A Comedy of Errors: August 2012

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.
1`NT`	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.

Hämeenlinna Round 1: Good start with some mistakes

I have had a break from bridge tournaments since the end of last year. A few hands which I have played in BBO have been mostly with random partners. But bridge

But I decided to avoid stretch the non-playing record any more. I started asking Vesa Fagerlund if he had any plans for Hämeenlinna Sunday teams. Vesa told me that he was going to be playing with his brother Juuso but I was welcome to the team.

The third victim was Juho who couldn't resists the temptation of bridge. Those we had formed a team that had already played together in Brasov 2009. I could only hope that our level of play would be better than in Brasov. Anyone going to look

The teams event was the last competition in Hämeenlinna tournament. In Friday and Saturday pairs competitions our team mates had had ups and downs but both results were good ones. Teams were the smallest competition attracting only 6 teams but featuring some strong teams. But of course skill differences were large in the field.

We played 8 boards per round totaling 40 boards. Order of play didn't match to the board number order because hands were predealt with a machine. But I will present deals in the number order.

We play a complex 5 card majors and short club based system. Most of conventions are from or based on Ambra. We decided to change our leads to Slawinski that means small from even without honor or odd with honor. Signals are standard upside down count and attitude, Smith echo and Odd/Even discard.

Board 1: Competitive biding for a part-score

First match was played against a local senior team which had players featuring recently in the Finnish team championships final. But today the prematch favorites are the younger generation.

The board one provided a challenging part-score hand.

Bid	Meaning
`X`	At least mildly invitational balancedish.
2`♠`	To play
2`NT`	Competitive or slamish unbalanced
3`♣`	Invitational
3`♦`	Asking stopper
3`♥`	Asking stopper
3`♠`	Invitational

Mr. East forgot to alert 2 diamonds to be non-forcing but pass wasn't any shock when looking my hand. Juho's pass over 2 diamonds has a bit narrower range than usually in natural system. We play Good/Bad 2NT over 2 diamonds bid to allow opener to show 3 different strength ranges. Direct bid to 3 level is non-forcing invitational while 2NT can be either competitive or game forcing hand.

I was fearing that Juho had length in diamonds. With my Ace-ten doubleton Juho would be unlikely to pass the doubled contract with diamond side suit. In that case I would be likely to play 5-2 spade fit with jack high suit. That didn't feel good contract so I decided to pass and try to defeat undoubled 2 diamonds.

Too bad optimal defense meant only no over tricks when declarer had king seventh and dummy provided queen-jack doubleton support. If I would have doubled 2 diamonds we would have been likely to try to to play in 3 clubs that were a bit lucky to make when king-queen of hearts was onside. Of course opponents might compete to 3 diamonds but that would be a plus score too.

Team mates: 4♣ N +50
Result: -90 (-1; -2.2)
Possible results: +110/+50 (+5/+3)

Total: -5

Board 2: Freak without biding agreements

The next hand was a freak that managed to find a cap in our quickly updated agreements. After a minor opening we don't have any bid to show major-minor two suiters. That forced me to choose between bad options in the biding.

Holding a hand that is worth of 10 tricks opposite a moderate diamond support made me choose twice forcing bids that wasted precious biding base. In end I couldn't show my two suiter. Otherwise biding was reasonable up to a slam that is not hopeless one. But neither it is even close to the best slam in the hand.

But as it happens heart ace is offside and we only had 11 tricks in spades. Defense can do nothing to prevent Juho from scoring 12 tricks in diamonds. This hand only shows how important it is to have agreements for rare strong two suiters. Those agreements don't waste much of competitive bids but provide tools for hands. Those are often impossible to bid sanely without tools.

Team mates: 6♣X E -100
Result: -100 (-5; -6.6)
Possible result: +1320 (+15)

Total: -25

Board 6: Cards didn't penalize a playing error

In board 6 I was again put to the test in slam zone.

Bid	Meaning
2`♥`	3 card heart support
2`♠`	6 clubs and 4 spades
2`NT`	4-2-3-4 or 4 spades and 5 clubs
3`♣`	6 clubs and 5 spades

2NT is a systematic bid for the hand. But singleton king to the partner's suit makes it hard to describe after 2NT bid. Partner is likely to expect better chance for heart to run if I cue bid it in a slam auction. That made me choose a psychic bid to show 6-4 shape with my 2 spade bid.

Auction continued with a few twists. 3NT means some slam interest but minimum hand which limits the opener hand. Later on 4NT would have been RKCB but hand wasn't for ace asking.

Play needs to be careful to gather for 4-2 heart break without losing control. The ducked trump lead prevented any chance for cross ruff but still maintained the master trump in defense.

The played line could have been improved by a small per cent if cashing heart ace before ruffing any of them. That avoid danger of heart ruff when hearts split 4-2 and spade ace doubleton is with queen forth hearts. That is about %5 chance lost in bad play. It doesn't sound huge but excepted value lose in the play was -12.5*0.05=-0.63. Errors of that magnitude are simple unacceptable.

Any practical line would have worked this time because cards were very friendly for the contract. Even though there was serious error in the play I will score the results as positive for good biding.

Team mates: 4♠ S -480
Result: +980 (+11; +6.6)

Total: -25 / +11

Match results

We managed to score 33 IMPs more than our opponents. That translates to exactly maximum victor points. Even tough score looks great there was first class errors. Those errors could have easily made us lose the match. Luckily for me opponents managed to make more mistakes in same boards.