The Beer Card

Camrose finale

2012-03-06T07:00:00.000Z

The second weekend of the Camrose Trophy proved to be a disappointing affair for my team. We did not play as well as we could have done and, despite winning two of the five matches, narrowly missed out on fourth place when we capitulated to Wales in the final sixteen boards.

	Total
England	200
Wales	177
Scotland	160
Ireland	122
SBU	121
Northern Ireland	109

We had three heavy defeats over the weekend, giving our opponents maximum wins. We conceded lots of double-imps swing in our match against the Scotland team which, to be honest, was not the best advertisement for the country's bridge; but against England and Wales it was the constant, seemingly never-ending, stream of imps in their direction that showed how the better teams could punish you for minor errors.

The team is hugely disappointed that we did not finish in fourth place. Not only did we beat both Ireland and Northern Ireland at both weekends, but it would also have represented the 'normal' finishing place for Scotland.

However it is easy to be negative when you've finished with a bad set. Trying to get a broader perspective we did win five of our ten matches, an achievement that is way above most people's expectations. We were only one VP off fourth place and it is only the fact that it was ours for the taking that hurts. For the nation's second team we have represented the country with credit and won more matches than the 'first' team. The challenge for all my pairs is to reduce the small errors and establish themselves in the open team so that they can experience the Camrose on a regular basis.

It has been fun captaining the team and being appointed for both weekends is a good practice in my view.

Sheila, Bill, Steve, Anne, Paul, Irving and Mike

Information for the weekend is available at camrosebridge.com.

Size doesn't matter

2012-02-29T15:02:00.002Z

It is position that counts in the club's teams championship, not the size of your victory, but we were not displeased with our twenty victory point win in last night's fifth round. We won all but one of eight 3-board matches and even that one was a draw.

Imps seem to fly in from all directions but it did seem like hard work at the time. Well, not for me, as LotG only allowed me to play one hand in the session, but she had to work hard with some tricky hands. Naturally difficult hands are helpful as we are more likely to get them right and this was the source of our score.

A couple of interesting decisions:

Of course I probably should have used Stayman to try and escape earlier as it might be more difficult for them to penalise, but you are where you are so what do you do now? LotG and I play a simple system so bids are natural and redouble is to play. However, if she remembered, then she had the opportunity to redouble to say that she had a five-card suit and interest in running. But what would you do with your normal rescue mechanism?

Earlier in the evening the boot was on the other foot:

What seems right here? Again, LotG and I do not play Lebensohl so two notrumps is natural, but happy for people to answer in the context of their own agreements.

Winning the evening means that we still stand a chance of lifting the trophy, but will probably have to win the final two rounds.

Camrose at home

2012-02-29T09:00:00.000Z

This weekend is the second half of the Camrose Trophy and is being held at the Holiday Inn in East Kilbride. Although spectator numbers have been dropping with the advent of BBO there is always a good crowd at Scottish venues and I hope the home support will give us a fifth man at the table.

Standings after the first weekend:

	Total
England	99
Scotland	82
Wales	78
SBU	71
Ireland	63
Northern Ireland	56

I did not feel that my (SBU) team suffered particularly from début nerves in the first weekend, but the experience was new for two of the pairs and there is no doubt that it only gets easier the more you play (actually, to be totally honest, it was only new to one of my pairs; the other had played before, but not in living memory and the format was very different in their time).

Two of my pairs were successful in the European trials last weekend and should be full of confidence, while the third were carrying the team flag, perhaps in the bar, at the Highlands Congress at Strathpeffer and will be relaxed and ready for action.

We play Scotland in the first match on Friday evening.

Information for the weekend is available at camrosebridge.com.

SBU Trial results

2012-02-26T22:35:00.000Z

In a close and tense finish, the ASH team beat PIPER by 133-129 imps over 64 boards and so Mike Ash, Miro Dragic, Irving Gordon and Bill Whyte will represent Scotland in the Open Series of the European Team Championships in June. They will be joined by Douglas Piper and Alex Wilkinson, the Selection Committee making a quick decision after the final.

Irving, Mike, Bill and Miro

In a less tense finish, the MCGOWAN team comfortably won both their matches today to win the trial. Liz McGowan, Sam Punch, Anne Symons and Sheila Adamson will by joined by Yvonne Wiseman and Fiona McQuaker in representing Scotland in the Women's Series in Dublin.

Sam, Sheila, Anne, Liz, Yvonne and Fiona

Full results

SBU European Team Championship Trials

2012-02-23T09:30:00.000Z

This weekend I will be running the Scottish trials for Open and Women's teams at the 2012 European Team Championships. The event is being held at the Carlton Bridge Centre in Edinburgh and spectators are welcome. Times can be found on the SBU East website but both events start at 11.55 on Saturday.

The running scores can be found on this page and I will endeavour to provide updates after each sixteen board stanza: there will also be Twitter updates, perhaps with photos, with the tag #sbueurotrial - comments and support welcome.

A new threat?

2012-02-21T10:46:00.000Z

I was kibitzing one of my club friends on BBO last night and saw the following hand:

Three clubs is clear but, to my surprise, my friend bid three notrump!

"Wow", I thought. This is a completely new side of my friend. Pretending to hold a spade stopper is something I might do, but it is slightly scary to find that there are others at the club who are becoming less than honest citizens. Perhaps a new threat is emerging?

As it happened partner did hold four spades but they were headed by the nine and the contract was one down when West cashed the first five spade tricks. The table chat was illuminating:

Friend to partner: Liz McGowan (high priestess of Scottish bridge) said that you should not open that hand.

Me to friend: I'm not sure Liz would necessarily say that 3NT was the best call either.

Friend to me: What would you bid?

Me to friend: Well, three clubs looks normal.

Friend to me: But that would be fourth-suit forcing ...

Suddenly the scales fell from my eyes. My friend had missed that it was West who had actually bid two spades. I was relieved. The threat had abated. I can continue to trust them at the club ... for now.

Juniors on top!

2012-02-19T19:13:00.001Z

Scotland have won the Junior Camrose Trophy, the Home International Series for under 25s. Huge congratulations to Phil Morrison (playing captain) & Frazer Morgan, Krzyzstof Nguyen & Alex Wilkinson.

Final Table
Scotland	156 VP
England	141 VP
Ireland	122 VP
Northern Ireland	121 VP

With Wales not competing this year the format was a triple round-robin. Scotland and England were tied at the top of the table after the first two round robins and it was the 25-5 VP win in their final encounter that proved the difference for the Scottish team. Overall, in their three encounters, Scotland beat England 44-36 VP and fully deserved their win.

Over the last two weekends I arranged practice matches for this team. With one new partnership and one pair playing very little together, it was clear that they just needed to play more and it is no surprise to me that they finished stronger than they started.

England won the Peggy Bayer Trophy, the Home International Series for under 20s. The Scottish team of Stewart Pinkerton & Jun Nakamaru Pinder, Yvonne & Ralph Wiseman pushed them all the way but the favourites won by 15 VPs in the end.

Final Table
England	182 VP
Scotland	167 VP
Northern Ireland	102 VP
Ireland	77 VP

Photos, courtesy of Paul Porteus.

Playing against the stars

2012-02-15T17:21:00.000Z

BBO has introduced two new features that, used together, allows you to play set games using hands from the vugraph archives. Some of my friends are doing this to allow them to compare their performance with the stars of the game rather than the other BBO players. For serious practice it does add another dimension when you see what Versace or Meckstroth did when holding your cards.

The key features, only available on the web client, are:

You can import LIN files on the Hands and results menu
New options for teaching tables permits the host to only see his own hand

The process is:

Find the vugraph match that you'd like to play. There are two main sources:

The BBO Vugraph Archives
The Vugraph Project (select LIN files only)

Download the match to your computer
Log into BBO on the web client and go to Hands and results
Click on Import LIN file - create a new folder and then follow the dialogue to import the hands
Go to the Home page and Start a table and then Start a Teaching table
Use the Deal Source button and select Use saved hands - select the folder that you imported the hands to
On the Options menu, select Teaching options and uncheck the Show all hands for the Host
When four players are sitting, hit the redeal button. Actually it seems you must now hit redeal again to get the first hand. Now just play normally hitting redeal after every hand is complete.

For those who have asked me to prepare hands in the past, this will be my new advice.

Shooting yourself in the foot

2012-02-15T11:31:00.002Z

The club pairs championship is decided by the average of your six best scores over ten rounds. So where you finish each evening does not matter, it is all about your percentage. So the 59% that LotG and I scored yesterday was more important than the fact we only finished in third, albeit only 2% behind the winners.

The session was a long hard slog. We misdefended the first board after declarer misplayed it (not always easy to work these things out) and did not rise above average until well into the second half of the evening. But we had a strong finish to achieve a level of respectability.

We'd have scored about 3% better with average scores on these two boards.

This would have been a spectacular success if a diamond was not led and, in that sense, is probably with the odds. It would be hard for East to lead a diamond without an honour or even with just one of them but, holding both the ace and king of diamonds, Barbara did not have any trouble leading them out.

Playing 2/1, three clubs is essentially natural in this sequence but may be a three-card suit. Four notrumps was quantitative and we clearly had the values for slam. The auction goes a lot better if South bids two notrumps on the second round, allowing North to pattern out with three clubs. Now South knows about a possible diamond problem and make look towards six clubs. North could also have just raised clubs but this is suggestive of a 4504 distribution.

Congratulations to Kate and Jim who were the only pair to find a making slam (six hearts).

Later in the evening:

With the king of hearts onside the defence took the first three tricks to earn themselves a top. The auction revolves around the strength needed for the jump to three spades and the South hand is definitely minimum. I think it's pretty unlucky that the five level is unsafe but the rest of field were more circumspect and stopped at a safe level.

Overall Brian and George still have a huge lead and we are going to need at least two scores in the high sixties to compete with them.

Gold Cup III

2012-02-13T12:03:00.000Z

We have been drawn away to Georgia and Steve Ray, Sarah Teshome and Richard Winter in the third round.

Ties involving Scottish teams:

Robert McKinnon vs Ian Hunter or Iain SIME
Mrs Georgia Ray vs Paul Gipson
Brian SHORT vs David Weir or David Shenkin
Harry Smith vs Mike Ash

Scotland in Tel Aviv

2012-02-10T11:07:00.003Z

Scotland were invited to send a team to the Israel Bridge Festival in Tel Aviv this month and, despite my lack of Hebrew, I've been trying to follow their progress.

Irving Gordon (pc), Derek Diamond, Gerald Haase and Victor Silverstone are probably the most experienced, if not the youngest, team Scotland has ever sent abroad but the festival did clash with a number of trials, exams and the Junior Camrose next week. This was a pity as this experience is precisely what (I believe) so many of our top pairs need if they want to improve.

The team started with the Board-A-Match teams, a format that is never seen in Scotland but is essentially played matchpoints on steroids. They finished a creditable 14th, behind a number of Israeli and other national teams (Denmark, Czech Republic, Romania, France, Germany and South Africa all with players that I've heard of) but ahead of the stronger French team.

In the main teams event they were well placed to qualify for the knock-out stages when they lost 1-25 in the final match, leaving them 7 VPs short. It must have been a disappointed finish.

This 'qualified' them for the seven-session pairs where Haase-Silverstone finished in 2nd place, an excellent result in a strong field. Diamond-Gordon finished 29th, paying the penalty for a really poor penultimate session.

I expect we'll read more when the SBU News editor had tracked them down on their return.

Not even close

2012-02-08T10:22:00.002Z

Back to the club for the next round of the Scott Cup, the teams championship. Diana and Ros, fresh from 4th place in the National Women's Teams, and LotG and I all played well but we could only score 92/160 VPs. This was good enough for second place but a huge 43 VPs behind the winners, Malcolm, George, Reg and Jean.

The hands were fairly exciting but mainly flat in our matches. Diana and Ros missed a 20% slam that was bid and made against us but aside from that there was nowhere for us to gain any points. So I presume the winners just received a disproportionate number of gifts. There was scope for this, but all the pairs who must have donated gifts against them seemed to play soundly against us. Just shows you need to play the right boards against the right pairs, but even so you still need to take advantage and they clearly did that.

One hand to consider from the evening:

Your call?

Team chemistry

2012-01-31T10:00:00.000Z

With the SBU using pairs trials for the Home Internationals and team trials for the Europeans, it is probable that the Selection Committee regard 'team chemistry' as important in the longer events.

Many would and do disagree. There are certainly instances in Scottish history where partners did not speak to each other except at the table, let alone team mates. Personally I think it is important so I thought I'd point out that Brad Moss agrees with me. His article is on bridgewinners.com - worth a read.

Silver Plate

2012-01-30T10:28:00.000Z

Anne, Sheila, Alex and I continued our good run in the Silver Plate as we beat Simon Cochemé's London team comfortably to reach the final.

Alex and I gifted a few imps to them at the start and we were down 3-24 imps after nine boards, but then a very solid performance by the team restricted them to just eight imps over the next 23 hands and we won, going away, by 86-32 imps.

Unusually there were a lot of imps flying about due to cardplay. Most of the big swings featured declarers in the same contract and, mostly, our lines were either sharper or the defence was more testing. But, naturally, there were some bidding problems and we scored a slam swing on this hand:

Alex made a good decision at the start of the auction to ignore his spades (at least initially) and show a game-forcing balanced hand. When I showed 5-5 and extras, bidding the slam was trivial.

At the other table, after one heart - one spade West made the reasonable decision to rebid two clubs. Clearly on this hand rebidding three clubs works well but it is a borderline game force given what everyone responds on nowadays. After fourth-suit (game) forcing both hands were maximum for their actions but they struggled to find a way to show this and finished in three notrump - nine imps for us.

Holding a good lead going into the final set you want nice boring hands. Second up for me was:

It is Love All. What is your opening call?

The final will be against Mike Best's team from Cardiff.

Mixed performance

2012-01-27T16:33:00.000Z

It was the 'Bobby Allan' last night at the club, the SBU Simultaneous Mixed Pairs. As holders we were striving for another 70+% session to give us a chance of retaining the trophy but we missed a few opportunities and the opponents did some good things, so lightning was never striking again.

We scored 62% at the club but I'd scored it as 53%, so I guess we'll be somewhere in between. Our cause was not helped when Reg pushed to a notrump slam holding a balanced eleven points opposite (a known) nineteen points. Perhaps last year this would have proved to be a foolish action and we'd score a top, but this time there were thirteen (!) tricks available and we'll score very poorly for this.

Some pairs were more generous as we scored two +800s and a +300 on a part-score hand, but we lost out on a number of hands where our opponents were ultra-cautious and the cards rewarded this. We were sitting against the cards, playing only eight of the twenty-four hands, and you just cannot win with such a low percentage (of course the opponents played three hands that should have been ours, but to win you need to be playing considerably more than your opponents). Even worse, I only played two hands all evening - although LotG is a good card player I am more likely to gain the odd trick either through skill or by creating problems for the defence.

We'll see how the score stands up over the next few days, but I think we'll be nearer 55% than 60%.

Winter Fours 2012

2012-01-23T10:36:00.000Z

In my mind the SBU Winter Foursomes is the only weekend of decent bridge in the Scottish calendar. The format of the subsidiary events is a little tiresome, but the double elimination used in the main event is exciting and fair. Although the 32-board matches used in the EBU Spring Fours is even better, the 16-board affairs here give the better team a reasonable chance and the winners of the event will have deserved it.

Twenty-six teams entered, about the same as the last few years but short of the 'perfect' 32 that everyone would prefer. So it was triads and quads on Friday with only one of your two lives at stake. We took on HAY and HAWKINS in our triad and were comfortably leading both matches by 32 imps after eight boards. We piled on more imps against Hawkins but decided to lose 31 imps to Jim's team. No matter as we emerged unbeaten.

Meanwhile Reg and Diana were playing on the GORDON team and narrowly failed to upset the seeds (MCGOWAN) in their triad.

On Saturday morning we played OUTRED (Charles & Vi, Clive Owen and Brian Senior). Tied at the half Senior bid two good slams in the second half and we missed a thin game, so we lost comfortably. Then we lost by three (or four?) imps to HARLEY to lose our second life - we all missed opportunities in this match and it was disappointing to exit the main event so early.

Reg and Diana exited at the same time as us, but they had done incredibly well to win their triad on Saturday morning and only lost narrowly to PIPER.

So now we would play round-robins on Saturday afternoon and evening. The first round-robin is a qualifier for the second and final round-robin, with more qualifiers for the consolation final coming from the 'A' section. We finished second in the first one and won the second one to easily make the consolation final. Reg and Diana finished a creditable fourth in the 'B' section, but with only two qualifiers they were consigned to the Sunday Swiss.

Meanwhile, back in the main event, OUTRED continued to make the pace and finished Saturday unbeaten. This earned them a place in the final and Sunday morning in bed. The other semifinal was a repeat of last year's final except the result was reversed, with PUNCH (Sam, Tim Rees, Alan Goodman, Mike Ash) beating STEEL (Les, John Matheson, Dave Walker, Brian Short) by three or four imps.

In a very tight final OUTRED beat PUNCH by about 16 imps. As is often the case, all the small hands which could have collectively made a difference were lost as there was one slam hand that swung more than the winning margin. The Outreds were the beneficiaries of making a poor slam but overall they fully deserved their victory having not lost in the entire weekend.

Although the round-robin qualifiers on Saturday are tiresome (and seemingly never-ending for some), the nine-team consolation final is a good quality field and it feels a proper competition (a bit like the teams' finals at Brighton). We played pretty solidly throughout and finished on 92/160 VPs. Surprisingly, after a split-tie, this was sufficient for second place and some money. The winners were Bob McKinnon, Ian Patrick, Maida Grant and Sheila Macdonald.

Finally Reg and Diana finished seventh in the Swiss Teams with 59/100 VPs.

Matchpoints at the club

2012-01-18T11:09:00.002Z

A 62% session but we did not make ground on the overall leaders as Brian and George scored the same. First a bidding problem - what do you open at unfavourable vulnerability?

Matchpoints can be a tough game and a single trick makes all the difference. The eleventh trick on this hand was worth half a top, or almost 2% of your final score.

West leads the five of diamonds and the jack wins the trick. With no minor losers now thoughts should turn to how you can restrict the major losers and you should be thinking endplay or throw-in. If hearts are 3-1 then you cannot do it, as you need to ruff a club to establish the endplay, so then there is the problem of diamonds 6-2. If you try to cash the diamonds to pitch a club, then they may be able to ruff.

So I think the best line is to cash the ace of hearts and lead another. The hearts break two-two and you can win the club return, cash two diamonds pitching a club, ruff a club and then play ace of spades and another.

You will make eleven tricks if EITHER (1) East has the king of spades (2) West has the king of spades singleton or doubleton (3) East has the jack and ten of spades. On the actual hand West had the king and jack of spades doubleton and had to concede a ruff and discard after winning the spade, allowing me to pitch my spade loser.

A fairly easy hand where three other declarers also made eleven tricks, but seven only made ten. As the club finesse also worked the lead was not really an issue.

A weekend of cup action

2012-01-16T11:05:00.000Z

Two cup matches over the weekend.

First up was the Scottish Cup match against McMenemy (McIntyre, Kane, Kane). Danny and Helen have returned to regular bridge after a few years away and narrowly missed Camrose selection in the final trial. Jim and Ian are also trialists, less steady but full of flair and a dangerous pair.

Over thirty-two boards I did regard us as warm favourites, even though Fiona was substituting for Alex. However, despite computer-dealt hands, there were 23 flat boards effectively reducing the match to 9 boards. We made a couple of mistakes, they made a couple of mistakes, ours cost, theirs did not and we lost the match by 33-41 imps.

Alex was able to fly up for Sunday's Gold Cup match against Dee Harley's team (Harley, Nolf, Male, McGinley, Copley, Peden). Of course this match put two of my Camrose pairs in competition so, unsurprisingly, the match was played in good spirit. The first set was not as wild as the score of 47-40 imps suggests, but these eight boards caused more imps to swing than the entire match on the previous day. There was quite a lot of poor slam bidding throughout the match, disappointedly almost all of it in non-competitive auctions.

We established a comfortable lead by winning the second set by 39-0 imps although promptly gave some of it back just before the break, losing the third set 1-25 imps after a couple of misplayed hands. Alex and I also failed to break the following game:

So what do you try and do next?

In the fourth set we lost 7-18 imps with the main swing due to the notrump range and a decision about whether to double a weak notrump with a balanced 15 points and a long suit of 109xx. When the contract goes down four you know double was the winning decision.

With sixteen boards to play our lead was down to eleven imps, but if we could stop giving them fifteen imps a set then we should win easily. So it proved as we held them to six imps in the final two sets while scoring forty-nine ourselves, so a comfortable win by 54 imps.

A slightly bitter-sweet win. Our team of four, with one Camrose pair, did not play very well. Their team of six, with one Camrose pair and the reserves for the Senior Camrose, were significantly worse. Again I thought we were warm favourites for the match but I think we'd all have preferred a higher quality match.

But, at the end of the day, a win is a win.

"Garlic bread, it's the future, I've tasted it"

2012-01-12T04:30:00.000Z

I was reminded of Peter Kay's iconic line from Phoenix Nights watching the Camrose on Saturday afternoon, when LOTG just typed "Strong Twos!!!" in the BBO chat to me. Regular readers will know that LOTG is a big fan of Acol Strong Twos and refuses to switch: the following hand has not helped my argument.

It does not look too difficult, but let's see how the teams fared. Names have been deleted to avoid embarrassment but you know who you are!

SBU v Ireland

England v Scotland

Northern Ireland v Wales

Congratulations to Ciara Burns and John Murchan, Northern Ireland, for being the only pair in the solid grand slam.But strong twos would have made this hand simple. They are the future!

It's up to us

2012-01-11T07:47:00.000Z

I'm pleased to say that the Selection Committee has made no changes to the SBU team for the second Camrose weekend in East Kilbride in March. The Scotland team is also unchanged.

This gives both teams the opportunity to finish the job they've started and to build on good performances in Oxford. With all the local support I'm sure the teams will do well.

The SBU Team, Camrose Trophy 2012

Delivery

2012-01-09T09:29:00.000Z

Sunday morning and it was the leaders, Wales, to be faced. The first half was the quietest set of the weekend and solid play at both tables left us three imps down at the half. Wales, with their eye on the weekend decider in the afternoon, rested Denning and Shields although their replacements, Salisbury and Tedd, proved one of the strongest pairs of the weekend. Again the team played very well and a game swing on the last board gave us a 16 imps win, 17-13 VP.

I thought all the pairs played well in this match and we deserved to win. The final match was against Northern Ireland who were currently in bottom position, so my only job was to keep the team's thoughts on winning the match, not thinking it would be easy and reminding them that it was not the last match but the end of the first half of the Camrose Trophy - they did not really need much reminding though and a couple of late swings left us with a 22 imps lead at the half. In the final stanza of the weekend there was some tiredness shown and we failed to take all the chances offered, but we finished the match winning by 24 imps and a 19-11 win.

Overall we won three matches and lost two, one of which we were winning with five boards to go - a pretty impressive performance from a team with three débutants who are only the second Scotland team. I thought all the pairs played significantly better than I'd seen in the trials and improved as the weekend went on. Experience counts for a lot at this level, a lot more than club and tournament players probably appreciate, and all three pairs will have benefited from this weekend.

Table after the first weekend:

1	ENGLAND	99
2	SCOTLAND	82
3	WALES	78
4	SBU Irving Gordon,William Whyte,Steve Male,Mike McGinley, Sheila Adamson,Anne Symons	71
5	IRELAND	63
6	NORTHERN IRELAND	56

The SBU team

A long day

2012-01-07T17:54:00.000Z

It's only 64 boards in the day but I think the fire alarm meant that it seemed quite tiring for most of us, especially all the NPCs and supporters who were unable to do anything except watch: much easier for the players of course :)

Our first match was against England and we started like a train, being 32-0 imps up after the first three boards! It was the start of an exciting stanza and 117 imps were shared over 16 boards and, when the music stopped, we were 11 imps down. The second set has its exciting moments too, including an Englishman going down -1100 when he had the chance to make five hearts doubled (technically we believe he made the correct play, but unsuccessful on this occasion). However England did very little wrong elsewhere and we lost the match by 43 imps, 8-22 VP.

I did think the scoreline was harsh, as the team played very well against a strong English team. The BBO commentators often said that the SBU team had done well in the other room, but then the English would match them.

In the second match of the day we played the Republic of Ireland. For a change my team put on a load of imps in the last five boards and we had a useful lead at the half. We gave some of the imps back in the second stanza but emerged with a 16 imps win, 17-13 VP. On the board!

This morning we have a match against the leaders, Wales. The team is well rested, everyone else has been wishing us good luck (perhaps because Wales have a good lead), and hopefully we'll have a good game.

Fire break

2012-01-07T10:15:00.002Z

With a few boards to play we were leading in the match against Scotland, but they got all their swings late and we lost by 29 imps, 10-20 VP.

All my pairs have now played at least sixteen boards and they should be feeling relaxed at the table. Well they would be if the fire alarm had not gone off at 4.15am and everyone spent an hour in the hotel car park waiting for the all clear. At least Anne saved her phone but I'm not sure what Andrew thought of an hour's worth of photographs of firemen.

So this morning might be a war of attrition for many pairs with the (early) 10am start but the real effects may only be seen later in the day. Team selection may well be determined by those who are awake.

This morning we are playing England, who were the favourites before they had a losing draw against Northern Ireland last night. This afternoon we play Ireland, who lost 8-22 VP to Wales.

Before the gun

2012-01-06T13:47:00.002Z

I've arrived in Oxford. Four of the team arrived yesterday and texted me that they were here, providing a degree of assurance that at least we'd have a team - the following text said that they were already in the bar.

I'm not saying it is warm here, but some were seen on the open-top bus tour of Oxford this morning. I doubt they needed the sun-cream that was necessary in Toronto but they did not look frozen either. Will the SBU provide something similar for East Kilbride in March?

Being NPC means that there were lots of bits of paper waiting for me. The important ones, naturally, being the food choices for evening meals.

Now off to ensure that they are relaxing - play starts at 7pm (20:00 Paris, 19:00 Berwick-upon-Tweed, 14:00 New York) and everything should be shown on BBO. This evening's match is against Scotland, so a chance for the team to show that the trials do not necessarily determine the better team :)

My Camrose team

2012-01-03T12:51:00.000Z

I forgot to get a team photo so you'll have to make do with the short biogs that will appear in the event's brochure. This is the SBU team for the Camrose Trophy in Oxford starting this Friday: you can follow all the action live (and free) on Bridge Base Online, just check the schedule in your local time zone.

Anne Symons

Anne is making her second Camrose appearance with Sheila, the only women's pair to have played for the open team. She is a regular with Sheila on the Scottish women's team, playing in several Lady Milnes, Europeans and Olympiads over the last decade. Anne is a full-time pharmacist who still finds time to go to the gym and has recently been part of a dance DVD which is being sold to raise funds for a local Hospice. If re-incarnated, wants to come back as Gregg Wallace, “that jammy git who gets paid to eat lovely food”!

Sheila Adamson

Sheila and Anne started playing together in 2003. Since then they have played in two Olympiads (Istanbul and Bejing), three European Championships (Warsaw, Pau and Ostend) and six Lady Milnes. They were members of the victorious Scottish team in 2007 and 2009. They also have one Camrose cap, in 2009, when they became the first all-female partnership to represent Scotland in that event.

Sheila works at Queen Margaret University where she specialises in the management of overseas collaborations. Between this and bridge she has collected a fair few stamps on her passport. Sheila also recently published a book on Scottish local history.

Irving Gordon

Perhaps best known during his partnership with Boris Schapiro, Irving's list of achievements includes winning the World Senior Pairs, several Gold Cups and Spring Foursomes, a Silver medal in the Sunday Times plus other titles in the UK and abroad. Although he represented England in the Camrose in the 1980s this will be his Scottish début for the Open Camrose team, despite representing Great Britain and, more recently, Scotland at the European Championships at both Open and Senior levels. He won his latest gold medal with the Scotland team in the Commonwealth Nation Championships 2010 held in India.

Irving credits Boris with “teaching me to bid” and regards surviving his temper and razor-sharp tongue for 18 years as his finest achievement – those who knew Boris might understand what he means!

William Whyte

Brought up in the days of trams in Glasgow, prior to entering Glasgow University Bill read a SJ Simon bridge book and that was the end of a promising academic career as a nuclear physicist.

Lectures were no competition, but exams were unavoidable (and difficult) so eventually Bill was forced to go out and work to support his bridge ‘habit’. John McLaren took pity on him and on his coat-tails Bill gained his first Camrose cap in 1964, making him the youngest Scottish cap at that time. He left Glasgow and the rain by venturing abroad to Liverpool, then to more exotic (and drier) locations hopping around the Middle East for a number of years before settling in Paris. This enabled him to play bridge everywhere but it is the sober continental style of bidding he absorbed in Paris that is still retained today.

Now back in the Camrose milieu after forty-eight year’s absence, is this another record? Bill splits his time between France and Edinburgh (thus a Weegie who has shifted camp to the East as they may have trams soon) and his next record attempt will be for the oldest Scottish Camrose cap, somewhat challenging in view of some illustrious fore-runners, including his partner Irving Gordon who is older and comes from Aberdeen where they breed them tough – but, as Bill says, “I have more hair than he has to keep me warm”.

Stephen Male

Steve was taught to play at Scarborough Boys High School, too many years ago, by a far-sighted Maths master, then did not play again until early 70's in Southport, where the game at the golf club re-awoke his interest. Then moved with work to the West Riding where he played in the Dewsbury team of Brian Senior. He then gave up the game when his two girls were born and did not start playing again until he moved to Scotland some seventeen years ago. He teamed up with Mike two years ago and since then has had a fruitful partnership.

Mike McGinley

Mike is currently working as an accountant for the Apple pharmacy chain in Glasgow and this is his first cap. He took up bridge at school and played Junior Camrose back in the ‘70s. His team reached the last eight of the Gold Cup in 2008, losing to the eventual winners. Last season his team (including Steve Male) won the Scottish Cup Plate. He whimsically wonders if he will ever see a 4-card ending with dummy having the same card in each suit ...

Paul Gipson (NPC)

This is Paul's first Camrose Trophy but he expects it to be a breeze compared to captaining the Scottish Women (including Anne and Sheila) at the European Championships. As a prematurely retired IT specialist he is woefully underprepared for the task of being the captain, coach, sports psychologist and bag carrier but will be able to help them score up.

His efforts to help the team even went to the lengths of playing in the English trials this year. But he is mastering the key NPC skills, namely the ability to understand obscure line-up regulations, getting players to the right table at the right time and the stoical acceptance of “interesting” results.

Southern tracks

2011-12-30T08:46:00.002Z

Now that I've finished tracking Santa using the US Department of Defense, the new target is those hardy souls who have given up the balmy temperatures in Scotland to play in the EBU Year End events in London and Blackpool.

London Swiss Pairs (3-session event)

13th - David Ewart (with Gunnar Hallberg)
16th - Samantha Punch & Tim Rees
21st - Philip Stephens (with Chris Cooper)
49th - Jenny Cooper (with Pat Dowdleswell)
55th - Laura Porro (with Luca Marietti)
71st - Fiona Greenwood (with Stuart Strachan)
96th - Rosemary McKinnel & Mike Baron

London Mixed Pairs

3rd - Samantha Punch & Tim Rees
5th - Laura Porro & Luca Marietti
17th - Paula Leslie (with Richard Bowdery)
21st - Victor Silverstone (with Brigid Battiscombe)

London Open Pairs

Jenny Cooper did not finish in the prizes

London Swiss Teams

1st - Willie Coyle (with Kitty Teltscher, Steve Eginton, Colin Simpson)
9th - Phil Stephens (with James Paul, John Atthey, Chris Cooper)
12th - Andrew McIntosh* (with Glyn Liggins, Simon Cope, Peter Crouch)
17th - Victor Silverstone (with Bernard Teltscher, A Waterlow, D Kendrick)
58th - Fiona Greenwood (with Sue Shaw, Sonia Griffiths, Chantal Girardin)
66th - Sam Punch (with Gary Jones, Patrick Jourdain, Tim Rees)

Blackpool Mixed Pairs

17th - David Wiseman & Sandra Wiseman
20th - Mary Grant & Andrew Grant
29th - Bob McKinnon & Cathy Ferguson
30th - Yvonne Wiseman & Ralph Wiseman

Blackpool Open Pairs

2nd - Peter Hodgson & Stephen Male

Blackpool Swiss Pairs (3-session event)

8th - David Wiseman & Yvonne Wiseman
39th - Bob McKinnon & Cathy Ferguson
56th - Stephen Male & Peter Hodgson
62nd - Sandra Wiseman & Ralph Wiseman
74th - Mary Grant & Andrew Grant

Blackpool Swiss Teams

3rd - David Wiseman, Sandra Wiseman, Yvonne Wiseman, Ralph Wiseman
10th - Bob McKinnon, Cathy Ferguson, Peter Hodgson, Stephen Male
26th - Mary Grant, Andrew Grant (with Eva Butler, Michael Butler)

Apologies to anyone I've missed.

Oh He of Little Faith

2011-12-22T09:23:00.000Z

During the Gold Cup Congress at Peebles, soon-to-be-ex-junior Phil Stephens was regaling me with constant stream of hands that he thought I would not believe. In this guest post Phil describes a few of them.

Its the very first board of the Peebles Swiss Teams, and you are playing with your Venerable Father (VF). You pick up ♠Ax ♥Q ♦KQxxx ♣AKQxx at favourable. You open 1♦, no problems yet. The auction continues with a 1NT response from your partner. This is good news, we play a 5552 opening structure, so partner had a simple raise in diamonds available. Thus, he surely has club length. You bid 3♣, game-forcing, and partner responds 4♣ as expected. Keycard is next up and partner shows two aces. Since he has at most three spades, and at most three diamonds (two is more likely), you will always be able to discard your spade loser. Thus the grand is bid. VF expresses some concern that he may have overbid, you reassure him that this is unlikely to be the case. Partner duly puts down ♠x ♥Axx ♦Axx ♣Jxxxxx. And you quickly claim. I was curious as to the location of the spades, your Boisterous Brother (BB) at the other table can seldom be restrained from entering the auction, so you are confident of a good board.

All was quiet on the Northern Front until board 20. You pick up ♠A ♥Axxxx ♦AKQxx ♣Ax with everyone vulnerable. The auction begins 1♥-1♠-3♦-4♦. This is very exciting. VF is known for his extreme Conservatism (and also underbidding) so it is very unclear what he can have for his forcing 4♦ bid. It is rare in the extreme for VF to bypass 3NT lightly, and if he were to then he could jump straight to 5♦, rather than make a forcing call. Indeed, moving towards five of a minor seems hard to imagine.

VF likes to employ what he calls the `emergency stop’ opposite my game-forcing bids - The Dreaded Pass Card. With neither keycards and nor the queen of trumps what can he have? ♠KQxx ♥Kx ♦xxxx ♣KQx? Surely a 3NT bid. At last a solution bubbles to the surface of my confused bridge brain – perhaps VF believes this sequence to be Non-Forcing. Partner has neither rebiddable spades, nor a doubleton heart (this is a false preference situation), nor a club stop, but too many diamonds to consider An Emergency Pass. So he has chosen to `invite’ game opposite partner's game force. A fine convention. Something like ♠KQxx ♥x ♦xxxxx ♣xxx or ♠KQxxx ♥x ♦xxxxx ♣xx seems likely. (VF does not believe in bidding poor suits). At any rate, while grand could be cold, it seems hard to find out for sure if partner holds the weak hand with a singleton heart that you believe, so you leap to six diamonds.

As dummy is being revealed VF’s Incurable Pessimism compels him to comment: "I'm afraid I can’t possibly have what you are hoping for Partner". Partner indeed has ♠KJxx ♥x ♦xxxxx ♣Qxx, you reply "I find your lack of faith disturbing". Any hand where you can quote Darth Vader is a win.

The final board of this set gave VF a real problem – perhaps you can do better: You pick up ♠KJ9xxx ♥Qxx ♦ATx ♣x, partner opens 1♦, showing 5, or 4441, and the auction continues:

2♠ showed four spades, and while 5♠ is arguable, with partner known to hold long natural diamonds and you holding ATx the probability of this being a double fit hand seems high. RHO leads the jack of hearts out of turn. The director is called an a list of options led out: You may put your hand down as dummy, and either demand or forbid a heart lead or you may choose to declare and put LHO on lead and either forbid or demand a heart lead. What will you choose? Solution later.

A final slam board, you hold ♠Axxxxx ♥KT9 ♦A ♣Axx, at Vul vs not. The auction goes: 1♠ 4♦ 4♠ P back you you. Hmm, with such a control rich hand slam could easily be cold, but partner is under pressure and the five level may not be safe. Best to pass. LHO, however, looks unhappy. Excellent. If she comes back to the party partner may have the opportunity to bid 5♠, or make a FP. LHO does indeed return to the fray with 5♦. 5♦ P P back to you. VF’s Forcing passes tend to be quite chunky, and so you decided to give it 6♠. Lho looks extremely unhappy. VF also looks extremely unhappy, this was not the response he was expecting. It is not completely clear that 6♠ will make, so best to look confident.

You give LHO a little smile. This is too much for her. She can no longer bear it. 7♦ diamonds is bid. Partner doubles quickly, before I can have any chance to bid further. 800 is wrapped up in double quick time. Partners hand was ♠KQx ♥AQxxxx ♦xxx ♣x, so grand was a very good spot, only off on the 4-0 spade break. It feels somewhat unjust that this effort was only enough for three imps. As the hand is being squared away VF suggests that he doesn’t really understand how one can have a six spades bid after passing over 4♠. You admit that you were somewhat stretching, despite his Forcing Pass improving your hand. A brief look of incomprehension flickers across partners face, evidently he had forgotten. Still VF suggests that if I wish to avoid a precipitous decline in his heart rate, I should avoid such bids.

Ah well, as you score up your final slam board you reflect that going 5 from 5 on slam decisions with VF opposite is really quite a pleasing statistic.

Party bridge

2011-12-21T11:01:00.000Z

It was the club's Christmas Party last night and the turnout was terrific. In the past few years the number has always been in the (very) low thirties, but we saw fifty people there this time. I don't think that there are many clubs thriving as much as Berwick is currently.

Most of the credit for this has to go to all those running beginner classes, and to them and others who then help them transition from a class into playing at the club. Of course being a very friendly club doesn't hurt and the region's remoteness helps maintain a sense of community, but it does take a lot of effort that normally goes unrecognised. I'm sure we would all love to see more youngsters come along, but even a stream of mature new faces is very welcome.

In the past outside caterers have been used but problems the last couple of times meant that it was decided to do it 'in house'. This meant a cold buffet but I did not hear any complaints and the food disappeared at a great rate. The desserts also disappeared quite quickly too, for some reason.

After this everyone helped to clear up and reconfigure the room for some party bridge. Every board had a 'rule' - for example, everyone was only permitted one bid on the board. Naturally I called the director over this rule, asking whether multiple passes and doubles were allowed since they are calls, not bids: I was informed that it should say calls and I'm sure 'get a life' was mentioned too :) - actually, I think it does work slightly better if you do permit multiple passes and doubles, but only one bid - this permits people to double the final contract.

I played with Jean and we did not score well, but LotG and Penny won the bottles of wine for the best East/West performance. The most interesting rule was the one where the partner of the player who wins a trick leads to the following trick: it makes running long suits difficult, since you lose the lead when you win the trick! I told Jean off during this hand for signalling encouragement when I was going to win the trick - no point encouraging when she will be on lead next! Playing a board in an anti-clockwise direction was also quite tricky, some players failed to adjust their points counting when aces became the lowest card in the suits and defensive play with both dummy and declarer's hands exposed was simpler.

An excellent evening and congratulations to the committee for their organisation, to everyone who provided the food and Diana for running the bridge. More of the same next year please.

Three slams

2011-12-19T18:53:00.001Z

As part of our preparations for the Camrose we had a BBO match against the Welsh team last night. It might seem a little strange to practise against a team we'll be playing in Oxford next month, but it is quite common - prior to the Bermuda Bowl we saw the Dutch playing everyone and it did not seem to do them any harm. In reality everyone is focusing on their own game rather than trying to learn about the opposition and always good to play new teams.

The match was decided by three hands were slams were bid, not always successfully. In such circumstances it is easy to focus on them, but my comments to my pairs were not about these. In the rest of the match most of the bridge was pretty sound although some interesting points were raised. But back to the big hands and I'd be happy to see convincing auctions to a good spot on them all:

West opens and there is no opposition bidding. Is your convincing auction different when the partnership does not hold a red 10?

The second hand is a strong two-suiter, never easy in a natural system. Again West opens.

The final hand is another two-suiter. West opens, North overcalls one spade and South will bid three spades. North will continue to four spades if available.

Get these all right and I hope you're available to play in January.

On the board

2011-12-14T14:24:00.002Z

It might be the fourth round of the ten in the club pairs championship but we now have a "keeper", one of the six that we'll need to try and keep the title. Unfortunately Brian and George already have three keepers so we are going to struggle and, until the scoring errors are resolved, it is not quite clear what score we have actually obtained. But I know it's a keeper!

We got a joint top on board 24:

We don't play any methods over the strong two clubs opening except that a negative of two diamonds, so LotG decided to play a waiting game with a two hearts response. This will probably right-side a notrump contract but there is a real danger that I'll think she has five hearts: on the other hand, we just play natural over a two notrump response and we might miss a major fit. Perhaps an area where we could do more work!

However, LotG was well placed when I rebid two notrump as she could introduce her spades. Simple Blackwood showed all her controls and I could see that the grand slam would depend, at worst, on the heart finesse and would be solid if she held a red suit queen.

LotG played the hand well, preparing for a club-hearts squeeze, but this was not necessary when the jack of clubs dropped. Tony and Brian also bid and make this.

Gold Cup Congress

2011-12-12T14:01:00.001Z

The final Gold Cup Congress at Peebles started at 10am on Friday morning with Iain Sime's Gold Cup quarter-final against Gillis, the holders. By all accounts the bridge was not stunning but Sime consistently lost imps through the day and conceded after 56 of the 64 boards. A good run but they were disappointed not to have a closer match.

Gillis lost in the semifinal on Saturday and Sunday's final was between teams that had already met twice this season in other major competitions. Most of the LEE (Peter Lee, Frances Hinden, Jeffrey Allerton, Graham Osborne, John Howard and Andy Bowles) team had beaten ALLFREY (Alexander Allfrey, Andrew Robson, David Gold, Tony Forrester, Peter Crouch and Derek Patterson) on their run to the semifinal of the Spring Foursomes, but Allfrey had won the more important Premier League title beating Hinden in the final match. The Allfrey team was selected to play for England in the first Camrose weekend in January with Hinden. Allerton and Osborne selected for the second weekend.

It proved a close final with a poor, but making, grand slam giving LEE the lead for the first half. The lead increased slowly throughout the day and they went into the final eight boards with a comfortable 41 imps lead. Half of this disappeared on the first two boards and then a tough slam hand came up. When LEE made it and it went down in the other room, fourteen imps were returned and the match was over. In the end LEE won by 26 imps, giving Lee, Allerton and Hinden their second Gold Cup win (first in 2003) and the first to Osborne, Howard and Bowles. Congratulations to them.

Our weekend was less successful but enjoyable. Sam and I played in the Swiss Pairs but never started. All the cards were in the opposite direction for the first four matches and we just sat there and took bad scores. With no chance of a decent finish we didn't play particularly well in the evening and a couple of bidding misunderstandings were costly. It did seem that it really did not matter how we played, just not our day.

In the Swiss teams we won all our matches comfortably on the Friday evening and this continued into Sunday afternoon when the event resumed. We had made our way to the top table but then lost to the eventual winners, underbidding a couple of hands costing double imps swings. The first match in the evening went the same way, but winning our last two matches gave us fourth place. A disappointing result as we could have done better, but at least we got some prize money.

Jenny faced a tough problem on Sunday and she eventually asked Derek Patterson and Andy Robson for their opinions in the bar that evening. Imps scoring.

What would you do?

End of the line

2011-12-08T09:51:00.001Z

We lost our quarter-final in the BBO InterCity League by just three imps last night and so bow out of this season's competition.

We had beaten Nikšic by six imps in the round-robin so a tight match was expected, but Jim, Bill, Danny and Helen established a useful half-time lead. Although imps had flown in all directions, excellent defence from Bill to beat a three notrump and consistent good judgement in the part-score zone had us in front.

The second half imps went mainly in the other direction. They made a slam where the only killing lead was from K10 in an unbid and a game slipped through on the next hand. The part-score swings went in the other direction, mainly due to lack of aggression on their part, but we were still six imps up when the final board hit the table. With the opener holding a balanced 14 count, the difference in the hand was the 14-16 or 15-17 1NT opening that would, or would not, be used. Different auctions left us losing nine imps when we went negative in both rooms - no-one did anything wrong, just one of those random swings.

It's been a pleasure to captain the team for the 16th edition of the league. The next one starts in mid-March and I'm sure we'll be back.

Gold Cup Congress

2011-12-06T01:00:00.000Z

The sun may shine but I don't think anyone ever confuses this with the Gold Coast Congress. Peebles in December has a very different appeal to Brisbane in March.

This will be the last Gold Cup Congress in Peebles as Bridge Great Britain has decided to move the final weekend to the Midlands next year. I believe this is because the leading teams do not see the benefit in travelling to Scotland in December, especially to a location that has poor transport communications and is frequently icy if not snow-bound. The Scottish congress will continue but I'm sure the SBU will be waiting for next year's attendance figures nervously.

It is a shame because I think most teams are happy with the venue itself and the ambiance of the weekend. But to be fair they'd play in any large hotel; and they are only fêted by others at the congress when they are not actually playing themselves, or eating, or drinking in the bar, or eating, or attending the President's reception, or eating.

However, it is still the most enjoyable congress of the year to attend and I'll be there playing with Jenny, Sam and Tim in whatever line-up the girls tell us to play. But first I'll be watching the Gold Cup quarter-final between Iain Sime's team and Gillis, the holders.

I don't believe this match will be on BBO, but the semifinals and final on December 10 and 11 will be, including voice commentary as an addition to the tap-in comments. For readers not familiar with voice commentary, and the requirements to get it, read the BBO information.

Hopefully the weather will be good and we'll play well. If not, then we'll have to resort to eating and drinking.

Preparing for the Camrose

2011-12-03T12:27:00.001Z

We had our first, and last, team meeting last night before the Camrose next month. There is little time between the final trial and the event itself and just getting the team together was a struggle. As well as each pair having another trial for a Home International Series, I removed another weekend form the calendar by playing in the Premier League. Finally, two of the team live in foreign climes.

But it was good to get together. We talked through a lot of the issues involving in playing in the Camrose. I think the biggest concern is time management. For some reason the organisers make no allowance for playing with screens and they are expected to play sixteen boards in two hours and five minutes. This is a lot faster than the trials or any other event played with screens and, personally, I think it should be changed to WBF standards. But the truth is whatever time was allocated, there will always be players who use every minute.

Interestingly when I asked who had appeared on vugraph before four hands were raised. But when I added, "on BBO", two hands went down. We didn't investigate further but I wonder if two of the more experienced players have been involved in the early days of vugraph, when someone would sit at the table with a microphone and whisper the played cards to a room that had a projector and operator scribbling on an overhead foil. As I said to the team, BBO vugraph is pretty non-intrusive these days and it is far easier just to focus on your opponents.

We also covered the practicalities of playing, scoring up and preparing for the next opponents. I've been an unofficial coach for the Scotland team over the past few years and normally do the system analysis of the methods that the team will face, so we'll be using the same process this time. The team do not really need to know much about their opponents before getting to the table, but it does help if they are aware of any unusual conventions so that they can remind themselves of their defences.

To finish off the evening we discussed a number of hands featuring high-level decisions. It was good to see that each partnership was on the same wavelength, but I was surprised at how different their approaches were. On one hand each pair had a different meaning for a 4NT call on the first round of the auction - I guess this shows it was a good problem!

So we'll next meet in Oxford next month although there are some BBO practice sessions before then. Now time for me to get back to the systems analysis.

A very tough win

2011-11-30T23:16:00.001Z

In the round of sixteen we beat Niš, a Serbian/Bulgarian team, by 61-49 imps over twenty-four boards. The match was close throughout and we only got a double imp lead two boards from the end.

In the first half Andy, Shireen, Jim and Bill played a tight game for a 22-21 lead. They lost a game swing on the very first board when the choice of opening bid, the pre-emptive five diamonds proving less effective than a gambling three notrump. A difference in notrump ranges combined with a misdefence got the imps back two boards later. The only other two swings in the set were both five diamond contracts, sufficient to win and lose imps.

For the second half Phil and I replaced Jim and Bill. This did not change the team philosophy as we lost a game swing on the first board again, this time because neither Phil or I had the nerve to double the opponents at the three level, whereas Andy was doubled in the same suit at the two-level!

We went fifteen imps down when our opponents found a good sacrifice at the six-level but our big break was when they misplayed a slam and went down on board five. The slam was worse than a finesse and Phil and I stayed out of it, but the cards were friendly and it should have been an easy make.

The scores were level with four boards to play. Then I went down in three notrump, but the player in my seat at the other table tried harder to make it and went three down to give us five imps. On the next hand my 2NT opener meant that I played four spades and they did not find the difficult defence to beat it: at the other table a strong one club opener allowed Shireen to overcall which made the weaker hand play the contract, finding he could not even make three spades with the initial lead through the strong hand - twelve imps and I could relax, knowing we had two solid boards to score. Of course Andy and Shireen could not relax as they did not know this. We conceded a part-score swing on the final board when Shireen sensibly did not compete, given the score, and that was that.

A good win in a very tight match. Now for the quarter-final where we will play Nikšic, who we beat by six imps in the round-robin. Another close match looms!.

Diamond in the rough

2011-11-30T09:14:00.001Z

Back at the club for the next round of the pairs championship and we had a nightmare session. We did not play poorly but our opponents either played well (only pair to bid the slam), or played poorly (leading the 10 from KQ109 was spectacularly successive against me) or we were just unlucky (only person to balance after a weak 2 bid holding a 12 count and a doubleton in their suit). It was incredibly frustrating but we all have these nights in club bridge.

But there was a diamond in the rough. Criss-cross squeezes are incredibly rare: first you have to spot them and, with entries very delicate, they are easily broken by the defence. Few club players will ever notice one and even the top tournament players get excited when they happen.

But it was not me at the helm, but LotG. Certainly her first criss-cross squeeze, aside from when the knitting needles are out, and, importantly, she did know what she was doing.

This is how the hand started:

So what do you do now?

LotG played all her remaining trumps except one to lead this position with East still to discard on the previous (trump) trick:

What does East discard?

If he throws a heart, then LotG will cross to the ace of hearts, ruff a heart and use the ace of clubs as an entry to the winning jack of hearts.

If East throws a club, the LotG cashes the ace of clubs and ace of hearts and ruffs back to hand for the winning club.

East is completely squeezed. At the table he pitched a club and LotG made the final trick with the five of clubs. Ten tricks, easy game!

This is the complete deal:

Looking at my copy of Love's Bridge Squeezes Complete, technically this is a Trump Squeeze or, perhaps, a Ruffing Criss-Cross Squeeze. In essence a criss-cross squeeze with the additional element of trumps.

A rare bird indeed.

By a hair's breadth

2011-11-23T22:25:00.001Z

I said it would go down to the wire and I was not wrong. Playing the final board of the match against Cloonboo, Shireen was in two spades - make the contract and we are through, go one down and we were out. Luckily she and Andy had stopped out a safe level and eight tricks were made with little fuss and we are through to the round of 16.

Both pairs combined well to get our biggest swing:

With the favourable club position Andy made eleven tricks. In the other room Danny and Helen were also bidding:

This was worth 13 imps when Danny made the contract when South led clubs prematurely, but even going one down would have been worth 9 imps.

At the end we'd lost the match by 9 imps (13-17 VP) but qualified by finishing two vps ahead of Cloonboo. We now play Niš, winners of group C, in the round of 16.

Gold Cup 2011-2012

2011-11-23T11:32:00.001Z

The ties for Round 2 involving Scottish teams:

Mike Ash v Cathy Ferguson
Paul Gipson v Dee Harley
Ian Hunter v Iain SIME
Bob McKinnon v Cliff Gillis or Fiona Greenwood
Brian SHORT v Bill Durning
Harry Smith v Douglas Piper
David Weir v David Shenkin

Matches to be played by mid-February.

It's going down to the wire

2011-11-17T08:45:00.001Z

A narrow win, 16-14 VPs, in our penultimate round-robin match meant that we dropped to third in the table as the others around us scored maximums. With four to qualify for the knock-out stages, we are only one vp ahead of fourth and six vps ahead of fifth.

The good news is that our destiny is in our own hands as we play the fifth-placed team in the final round and any win, or even a small loss, will be sufficient. Indeed, with the fourth-placed team playing the holders, and current group leaders, matching their score would also get the job done. But I've told the team that a big win is needed as it will get us a higher seeding. Going to be tight.

There were a few wild hands last night and I could have given us more breathing space by finding the best lead on this hand:

I considered leading both of my aces. Which would you lead? Or something else?

Where's our chair?

2011-11-14T13:52:00.001Z

There was bitter disappointment at the end of the final Premier League weekend as we failed to achieve promotion by just 2 VPs. Of course there was going to be a disappointed team somewhere and it was clear at the start of the weekend that it would either be us (team BELL) or our friends in the COPE team, and we managed to maintain the tension right up to the last board.

Our team had not started the weekend well, but the same could also be said of our promotion rivals.

We defeated the English juniors narrowly in the first match. There was pretty good bridge at our table in the two sets as we played against David Williams and Basil Letts: the butler showed very few swings. I thought Alex and I had slightly the better of it but it was tight. I don't really think the same could be said at the other table, whoever was playing there! Double imp swings were much in evidence, but not on any of the boards we'd expected. In the end we'd eked out an 18-12 VP win, less than we'd hoped but softened by the fact that COPE has only drawn their match and we had extended our lead by three points.

Alex and I had our first morning lie in for the second match and came in to find a small deficit. We hauled this back in the middle twenty boards but then had a scorecard with little upside for the final set. When team mates had something similar we'd lost 42 imps in the set and a 10-20 VP defeat. Again COPE failed to take advantage as they had a defeat of similar proportions despite starting well.

So we entered the final match with a 7 VP over COPE, plus effectively another victory point in hand as we had beaten them by 2 imps in the head-to-head match and would win if we were tied. However we were playing the nearly invicible EWART team who had already won the division and promotion, whereas COPE were playing the weakest team in the league.

Alex and I sat out the first set and we missed a wild set of hands. When Susan and Bryony emerged it was impossible to tell whether they had a good card, although the general feeling was that their opponents had done little wrong. So it proved as we finished the set 22 imps down. Even worse news was that COPE had racked up 38 imps despite one of their team throwing away 40 imps on his own! They were heading for a maximum victory which meant that we had to win our match well.

Our team recovered in the second set and emerged with a 2 imps lead going into the final set. COPE had put on another 49 imps and were already sitting on a 24-6 VP win, so we were going to need another 20 imps.

The final set was not what we needed. Even the wildest match only resulted in a team gaining twelve imps and there was nowhere for us to find those that we needed. As it happened a couple of mistakes meant that we lost six imps on the set for a 15-15 draw. A creditable effort but not sufficient as COPE put on another three imps to get the maximum 25-5 VP win and promotion. Congratulations to them and good luck to both COPE and EWART in the first division next season.

The result notwithstanding, it was another enjoyable season in the Premier League. For the first time we had a working team of six that rotated throughout the event, something that Alex and I definitely prefer. The team atmosphere remaining harmonious throughout and Susan said it was a pleasure to play in a team that was not always pointing out each others errors - not a typical facet in any of our teams but then we don't always move in Susan's exaulted circles!

The second division of the Premier League was a lot stronger than last year. The English junior team is learning not to litter their card with large negative scores and were competitive in all their matches. One new team was inexperienced but showed that they could beat anyone with a following wind. The other teams all featured seasoned tournament players including two or three professional teams. Disappointing as the final result was, our team played well and just lacked a degree of consistency and partnership experience at crucial moments.

As Andy from the Cope team has just emailed me, it was a case of when the music stopped ...

We'll be back next year as it is definitely the best event in the UK calendar.

Wild things

2011-11-09T22:41:00.000Z

There are still two matches to play in the round-robin phase of the BBO InterCity League, but our 21-9 VP win this evening has put us in second place with four to qualify for the knock-out stages. However there is one match unplayed in our group so we might drop to third.

Our northern combination of Jim and Bill, together with Sheila and I, maintained our cool on a wild set of hands. Sheila and I started well when my one-level opener proved more successful at keeping the opponents out of game than the multi used in the other room. We gave these imps back, and more, when we stopped out of a thin game on the second board. Double-dummy game can be beaten, but unfortunately Jim and Bill were forced to play seeing only their own hands and dummy and the winning defence would have led to accusations of cheating!

A couple of optimistic bidding sequences from our opponents put us back in the lead, but then we fell well behind when they bid a good slam and then Jim and Bill aggressive bidding fell foul of very bad breaks and the opponents found a double - as often happens this loss was due more to different bidding systems and notrump ranges than anything else.

Then an aggressive overcall from Bill was responsible for us getting back in front in the match and was the start of a run of 32 imps without reply. Sheila and I were lucky on one hand where we had a bidding misunderstanding and missed a good game, but we still gained seven imps when they were in the wrong game at the other table. To be honest the rest of the imps were mainly due to some strange decisions by our opponents.

So onwards and upwards next week!

Whitley Bay

2011-11-05T20:41:00.003Z

Whitley Bay Bridge Club is a little out of our way, but it was an ideal halfway house for our Silver Plate quarter-final. The club generously opened it doors for us as we played the thirty-two board match and it proved a nice venue.

We were playing a team from Leeds. Not for the first time in the event we managed to gain a concession after twenty-four boards, leading 77-13 imps at that point. We all played quite solidly as you might guess from the small number of imps conceded and the final nail in their coffin was a slam where Anne and Sheila made six diamonds on the four-four fit while six notrumps failed in our room.

We now await the semifinal draw.

My team

2011-11-03T11:02:00.000Z

The trials are over and the two Scotland teams for the first weekend of the Camrose Trophy in January have been announced. My team is

Sheila Adamson and Anne Symons
Irving Gordon and William Whyte
Steve Male and Mike McGinley
NPC: me

My sole job is to get the team to the correct tables in Oxford in the right state to play bridge. They have shown through the trials that they can play the game, so I just have to get them there.

There is not a lot of time before January but all the pairs will be practising hard. I think they are all competing in another weekend of trials (Lady Milne or Seniors) and events with this level of pressure are ideal, at least from my perspective.

At least half the team have Camrose experience but this will be my first Camrose as NPC. I'm excited but hopefully the team will just see it as enthusiasm.

I'll try to get some photos and team bios for the blog soon.

Half-way in the ICL

2011-11-03T10:19:00.001Z

We have played four of our seven matches in the round-robin stage of the BBO InterCity League and we are in mid-table. With four of the eight teams in our group qualifying for the knock-out stages it would be nice to be higher, but everything is very close and mid-table really covers second to seventh place. As we have played the three teams above us, qualifying is in our own hands.

As often happens when you run an online team, some weeks you are inundated with players and others you struggle. Yesterday was a struggle until I asked Danny and Helen to join the team. Although Danny and I had spoken online and chatted about hands, I met them for the first time last weekend at the Scottish trials. But they are experienced online players and helped us to a 44-36 imps (17-13 VP) win against a team with (at least) two star players.

I was playing with Sheila, a rare outing for us. We were slightly behind when Sheila did two things right, and possibly one wrong, on board 14 to gain us a game swing:

The first good action was to overcall one notrump. At the other table one spade was passed out. After winning the third diamond Sheila took a considerable time to plan the play: clearly East is marked with most of the outstanding values, but there is just room for West to hold the queen of clubs. On the other hand, it is just about conceivable that West holds a high spade honour and East is more distributional but opened very light.

In the end Sheila selected the natural line of playing East for the points. As you'll see from the play above there was a simpler way to play the club suit, but playing on BBO often gives you these little blindspots that would not occur in real-life play. But she recovered very nicely with a squeeze, or endplay if East did not rectify the count. This was worth ten imps.

We gained six imps on the penultimate board when Danny and Helen stayed at a comfortable level and our opponents overbid to a very poor game and a flat last board gave us the narrow victory.

More next Wednesday.

The End

2011-10-29T22:03:00.002+01:00

It's been a terrific Bermuda Bowl in Veldhoven and the Netherlands are worthy winners. Time will tell whether this is where the revolution started, but the young guns seem to be running the show now. Both the Dutch and USA2 teams in the final are young and then, to cap it all, the Israeli Juniors won the Transnational Teams against an Australian team who had a 19-year-old in the team.

I've watched a number of Bermuda Bowls on BBO and this was the one that I've really felt part of, aside from the distance of course. Naturally being in the same time zone helped; doing voice commentary on BBO almost every day of the championship let me chat with other enthusiasts whilst watching the bridge; bridgewinners.com, well Steve Weinstein, did some great interviews; Jan from bridgetopics.com had a couple of good interviews (I especially liked the one with Weinstein); last but not least Justin Lall's contributions to the BBO Forums and his own blog gave us all a player's insight ... which maintaining a very high level of play.

Finally I thought the standard of bridge throughout the event was higher than previous years, particularly in the later stages.

It was a good one. Congratulations to all that played.

Final insight

2011-10-27T19:46:00.003+01:00

Three sessions down, five to go, and the Netherlands team has a slim 22 imps lead over USA 2.

A number of people have suggested that the young USA 2 team might be getting tired and, to be fair, I have commented on whether this would be a factor in earlier rounds. But I had a good chat with Justin Lall yesterday evening and he made a number of pertinent observations.

But first it was clear that he was very excited to be in the final. Not only is he playing with good friends, he played good friends in the semifinal and is playing good friends in the final. If you watch any of the live video stream, it is obvious that this match is being played in the best spirit - I don't think we'll be seeing any dubious appeals this time.

Back to tiredness, or not. In the Bermuda Bowl a team plays 48 boards a day. Many teams, like the Netherlands, Italy and USA 1, tend to rotate their pairs evenly so each pair plays only 32 boards a day. Even to the most unfit amateur this is not a gruelling schedule. USA 2, Justin's team, has tended to play Grue-Lall and Wooldridge-Hurd more often, but even then this is still only 48 boards if they play the full day.

This is bridge at the highest levels and they have been playing for almost two weeks now. But, as Justin pointed out, this number of hands is just not an issue to a top player. In one of the US nationals, the top pros are playing 50-60 boards a day at a high level for a week; in regional events, the mainstay of their day to day work, they will be playing 72 boards a day perhaps for three consecutive weeks. In contrast, 48 boards really is not a lot. As Justin said, "I think I could play 48 boards a day for the rest of my life".

For someone like me, who really does not play much bridge, the sheer number of boards that these top players get through is just mind-boggling.

So I don't think tiredness will play an issue in the final. Justin's final comment was that he liked this format and number of boards - at least the title will be decided by who plays the best bridge under pressure, not the one who is least-tired.

The match is still finely balanced - may the best team go on and win it.

The Alan Truscott Award

2011-10-24T10:27:00.000+01:00

The International Bridge Press Association is a strange organisation. Considering it's an information body it has a poor web site with little 'press' on it, perhaps reflecting the fact that it likes to keep its copy for paying customers of national and local newspapers. The IPBA Annual Awards are always reported in the bridge press, but again no mention of them on the front of the web site and finding previous winners takes you to directory listing on their web server. Not a great advert for them, I'd have thought.

But the awards are its thing and this year I thought I'd comment on the most deserving of this year's.

"The Alan Truscott Memorial Award is presented periodically to that person whose contribution to bridge, in the opinion of the IBPA Executive, would be most appreciated by Alan. This year the award goes to Roland Wald from London (ex-Copenhagen) who, in his spare time from teaching and playing, arranges for and organizes the Vugraph commentators for Bridge Base Online transmissions."

As one of his commentary squad, which numbers hundreds of people, I appreciate more than most the time and effort that Roland has put into the BBO Vugraph over the past decade. This is entirely a voluntary effort, but it appears to be a full-time job as others will have noticed as Walddk2, Walddk3, Walddk4, ... Walddk16 run around BBO whenever there are a large number of Vugraph tables in play.

Over the years, from Bermuda Bowl, to the Spingold, to the British Junior International Series, to a small local match in Italy, Roland has been tirelessly and successfully arranging commentary teams. He is not the sole reason that BBO Vugraph has been so successful, but he is certainly one of the foundation pillars on which it stands.

Congratulations Roland, a hugely deserved award.

Interlude from the Bermuda Bowl

2011-10-19T22:33:00.000+01:00

As the comprehensive vugraph coverage of the Bermuda Bowl closed down for the evening, the Edinburgh team leapt into action in the second match of the InterCity League. Our same warriors as last week took to the stage against Split and had soon established a lead of 23 imps with just four boards to play.

Unfortunately this was the highlight of the performance as we eventually lost a high-scoring match, 42-52 imps, 13-17 VPs.

It is difficult to see the best line in six spades on this hand. Any suggestions?

We'll be back next Wednesday for the next round.

Update: full hand shown now Michael and Jim (in comments) to see if their lines work

Defend like a champion too

2011-10-19T11:52:00.000+01:00

Did you see this defence at the Bermuda Bowl yesterday?

No? Not watching Duboin, Versace, Levin, Wolff?

Perhaps the real reason is that Berwick Bridge Club has yet to make it to vugraph. North was Reg Drysdale and South was Malcolm Copley. Unfortunately it's too late for them to enter the Scottish Camrose trials, but perhaps they are now looking for team mates for the European trials?

As a bonus question, can you see how I (West) could have made it?

Bid of the day?

2011-10-17T22:06:00.000+01:00

Sometimes players do something that you do not expect. Ilan Herbst faced this problem:

His Indian counterpart passed in this position, but Ilan bid three spades. This is not risk-free, but at least you'll find out quickly when it's wrong if West doubles.

But the more you look at the bid, the more attractive it becomes. Doubling risks partner bidding clubs. Despite holding short diamonds partner has not overcalled, so probably doesn't have six hearts. If East has length other than diamonds it will be in clubs, so partner may well have some spade support.

There are no guarantees in this world, but bidding three spades is not as wild as it looks at first glance. In this case it was worth a game swing when his brother was able to raise, while his team mates made nine tricks in diamonds.

Defend like a champion

2011-10-17T13:21:00.005+01:00

I'm not going to blog every day during the world championships, but I did not think this was an everyday defence.

Play through the hand and face the same decision as Giorgio Duboin. He got it right, naturally, will you?

Update: Bobby Wolff also got it right, but he's a champion too.

Can You Hear Me, Mother?

2011-10-16T21:03:00.003+01:00

Finished my first day of audio commentary on BBO and I hope that listeners are enjoying as much as I am. Importantly the bridge has been excellent which has made commentating enjoyable - no euphemisms ("perhaps I would not have done that" really meaning "I think declarer has lost his mind and should be led out of the room as he must be a gibbering wreck"), just bridge of the highest order.

Audio commentary has a number of advantages over typing. First there is no archive, so any stupid comments are not preserved; more seriously, it is easier to talk than type and you can get your view across before the player actually does something.

The biggest downside is that we sometimes talk over each other, which is more of an issue than two typists posting the same comment. In both the matches I covered I was accused of talking over people (and vice versa), but I think that time delay is a big issue that we need to be aware of. In the first match I was commentating with Bill Jacobs from Australia: depending on your perspective he has a lag, or I have a lag for him, so we don't see when the other starts talking. However this was our first day and I'm sure we'll improve - hope so as Bill and I are on first thing tomorrow for the Israel versus India match. The second match was not so bad, but even so there is also a delay, albeit smaller, to the North Americans.

Most people tell me that they are enjoying the voice commentary - why not give it a try?

Can You Hear Me, Mother?

Young guns

2011-10-16T12:55:00.000+01:00

Just finished my first audio commentary of the Bermuda Bowl, watching the young guns of USA 2 complete a 58-38 imps (20-10 VP) win over the friends and rivals of USA 1. As Justin Lall has already blogged "a set of crazy hands", but I thought they thoroughly deserved the win.

Early in the match Bobby Levin asked for a time monitor. This seemed a little strange as Hurd and Wooldridge are two of the fastest players in the event and Levin/Weinstein two of the more 'thoughtful', so perhaps it was fate that Bobby himself would end up with the longest 'tank' of the match.

This was board 9, rotated for convenience:

Although it might appear that Weinstein could have forgotten that Levin would be playing notrump contracts, as well as spades, his coach, Kit Woolsey, said it was likely to be to protect against a ruff.

Which card do you play from dummy?

There are a few points worth considering. How do you get to the king of clubs for a discard even if you get this decision right - what if spades are 3-0? If you play the jack of diamonds and it holds, are you home?

Much to consider. You have ten minutes. What do you do?

Resting my voice

2011-10-14T21:36:00.000+01:00

The 40th World Team Championships start in Veldhoven on Sunday morning and run for two weeks of intense bridge.

Although the focus will be on the Bermuda Bowl, one of my Premier League team-mates, Susan Stockdale, is playing for England in the Venice Cup and we'll all be watching their progress carefully.

All three events, Open, Women and Seniors, feature a full round-robin for the 22 teams from which eight qualify for the knock-out stages.

Bridge Base Online is expecting to cover six matches, or twelve tables, for each of the three daily sessions. Not only will it be a strain for the players, all the commentary staff will be kept busy too.

I have signed up to provide some of the live audio commentary on BBO, known as Vugraph Voice. This is available for anyone watching using the web client - so follow the full and simple instructions to hear my dulcet tones.

Excitingly I am doing Vugraph Voice for the first match - USA 1 against USA 2 - so set your alarm clock for 9.30am (UK) and see these two exciting teams, and favourites for the KO stages, clash. I am also doing the Italy versus Bulgaria match in the final session, another match between two top teams.

With England and Scotland out of the Rugby World Cup, at least I can rest my voice tomorrow.

Road to Victory

2011-10-13T12:16:00.001+01:00

Gavin Wolpert has completed his series of videos describing every board of his win in the 2011 Silodor Pairs in Louisville last March. You can find all the videos on bridgewinners at http://bridgewinners.com/index.php/lessonvideos, but why not being with the first round.

A must for players of all levels.

InterCity League

2011-10-12T22:37:00.001+01:00

The sixteenth season of the BBO InterCity League started this evening. There are now two Scottish teams participating, Edinburgh (us) and Glasvegas (a mix of Scotland, Canada and Israel).

Our first match was against Dubrovnik and Harry, Adrian, Phil and Miro won by 58-28 imps (22-8 VP). Normally I'd produce a hand or two but I've yet to find one that was interesting enough. Hopefully we'll find something in the weeks to come.

Information on the event can be found at the ICL web site.

Using the partnership bidding on BBO

2011-10-05T11:36:00.003+01:00

I have discussed this before but a new request arrived for help so I thought I'd share the technical details again.

The partnership bidding area on BBO is excellent and, on the web client, there is complete flexibility in creating hands to practise with. Complete flexibility does not come cheap though and the format can be daunting if you are not a programmer, but it is a lot easier to plagiarise the work of others and this is the principal reason for this guide: feel free to take the process and modify for your own non-commercial purposes.

The overall process is:

Log into BBO and start a bidding table
Set the hand constraints
Bid with your partner or robots

Starting a bidding table

Using the web-based client, there is no specific partnership bidding area. The process to open a bidding table is:

Click on Start Table (top left corner)
Click on Start a Bidding table

You may wish to select certain privacy options and reserve a seat at the table for your partner, especially if you are making the table 'invisible'.

When at the table, sit in your seat and you can then click on the Robot button on the East and West seats to use the robots. They play 2/1 and will only understand your bids if you are playing 2/1, but don't worry about that too much!

Setting the hand constraints

There is a Deal Source button that allows you to control the hands that are dealt. You can control the number of points your partnership has and/or the hands for each player. There is also an advanced tab that I suggest you use for practising competitive bidding.

For this example, the partnership wish to practise bidding strong hands after their opponent had opened. I thought of various complicated programs to do this but, as you'll see, settled for something pretty simple.

Click on the Deal Source button
For this exampe, clear the appropriate check buttons so that East is the only dealer. This is to ensure that the opponents always open.
Click on the Advanced tab
Enter the hand constraint program (see next section) into the box
Check the checkbox for 'Use this input for Dealer program'
Check the checkbox for 'Randomly rotate generated deals 180 degrees' - this is a really useful feature: after the hands are generated, they will be rotated so that both partners are able to practise holding the strong hand.
Close the Deal Source window

Hand constraint program

Enter the following text into the window:

# Set dealer to East using BBO commands and do 180 switch

## define constraints for East
## East should have a one club or one diamond opener but not a strong 1NT

east1m = hcp(east)>12 and hcp(east)<18 and
shape(east, any 4333 + xx45 + x4x5 + 4xx5 + xxx6 + xx54 + x45x + 4x5x + xx6x)

east1nt = hcp(east)>14 and hcp(east)<18 and shape(east, any 4333 + any 4432 + any 5332)

## define constraints for South
## South has a strong hand that will either overcall or double

southdbl = hcp(south)>16 and shape (south, any 6xxx + any 5422 + any 5431)

## Define the hands to be dealt#

(east1m and not east1nt) and southdbl

This is a very simple script. It will not always generate the hands required, but I reckon it will do so about 80% of the time.

Bidding

When the North-South seats are filled, the first hand is dealt automatically. Place robots in the East-West seats and hope that they bid as you wish. When you have bid a hand, you must click Redeal to move on.

And with the robots you can actually practise alone, with a robot as your partner. This may, or may not, be advisable :)

Robots are free to use for this purpose.

Split personality?

2011-10-03T15:55:00.000+01:00

Currently I am plugging away in the English Premier League, trying to get promotion to the top division and represent England as a player - okay, be careful, don't want to fall off your seat laughing.

But it seems that my leadership skills have been noticed in Scotland - okay, be careful, falling off the chair at your age wasn't good the first time - and I have been appointed captain of the SBU team for the Camrose Trophy.

I believe that this will be the first time that Scotland has provided the sixth team since the five-nation event was expanded to avoid sit-outs. Alan Goodman has been appointed as NPC for the Scotland team, which is officially the #1 team, and I believe we get to comment on the teams prior to the selectors making the final decision. Naturally the trials will provide the Selection Committee with the bulk of the input, but they do have to make a decision on the composition of the two teams and consider how the teams may change (due to form or illness) over the two weekends of the event.

To give an idea of the decisions that they have to grapple with, consider the fate of the top six pairs in the final who will be guaranteed at least one match in one of the teams. Do you place pairs finished first, second and third into the Scotland team, and fourth, fifth and sixth into the SBU team? If so, what happens if a pair in the Scotland team falls ill for the second weekend - do you put the seventh placed pair in?

One option, I think used by Wales last season, was to say that pairs 1-4 would play for the first team over the two weekends, in essence forcing a change even if the team was doing well after the first weekend. Over the last few years this is what Scotland has done, but there is a difference from choosing to change a pair rather than being forced to.

I have no strong opinion on the best approach and it is very likely that the trials will indicate very little difference between the Scotland and SBU teams. The selectors also have the option, especially if the trials are inconclusive, to select pairs 'out of order' for the teams: for example, they may feel that pairs 2, 4 and 6 are a 'natural team'.

To be honest, I don't envy the selectors' decision as most of Scotland will think they've done the wrong thing :)

We'll just have to wait and see what the final trial, on 29-30 October, delivers. Whatever the teams, I know that Alan and I will be working hard to help them succeed.

PL 2

2011-10-03T11:35:00.001+01:00

This was always going to be an important weekend in the English Premier League. We had started well but would be playing two of the teams that be contesting the second promotion spot, on the premise that Ewart's all-stars were going to run away with the division.

Alex and I did not have a good Saturday. In the first set I misdefended a doubled part-score, gaining +500 when +800 was easy, and found a losing line in the inelegant contract of four notrump. The opponents also bid a good slam and then their eclectic choice of pre-emptive opener caused us to overreach to a slam and they found the only lead to beat it. Despite all this we were only four imps down - we did do some good things but Susan and Bryony had an excellent card.

We sat out the second set and the team gained an imp. However a score of 62-61 imps over 20 boards suggests that the match was not the highest quality.

In the final set we played poorly, misdefending for no really good reason. A few good boards probably disguised how poor we really were from our team-mates. I'm not a huge believer in public post-mortems and luckily they had plenty of other hands to discuss at dinner - not to mention the fact that our captain ordered five starters and so the table was full of food. Overall we lost by 32 imps and that was a disappointing 11-19 VPs.

The second match of the weekend was against the Cope team. The two teams know each other really well and a big win for either side would put them in the driving seat for promotion.

We played the first set and we emerged with a 30-25 imps lead, probably the lowest scoring set of the event to that point. We'd taken a phantom sacrifice when I didn't appreciate that J10x would be worth a trick in their trump suit (Alex had singleton king), but the rest of the card was solid. At least it felt like some decent bridge was being played, unlike the previous day.

Again we sat out the second set and we would be 20 imps down going into the final set of twenty boards.

Alex and I playing against Andy and John was a concern for both captains, but it was our choice and being down it clearly made sense for us to play them. Although they play a Polish-style one club system and we play 2/1, the similarity of our one club openers and responses meant that we would often bid the same way. As we were down in the match and looking for swings, we did not wish to sit the same direction as them.

The concern of the captains was time penalties. We are the slowest pair on our team and they are probably the slowest pair in the event. But I think there was at least two minutes left on the clock at the end.

We had a reasonable card. We went down in one game that could have made, but, from what I've seen, everyone who played it had the same 'blindspot', but we did bid and make one very thin three notrump and were rewarded for not overbidding on another hand, so we emerged with 41-19 imps on the set to win by 2 imps, albeit a 15-15 VP draw.

The bridge was far better in this match and it was pleasing to only lose 44 imps in the 40 boards that we played.

Overall we are still second in the table, 8 VPs clear of Cope, but we still have to play the leaders. The final three matches are next month.

Gold Cup 2011-2012

2011-09-29T11:22:00.002+01:00

As we are trying to arrange our quarter-final match in this year's Silver Plate, the draw for next season's Gold Cup has been made. We have received a bye, which could be seen as reducing our fixture congestion or, more likely, just moving the problem to the start of next year.

There are eighteen teams entered from Scotland, two of which are seeded. Matches in the first round involving these teams are:

P Cozens (Fife) v B Durning (Glasgow)
Ms C Ferguson (Glasgow) v Mrs Y Piper (Edinburgh)
Ms F Greenwood (Edinburgh) v C Gillis (Glasgow)
G Wood (Edinburgh) vs D Harley (Edinburgh)

The following teams have byes:

Mike Ash (Edinburgh)
P Gipson (Scottish Borders)
I Hunter (Dundee)
R McKinnon (Glasgow)
D Piper (Edinburgh)
D Shenkin (Glasgow)
B SHORT (Edinburgh) - SEED
I SIME (Edinburgh) - SEED
H Smith (Perth)
D Weir (Edinburgh)

With regard to this season's event, Iain Sime's team is playing their quarter-final at the last Gold Cup Congress to be held at Peebles, as Bridge Great Britain have announced that they will be using a Midlands venue next year. Iain is playing the holders and I hope they will receive a lot of local support on the Friday. More nearer the time.

Update: A quick count suggests that the number of entrants has dropped significantly this year to 169 teams, twenty-six fewer than last season. The Scottish entry has remained constant at eighteen.

PL 1

2011-09-26T13:43:00.002+01:00

PL/1, not the programming language but the first weekend of the English Premier League.

For this weekend only the two divisions were playing at different venues, so it did feel cosier than normal. Alex and I were playing in Division 2 at Richmond Bridge Club on a new team with Mike, Simon, Susan and Bryony. We've known Mike for a long time and played on teams with him before, but it was the first time with the others.

The format of the Premier League is divisions of eight teams, playing a round-robin of sixty-board matches over three weekends the last of which includes Friday. All the matches are played with screens and the rotation that a team of six allows makes it a lot easier to maintain a good standard of play.

So the first weekend involved just two matches and we've started well with two wins. First we beat the relegated Penfold team by 72 imps (24-6 VP) and then Chadha, a new team this year, by 64 imps (23-7 VP). Even so we are only in second place as Ewart only dropped a single VP: we play them in the final match.

Alex and I played reasonably throughout the weekend. We had a keycard accident in the first set - not a failure to count but a debate over whether 4NT was keycard or not - and bid a poor (but not hopeless) slam, but were reprieved in the match when Susan and Bryony somehow beat game. One or two others must have done something similar as we only lost 8 imps on the butler for this.

Yes, as Scottish trialists will be muttering, they do produce meaningless bits of information from the league known as butler scores. The main interest is hands like this where you can gain some sense of what others did with the hand, but they rarely reflect your view of how the match went.

This mishap seems to be the only big error that we made on the weekend. The rest of team was good too as the scores reflect. We weren't card-perfect on everything else, and the odd -800 and -1100 would have been below par although repeated elsewhere, but I think we only let through one game (difficult decision at trick two) and the rest was just sensible play.

Now we all move on to Manchester for the next two matches.

First Night

2011-09-21T11:40:00.000+01:00

Eleven tables greeted us for the first round of the clubs pairs championship. Everyone was keen to playing again after the summer break and with the farmers complaining about the weather, it was not long before we all felt back in the swing of things.

How do you play this suit combination?

In isolation, the best line is to cash the ace of diamonds. When East follows with an honour, fans of the Principle of Restricted Choice will know that you should finesse West for the other honour rather than playing for the drop. Mathematicians will tell you that the odds are about 2:1 for the finesse working; bridge players should say the same thing, unless they know that East always plays the jack when holding QJ doubleton.

If East always plays the jack from QJ doubleton, then you should finesse West for the jack whenever East drops the queen on the first round (since it must be singleton); if East drops the jack then it is about evens on it being from QJ or J singleton. This is why East should randomise the card he plays from QJ doubleton - it increases East's chances of success.

As it happened, this was not the card combination I faced on board one, but it was close:

East led a small heart to my king and then dropped the jack of diamonds when I played towards the ace. Can you spot the difference between this suit combination and the earlier one?

Even though the Principle of Restricted Choice suggests that West will now hold the queen of diamonds, I played a small diamond to the king dropping East's queen. Why?

Because if West had four diamonds to the queen, I would always lose a diamond trick because I can only finesse once. So playing the king of diamonds on the second round would never lose but could gain whenever East had QJ doubleton. Knowing the odds is important, but applying them appropriately in a bridge hand is the skill.

LotG does not study suit combinations, especially when she is preparing to represent Scotland in the World Scrabble Championships, but just works them out at the table and normally gets it right.

How do you play this suit combination for no losers in notrump?

LotG got this right by playing the clubs from the top. The chances of 3-3 clubs or jack doubleton exceed the 50% alternative for the finesse. Unfortunately virtue had to be its own reward in this case as the clubs broke 4-2 with the finesse working, so LotG went down in her contract. Our auction, combined with Majorie's excellent defence, gave us a bottom:

Astute readers, BBO kibitzers and many BBO commentators would be saying that LotG could still make the contract after getting the clubs wrong. As always, it is a lot simpler when you can see all the hands*.

We finished the evening with 57%. Most of the pairs hoping to compete for the championship scored well with Brian and George putting down an early marker with 65%. More to come over the winter.

*update: as has been pointed out to me, you cannot make the contract once you have tested the clubs. So the kibitzers might make the contract when watching, but everyone should be going down since playing clubs is better than any single finesse.

All change

2011-09-19T14:02:00.001+01:00

A quick review of the published data from this weekend's trial suggests more than a minor change in the ranking order of the pairs as they think about the final weekend in Stirling. Some of the leading pairs had huge wins against non-qualifiers and with these scores discarded things look very different.

Firstly though, the caveats: this is my work, not the official SBU ranking, and it may be error-strewn; the scores from the web site did not fully correlate with the scores generated from the results, due to adjustments, fines, etc, and these are not included; finally, we are are less than half-way through the trial and there is only fifty real imps covering the top ten* - anyone can still win with a good weekend.

That said, I think the starting positions will be:

Sheila Adamson & Anne Symons
Iain Sime & John Matheson
Danny & Helen Kane
Steve Male & Mike McGinley
Dave Walker & Brian Short
Laura Middleton & Veronica Guy
Jim Hay & Jun Nakamaru-Pinder
Douglas Piper & Alex Wilkinson
Adrian Orlowski & Harry Smith
Charles & Vi Outred
Bill Whyte & Irving Gordon
Paul Barton & Cliff Gillis

Update: originally I said that sixty imps covered the field but it is closer to one hundred imps on the uncorrected scores, but only fifty imps cover the top ten (my inability to use the spreadsheet for all calculations and try to multiply nine by ten in my head caused the error).

An upsetting weekend

2011-09-19T10:32:00.001+01:00

The twelve qualifiers for the final weekend of the Scottish Camrose trials are, subject to appeal:

Douglas Piper & Alex Wilkinson
Charles & Vi Outred
Dave Walker & Brian Short
Steve Male & Mike McGinley
Jim Hay & Jun Nakamaru-Pinder
Sheila Adamson & Anne Symons
Iain Sime & John Matheson
Danny & Helen Kane
Adrian Orlowski & Harry Smith
Paul Barton & Cliff Gillis
Bill Whyte & Irving Gordon
Laura Middleton & Veronica Guy

This was their finishing order but they only carry over scores against the qualifiers, so starting positions next month may be slightly different. They will play a further ten boards against each pair to add to the six boards that they played against them this weekend.

The big surprise is that three of the eight exempted pairs failed to qualify. As I expected all three pairs to compete for a place in the first Scottish team, I'm sure that they are annoyed and frustrated that they can no longer play for either of the two teams that Scotland will have in the Camrose this time. But, as I said previously, this year's format means that one bad weekend and you are history. I have noted the randomness of the format and the field, but unfortunately many of our 'top' pairs can be pretty inconsistent themselves and some are now paying the price for this.

But this is all good for those who have got through and there will be a number of new internationalists next January. But there are five pairs with Camrose experience in the top seven places so I expect a strong first team to emerge. The challenge for the less experienced is to get into that top six (or stay there) and force the selectors to pick them.

USA 1 vs USA 2

2011-09-13T18:57:00.000+01:00

With the Bermuda Bowl coming up next month in Veldhoven, many teams can be seen practising hard on BBO. One of the most interesting is between the two USA teams in the Open Series.

Bridge Base Online and BridgeWinners are sponsoring a showcase match between the two teams. The FLEISHER Team (USA 1: Marty Fleisher, Michael Kamil, Bobby Levin, Steve Weinstein, Chip Martel, Lew Stansby) will face off against BATHURST (USA 2: Kevin Bathurst, Dan Zagorin, Joe Grue, Justin Lall, John Hurd, Joel Wooldridge) in a friendly match for some pre-Bermuda Bowl bragging rights. The match will be played over 48 boards, in three 16-board sets with each pair playing 32 boards on Sunday, September 18th, at 19:00 GMT, 20:00 UK, 21:00 Paris, 15:00 New York, 20:00 Berwick-upon-Tweed.

The contest will be played entirely on-line meaning that the pace of play will be quick. The audience will enjoy knowing what the players' bids mean as they alert, and there will be live audio commentary by Gavin Wolpert, author of the BridgeWinners video series Road to Victory, and BridgeWinners author Kit Woolsey. In addition, BBO is putting up a prize fund of $2,000 to the winning team for a charity of their choice. Be sure to save the date for watching two of the best bridge teams in the world play!

Book your seat now.

Helping others

2011-09-08T17:08:00.000+01:00

In a comment on the previous post Mike Ash asked an interesting question that I thought deserved a longer response:

there are several other selectors who could be available to 'chat' to aspirant internationalists. Perhaps this is a role that you [Paul] could offer?

My door is always open.

I already provide minor assistance to quite a number of aspiring (and, to be honest, achieved) pairs but it not something that most wish to advertise. Even if it were, their efforts would not be appearing on the blog :)

Importantly I'm not the only one. I know that many others, including some of our most experienced internationalists, work closely with pairs. In fact I would say that Scotland is blessed with free talent in this area and for something, in other countries, where you might have to pay a professional.

The lack of professional status means that almost all, including me, are not breaking down your door looking for business. But ask and we are highly likely to say yes.

I don't underestimate the difficulty in finding the right person to work with, especially if you are not in the same locality as the person who you'd like. Approaching them in the middle of a tournament is not easy and may not be appropriate, but most will happily give you their email address and that might start a dialogue.

Ask for advice based on a hand you've played, or a bidding sequence, or, with someone like me who is familiar with BBO, perhaps some assistance in a partnership bidding room. Or ask for a set game on BBO. These can all provide an easy introduction to each other.

Trials update

2011-09-07T17:24:00.000+01:00

The first weekend of trials are complete and the show moves on to Glasgow in ten days time.

The results were delayed due to an unsavoury-sounding incident between two of the competitors that resulted in one pair not completing their matches. The Conditions of Contest seemed pretty clear on what to do in this situation, but like any problem with Scottish trials the detailed implementation could be subject to interpretation of which they will always be many. But at least the Selection Committee has resolved the situation within a couple of days.

Quite a number of the competitors have chatted to me about the weekend. High on most people's list was the randomness of the whole affair.

Going for an all-play-all format meant that five-board matches were necessary and scoring was total cross-imps. Although not ideal as it seems that every five boards become a dash to the finishing line, the form of scoring is unlikely to make a meaningful difference to those who qualified. In any pairs format, being lucky with slams is worth a lot more than playing part-scores well. There was a last minute attempt to limit the maximum win in any match, but this was rescinded after the first round - given the rebellious nature of triallists up here it seems just too bizarre to even consider making such a late, and unpublished, change to the proceedings.

I blame the SBU membership for the randomness. They, through the SBU Council, insist that any eligible player is able to play in the trials: experience and/or ability not required. Of course we all know who should be playing and who should not, or at least we all think we know.

In an ideal world, perhaps the selectors could sit down with some of the pairs and just ask why are they playing? Do they believe that they are one of the top six pairs in Scotland ready to play on BBO Vugraph in the Camrose? Are they going to put in the effort over the next year or two to achieve this? What events are they playing over the coming season that will help them improve and showcase their ability?

But I am day-dreaming here and being entirely unrealistic. It's a small country and today's selector is tomorrow's triallist, so who can you ever hold this type of conversation with? So perhaps I should stop trying to blame the members and we should all just accept the situation and its consequences.

The results of this trial do highlight a problem with the current format. Have a bad weekend and you are history. The winning score was +0.5* imps per board, to my mind a very low score over a short event. With eleven pairs qualifying, the difference between sixth and fourteenth place was about 20 (real) imps - just one slam would swing more than that. So it was incredibly tight. Play poorly and you were definitely going home: not play well and have two adverse slam swings, bye bye.

And while the nine exempt pairs were sitting comfortably at home watching ~~a Dutch referee rob the football team~~ this all play out, they should reflect that the format is unchanged in Glasgow. They have not been guaranteed two weekends, as in previous years. No, they need to finish in the top twelve or they'll be going home too. And the format is the same. So be lucky or play well. There is no other option.

Meanwhile, later this month, I'll be participating in the English Premier League, the event used by the English to select their Camrose teams. It is open to all, teams in divisions, and every team plays seven 60-board matches over three weekends. Does this sound a better way?

*Update: recalculating this it was approximately +0.64 imps per board, so still quite low. I expected nearer to 1 imp per board.

End of the road

2011-09-07T10:58:00.000+01:00

This would normally be the 'end of the summer' post, but summer has never started and we've gone straight from spring to autumn. Nevertheless the Russell Cup did end last night with Brian Short winning the competition with a creditable 63%, well clear of Mike Ash and Iain Sime. Following a modern tradition of showing contempt for the final session when leading, Brian celebrated with a below-average score with his Camrose partner :)

Julia and I did not really trouble the scorers. We made a few mistakes, took some wrong views and lacked field protection when our opponents did the right thing.Perhaps it would have been different if I'd made this slam:

The auction has some interest: Stephen Peterkin bid three clubs over the spade raise and this eventually resulted in a diamond lead which made the play a lot simpler.

I received a trump lead which I thought was more likely from some diamond holding. In the end I took the ruffing diamond finesse and so went down. At least one played to ruff the diamond king down - I don't know their auction but, a priori, this looks worse than the ruffing finesse.

So now we turn to the winter schedule of bridge. Leagues, local clubs, trials etc.

He's back ... hopefully for a while

2011-09-02T11:44:00.001+01:00

Probably the best young bridge writer, Justin Lall, has restarted blogging ... again.

He is always worth following although I will warn new readers that he has a history of producing excellent material and then disappearing into the ether for a prolonged period. So make the most of it while you can!

Justin is a member of the USA2 team for the Bermuda Bowl next month in the Netherlands.

Almost done

2011-08-31T10:27:00.001+01:00

An evening at table one playing with Iain in the penultimate round of the Russell Cup. If we could score 66% then Iain would retain some interest into the final week of the competition. Even if we had been card-perfect our opponents did sufficient to ensure we would not score that, and when we were not Iain was happy to score above average ... just.

Computer problems and late arrivals meant that we started the first board while some were finishing their second. Even so we all achieved the par score on the board, but that was still worth 60% of the matchpoints to us:

Although three spades doubled, down one, is par this is a save against two notrump rather than three hearts, but everyone recommends bidding to the level of the fit ('The LAW'). Well not everyone, perhaps nobody except Larry Cohen and he always has wriggle factors when the Law fails, but bidding three spades is certainly no crime here.

Iain judged well on board six:

This was a cold top as most North-South pairs were in spades, going a few down, and the others who played in clubs were not doubled (for some reason!).

Some may criticise the two clubs overcall, vulnerable opposite a passed partner, but I think it's pretty automatic at matchpoints. You think that the opponents are going to play in a major and helping partner with the lead seems right. Partner is a passed hand and is never going to kill you later in the auction.

Actually I was quite surprised when dummy went down. It did seem rather strong and perhaps a cue bid rather than the direct raise would have been more appropriate (not that it would have changed anything here). I don't think Iain would have passed at imps but the lure of the magic +200 was too much to ignore here, and when I had a good double it was +500.

Things started to unravel after the break when we bid a good game, missed by most, that went down with everything wrong. A super-light opener from me propelled us into a poor grand slam and then our opponents started to take random, but successful, actions against us.

Final week of the 'summer' next time, if that is what you can call the season we are currently in.

Trials

2011-08-29T20:10:00.001+01:00

For many this season's SBU Open Trials for the Home International Series are the most important that have ever been run. For the first time Scotland will have two teams competing for the Camrose Trophy, which means that at least six pairs will be getting international caps.

Currently it appears that thirty pairs are competing for this privilege. I am sure that the SBU Council will feel that this vindicates their policy of preserving completely open entry to the trials process, others will consider that it is just randomising ~~selection~~ the trials process.

Nine pairs have been exempted from the first weekend leaving twenty-one fighting for eleven qualifying places. Of these my view is that only four pairs are good enough to play for Scotland currently. But most of the rest are capable of having one good trials weekend out of three, and any of 'my' four are easily inconsistent enough to have a bad first weekend. So I will not be surprised if one of them fails to qualify, but all the qualifiers will need to up their game if they wish to trouble the scorers in the final two weekends.

Despite this slightly pessimistic view, I would be very pleased to be proved wrong and see some new pairs challenge the status quo that has persisted over the last few years. I've seen a number of the trialists practising hard on BBO and I'd love to see a new pair play really solid bridge over three trials weekends. Actually, seeing any of the established pairs do this would be nice too :)

At the moment I'd say that there is a good chance that the nine exempted pairs will provide both teams. And no-one knows how the Selection Committee will select the teams for the second weekend. My personal view is that I'd like them to continue the practice of the past few years and keep the 'first' team largely unchanged across both weekends. However the second team could be used to give experience to deserving players.

This would mean finishing in the first eight pairs in the trials would be enough to get a cap. This may seem like it is going too far down the list, but there will be little difference in standard between most in the final trial and the pair finishing fourth this time could easily finish ninth if you reran the event

So I hope that everyone plays to their full capability this weekend and gets the result they deserve. Luck will undoubtedly play its part, but make the most of this opportunity as you may never get a better chance.

Gold Cup update

2011-08-28T19:55:00.000+01:00

We went out of the Gold Cup a long time ago but the team that beat us, SIME (Matheson, McGeorge and Sanders), qualified for the quarter-finals yesterday when they beat the other remaining Scottish team, SHORT (Walker, Spears and Murdoch) by 39 imps.

I am playing with Iain on Tuesday and will get an update, but I believe it is likely that they will play their quarter-final at Peebles in December at the Gold Cup Congress.

Our early exit meant that we got to play in the Gold Cup Plate, which we duly won today. We won all our matches easily with our opponents graciously conceding in every round, making life easier for Alex as he travelled up and down the country. We now go into the quarter-finals of the Silver Plate, joining the English and Welsh losers. With the Premier League and Scottish trials, finding a free date for any match is going to be a challenge.

At the seaside

2011-08-22T13:49:00.004+01:00

We had an enjoyable weekend in Brighton but the results at the bridge table were below our expectations. It would be simpler if I could name a single scapegoat, but in truth we shared the mistakes around the team as we failed to make a significant challenge for glory throughout Saturday.

But it all started so well on Friday, despite drawing the talented Norwegian and British professionals playing with Nick Irens. A 41-0 imps hammering took us to the top of the field, just to have one of those matches where nothing seemed to work. But a second maximum in the final match of the evening meant that we had a fair start.

Saturday was just frustrating. We lost the first match as imps just slipped away - the 2-18 VP defeat was large considering no-one really did anything blameworthy, but the small swings just added up. To be fair the second match was similar but fortunately it went our way this time, but neither pair did well in the third match and we were blitzed. The final match of the afternoon was flat and our goal of making a final had largely disappeared.

These hopes vanished when we could only achieve a small win in the first match on Saturday evening and then a small loss and small win completed the day. A disappointing finish to the real qualifying stage.

It is always hard to play on Sunday in the Swiss as you don't really want to be there. Despite our mid-field position we still played a good team and, having lost to them, had to play another team with three internationals in it. I agreed to not publish their names as it was an ignominious place to meet! It seemed a feature of the weekend that whenever we lost we'd play a good team down the field, whereas as we looked at the teams near the top there were quite a few we'd prefer to play. A feeling that most teams who are not doing as well as they hope has!

Having lost both these matches we had sunk to a place where the teams were weaker and we could get a big win despite our errors. Even so we had to play a team with two Scottish international pairs in the final match, but a big win here was only a small consolation.

One area where our partnership was strong and recent system changes did pay off was slam bidding. We did bid one really bad slam (which was bid at the other table but at least we managed to make it) but overall we did not concede a slam swing all weekend. More importantly we got a number of slam swings in, both small and grand slams, which was pleasing. We only went down in two slams: one was a sacrifice (one down) and the other required just one of two finesses (a flat board). In addition, we did not bid a number of other poor slams. So a real turnaround and the highspot of the weekend from our perspective.

No need to go into the lowspots :)

Elsewhere there were a number of Scots doing well. Pride of place really goes to Sam, Stephen, Jenny and Tim who capped an excellent congress by qualifying for the A Final. In the Bowl, Nigel Guthrie came second after adopting the 'lose our first two matches heavily' and then barely losing a match thereafter. Bill, Irving, Liz, Paula, Iain and Fiona also had good finishes to finish joint sixth, but fair to say that all would have preferred to be in one of the two finals.

Results:

Samantha Punch, Stephen Peterkin, Jenny Cooper and Tim Rees* (8th in A final)
Victor Silverstone**, Tony Waterlow*, Ian Panto* and Peter Lester* (7th in A final)
Sarah Dunn*, David Gold**, David Ewart** and Gunnar Hallberg* (3rd in B final)
Pat Dowdeswell, Mike Ribbins*, David Barnes* and Nigel Guthrie (2nd in Bowl)
William Whyte, Irving Gordon, Alec Smalley* and Tom Slater* (6th in Bowl)
Liz McGowan, Paula Leslie, Fiona McQuaker and Iain Sime (6th in Bowl)
Mike Ash, Alan Goodman, Christopher Chambers* and Peter Gemmell*
Paul Gipson*, Alex Gipson*, Anne Symons and Sheila Adamson
Anna St Clair, Fiona Greenwood, Dee Harley and Malcolm Copley
Jim McMahon, Jim Forsyth, Justin Hackett* and Paul Hackett*
Laura Middleton, Robert Clow, Tim McKay and Keith Youngs
Kitty Teltscher*, Steve Eginton*, John Matheson and Willie Coyle
Paul Barton, Cliff Gillis, Sheila Macdonald and Maida Grant
Bas V Beijsterveldt*, Alan Jones*, Myles Ellison and Frazer Morgan
Rob Dixon***, Peter Sherry*, Royd Laidlow* and Carol Benzie*

*currently ineligible for Scotland
**ineligible, but able to play for Scotland without living here
***not the Scottish Rob Dixon, so will need to move to Scotland to attain eligibility

Money but no trophy

2011-08-19T08:01:00.001+01:00

Liz, Mike, Bill and Irving finished fourth in the Senior Swiss Teams. They improved from overnight and closed the gap on the leaders to 13 VPs and at least were in the prize money. Unfortunately individual match scores are not posted so hard to tell if they had a chance of winning it with a round to go - I'm sure they'll tell me tomorrow evening.

Elsewhere the number of invaders is increasing and most were competing in the Mixed Pairs Championship. Pride of place went to the holders Sam and Stephen who went unbelievably close to defending their title as they finished second, less than half of one percent behind the winners. About one percent behind them in third place was Yvonne Wiseman, playing with Graeme Robertson.

The results that count:

2nd: Samantha Punch and Stephen Peterkin
3rd: Yvonne Wiseman and Graeme Robertson*
5: Irving Gordon and Maureen Hiron*
32: Fiona Greenwood and Jason Hackett*
46: Tim McKay and Laura Middleton
57: Dee Harley and Anna St Clair
58: Jenny Cooper and Tim Rees*
111: Liz McGowan and Mike Ash
Restaurant: Bill Whyte
Bar: Ellison (x2)

130 pairs competed.

*not currently eligible to play for Scotland

We can still teach them a thing or two

2011-08-18T09:37:00.000+01:00

You would have thought that all the 'bed hopping' that occurs in junior partnerships would have been ideal for a mixed pivot event. But no, it was the Scottish seniors who showed that the youngsters need many more years hopping as they trounced the field in the 75th Anniversary Mixed Pivot Teams last night.

Mike Ash, Liz McGowan, Irving Gordon and Bill Whyte scored 140 imps with Tom Townsend's team a distant second on 93 imps. The other Scots in the field did not feature in the prize money and, in particular, I'm sure Ms Wiseman was particularly disappointed in her selection of young English men. Never mind, she is young and there are plenty more to chose from!

Mike, Liz, Irving and Bill play in the final session of the Senior Swiss Teams this afternoon. They currently lie seventh, 25 VPs behind the leaders, so have some work to do to improve on last year's second place.

In the evening it is the Mixed Pairs Championship where (I presume) the holders, Sam Punch and Stephen Peterkin, will be defending their trophy. I imagine that Mike will be playing with Liz, leaving Irving and Bill to find partners ... unless Bill has his kilt with him!

Anyone got a camera?

It's not how you start ...

2011-08-17T08:54:00.001+01:00

Two Scottish senior pairs reached the final of the pairs at the Seniors Congress. Mike Ash and Liz McGowan started slowly but improved with every session to finish third. Irving Gordon and Bill Whyte started strongly but faded with only an average session in the final to finish twelfth, just out of the prizes. I believe they are teaming up now for the two-day Senior Teams. Lapsed Scot Victor Silverstone came second playing with Bernard Teltscher.

In the consolation final Nigel Guthrie finished fourth (with John Dakin), also just out of the prizes. Ivan Bruce and Helen McEwing missed the money by a little more.

In the Tuesday pairs for the not-so-age-challenged, Sam Punch and Tim Rees probably expected to win with a score of nearly 63%, but they were miles behind Yvonne Wiseman (currrent Lady Milne holder), playing with ~~a massive fish~~ my new Premier League captain, who scored 70.5%. Stephen Peterkin & Jenny Cooper were also in the top ten.

A quiet week by the sea

2011-08-16T10:04:00.000+01:00

I've never played the midweek events at the EBU Summer Congress in Brighton, so I am not really qualified to comment on the quality of the competitions. But when has that stopped me in the past?

When I was young, the midweek events were in the evening and the competitors were all those retired folk who were spending a quiet week at the seaside but had been abducted from the beach by exuberant directors and EBU officials to come and talk to them. And then they had some cards put in front of them.

Things have changed over the last decade. You can play in both the afternoon and evening. There are fewer kidnappings from the beach. There has been a huge increase in the number of juniors (that is, those under sixty years old) who now stay the whole week although this seems to be a strain on some of their partnerships! This is in addition to the Seniors Congress that starts on Monday evening, which means that for most of the time the young and old are kept apart.

So the midweek events look a lot more competitive, but I think that most are still there for the social aspects rather than cut-throat bridge. Of course as a Premier League team-mate and ex-team-mate won the Play with the Experts last night, perhaps I should imply that this competition is the most competitive event on the calendar.

For the young I think the midweek teams is probably the important event. Unfortunately no news on teams or results at the moment, but I'll try to follow this over the next few days.

For the less young, it is dinner that is most important followed by the Seniors Congress where the pairs championship is first. Scottish qualifiers for the semifinal include Nigel Guthrie (playing with John Dakin), Irving Gordon & William "Chairman of Selectors" Whyte, Mike Ash & Liz McGowan, Victor Silverstone (with Bernard Teltscher) and Ivan Bruce & Helen McEwing.

I didn't spot any Scots who did not qualify, but apologies if I did - anyone going to own up? The pairs championship concludes this evening.

To the winners ...

2011-08-14T18:17:00.001+01:00

The final, or at least provisionally final, results of the Swiss Pairs:

Position		VPs
1st	Mark Teltscher & Martin Hoffman	198
2nd	Jeffrey Allerton & Frances Hinden	197
3rd	Jeremy Willans & Ian Draper	196

Scottish performances are shown below. I think the performances of Sam, Stephen, Jenny (and Tim) are noteworthy as they were always in the top thirty and will have played decent pairs all the way throughout.

4: David Gold** & David Bakhshi*
22=: Sam Punch & Stephen Peterkin
28=: Jenny Cooper & Tim Rees*
28=: Lynton Stock* & Victor Silverstone**
31: David Ewart** & Andrew McIntosh**
36=: Mike Ash & Liz McGowan
61=: Chris Cooper* & Daniel McIntosh**
102=: Gareth Evans* & Myles Ellison
124=: Philip Stephens & Ed Jones*
211=: Helen McEwing & Ivan Bruce
233=: Nigel Guthrie & David Barnes*
242=: Rob Dixon & Sam Speed*
276=: Andrew Symons & Saleem Sachak*

There were 358 pairs. Apologies to any Scots I have missed!

* Alien
** Lapsed Scot, but would be welcome back. I should add that some of my lapsed Scots may not really consider themselves Scottish in any way, shape or form, even if they could become eligible to play for Scotland without having to move here.

Four matches to go:

2011-08-14T08:43:00.000+01:00

There are four matches left in the Swiss Pairs, just the little matter of 80 VPs at stake so plenty of opportunity to move up the table.

7=: Jenny Cooper & Tim Rees*
22=: Sam Punch & Stephen Peterkin
30=: Lynton Stock* & Victor Silverstone**
32=: David Ewart** & Andrew McIntosh**
32=: David Gold** & David Bakhshi*
96=: Helen McEwing & Ivan Bruce
104=: Philip Stephens & Ed Jones*
143=: Mike Ash & Liz McGowan
190=: Gareth Evans* & Myles Ellison
210=: Nigel Guthrie & David Barnes*
224=: Andrew Symons & Saleem Sachak*
241=: Chris Cooper* & Daniel McIntosh**
293=: Rob Dixon & Sam Speed*

There are 358 pairs. Apologies to any Scots I have missed!

* Alien
** Lapsed Scot, but would be welcome back. I should add that some of my lapsed Scots may not really consider themselves Scottish in any way, shape or form, even if they could become eligible to play for Scotland without having to move here.

Pairs before dinner

2011-08-13T23:42:00.002+01:00

Standings after Saturday afternoon:

6=: Jenny Cooper & Tim Rees*
8=: Sam Punch & Stephen Peterkin
8=: Lynton Stock* & Victor Silverstone**
13=: David Ewart** & Andrew McIntosh**
21=: David Gold** & David Bakhshi*
31=: Helen McEwing & Ivan Bruce
54=: Philip Stephens & Ed Jones*
73=: Mike Ash & Liz McGowan
82=: Chris Cooper* & Daniel McIntosh**
142=: Andrew Symons & Saleem Sachak*
193=: Gareth Evans* & Myles Ellison
200=: Rob Dixon & Sam Speed*
247=: Nigel Guthrie & David Barnes*

There are 358 pairs. Apologies to any Scots I have missed!

* Alien
** Lapsed Scot, but would be welcome back

Out of the traps

2011-08-13T08:56:00.002+01:00

Only three rounds played in the Swiss Pairs but scouring the results I could find the following invaders in the field:

1=: David Ewart** & Andrew McIntosh**
3=: Sam Punch & Stephen Peterkin
3=: Helen McEwing & Ivan Bruce
16=: Philip Stephens & Ed Jones*
16=: Lynton Stock* & Victor Silverstone**
19=: Gareth Evans* & Myles Ellison
39=: Jenny Cooper & Tim Rees*
46=: David Gold** & David Bakhshi*
76=: Rob Dixon & Sam Speed*
158=: Andrew Symons & Saleem Sachak*
166=: Chris Cooper* & Daniel McIntosh**
261=: Nigel Guthrie & David Barnes*
294=: Mike Ash & Liz McGowan

With seven matches today a lot will change.

There are 358 pairs. Apologies to any Scots I have missed!

* Alien
** Lapsed Scot, but would be welcome back

Pride of British Bridge

2011-08-11T22:55:00.000+01:00

It's that time of year again when lots of same-sex couples descend on Brighton in search of something that they fancy. Most of them will be seen on Saturday in the Pride Parade dressed to the nines, but if you see any scruffier ones they will probably be holding convention cards and hand records.

Yes, tomorrow sees the start of the ten-day EBU Summer Congress. First up it is the three-day Swiss Pairs, fourteen eight-board matches scored with matchpoints converted to victory points. As usual I'll try to keep track on the progress of the Scottish invaders. With the Scottish Open trials starting on 3-4 September, this will be the last chance for most pairs to tune up and test their game.

I'll be playing in the Swiss Teams that is held on the second weekend, but will keep track of the midweek events especially as there are a number of Scots defending titles in the Seniors Congress.

Results will appear on the EBU website and, probably quicker, on its bridgewebs site.

Good luck to all!

Back to the club

2011-08-10T11:08:00.000+01:00

After a couple of weeks travelling, it was back to Edinburgh for the next round of the Russell Cup. Alan was looking for a counting score but I was unable to deliver. A couple of defensive errors, a misplay and a couple of misunderstandings meant that we were average.

I thought we defended this hand well:

Alan found a good lead and the critical point was my return after winning the club. How did you fare?

The hand we discussed on the drive home in the car was:

What do you open? And do you have a plan on how much you want to bid?

International participation

2011-08-03T18:10:00.000+01:00

In this year's editorial on the SBU web site, SBU Secretary David Liggat writes:

"Despite asking for comments on participation in international events last year and the year before, I have had no response from the membership. I have heard comments from Council members that the “membership” is neither interested nor wants to fund participation in the European Teams Championships and/or the World Mind Sports Games, but the “membership” has failed to express any views to me despite my requests."

I wonder how many people read last year's editorial, either on the web site or in the Competitions Handbook where is was published? I don't wish to appear too conceited, but I do feel that more SBU members will have read my blog.

I cannot say whether the membership wishes to fund international participation. It is always a difficult topic when teams are not performing well. Even England, who are apparently threatening the revenue stream that funds SBU participation, are struggling to fund their international teams at all levels although I believe both their juniors and seniors have obtained some level of sponsorship to assist them.

But I do think that the interest is there. When Scotland is shown on BBO, there are a very large number of Scottish viewers. Before and during our recent trip to Toronto I received quite a number of messages of support and I know that the others did too - the only disappointment was that none of us were on BBO vugraph.

Of course it helps a lot if you know some of the players personally. Or even just know their BBO names so that you can ~~stalk~~ watch them where they are playing or practising. The Selection Committee can help here by advertising on-line practise sessions and perhaps moving some of the training sessions around the country and invite local participation.

Let David have your views, or post them here and I'll pass them across.

The End

2011-08-01T15:07:00.001+01:00

Firstly the bridge. Only Anne/Sheila/Sam/Stephen and Derek/Derek/Brian/John qualified for the second day of the Roth Open Swiss Teams over the weekend. The rest of us had our chances but failed to do what was necessary in the final match. Both these teams had a good final day and finished above average but out of the prizes.

And that is another Summer Nationals done and dusted. Perhaps like everyone on the trip we had highs and lows, and would have preferred to play more consistently throughout the event. But Toronto is a great city to hold this event and we'd definitely come back here, which is not necessarily true of every place we've been to.

Fiona, only member of her team willing to be photographed

Alan, Alex, Mike and I

The real Team Diamond: John, Brian, Derek, Rhona (NPC) and Derek

Sam, Sheila, Stephen and Anne

Tim, Jeremy, Alan and Adrian

Paul, Helen, Cathy and Bob

In a hurry

2011-07-30T17:30:00.000+01:00

A trip up the CN Tower (photos to come) meant no time for blogging this morning. Suffice to say that no-one seemed to do anything yesterday except for Anne, Alan, Sam and Stephen who played very well in the Mixed BAM final but did not make the prizes.

Everyone in the Roth Open Swiss Teams today, attempting to qualify for tomorrow's final sessions.

Waiting for tomorrow

2011-07-29T13:35:00.000+01:00

As we approach the end of our trip, most of just treading water waiting for the Open Swiss that starts tomorrow. The exceptions are Stephen, Sam, Alan and Anne who have made the cut and will play in the final of the Mixed BAM today. This is a really great achievement considering the field and also their almost total lack of experience with BAM. Good luck to them today!

I expect the rest of us will be playing in the Compact KO teams today and, if and when we lose, we'll go and watch the Spingold quarter-finals.

A quiet day

2011-07-28T16:23:00.001+01:00

Morning after the night before and no surprise that we did not feel like playing. So we went sightseeing instead.

Toronto from the lake

In the evening Alan played with Anne, Fiona and Sheila in a one-session BAM while Alex, Mike and I kibitzed Spingold matches. I think we were all happy with our respective decisions.

Elsewhere I had failed to mention that both Sam/Stephen and Anna/Dee had qualified for the second and final day of the Werner Open Pairs. Unfortunately poor second sessions by both pairs left them down the field.

Bob's team also had a quiet day in the Compact KO teams - they only won one match, losing the others narrowly, but importantly it was the second one which meant that they could play in the same event all day.

Today is the start of the NABC+ Mixed BAM and there are three Scottish teams - PUNCH (Stephen, Sam, Mike, Anne), GREENWOOD (Andrew, Fiona, Dee, Anna) and FERGUSON (Bob, Cathy, Paul, Helen). Alex and I are playing with Mike and Sheila in the non-BAM KO teams. There we might meet the Derek Diamond team although they might also be playing in the NABC+ Fast Pairs.

Memphis MOJO has some picture quizzes on his blog (as well as a rare shot of me actually thinking at the table), so I thought I'd present one here. Answers tomorrow.

Who is playing?

Update: Stephen Peterkin, Steve Weinstein, Anna St Clair, Adam Kaplan, Dee Harley, Hugh McGann, Samantha Punch.

A quarter too far

2011-07-27T14:16:00.000+01:00

We lost our match with Nickell.

We kept it very close in the first half, losing eight imps in the first set and another three in the second sixteen. The third set was tougher as we lost a further twenty-four imps, but at least we were still in the match with sixteen boards to play. They pulled away in the final set as we failed to make any telling blows: I made a couple of tired defences, a good slam missed in the other room went down (unluckily but I could have made it) and they continued to compete more effectively in the part-score as we lost a number of six imps swings.

It is a little hard to know whether the fact that we were playing four-handed and they were not, or that they are one of the best teams in the world, was the main factor :)

I am not one to really discuss the hands with team mates, just score up and maybe comment on one or two. Alex and I had a mix of good and bad results over the sixty-four boards: we made a grand slam on the second board, knowingly bid missing four trumps to the queen; I found the killing lead on two Meckwell slams which seemed to excite our great set of supporters. Alan and Mike must have played very well throughout too but I don't have any details. Perhaps one of them will comment or I'll add some more tomorrow.

Actually I think we all played well. We have now played Nickell twice in three years and have shown ourselves to be competitive. That might be an achievement but I think we are all quite disappointed this time. We are no longer coming to these events to play the best teams in the world, we are coming to beat them.

We are having the day off today and going to see some of the sights.

Finally, thanks to everyone for their messages of support on Facebook, Twitter and e-mail, as well as all our friends here who were kibitzing. It is hard to express how much we really appreciate it.

Rematch

2011-07-26T15:45:00.002+01:00

Unfortunately only one British team made it through to the round of 64 in the Spingold. In the afternoon all of us lost our matches and were faced with a 32-board match in the evening to stay in the event.

As the seeding predicted we faced our friends, Samantha, Stephen, Anne and Sheila, with the winners to play Nickell today. As I've said previously this was not a match any of us flew 3,000 miles to play, but we all braved it out and the match was played in a good spirit. We came out on top this time but at least we all went to the bar together afterwards.

The Anglo/Welsh team (Tim, Adrian, Jeremy and Alan) were also in the pub bemoaning losing their second close match of the day, this time by five imps. They said that there were lots of five imps on the card that they could have avoided and I'm sure missing the opportunity to play Diamond, the holders, today was gutting.

From what I've heard the McKinnon and St. Clair teams struggled in their first matches yesterday (as, indeed, did we) but are slightly disappointed not to have won in the evening. Both say they had their chances but, as you'll find in any event here, it seems that every mistake is punished far more severely than at home. As I often say, you just have to play in this level of competition on a consistent basis if you want to improve.

So now we play Nickell, a rematch for three of us from three years ago in Vegas. Then we were the bottom seed, #106, and they did not know what they were facing. Now they do, plus we are a four-handed team without Zia's pre-empting nemesis, so I am not expecting an easy time. But we do have "MAsh the Unknown But Never Quiet" playing for us so we'll be trying hard to do more than give them a good scare this time!

Quarter-by-quarter scores will be published live on the Bridgewinners site.

Update: thanks for all the messages of support we are getting!

Time to start

2011-07-25T15:45:00.001+01:00

Today is the start of the Spingold and the draw has brought good news and bad news.

The good news is that there will be a Scottish team in the round of 64 tomorrow and they will be playing the NICKELL team. The bad news is that this will happen because GIPSON (Paul, Alex, Mike and Alan) and PETERKIN (Stephen, Sam, Anne and Sheila) are the two bottom seeds in the same four-way group today. We both play higher seeded teams this afternoon and we'll hoping to win. If we both lose, then we will play each other in the evening with the winners playing Nickell on Tuesday. Having flown 3,000 miles we'd all prefer to playing anyone else, but first there is a chance of both of us getting through. We play a team of Polish Seniors and they play a South American team this afternoon.

The other Scottish teams have tough draws. DIAMOND (Derek, Derek, John and Brian) take on the Polish Open Team. MCKINNON (Bob, Paul, Cathy and Helen) take on 'Joe Boo' Grue. St CLAIR (Anna, Fiona, Dee and Andrew) take on the ROBINSON team that we lost to in 2009 (when they were USA 1 for the Bermuda Bowl). Chances for everyone to impress!

In yesterday's bridge most played in the all-day Swiss. The exceptions were the girls and their sponsor who narrowly lost their semifinal in bracket 3. The McKinnon and St. Clair teams had good workouts in the Swiss winning half their matches, but we were the minor stars of the day as we finished fourth of 140 teams. We won seven of eight matches but did not have the big wins needed to threaten the overall win.

In the main event of the day Tim and Adrian finished 34th in the final of the Life Master Pairs.

Going to be an interesting day that could have started better: a fire alarm at 8am had us all out on the pavement looking tired this morning. Although I'd love to report that everyone won their first 32-board match today and had the evening off, I think tomorrow's thoughts will be of tired players!

Finally, one interesting little snippet. Whatever happens today, either Alex and I, or Sam and Stephen, will have the opportunity to say that they were the pair that played against Hamman and Zia in their first Spingold match AND their final one. Bring it on!

It's wet here

2011-07-24T13:52:00.001+01:00

Eleven of us dined together yesterday evening and the clouds opened as we watched through the windows.We were really unconcerned, as the Italian restaurant was opposite the bridge venue and we would only have to literally cross the road. The rain continued. And got harder. Bridge time approached and the rain was now being swept down the street in waves. It was now almost bridge time and the rain was worse. But we only had to cross the road, how bad could it be?

Eleven fish arrived at the bridge venue.

Bridgewise things worked out well. Mike/Alan and John/Brian were playing in the Life Master Pairs, so that let Alex and I team up with Derek/Derek in the bracketed KO teams. Everyone else was playing in the brackets with their spingold line-ups.

Thanks to the ACBL's generosity in assigning masterpoints to the Dereks we were playing in bracket one. We won a close first match in the afternoon and then, rain-soaked, we played Memphis Mojo's team in the evening. He had a couple of ringers in the form of Diamond and Platnick playing with him and they beat us comfortably, although we felt that most of the swings were self-induced.

Anne/Sheila and Sam/Stephen had a more successful day in bracket 3 and they play in the semifinal this afternoon.

Mike/Alan and John/Brian both narrowly failed to make the final of the LM Pairs, finishing 90th and 83rd respectively with only 78 of 180 to qualify. 'Local' stars were Tim Rees and Adrian Thomas who finished 4th and will have a good carryover into today's final.

The rest of us are playing in the Swiss today.

It's warm here

2011-07-23T13:01:00.000+01:00

We were the last of the Scottish contingent to arrive and all everyone would tell us was how hot it was yesterday. Luckily not so bad today and the weather people are promising some thunderstorms to give us some relief.

Everyone else played the first day of the Life Masters Pairs. Unfortunately only Tim Rees/Adrian Thomas, Mike Ash/Alan Goodman and Brian Spears/John Murdoch have qualified. Anne Symons/Sheila Adamson were very close to making it too, with Sam Punch/Stephen Peterkin and Derek Sanders/Derek Diamond the other pairs to have one good and one poor session without getting the balance right.

We'll be spending the morning trying to sort out some team mates for the weekend.

Daily bulletins and all the results can be found on the ACBL website.

Can you hear me?

2011-07-21T04:42:00.014+01:00

I guess it is unlikely that we'll be featured on BBO vugraph in Toronto. First we need to get through the first day of the Spingold and then we need to be the selected match in the round of 64, and they normally select a match with known names on both teams.

BBO is introducing live audio vugraph commentary during this event and it will be interesting to see how this goes. You will need to use the newer web client, and not the older Windows version, to get this. Just go to http://www.bridgebase.com/ and click on 'Play Bridge Now'

A Quick Game

2011-07-20T10:41:00.000+01:00

I played with Laura in the Russell Cup last night. Her carload of bridge players, and a couple of others, were delayed by an accident near the Forth Bridge and so we started fifteen minutes late. However the natural movement meant that we'd play 32 boards in double quick time. I think it is fair to say that we both would have preferred a slightly slower game given it was the first time we'd played this season and we did misdefend a few times on our way to a 49% game.

As we were leaving Brian showed me a hand where he was delighted that he had fooled declarer. I was pleased to say that Laura, who was less than a gleam in her mother's eye when Brian and I started playing, found the same defence with a similar result. This is what they did:

Laura won my heart lead, cashed the second heart and switched to a diamond into dummy's tenace. This convinced declarer that she had a diamond singleton and so he refused the spade finesse, making just ten tricks. Brian was the only other other to achieve this and they were both rewarded with a joint top.

Two hands later and the toughest bidding problem of the evening:

What is your call and plan? When you've made your decision you can skip over to the BBO Forums where I've also posed the problem.

I'll miss the next two evenings of the Russell Cup as I'll be in Toronto.

LotG @ the Russell

2011-07-13T13:56:00.001+01:00

Bridge does not come first in LotG's life, in fact it comes second to many things including, but not limited to, Scrabble, gardening, knitting, dogs, holidays, not playing bridge etc. I'm sure you get the idea.

Although she is a competent player, we do play a very simple system based on 2/1 with a short one club opener. The list of conventions we do not play includes Lebensohl, Roman Keycard Blackwood, any form of checkback, weak two openers, splinters, Jacoby 2NT, inverted minors (except in clubs!), Serious/Non-serious 3NT. I'm sure you get the idea.

In the end it was only the promise of a trip to the pub afterwards that persuaded her to play in the Russell Cup last night. Despite a few errors on both sides of the table we scored 54% to finish fifth of twenty-four.

You may not approve of our auction but I think that there are some instructive points.

The two heart response was game forcing (unless the suit is rebid after a two spades rebid by opener), so I was able to make a forcing raise in hearts. It is important to appreciate that this is not necessarily a bid of strength. It is rare for responder to leap to game in hearts at this point as we play it as a 'picture bid': that is, all points in the majors with no minor controls. So the raise can be weak or strong.

With poor trumps and a singleton in my suit, just raising to game seems obvious with the East hand. Perhaps if you were playing serious or non-serious 3NT you might make a try, but the hand does have obvious flaws.

The flip side is that West has to make another try. When you hold the top three cards in partner's suit you know that she is not going to co-operate with any slam try and is going to pass at the first possible opportunity. Concern about trumps will remain, however much you try to change things.

So I cue bid four spades (you are sure that this is a cue bid, aren't you?) and then bid the slam over the diamond cue bid. It seemed to me that there were very few hands where slam was hopeless and it could be very good.

Hearts broke 4-1 but LotG played ace and another club early and the king was onside, so twelve tricks were easy. We score 14/22 for this, one lucky pair getting a top for bidding six notrump - as they'd say on Twitter #notworththerisk.

On the following hand I did not think our opponents did anything wrong but we seemed to get a top. I blame the rest of the field for not setting them the same problem, whatever system they were playing.

I led the six of diamonds and LotG won and returned the suit. Declarer led a club and I rose with the ace of clubs and switched to the ten of spades. Declarer now went the normal two down. Even one down would have only been worth 4/22 matchpoints for declarer.

Somehow three declarers made nine tricks in hearts (although one of those was in game!) but many were playing in three or four clubs. I wonder how many West players failed to bid three clubs directly after their partner opened a weak one notrump.

Alien's Guide to the Summer Nationals III

2011-07-09T10:39:00.000+01:00

ACBL membership, tournament fees and masterpoints

You must be a member of the ACBL if you intend to play in any of the major events: Life Master Pairs (Friday->Sunday), Spingold (Monday onwards), Werner Open Pairs (Tuesday-Wednesday), NABC+ Fast Pairs (Thursday-Friday), Freeman Mixed BAM Teams (Thursday-Friday), Roth Open Swiss Teams (second Saturday-Sunday)

In the unlikely event that you do not wish to play in any of these, it is not necessary to be a member. However it will cost you an additional US$2 for every session that you play (typically $4 per day then).

A new ACBL membership costs $28 for the first year. Subsequent renewals, if needed, are $37 per year. Do NOT ask for the Bridge Bulletin to be mailed to you as this will cost an additional $66 a year and you can get it online for free.

You can join when you get to Toronto or online. If you join online there is some value in doing it a month beforehand as your masterpoint number will then be recognised by all the tournament laptops. Whenever you join keep a note of your masterpoint number as you will need it for every session (it is easiest to put it on your printed ACBL convention card).

Tournament fees

Every event in Toronto requires payment at the start of each session or, occasionally, a payment for the day (two sessions). This will need a wad of Canadian or US dollars as they do not take credit cards nor (alien) personal cheques. The main events will be CDN20/US$20 per person per session. Other important events will be US$17 and the lesser events $15 or $16.

Masterpoints

Many of the secondary events in Toronto will be flighted or bracketed according to masterpoints. Everyone going to Toronto should be playing in Flight A so the question of masterpoints is moot for flighted events. The only events where masterpoints matter are the Bracketed Knockout teams. Here the team's masterpoints total is used to put you into a bracket and, unless you want to play novices, it is fairly important to be in approximately the correct bracket.

There is a formula for converting English masterpoints into ACBL masterpoints for this purpose. It is:

(Green Points * 6) + (Local Points / 0.35).

I must admit that I am nervous in using this formula with SBU Red Points, as the SBU is so generous relative to the EBU, and feel that a more appropriate formula is:

(Red Points * 5) + (Local Points / 0.35).

As an example, if you had just achieved SBU National Master then you would have 75 Red Points and 225 Local Points. This would equate to

(75*5) + (225/0.35) = 1,093 ACBL masterpoints. It is appropriate to round this to the nearest 100 masterpoints.

Another reason to play in the correct bracket is if you play Mid-Chart conventions. Mid-Chart conventions may be played in any bracket of a bracketed KO which contains no team with a bracket designator (average masterpoints of the entire team) of less than 1500 points.

Life Master Pairs

If anyone is flying out intending to play in the Von Zeidtwitz Life Master Pairs on the first Friday and (hopefully) the weekend AND has not played in the event before, then you will must establish your eligibility to play.

A player who has equivalent status in a Bridge Organization other than the ACBL and who is a member of the ACBL may request, in writing, an exemption from the requirement to be an ACBL Life Master. Only the Chief Tournament Director or his designee may grant this request.

The SBU rank of Scottish Master is roughly equivalent to an ACBL Life Master, so everyone is definitely eligible to compete.

Contact Butch Campbell at the ACBL to organise this.

Alien's Guide to the Summer Nationals II

2011-07-09T10:33:00.000+01:00

ALERTING AND ANNOUNCING

Alert Chart - http://www.acbl.org/play/alertchart.html

Alert Procedures - http://www.acbl.org/play/alertprocedures.html

Perhaps the first and most important thing to say is that we've always found everyone very friendly and tolerant of our alerting and announcing mistakes.

The key differences between the SBU and ACBL are:

Announcements of 1NT opening bid range
Announcements of red suit transfers, at any level, over any balanced notrump bid (opening, overcall, 1NT, 2NT, etc.)
Announcement of 'may be short' if you play a short 1C that only shows 2+ clubs and is non-forcing
Announcement of 'forcing' or 'semi-forcing' for a 1NT response to 1M opener.
Announcements are made by the partner of the bidder. You do NOT announce your own bids!
Many familiar conventions are NOT alerted, including

Stayman, Blackwood, Gerber, 2D response to a strong 2C, 2NT relay to 2X opener
Jumps to 2NT or higher showing Unusual NT
Any cue bid unless it has a highly unusual meaning. Michaels and other 2-suited cue bids are not alerted. Stop-ask cue bids are not alerted.
Negative doubles

Generally, alert doubles that are unusual.

Unlike the EBU, there are no announcements of two-level openers.

Pre-Alerts

Pre-Alerts are given before the auction period begins on the first board of a round. Pre-Alerts are designed to act as an early warning of any unusual methods for which the opponents may need to prepare. Additionally, a pre-Alert is required when playing methods permitted by the ACBL Mid-Chart or SuperChart in an event conducted using that chart. Pre-Alerts are given aloud by saying what the systems or methods are.

Delayed Alerts

Alerts given after the auction is completed for Alertable calls above the level of 3NT starting with the opening bidder's second turn to call. This is essentially the same as the SBU regulation above 3NT except that conventional passes, doubles and redoubles are alerted immediately.

Alien's Guide to the Summer Nationals I

2011-07-09T10:29:00.000+01:00

As there are a number of Scots going to their first National in Toronto on two weeks time, I provided some advice based on my previous trips. This might be useful for other foreigners so I am reproducing it here.

In terms of systems, there are three charts - GCC (General Convention Chart), Mid-Chart and SuperChart.

The ACBL Convention Chart can be found at http://www.acbl.org/play/charts.html.

GCC is permitted in all events. Essentially it permits any natural system, any standard 5-card major system and simple strong club systems. The major problem for us will be that weak artificial two-bids are not permitted. So if you are not playing natural one-suited weak twos, then you are going to run into problems for GCC events. The other problem area is the defence to 1NT - other than double and 2♣, suit bids must promise a known suit (so no multi-landy).

Mid-Chart is slightly more flexible, but not a lot. Any defence to 1NT is permitted. All constructive responses and rebids are permitted. A greater variety of opening two-bids are permitted but only if there is a published defence in the Defense Database (http://www.acbl.org/play/defenseDataBase.html). Even then, the number of boards per round can affect whether a convention is permitted. For example, Multi 2♦ is only permitted in event that allow Mid-Chart AND consist of at least six boards per round. This means that Multi 2♦ is not permitted in any pairs events. Lucas Twos are permitted in all Mid-Chart events as long as they show 5+ major and 4+ minor.

If your favourite convention is not in the Defense Database, then you cannot play it in Mid-Chart events. This can be a little arbitrary. For example, an opening 2♥ showing a weak hand with both majors is permitted: however, you cannot open 2♦ to show this hand as there is no published defence. The ACBL Competition and Conventions Committee is not accepting new conventions for approval at this time, so it is not going to change.

Mid-Chart conventions can be played in the Spingold, North American Swiss Teams (second weekend), any Flight A competition and KO Brackets where every team has more than 1500 masterpoints (all KO Brackets you play in meet this requirement).

SuperChart allows most things but is only permitted in the Spingold. If you want to play something in this, you should apply to the ACBL beforehand. Let me know if you want to do this and I can help.

In terms of the events that I expect you'll play in, all day-long events will permit Mid-Chart conventions, but you will only be able to play Multi 2♦ in teams events and not in the Mixed BAM. I expect that most single-session events will only support GCC unless they have a Flight A/X section.

If you play Mid-Chart conventions, then you must provide a copy of your methods, two printed copies of the approved defence and PRE-ALERT the opponents at the start of the round. You also have to pre-alert unusual methods and styles, such as light opening bids. I take a sheet with this all on.

You are not permitted to psych any artificial opening bid or any response to an artificial opening bid.

You will need ACBL system cards as WBF cards are not accepted. There is a convention card editor at http://www.conventioncards.com/. It is quite easy to complete and also provides a guide to alerting and announcing based on the colour of the elements.

Two play problems

2011-07-07T11:56:00.000+01:00

How would you play these two simple hands:

And then there is this one:

All thoughts welcome!