Helsinki league R1/9 1st half: The autumn battle is on

1. 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.

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.