Awbridge Monday afternoon Bridge is operating as a satellite of Badger Farm Bridge Club.  Membership is £5 and includes membership of the English Bridge Union until 31 March 2023.  As an affiliated club, Awbridge Monday afternoon Bridge also attracts masterpoints.

Our August session was won by Fred Hotchen and John Lawless with a score of 59%.

The next session will be on Monday 12 September at the usual venue, Awbridge Village Hall, Romsey Road, Awbridge, providing there is a minimum of three tables.

Please arrive by 1.20 for a 1.30 start.  The session will end by 4.30.  Table money is £4 for members and £5 for non-members, collected at the start of the session.  

You can come with a partner but if you don’t have one, partners can be found either in advance or on the day.  I appreciate knowing in advance if you are coming so I have an idea of numbers though it is not necessary to do so.

Fred Hotchen

fred.hotchen@btinternet.com

Tel: 01794 301 185 or 07771 854 347

The above hand (board 14) seemed to provide more than its fair share of anguish in the Awbridge April duplicate.

Depending on bidding systems, the bidding would have varied but an opening 2NT would be popular by many players.  Responses by North would have been geared to locating a 4-4 fit in one of the majors, either using ordinary Stayman, otherwise Puppet Stayman or Baron, all bids of 3♣.  In the above example a reply of 3NT by opener would have been appropriate opposite Baron or Puppet Stayman, both showing no interest in either major.

One South decided to open 1♣, not wrong, but unfortunate as West made a weak jump overcall in spades which was passed back to South who then made a takeout double.  North then bid 3♥ and played there.  Not ideal.  Another pair somehow found their way to 6NT which was way too high and went four off.  Not sure how that happened.  3NT was the normal and sensible contract but nevertheless provided most Declarers with difficulties.  Let's therefore take a look at the play...

Hands like these are not easy as there is no obvious line and to some extent the outcome is dependent on what the opposition does.

A spade lead was commonplace.  The correct card is the ten.  That is 'top of an interior sequence' though many players these days play 'strong tens' against no trumps so if the 10 is led, it promises a higher honour (not the Jack).  Some Declarers covered with the Jack which was the first mistake as playing this card cannot be beneficial to Declarer in any way.  West would hardly have been leading the 10 from KQ10.  Anyway for those who didn't cover, the Queen then appeared from the East hand and Declarer now has to make a decision whether to win or duck.

Let's say Declarer wins.  Looking at all four hands, nine tricks are now there - Two spades, four clubs, two diamonds and a heart.  Easier when you can see all four hands rather than at the table but if you count your tricks and place the cards correctly, it all falls into place.

Now let's say Declarer ducks which happened at one table I watched.  East switched to a diamond and Declarer played the ten beaten by the Jack and Ace.  Declarer lost a club trick but didn't make the Jack of spades as the defence attacked diamonds instead and Declarer went one down.  Nine tricks can be made on the diamond switch.  Playing the 10 is a fruitless exercise as East is bound to have the Jack or the Queen.  The winning line is to play the 8 and finesse against the 9.  This takes the Jack and Ace as before but now Declarer can make the 10 of diamonds by finessing against the Queen.  This is the correct way to counter the diamond attack - Once the 8 of diamonds finesse succeeds, Declarer can now play for 'split honours' whereby West will have either the Queen or the Jack 75% of the time, a pretty good bet.  The nine tricks now come from one spade, one heart, three diamonds and four clubs.

3NT can always be made with careful play.  The difficulty is that there is no obvious line of play or source of tricks.  Declarer has to respond to whatever the opposition throw at him and delicately keep the hand under control then, one way or another, he will come to nine tricks.  Communication between the hands is not all that easy so any strong lines of play may result in difficulty getting between the hands.  At the same time, the defence also have issues and can easily get overactive and let the contract through so a bit of a tricky hand all round.

What's the biggest score you've ever achieved on a single hand?  I think a grand slam redoubled and vulnerable losing all 13 tricks must be the max and that would 'achieve' minus 7600 though in practice, quite an improbable score!

The above hand looks fairly innocuous.  Nobody can make a game and you would expect one side or the other to end up in a part-score, certainly not 7NT redoubled!  Let me explain.

Having got bored with Candy Crush, out of curiosity I thought I'd try playing a few hands on BBO (Bridge Base Online) where you can just join a casual game with three other unknown players.  Not sure how the scoring works but it is 'imps' so some kind of teams scoring and when I joined I found myself partnering Isabella from Italy whose current score was minus 52 imps.  I don't know if this is why her previous partner had left the table but anyway we played a couple of hands and I quickly realised nobody had much beyond a basic understanding that it was Strong No Trump, Stayman, Transfers and weak Twos.

On the first hand I watched Isabella play herself off in a cold 3NT and on the second hand the opposition could have bid a lucky slam but only got as far as 3 Clubs.

The above hand then came up and I hoped I might be able to reach a decent contract, maybe in spades or No Trumps.  However, I was fourth caller and Lois from the USA opened a strong No Trump to my left which was passed round to me so I doubled.  It was then passed round to Leo from Poland who bid 2 Clubs.  Much as I would like to have bid something, I was on best behaviour so I refrained and Lois bid 2 Hearts.  Partner passed and Leo bid 3 Clubs but Lois was having none of that and bid 3NT.  I didn't really know what was going on but I was just contemplating a friendly double but before I had the chance, the already bizarre bidding went completely crackers when Leo raised to 7NT.  Well I couldn't resist that so I doubled but that wasn't quite the end of the auction as the redouble card then landed on the table!  Partner led a small diamond but by the time dummy appeared, a robot appeared in the East seat and Leo had vanished, probably with a few Polish swear words!

It wasn't too difficult to defeat the contract.  Declarer won the first trick, switched to the King of hearts.  I didn't bother to duck, played the King of spades then returned partner's suit and, after running it, bless her she returned a spade, not the Queen unfortunately but Declarer had discarded the Jack of spades from dummy and the 7 and 10 from her own hand so I was able to 'risk' the 9 then play the Ace to crash partner's Queen and collect several more spade winners.  7NT redoubled went 10 down for minus 5800.  I don't remember ever scoring anything even half that and I'm always quite happy with an occasional plus 800.

Nothing so spectacular has happened since but the random deals online are often quite entertaining and from someone who never wanted to play online, I actually quite enjoy it.  These casual games are free by the way and you can also play with your own partner so a good opportunity to have a practice and make sure you don't have any similar misunderstandings.  Despite the above fiasco the standard of Bridge is variable though not unreasonable but obviously the bidding is pretty unsophisticated.  I haven't yet tried playing with a regular partner but if you are playing against another regular partnership I expect you would get a better game.