Bridge Blog 1104: Buffalo Fall Sectional Day III

In his considerable wisdom, teammate Jim Gullo summed up our Sunday Swiss team experience this way – there’s always one hand that makes the difference between winning and losing.

In the first match, against the estimable Christy Kellogg and Bert Hargeshimer, that was a 6 No Trump slam, bid and made at the other table. Partner Denise Slattery and I signed off at 3 NT and to make matters worse, I opted to avoid the winning Heart finesse and won only 10 tricks. That cost us 11 International Match Points. Take that away and we wouldn’t have lost the match, 25-19.

But Christy and Bert are A-list players (as are Jim Gullo and myself). Match 2 pitted us against Sue Neubecker and Jo Nasoff-Finton, B players with no shortage of experience, but B players nevertheless. Instead of having our way with them, however, we suffered our worst defeat of the day, 38-11. It wasn’t just one hand that made the difference. There were three. Jim and his partner, Elaine Kurasiewicz, spent the interval between matches disputing each others’ bidding methods.

Match 3 found us sitting opposite another good team down on its luck – an even better B-rated bunch that included Allen Beroza and Bob Sommerstein. Unclear in retrospect whether we should have defeated their 3 NT contract on Board 3 or whether our teammates should have made it, but that was the big one. To succeed completely, though, Denise and I needed to stop bidding on Board 6, where we went down 3 vulnerable at a mere 2 Spades. Those two boards cost us 11 and 5 IMPs, respectively. We lost 20-8.

Winless going into Match 4, we met the Bradford, Pa., ladies – Maxine Davis and Bonnie Smith – who had driven 2 hours Sunday morning to play with us. Here we gave away a 13 IMP board – Elaine and Jim let their opponents make a slam – but won all the others. The margin was 27-13, our first victory of the day, just in time for the lunch break.

We should have won Match 5 against a C-rated team that, at our table, included Mary Ball and Joyce Frayer, but these adorable ladies nailed us, thanks to Board 17. Mary opened 1 NT, Denise overcalled 2 Hearts. Cappelletti, I concluded. Hearts and a minor suit. I had the minors and only a singleton Heart. I bid 2 NT to ask Denise which one. She left me there. Down 4. An 11 IMP setback. We lost the match, 17-15.

For Match 6, we met another down-in-the-depths team in the persons of Judy and Bob Kaprove. We might have given them their first victory of the day had Denise not bid us up to an inspired 6 Spade slam, which I brought home. At the other table, they didn’t bid the slam and they didn’t take 12 tricks. We really needed those 12 IMPs. Our margin of victory was only 15-7.

We could have won Match 7, too, had Denise not abandoned what had been a day of consistency and self-control on Board 27, a severely distributional hand. Denise challenged opponents Florence Boyd and Ruth Wurster with a high-level Diamond overbid, then upped the ante even further with a 5 Heart bid, which was promptly doubled. I had three low Hearts, three Diamonds with the Ace, maybe 7 high-card points total. Do I bid 6 Diamonds, which also will be doubled? The axiom stipulates: Don’t save your partner. But in this case, partner needed saving. 5 Hearts went down 8 for a minus 2,000 score, a number you never want to see in Swiss teams. Six Diamonds doubled? Down three perhaps. We gave away 18 IMPs and lost 30-17.

Our reward for the day – two wins worth 0.26 silver points apiece. Add that what Art Matthies and I accumulated Friday afternoon and I came away with 3.09 points for the tournament.

Meanwhile, Swiss teams weren’t as rewarding this time as they have been at other sectionals. There were only 18 teams, continuing the blight on attendance that began on Friday (the Canadians who usually come to our sectionals stayed away). The winning foursome – local expert Jay Levy, his protégé Ethan Xie and two out-of-towners – collected just 7.70 silver points.  

Bridge Blog 1103: Buffalo Fall Sectional, Days I and II

         “How’d we do this morning?” I ask partner Art Matthies as he returns to the event room at the Main-Transit Fire Hall in Amherst during the lunch break Friday. “We were within hailing distance,” he declares.

         Hailing distance turns out to be half a match point, a mere 0.30% behind Dotty May and Joe Rooney, who are third in the A stratification in the morning side game. One more trick somewhere – or maybe less of a bumpy start to the day – and we’d be the ones winning 1.07 silver master points.

         Nevertheless, our 54.46% is more than respectable. We have high hopes for the afternoon.

         It’s a drastically smaller side game after lunch – 3½ tables instead of the eight in the morning session – and Art and I get the final sit-out. So although it feels like a good game, we don’t stick around to see how we did. It isn’t until late in the evening that I get to check my e-mail and discover we’re head and shoulders above the rest – 58.75%. 2.57 silver points.

         I hope to repeat Friday’s good fortune Saturday with Judie Bailey, but we fail in our first strategy. We don’t get into the side game. Judie’s late. Director Brian Meyer is ready to start things rolling when she arrives. Adding us to the side game would create half a table. And the big double-session open game is half a table short. We could create two problems, he says, or no problems.

         It’s Judie’s birthday and I try mightily to stifle negativity, but we’re having a bad day, a really bad day – both of us. We don’t take all the tricks we should. We forget how many trumps we’ve drawn. We fail to find our maximum contracts. 

Plus we are playing extraordinarily slowly. We get admonitions from Brian Meyer. We test the patience of Bud Seidenberg and Jay Levy, who are following us East-West. They wait at the change of every round. (Their reward comes later – they’re first overall for the day.)

         We finish the game so late that we get only a half hour for lunch. Judie wants a birthday lunch at Anderson’s, the frozen custard and roast beef place a couple minutes down Main Street. When we return, seconds after the afternoon session begins, I catch a quick look at the morning scores. 37.18%. Miraculously, we’re not last. Just within hailing distance.

         Vowing to do better in the afternoon, we actually do, but we don’t raise any ripples. 43.11%, 10th out of 13 pairs.

         At least Sunday should provide some sort of salvation. It’s rare to get shut out entirely at Swiss teams, although it can happen. Plus I get reunited with partner Denise Slattery, who’s moved away to the countryside south of Rochester. “I don’t come back to Buffalo for just anybody,” she says Saturday morning.

Bridge Blog 1102-A: Blondes Have More Fun

I didn’t see her. I scanned the whole room Friday, Sept. 6, at the Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines, Ont., and nobody sitting in her customary seat – South – looked like Selina Volpatti.

Yes, she’s here, director Diane Kunselman said. Table 3. I looked. I looked again. Omigod. She’s a blonde!

Her son-in-law, a hair stylist, wanted to do it and she agreed, sitting under bleach for six hours. I quickly adjusted to the new Selina, liking her more and more as the game progressed. And what a good game it was. 58.01%. Second North-South. 0.91 of a point. Blondes really do have more fun.

The next day, she inspired similar surprises at the Airport Bridge Club in Cheektowaga. Pawan Matta, who is letting her hair go gray, was particularly delighted. But we couldn’t recreate the fun. 43.65%.

Bridge Blog 1102-B: Yes, Really

The following Friday, Sept. 13, in St. Catharines, it was jamais vu all over again. None of the blondes sitting South were her. Yes, she’s here, Diane said again. Table 1. Right behind me. Sure enough, there she was, sitting North, but not bright blonde. Ash blonde. That son-in-law again.

Not as much fun this time, but I blame myself. I overreached three times in the final two rounds of the day.

Had I not pushed to a 6 No Trump slam on Board 23, going down one, we would have been 4 match points to the better.

Had I not bid at all on Board 24, we would have settled at 1 NT instead of 3 NT, we would not have had a bottom board and we would have collected at least 3 more match points.

And on Board 26, the last hand of the day, had I returned to Spades, Selina’s opening bid, we would have played at 4 Spades, making at least one overtrick, instead of 3 NT, making just nine tricks, which happened at four other tables where a Heart was the opening lead and they took four quick Heart tricks. We would have been 3 match points to the good.

North (Selina)

Spades: A K 10 9 4; Hearts: 10 9 4; Diamonds: 5 4 2; Clubs: A K.

East

Spades: 8 7 2; Hearts: K Q 6 3; Diamonds: 10 9; Clubs: Q 9 8 4.

South (moi)

Spades: J 6 5; Hearts: 5 2; Diamonds: A K Q J 7; Clubs: J 5 3.

West
Spades: Q 3; Hearts: A J 8 7; Diamonds: 8 6 3; Clubs: 10 7 6 2. 

Let’s face it, I fell in love with that solid Diamond suit and figured we could make an extra 10 points in No Trump. And in the less-than-likely event that the opponents don’t lead a Heart, we're golden. It’s a top board – 12 tricks. That happened twice elsewhere. If we're that lucky, 7 more match points.

So we're sixth out of 13 North-South pairs with 49.65%, half a match point out of fifth, which would have given us a small reward.

I vowed to Selina that we’d improve Saturday at the Airport Bridge Club, but then a virus intervened.

Bronchitis. That little cough I had Friday morning became a scratchy throat, a runny nose and a lot of fatigue by the time we got home that evening from “The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid” at the Road Less Traveled Theatre in downtown Buffalo and a late snack afterward at one of our favorite stops – Coco’s. I texted Selina just before midnight to cancel.

Our next get-together – Sept. 27 in St. Catharines. More jamais vu?

Bridge Blog 1101: 4,000!

John Ziemer delights in nailing me on a doubled contract. With an endless succession of ill-advised sacrifice bids, I’ve given him many a 1,100 score. But now he’s come back from the Pittsburgh Labor Day Regional Tournament with a new benchmark in penalty scoring.

John and partner Mike Ryan sent an unfortunate pair of opponents down eight, doubled. Their score? 4,000. John says he’s never seen a number that high. Me neither. 

According to the numbers on the backs of the cards in the bidding box, there aren’t many higher. You can’t get there playing offense. The highest score for someone bidding 7 No Trump, doubled and vulnerable and making it, is only 2,980. Anyway, here’s the hand. Board 25, east-west vulnerable:

 North

Spades: J 10 8; Hearts: 6 3; Diamonds: J 9 4; Clubs: J 10 9 3 2.

 East

Spades: 7 3; Hearts: A 10 9 5 4; Diamonds: K 10 7 5 2 Clubs: 8.

 South

Spades: A Q 2; Hearts: K J; Diamonds: A Q 8 6 3; Clubs: K Q 4.

West

 Spades: K 9 6 5 4; Hearts: Q 8 7 2; Diamonds: none; Clubs: A 7 6 5.

According to the hand record, John and Mike, playing East-West, can make 6 Diamonds if East is declarer for a score of 1,370. What happened, however, was that North gave a cue bid of 3 Diamonds. John doubled. North redoubled. South left it in. Down eight, redoubled. At most tables, East-West played the hand at 3 NT and made a couple overtricks.

Bridge Blog 1100-A: School Daze I

I was woefully short on sleep when I sat down for Bill Finkelstein’s Wednesday morning lesson at the Airport Bridge Club on Aug. 28. Two of his demonstration deals, however, woke me right up. Each of them required an astute turn of the cards. Fortunately, my lesson partner, Gay Simpson, and I were alert enough to make the correct plays on each of them and the opponents were not.

Hand #10. West is dealer.

West

Spades: A-K-Q-J-10-9; Hearts: 9-4-2; Diamonds: K-5-4; Clubs, A.

North

Spades: 7; Hearts: A-K-J-8-7-5; Diamonds: Q-7-6-2; Clubs: K-8.

East

Spades: 6-3-2; Hearts: Q-6; Diamonds: A-9-3; Clubs: Q-10-7-4-3.

South

Spades: 8-5-4; Hearts: 10-3; Diamonds: J-10-8; Clubs: J-9-6-5-2.

West opens 1 Spade, North bids 2 Hearts, East bids 2 Spades, West bids 4 Spades and all pass.

This one gets decided early. North leads the A-K of Hearts,
South plays 10-3, signaling that he has only two of them. East also has two of them, as evident from the Queen on the second trick. North leads the Jack of Hearts. Declarer could ruff, but dummy’s Spades are all woefully low. South will win the trick and later on North-South will capture a Diamond. Down one.

However, declarer doesn’t ruff. A losing Diamond is tossed. At our table, South pitched a Club. Bad move by South. Pitching a Diamond would beat the contract. But now declarer can win whatever North leads, ruff West’s third Diamond, draw trump and take all the rest. Headline on Bill’s commentary on the hand: “Refusing a Ruff, Loser on Loser Play, Defensive Discard.”

Bridge Blog 1100-B: School Daze II

Hand #6, which came next, tested us on the defense. Here we had to take advantage of two opportunities to beat the North-South slam, but we had to seize them right away.

East is dealer.

North

Spades: A-K-Q-J-9-8-5-3; Hearts: K-J; Diamonds: None; Clubs: A-K-Q.

East

Spades: 7-4; Hearts: Q; Diamonds: K-8-6-5-4-3; Clubs: 7-6-4-3.

South

Spades: 10-6; Hearts: 4-3; Diamonds: Q-J-7-2; Clubs: J-10-9-8-5.

West

Spades: 2; Hearts: A-10-9-8-7-6-5-2; Diamonds: A-10-9; Clubs: 2.

East passes, South passes, West bids 4 Hearts, North bids 6 Spades and then everybody passes.

What to lead? One of those long Diamonds? Or the singleton Queen of Hearts? The Queen it is. West comes up with the Ace. North plays the Jack. That’s the tip-off.

North should have done a quick count of the cards before playing that Jack. The dummy has two Hearts, the 4 Heart pre-emptive bid should tell North that West has eight of them, which leaves only one Heart in East’s hand.

North’s only hope, then, is to discard the King, thereby casting doubt in West’s mind as to whether that Queen really was a singleton, since East could easily have led the Queen from a Queen-Jack doubleton. A doubting West then might want to shift to the Ace of Diamonds in hopes of grabbing the setting trick. North will ruff and Bingo! Slam! At our table, no doubt was raised. North played the Jack. West led another Heart. East ruffed. Down one.

Headline on this hand: “Preemptive Opening Bid, Deception.”