Playing away

A few days ago I had the good fortune to play bridge at the Brisbane Waters Bridge Club in Woy Woy. We were up there on holiday, and I needed my bridge fix. So I contacted the club and asked if there was anyone there who could partner me for a game. Got a positive response within an hour and the afternoon’s bridge was arranged. The lovely lady who replied said: “Competition will be tough because a lot of Open players play on a Saturday. I am a novice too, but we will do our best!”. Sounded perfect. Bring it on. 

The bridge club was based at the local Community Centre and I arrived early to talk to partner about conventions. We agreed what we would play, and I learned in the discussion that actually she was the club President, and she had been playing for 10 years. Hardly a novice! So I had better bring my best game to not let her down and help us hold our own. 

The first 2 hands didn’t go so well… partner was in 2 part score contracts and went down by 1 in each. But she wasn’t frowning at me (yet!) and was mumbling that she perhaps hadn’t played them well (it turned out that both contracts were makable). 

But the next round proved interesting… my partner told me we were up against strong players. I was playing N, had 14 points and long clubs. The bidding got to 4H by E, and they were vul and we weren’t. So I thought: gotta be worth a punt to stop them getting a vul game… 5C. East looked at me sideways and tapped the table [I am hoping he was thinking… who is this guy??? 😂😂🫣]. He thinks for a while and bids 5H. Pass, pass, to me. Oh well, gotta double now. X. He looks at me again… “you’re a little bridge terrorist, aren’t you?”. Partner is looking a little rattled. I was smiling: “we’ll see”. 

Turns out everyone had at least a 7 card suit. E had an 8 card H suit, I had a 7 card C suit. But crucially there were no voids. So partner leads me a C, I make my A, and play the AS praying he didn’t have a void. He didn’t. And I have the KQ of H so we get them one off. Top board. Phew. At the end of the board he turns to me: “Well played sir! You *are* a little terrorist!” I think he was joking but I am not sure. 

We ended up over the afternoon about middle diddle… I call that holding your own: we did OK. And the Director said to me as we played our boards: you’re good at this, how long have you played? Head swells, and I promptly play a couple of bad boards. Cunning! Putting me off by compliments. I must try that. 

Playing away

A few days ago I had the good fortune to play bridge at the Brisbane Waters Bridge Club in Woy Woy. ..........

Luck in bridge; roll with the punches; Sapphire Coast Congress musings

I think it was Napoleon that declared he preferred lucky generals to good ones. Duplicate clearly minimises the luck in bridge, but it doesn’t eliminate it. Vicki and I competed in the Swiss Pairs on Saturday at the local Congress… we came 2nd last. A disappointing result even though we enjoyed ourselves at the far end of the room with some other no-hopers/unlucky pairs. 

Next day, we were in the teams event with Steph and Jane, desperately hoping not to let our team partners down. But we brought our secret weapon with us and our team won the novice section, came 12th out of 24 teams (we were all thrilled!). The stats indicated that Vicki and I placed 19th out of 48 pairs. Same people, same conventions, same experience, from 2nd last to 19th out of 48. Hmmm… how? Secret weapon. 

My opinion is that we had no luck at all on the Saturday. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong… below is an example hand where I think we were unlucky to lose over 8 IMPs. 22 of the 24 tables ended up with EW in 4S. We were NS. 4S is makeable but only 5 teams managed to get it. NS are always going to make the AK of D plus the A trumps (S). The key to making this contract is finessing south’s JS: once the 10S in W has won a trick it’s all plain sailing to make the 4S contract. Our opponents spotted this plan, it worked and they made 4S. But most didn’t. 17 of the 22 teams in 4S went down. Their opponents all collected nearly 3 IMPs. We lost 8. From just competing against opponents that saw the required play (when most didn’t). 

But on the Sunday at Congress in the Teams we seemed to have all the luck in the world… most things we did seemed to work… example below. We were EW, and our opponents were pretty useful… they finished 4th team in the comp. They bid to 6S by S, and from where I was sitting in E with 3 points, it looked very unpromising. Partner led 2H, promising an honour, so at least that’s something to work with. But with just one honour in C in my hand and their 6S contract (they must have decent shape), it looked pretty grim: I was relying on partner to come up with something. 

They ended up making 11, and we gained 13 IMPs because most NS pairs made a good S contract. We were 1 of 3 pairs to get the contract down. How did we do it? We chose the right opposition. The key to the hand is the KH in W which must be finessed to make 6S. Our opponents missed that and partner made the offside KS and the KH (which was onside) to get them down by 1: good old partner! But we were lucky: we were up against 1 of only 3 pairs that didn’t get the KH finesse. I dunno, maybe we put them off somehow? If I knew how, I would bottle it and sell it. 

As a novice player, I am learning to take both the good and bad scores with a pinch of salt. The great placings don’t mean I am suddenly good at bridge; and the (all-too-frequent) poor placings don’t mean I am not gradually improving. Bridge ability comes slowly. There are good days and there are bad days, and all that I can really hope for is that the good days slowly increase and the bad days slowly decrease. 

But the moral of the story is: choose your opponents wisely. And be lucky. 

Alec McQueen

Luck in bridge; roll with the punches; Sapphire Coast Congress musings

I think it was Napoleon that declared he preferred lucky generals to good ones. ..........

Yesterday we had 2 really interesting big hands… I played one terribly, and the other beautifully, if perhaps with more risk than maybe I should. 

The first hand I ended up as N in a pretty secure 6H, a spade was led from E and dummy came down. Counted the tricks and thought “I can make 7 here if I can win that KD”, so I played low to the K, which promptly lost to the A in W. Half way round that trick I realised the dumbness of my thinking… all those winners in dummy: I could throw my losing D in hand on them…. I don’t need that finesse at all. Duh! Making 6H is usually very satisfying, but in this case I knew that the majority of the room was going to make 7 cos they are not as dumb as me. 

The lesson I learnt was that I play as declarer too fast. I need to slow down, not get too excited, count to 10, and look at potential Plan Bs, Cs and Ds. Then I will see the flaw in my Plan A. 

But my frustration turned to delight on a subsequent hand… I picked up 17HCP, and partner opened 1NT…. gulp! Deep breaths… slowly now. Where might this go? We proceeded slowly (as one should with big hands). I was concerned that partner might drop me before game, but I engineered some forcing bids just to see what she might have. All seemed worth a punt… we had minimum 32HCP, plus I had some decent shape (5431). 4NT… partner bids 5S: but I was staring at the Q of the last bid suit… aha, don’t forget that partner does standard Blackwood… how many aces? 3: I had the other and 2 kings. To get to her 15HCP minimum we were perhaps missing a K. 

On sober reflection, I should have checked Ks with partner, but with all the As and decent shape I decided it was worth the risk… life in hands… 7NT. I have never bid that before, but there’s a first time for everything. 

I thought I was playing the hand so my heart rate was high. But no… partner opened 1NT, partner is playing… oh blimey, I hope I haven’t stuffed this up and landed partner in it! But partner played beautifully, and made the 7 quite easily. Phew!

I realised later that if partner had had the KH rather than the KD, we may have not been able to run the Ds without a finesse and it may not have made. But it was a pretty satisfying moment to bid and make 7NT.

Dumb to inspired in one afternoon. 
Alec McQueen

Yesterday we had 2 really interesting big hands… I played one terribly, and the other beautifully, if perhaps with more risk than maybe I should. ..........