 3 heart ruffs, 5 trumps and one club totaling 10 tricks. Playing spade king back would give declarer a spade trick but that would be only exchange for a club trick. That makes spade king shift work in either hand that felt most likely for the biding
But failing to count the tricks didn't prevent me from playing spade king. Based on points shown and promised I made mental images where partner would either hold heart ace or spade queen. That made spade continuation stand out as option killing dummy entry and possible creating entry to Juho's hand for trump play.
But actual deal where Juho had sub-minimum values for his shape there was no killing defense. But my spade king play still only exchanged the club trick for the spade queen trick. But bonus came when declarer erred to discard a losing heart for club queen.
Too bad our team mates went down in same contract but doubled.
Team mates: 5♦XE -100
Result: +50 (-2; +2.8)
Total: -33 / +21
Board 16: Defense that played for the declarer
Finally it is time for part-score defending. I think that defending part-scores accurately is probably the hardest thing to do in bridge table. Of course there is large spectrum in the level of challenge.
I was having my first problem already in trick 3. I looked at club Q worried because it was a possible slow trick for declarer. That made me return a diamond hoping that we would manage to setup our red suit winners before declarer would have setup club queen for a discard.
After declarer had pulled trumps hand had gained a surprising twist. If declarer was 3-2-4-4 he would have tried for a heart ruff. If he was 3-3-4-3 it should be very unlikely that jump would have happened. That leaves declarer only 3-4-4-2 as possible shape. With that shape it is important to setup our club trick before declarer has enough tricks to discard club from dummy.
Too bad I failed figure the shape out in the table so I still had illusion that club shift wouldn't gain anything. I decided to discourage club that most likely influenced Juho to choose the wrong defense.
Of course Juho could have solved declarer's probable shape and find the club shift. But making small heart shift doomed the defense. Heart queen would be likely to be ducked which would still leave a chance for Juho to wakeup and make club shift. My king-jack-ten combination forcing me to play a high heart under queen would be likely wakeup call.
Team mates: 2♠E +110
Result: -140 (-1; -2.2)
Possible result: +100 (+5)
Total: -39 / +21
Match results
We had a bit worse result than we should have made in our table. That should translate to an even match or slight lose. But our team mates generate a testimony for their top-bottom results from whole weekend. They managed to fit 3 disasters to a single match.
Our combined effort to score badly was rewarded with 22 IMPs lose that translates to only 8 victory points. We still have barely over average score with 33 VPs but there is no extra points to waste.
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