Suffolk Contract Bridge Association

CAPTAIN'S LOG

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Click on Captain's Log to see analysis by the County Captain, Paul Whetton, of some interesting hands played by Suffolk teams in the National online Teams League and Eastern Counties League.

Latest report is of the ECL match played on March 2 which also includes information regarding Paul's resignation from his role as County Captain.

Apologies for no report on Match 7 because of other commitments.

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Suffolk v Beds July 2023

County match V Bedfordshire (7/7/24).

So, the new season has finally begun and the results were better than I had expected. The C team continued in their usual way winning their match by 44 imps, well done in deed. Even in spite of a massive 20 imp loss on board 26, they never looked to be in any trouble and the final result was never in doubt. Richard Evans and John Bloomfield led the way as usual. The B team managed a 10 imp win after an adjusted score on board 5 with a creditable performance by all 4 pairs. At the half-way point they were 10 imps ahead which is an indication of how tight the match was, but they had a very bad 3^rd quarter losing it by 25 imps and so they were behind going into the last quarter. However, they pulled out all the stops over the last 8 boards scoring imps on 6 out of 8 boards and only conceding a solitary imp. None of the gains were great, but they were enough. Unfortunately, the A team were not so successful losing by 9 imps. However, when you consider that we were 26 imps down at half time and we lost quite a few more in the 3^rd quarter, it was rather surprising that we only lost by 9. We did not concede an imp in the 4^th quarter. It does make you wonder why we could not do that earlier, but that’s bridge for you. It often makes fools out of all of us, but we still keep coming back for more. Nigel Bardsley and Tony Philpott put in a very good card under the circumstances, and I am only sorry that we could not support them better.

The A team’s problems started on the very first board. -

Board 1 North

None vul.

Dealer North ª 7542

¨ AQJ

§ KQ5

West East

ª AJ9 ª 103

¨ 1097 ¨ 8654

§ J2 § 9874

South

ª KQ86

¨ K32

§ A1063

West North East South

1¨ pass 1ª

Pass 2ª pass 4§

Pass 4¨ pass 4NT

Pass 5¨ pass 5ª

All pass

At 3 tables, the contract was 4ª by North but Mark made a slam try and ended up in 5ª by South. Perhaps this was a case of nerves or, as it was the first board, it may have occurred before they were completely settled in, but the hand is just not strong enough and only 10 tricks are available. The 4§ bid is just too strong. The South hand is a 16-count, but the hand is evenly distributed so that there are no ruffing values and the spade fit looks to be no better than 4-4. But why 4§ anyway? I would play 4§ as a splinter but, presumably, Mark and Caroline play it as a cue bid. But, in that case, why not bid 3§ or is that some other convention?

However, the fact that Caroline could only raise to 2ª should have made Mark a little wary. In fact, I would have signed off in 4ª immediately. Caroline would be free to continue the auction if she felt she had values that she had not shown so far.

I hope that they will forgive me for this. I only show it for the benefit of all County players and Mark did redeem himself later on in our fight back. In the B and C matches, nobody tried for slam and only the odd imp was exchanged depending upon whether the final contract was 4ª or 3NT.

It was good to see that the slam was bid by all 6 Suffolk declarers on board 2. Board 3 was interesting. I have been asked, several times recently, what do I see as the main difference between playing in the A team compared with B or C. My answer is that, whenever possible, the opponents will always try to make things difficult for you in the auction. Andre and David found this on board 3 deciding to take the push to 5ª because they were vulnerable against non-vulnerable opponents, and you cannot criticise them for that. However, on this occasion, there was competition at every table but only the A team found themselves on the wrong side of it. However, Andre and David were really put on the spot when North jumped to 4© leaving no room at all for them to judge who had the balance of strength.

But board 6 is another example of how good competitive bidding can cause trouble. The weak 2 opening bid always cuts down on your opponents’ bidding space as Mark and Caroline found on board 6. Mark doubled and, with AQx in hearts, Caroline bid 3NT. I am sure that, on many occasions, this would have been the correct action but a double of 2© usually includes 4 spades and, with 4-card spade support, I would have gone for 4ª. However, 4ª failed twice in the B team game earning them 6 imps, whereas, it was made every time it was bid in the A team match. So, perhaps, the next time I am asked about the difference between A and B team standards, I will say declarer play. The big mistake at those tables where 4ª failed was the failure to eliminate the clubs :-

Board 6 North

E/W vul.

Dealer East ª QJ102

¨ J732

§ K2

West East

ª 984 ª 53

¨ KQ985 ¨

§ 7643 § Q10985

South

ª AK76

¨ A1064

§ AJ

At one table, the lead was a club and the play is to eliminate the clubs and the diamonds ending in the South hand and lead a small diamond towards the table. West takes that and leads his singleton heart which declarer plays low on in dummy. East wins but has to lead a club giving a ruff and discard. Declarer ruffs in hand discarding the queen of hearts and leads another small diamond in this position :-

North

ª J

¨ J73

West East

ª ª

¨ Q985 ¨

§ 7 § Q10

South

¨ A106

Declarer loses just 1 heart and 2 diamond tricks. At another table, expecting East to have a 6-card suit for his weak 2 opening bid, eliminated the clubs, the trumps and the hearts by leading to his ace before giving West the lead in diamonds. Having only diamonds and clubs left, he was going to have to either give a ruff and discard or lead into declarer’s A10 tenace in diamonds. Either way, 10 tricks are made.

Elimination and throw-in play is one of the easiest coups to learn and it occurs fairly frequently. It is worth a little study and there is an article in ‘Raising the bar’ on the County web site.

Sometimes, we make our own problems and board 9 was a typical example :-

Board 9 North

E/W vul

Dealer North ª 6

¨ A9743

§ Q84

West East

ª A854 ª QJ1093

¨ 102 ¨ K86

§ 92 § AJ1053

South

ª K72

¨ QJ5

§ K76

West North East South

1¨ 2§ All pass

Ralph and I had an argument about this one. I was West and my view is that there are several ways of bidding Ralph’s hand and he picked the worst of them all. He could have cue bid 2§ to show a weakish hand with 5 spades and a secondary 5 card suit. He could have simply overcalled with 1ª. However, he chose to bid 2§ so that it would be easier to bid the spades on the next round without raising the level of the bidding. The big problem with that theory as far as I am concerned is that I have no idea that he has a spade suit and I know that someone is playing games. Why did South pass with a 15-count? I ‘know’ that it is not Ralph with a strongish hand and so it seems to me that Ralph’s 2§ bid had upset him in some way. I never expected Ralph to have the spades and so I passed.

The moral of this story is that, if you have the spades, bid them. Either of the other 2 choices mentioned above mention the spades either directly or by inference and so I would have raised the spades. Who wants to play in clubs anyway when there is a sensible alternative but, in a contested auction, spades are king.

The B team played rather well for most of the match but they had a bad spell in the 3^rd quarter and board 23 incurred the largest loss :-

Board 23 North

All vul

Dealer South ª Q8753

¨ AK

§ J10983

West East

ª AK6 ª 10943

¨ QJ4 ¨ 7532

§ Q64 § 72

South

ª J

¨ 10986

§ AK5

In the C team match, nobody bid 3NT and only 1 imp was lost. In the A team match, 3NT was bid 4 times. Unfortunately, one Suffolk pair failed to make it, but it made at the other 3 tables. In the B team match, the Bedfordshire North/South pairs both bid and made 3NT, but the Suffolk pairs did not bid the game. Admittedly, it is not the easiest game to bid, but there are indicators that point in the right direction, not to mention that it should be bid because the opposition are likely to bid it at the other table and you have to guard against losing a game swing.

The play of the hand is not completely straightforward because you have to be very careful with entries. But there are 2x5-card suits, one in each hand, and they can be developed to provide 4 tricks. You may not be able to make 4 tricks in both suits because of the entry issues. A diamond lead, in particular, makes life difficult. However, you do not know about that in the auction. So, with around 24-25 points and 2 possible sources of tricks, 3NT has good chances and should be bid.

One pair bid like this :-

West North East South

1©

Pass 1ª pass 2¨

Pass 3§ pass 3NT

All pass

and that seemed pretty sensible to me. 3§ was probably 4^th seat forcing rather than showing a second suit, but it works for me.

And now for that A team recovery. If we had actually scored another 10 imp, even Houdini would have been jealous. It was not to be, but it was still rather gratifying and leaves me hopeful for the future. Board 26 was the biggest gain, 16 imps on just the one board :-

Board 26 North

All vul

Dealer South ª AQ

¨ AK94

§ KJ432

West East

ª 10982 ª KJ7

¨ J876 ¨ Q103

§ § 86

South

ª 6543

¨ 52

§ AQ10975

West North East South

Pass pass

Pass 2NT pass 3§

All pass

This was Caroline and Mark’s auction and, frankly, I do not find it very convincing. I hate the Acol 2NT opening bid, particularly when it seems to be necessary to bid it on distribution such as North’s hand. I do not pretend to understand what Caroline’s 3© bid meant but Mark’s 6§ looked a little like a punt to me, but you cannot argue with success.

6§ was not bid by any other Suffolk pair but it was bid by both Bedfordshire C team pairs and accounts for the 20 imp loss referred to earlier. However, at my table, Ralph and I decided to make it harder for our opponents. After I had seen 2 pass cards appear on my screen, I decided that, as I only held 5 points and Ralph must have less than 10 for his pass, North had to have a big hand. Also, as I had a void, so the distribution could be quite wild making it quite likely that they had slam on, so I opened the bidding with 1©.

This must have given North something to think about but he, eventually, produced a take-out double. Ralph, I am sure, would have liked to raise directly to 4© as he had 5-card heart support, but because of the vulnerability, he contented himself with just 3©. Obviously, South could not believe that North only held 2 spades as part of his take-out double and so he bid 4ª expecting 4-card support. North seemed to give up at this point and he passed. South did well to make 9 tricks but that was +100 instead of minus 1370!

Note that our opponents did not even complain about my terrible opening bid. Psychic bids are a part of the game and, so long as they are not a part of a partnership agreement, they are perfectly legitimate. As Ralph responded just as he would have if I had held a normal 1© opening bid, no rule was infringed but we made a massive 16 imp gain by a little bravery and a little ‘white’ lie. By the way, I recommend that, if you are thinking of trying something like this, it is best if you make the same bid as you would with the distribution you hold and only lie about your strength. Some people have been known to psyche on a singleton, but that is only likely to result in a very large penalty.

However, I was rather disappointed that Ralph were sitting East/West. If we had been seated North/South, we could have bid it like this :-

North South

1§ 16+ points 1¨ negative of positive with 5+ hearts

2§ club support, shortage ask 2ª heart singleton

6§

6§ is likely to be a good contract even without the club queen because we have at least a 5-5 card fit. But the heart singleton is vital.

Our last attempt to square the match, not that we were aware that we had closed the gap by so much at the time, occurred on the very last board :-

Board 32 North

E/W vul

Dealer West ª

¨ KQ532

§ 32

West East

ª AK9843 ª J76

¨ 1098 ¨ J6

§ 108 § KQ94

South

ª Q1052

¨ A74

§ AJ765

West North East South

Pass 4¨ All pass

This was the auction at our table and I was sitting in the West seat (nice comfortable office chair with a nice view down my street, from my office window). Ralph, as he always does, applied extra pressure by raising to 3ª. South did not like his partner’s heart suit and so he doubled and North ended up in 4¨. Ralph and I were very content because we had deflected them from playing in 4©. 4¨ was one down.

When Nigel Bardsley sat in the West seat, he also bid 2ª, but Tony did not raise him. However, South bid 3NT and North passed. 3NT was also one down. 4© is the only makeable contract and that is not a certainty. Caroline Gemmel and Andre Gray both bid 4©. Unfortunately, Caroline was forced in spades every time the opponents gained the lead and so had to go one down. Andre was rather more fortunate. For some unfathomable reason, West had not opened the bidding with 2ª as occurred at every other table and so East had no reason to lead a spade. That was all the luck that Andre needed and he soon made his game for another 10 imps to the good guys.

All in all, I enjoyed the match and I was far from being disappointed. Yes, there is room for improvement and I will be looking to make changes, but not too many and not all at once. Gently does it.

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