Bibou

A Guest Food and Wine review by my partner, Jason Chiu

As a team dinner, Marius, Jeremy, Kevin and I went to Bibou following the recommendation from Joann Sprung.  The hole-in-the-wall French bistro was started by the former chef of Le Bec Fin, Pierre, and his wife, Charlotte. They are a BYOB, which means one can bring wines as he chooses with no corkage. They have certainly seen a few all-star lineups, their site even lists a glowing review by Robert Parker with his wine selection. There is an empty bottle of 1982 Haut Brion on the shelf, which may be the one from the wine critic. First off, the wines (on a Decanter twenty-point scale where one rarely ventures below ten, and fourteen is par for each wine and each course)

Chateau Carbonnieux Blanc 1999 - subtle floral notes of melon and mineral. While lighter than a Fieuzal or Cantelys, this well balanced wine has enough substance to contrast a rich bisque. Long finish. 15

d'Arenberg Dead Arm Shiraz 1998 - the spicy and decadent nose gives way to layer upon layer of red fruit, black fruit and earth. Decant both to filter the sediment and allow the wine to open up slightly. 16

Chateau Lynch Bages 1985 - still a massive wine with well-integrated tannins. The primary cassis flavours have largely given way to secondary flavours of leather, cedar and peat moss. Though very fine, it lacks the refinement of more recent Lynch Bages or super seconds from that year. 17

We each had the seven-course dinner, which they offered for $70. With tax and tip, this came out to $100, but a couple of my teammates certainly indicated that they got a great value for their money. We list the courses along with the wines

Lobster bisque (Carbonneiux) - The smooth shellfish broth was rich and flavourful, all the shellfish, sherry and vegetable components could be tasted separately. Yet they were so well integrated and complemented the lobster well. And as mentioned above, this is where the Carbonnieux fared best. 16.5

Wild Scottish hare pate (Carbonnieux) - This came with a cabbage salad and orange ginger jam. With a leaner composition, coarser texture and gamier flavour, this stands out from the traditional pate experience. The pate itself called for a weightier white, but the orange brought out the minerality from the wine. The course was good, but seemed somewhat out of place in the lineup. Though pates are traditionally second or third, it seems that it would have been appropriate after the sturgeon and maybe better with the shiraz. 14.5

Sturgeon (Carbonnieux) - I order smoked sturgeon weekly from the farmer's market in California, and was very pleased with the medium rare preparation here. It came with sea grass, cucumber, endive and caviar. This is the first time we really noticed that the textures are phenomenally well balanced in all these courses. The al dente sea grass, similar in density to the stem section of many herbs, was neither overwhelmingly bitter nor out of place. 16

Foie gras (d'Arenberg) - A poached half pear and a bit of pumpkin toast came with the red wine sauce and grilled foie gras. Certainly a red wine preparation rather than a Sauternes preparation, it brought out the spicy red fruit in the shiraz. Savouring the fine smooth texture of the foie, I closed my eyes a few too many times and allowed the sauce drip on my lap. But nothing that the cleaners couldn't take care of, and I certainly would come back just for this. Very fine. 18.5

Bone marrow (Lynch Bages) - This dish came with an arugula salad and roasted potatoes; the marrow itself with a breadcrumb, shallot, mushroom preparation. As with the shellfish broth, each component was distinctive and in place. However, we thought that the breadcrumbs were a bit too crisp and masked the softer texture expected of the marrow. Merely good, we think perhaps they toned it down for the American palate. 14

Roasted squab breast and duck confit (Lynch Bages) - The birds came with a red wine sauce and pureed potatoes. The crisp skin on each part really gave the dish some complexity. I do not normally eat poultry, since I do not like the texture of chicken. However, these were so much more flavourful and consistent that I picked up the bones to lick the meat off. It brought out some of the tertiary notes in the Lynch Bages, but in the end, the wine overpowered the dish. 15.5

Dessert - Many things to share off the dessert cart, including blood orange sorbet, lemon sorbet, chocolate ice cream, chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, creme caramel, a peach tart and coconut macaroons. I had it with French press coffee, since we did not bring the bottle of Sauternes. For each item, the texture was balanced and the flavours not overly sweet. I especially enjoyed the intensity of the lemon sorbet and the chocolate cake. 13-15.5

What made the dining experience special was the chef Pierre, who came out and chatted with us about the meal halfway through. Though this is standard in the first rate French restaurants, there is little of that here in America. His wife Charlotte was a great hostess and put up with the reservation changing from two to six to four. As my teammates said, she even thought well of the wine selection and asked the waiter the year of the Lynch Bages. I certainly did not mind, since I spotted the empty Haut Brion 1982 bottle sitting on the ledge and looked at that too. We will be coming back Wednesday and Saturday. One dinner will be a foie and desserts, while the other will look at the tasting menu.

Semi-Achievement

As I sit here writing this I can hear the riotous cheers and congratulations being heaped upon the U-21 team from England, who just completed a 44.5-IMP 4th-quarter comeback against the Dutch in their semifinal match to earn a shot at a gold medal tomorrow. Peering over the balcony I can see the usual contingent of tears amongst the team and admiring onlookers. What is there to say? When you win, it feels incredible. When you lose… it doesn’t. I remember when I won the Collegiates, but there are many other important losses that I remember as well. That’s sport: you can’t always win.

In the weeks before this tournament began I wasn’t sure how our team would perform. There were ups and downs in our results, although Jason and I had been improving. However, as the round robin wore on it became clear that our team was amongst the best and I genuinely felt that we would beat Israel today to earn a berth in the gold-medal match tomorrow. When you put your heart into something the way I have with bridge over the past few years, you wonder when it’s going to be your time to come out on top. As it turns out, this year wasn’t my year. It’s the last chance I’ll have to win a Junior World Championship, but I know that there is still plenty of time down the road to win an Open World Championship if I keep playing this game. And, hey, in the meantime there’s a bronze medal to be won tomorrow.

I’d like to say that I played well today and that Israel beat us soundly anyway. But the fact is that I could have played much better. After 3 quarters our team was down 80. After a lot of thought, we decided to concede rather than play the 4th quarter. There are several reasons for this:

1.   We hadn’t managed to beat Israel by any number of IMPs over the last 4 sets of boards we’d played against them.  Calculating the probability that we’d be able to muster 80 IMPs in 14 hands isn’t an exact science, but it’s easy to tell that the chances of that result were remote.  
2. Bridge is a tiring game.  Playing another 14 hands against strong players wouldn’t put us in the best possible position for our bronze-medal matchup with China tomorrow.  If you look at it as a simple expected-personal value (PV) problem you might say

p(Bronze|Withdrawl)*PV(Bronze) >  
[(1-p(win))*p(Bronze|!Withdrawl)*PV(Bronze)+
(p(win)*p(gold)*PV(Gold))+(p(win)*p(silver) *PV(Silver)]  

Where p(win) << 1

An outside factor is that in the other semifinal match China had already conceded to France.  Is it sporting to force a team to play what will (most of the time) be a pointless set that will only tire them out before an extremely important match the next day?  The general consensus on this front is no.

Here is an important hand from the match:

This is a hand where strong fundamentals will lead you to the correct line.  The heart suit itself is one of the most basic suit combinations in bridge.  The correct way to play the suit for one loser is to cash the Ace and then lead towards dummy when nothing special happens.  You’ll come to 3 losers 17% of the time when South holds KJx or KJxx of hearts.  This is outweighed by the 19% chance that you’ll lose to KJx or KJ in the North hand if you try to finesse twice towards hand (leading the 10 first).  Any good bridge player knows that, in the long run, you’re a winner if you follow the percentages.  For some reason being on Vugraph and under the bright lights of the live video feed I forgot this and decided to run the Queen of hearts (which actually has a 24% likelihood of failure when you find you can’t recover against KJxx with North).  Happily this wasn’t my undoing, and I found myself in the comfortable position where I could claim as long as clubs weren’t 4-0 (roughly a 10% chance). 

Well, guess what?  They were.  But wait!  I can still recover the position if South is the player who holds 4 clubs.  With the 3-1 heart split this is slightly more likely than the scenario where North holds all four clubs but is still ~5%.  So I’m 95% to make at this point if I just play the Club Ace and then finesse twice towards hand.  Sadly… when you’re under stress you often overlook the little details.  So I claimed 12 tricks only to find that the defense forced me (by right) to play the king of clubs first, eventually losing a trick in both of the rounded suits.  So, where a strong technician would take 13 tricks on this hand, I was left with 11 and a 17-IMP loss when slam made in the other room.

But wait, there’s more! A hand like this can have the effect of really shaking your mental fortitude.  As I pulled the cards out for the next board you could say that, emotionally, I felt like a battered fighter knocked out cold on the mat.  One of the most difficult aspects of bridge is keeping your thoughts collected, both when under pressure and after disasters such as this one.  Entire matches have swung on much less when a player is effectively removed from the match because they couldn’t recover mentally from a prior mistake.  Needless to say, a champion is made of sterner stuff.

So, to put it bluntly, I didn’t play well enough today to earn a shot at a gold medal.  And I let my team down on this hand especially, amongst others.  Maybe one day I’ll have another shot at gold but, for now, I need to recover and be ready to go again tomorrow.

A Speculator's Haul

Financial advisors and gamblers are well-acquainted with the term ‘speculation,’ an investment that doesn’t guarantee the safety of invested monies but often has a large upside.  High-risk ventures can yield large profits or big losses—both dependant on the odds of success and the size of the principal.  Bridge players often employ a facet of this risk strategy when they ‘take a view.’

In bridge a ‘spec double’ is a penalty double that is made without any guarantee that a contract will go off.  Often, the doubler can only see a fraction of the tricks necessary to defeat a contract.  The risk is offset by the potential reward achieved by a multi-trick defeat, or the induction of a lead from partner that may be necessary to beat a hand that would otherwise have been made.  The opportunity to unholster this weapon usually arises in invitational auctions. 

Here is a hand from our 7^th round match against China Hong Kong in the U26 World Championships:

There are a number of indicators here that you may be green-lit to let your spec double off the chains:

1. The opponents went through an invitational auction, not a game-force.  Not only that, but the hesitation indicates that North doesn’t have the world’s greatest invite.  This means that…
2. Both players have limited their hands so you know your partner must have some values.
3. Your spade values lie over the spade bidder.  Partner’s presumed values lie over opener’s suits, i.e. most of their finesses will lose.
4. This double has the Lightneresque quality of asking for a spade lead (dummy’s first-bid suit), which may be key to the defense.  It’s easy to envision partner leading the unbid suit with catastrophic effect when the contract might be defeated multiple tricks by alternating major-suit leads.
5. The opponents may be cold for 3N but get cold feet and run, pushing them out of a makeable game. 

Before you try your hand at a spec double, be confident that you’re in a position where the opposition won’t be able to redouble you, a play that may push the risk-reward envelope too high.  It turns out that on this particular hand our opponents had a bit of a misunderstanding, but a well-timed spec double turned a poor -150 into a disastrous -500 for the pair from Hong Kong, even after they ran to 4D.  The full hand:

Day 3

Well, it’s the 3rd day of play here in Philadelphia and finally I have some time to write. So far I've mostly been occupied with 10 hours of bridge a day.  I try to eat and sleep in the remaining 14 hours. Luckily, I had the opportunity to have one of the best dinners of my life on Saturday night (look for a special guest post by my partner, Jason Chiu) with some team members.  I also saw my good friends, Brian Wyman and Jocelyn Rhoades, on Monday.

Up to this point I would classify the tournament as stressful.  I felt relatively calm leading up to this trip compared to the previous two years, although there were some symptoms of stress. However, since I’ve arrived in Philly it’s been impossible to remain asleep for more than a few hours at a time and I've had to basically force myself to choke down meals.

So why is that? Well, while my main goal in normal tournaments is to have fun, it’s nothing but business here. Free time before matches is spent poring over the opposition’s system notes and constructing counter-defenses to bids that are foreign to American players. With the advent of running-scores on the internet, what used to be relaxing sit-outs have become stressful sessions looking at your teammates’ results. Evenings are spent wondering how you could have possibly screwed up such-and-such a bid or botched such-and-such a play. The table environment is also intense. For anyone who hasn’t seen a screened bridge table before, here's our battlefield:

Notice the diagonal barrier across the top of the table as well as the divider underneath. These are to prevent the communication of any illegal signals between partnerships. During play the small window is opened to see the play of the cards. Basically the only part of your partner’s body you can see are his or her hands.

As far as results go, we’ve been doing well. Currently my partner and I are the top-rated pair in the tournament and our team has a healthy grip on 1st place heading towards the end of the round robin. For those of you who are wondering, there is no carryover in the knockout phase, but the top ranked team gets first choice of 5th-8th placed opponent in the quarterfinals and is allowed to set the semifinal matchups. However, if USA2 qualifies for the knockout phase, the bracket would be constructed such that we would play one another in the semifinals in order to prevent an all-American final.

Bridge is a game of mistakes. Much like golf the main objective is to hit the fairways and greens. Do that, and you’re likely to distance yourself from the field. But, just as Jean Van de Velde blew it on the 18th hole of the 1999 British Open, one serious error can ruin all your hard work. Up to this point our team hasn’t been great, but the other teams have been worse. It’s a microcosm of many of life’s challenges.

Partnership Defense

Bridge is a partnership game. In my experience there are generally two wells from which competitive players draw satisfaction in response to this inherent characteristic: Player A loves to argue with their partner after a disaster and prove why they are right and partner is wrong; Player B loves it when they actively help partner to make a winning play and, when that doesn’t happen, they reflect on how they might have helped partner do the right thing.

I’ve certainly been in both relationships at one time or another. One of the things I’ve enjoyed the most about my junior partnership with Jason Chiu is that we usually fall into the latter category. When we don’t reach the optimal spot in an auction or fail to defeat a contract I often hear “I could have” rather than “you should have.” With that in mind, here’s a hand from a match we played last night.



We’ve reached the critical juncture of the hand. The careless defender would reflexively play “3rd hand high” in this position without considering the defense from partner’s point of view. Taking partner’s heart 9 at face value, we know that declarer holds AKQ10 of hearts. Also, declarer’s play in the club suit has marked him with AJ86. Partner is therefore 4243 and—since he must hold the spade A due to declarer having counted out to 16HCP already—it is our job to ensure that he places us with the high diamonds and shifts accordingly when in with the king of clubs. Playing the jack now will allow declarer to win with the ace and leave partner blind after the next trick.

In his book, Killing Defense at Bridge, Hugh Kelsey says, “You must cherish your partner, wrap him up in cotton wool and protect him from the wiles of the declarer and from his own blunders in so far as you can.” So hold off that heart jack! Rather, you should discourage violently with the seven, allow declarer to win with the 10 and sit back and wait for the three words that should be music to any bridge player’s ears – “Nice play, partner!”

I'm sorry to say that I got this play wrong at the table. But, rather than being vindictive I tried a little introspection and saw that I was in the wrong. I hope I’m a better player as a result.

Keeping partner in mind, is there a demonstrably correct way to defend at trick one on this problem, given to me by David Gurvich?

Listening to the Auction

I've been at the horns of a lot of lead problems recently. As everyone knows, leads are a difficult part of the game because it is the one card played during the entire hand when only 13 cards are in view, therefore the least information is available. As such, it's usually quite important for whoever is on lead to think critically about the auction to incorporate any spare scraps on information they can into their decision. Together with common lead principles (top of a sequence, A or K from AK) an effective lead can more often be made than if one considers conventional leads alone.

I particularly enjoy giving lead problems to my friend, Han Peters. His thoughts are often quite in depth, and he is quite often able to guess the opponents' hand shapes within a card or two. Shape is important on lead because it often will direct the defense. Common lead questions when considering the auction are: would a forcing defense be effective? and which suit is most likely to hit partner?

A hand:



Before clicking next, think about the auction and consider the following questions.

1) Where are all the high-card points? If lefty has 15-17, righty has 9 or more (a texas transfer to spades was available) and we have 7, then partner has AT MOST 9 high card points.
2) What is partner's second suit?Looking at our diamond suit, partner's minor suit is overwhelmingly likely to be clubs.
3) Which of partner's suits would he like led? Typically at equal vulnerability you would want to have a good reason to think you aren't going to get your brains beaten out after you intervene over the opponents' 1NT. Therefore, it seems quite likely that partner has a very shapely hand that contains more than just 4 clubs, and possibly more than 5 hearts. So I guess this is a trick question. Considering these inferences together, I think that the diamond ace is the standout lead on this hand.

Consider the possible benefits: If LHO holds the diamond king (which is likely) then, if partner is short in diamonds, we can take a ruffing finesse to deny declarer this trick. Another possibility is that partner is VOID in diamonds, and you'll need to lead them on the go otherwise lose partner's ruff forever, since you have no entry to your hand. Click 'Next' on the movie.

As you can see, the diamond ace is the only lead that beats the hand. I was happy to get this problem right at the table. However, I was surprised to hear several of my friends say they would lead a heart when I gave them this problem. "I tend to lead partner's suit," was a typical response. Well, I contend that often the auction as a whole, not just partner's actions, can tell us what partner ACTUALLY wants led.

Defense

I may have mentioned this before, but one my my favorite bridge quotes comes from Kelsey:

The average defender operates in a fog of uncertainty... His blunders are mainly due to faulty logic, failure to count and failure to draw simple inferences.  Experts also slip up quite frequently in defense, but in their case the cause is usually a lapse in concentration.  A high level of sustained vigilance is needed in order to defend without error.  - Killing Defense at Bridge, 1966

When I'm playing well, defense is an area of my game that I'd like to think I can take pride in.  Of course, as Kelsey says, it's much easier to err as a defender than declarer, so I don't shine as often as I'd like.  Obviously this is a symptom of the defender's relative lack of information, which necessitates a keener perception of logical inferences.  This problem is compounded by the ability of declarer to more readily take advantage of defensive missteps rather than vice versa.

Knowledge of common positions is an essential tool to any aspiring defender.  When one can fall back on the crux of common motifs rather than think strenuously about the situation they have that much more energy available to exert when necessary.

A hand:



This problem was posed to me by my friend Phil Clayton, who, it seems, has recently undertaken the task of improving my defense.  The position is obviously a squeeze.  Specifically, a triple squeeze.  Love defines this position as: The Repeating Squeeze: Case I, wherein the hand laying opposite the initial squeeze card holds one threat.  The situation is dismissed as trivial by Love, who points out that, if sitting under the single threat, one merely unguards that suit to destroy any further squeeze due to the position of the threat suits over declarer's menaces.  In the problem hand a heart pitch costs you one trick but saves you another as declarer's hand is squeezed before yours on the run of the hearts.

It's worthwhile to note that the Case I can repeat if the squeezee lies over the single threat.

This is definitely a situation where it pays to be familiar with the layout.  The problem could be solved without prior knowledge of repeating squeezes, but why waste the effort?

Round 1 Preview

As I believe I've said before, our first match will be 10/10/10 at 10:00 AM EDT.  This match will be against USA Red, the second of two teams from the United States, the only country with multiple entrants.

In a round robin format it is almost essential that two teams from the same nation face off the the first round.  Dedicated readers may remember this post.  The problem here is essentially the same.  If two teams from the US were to play each other in a late-round match, one may be in a much better position to qualify for the knockouts than the other and the organizers would face potential dumping issues where the lower-ranked team may purposefully blow the match.

Last night we had a small preview of this match as Fay-Chiu; Lee-Fournier went up against Katz-Goldfein; Lien-Brescoll.  Over 14 boards, we won 44-34 over 14 boards.  The result would have been much better for us if I hadn't chucked 22 IMPs for no good reason.  Here was one of those hands:



Looking at the hand there were a few things that struck me.

1) 4HCP, usually enough to bid a vulnerable game opposite a 2NT opener
2) 3 10s, all in support of the honors I held
3) A poor 5-card suit, with all other honors in my short suits

So some pluses and some minuses.  Overall I felt that our chances of making game were somewhat slim.  I decided to bid puppet stayman and: A) If Jason bid 3H, bid game, B) If he bid 3D, pass, C) If he bid 3S, bid 3NT.  In hindsight this strikes me as a very poor plan, as I'm always bidding game except under one condition.  This is inconsistent!  Furthermore, there is an aspect that favors bidding in a lot of these situations.  When you hold only a 6-card minor-suit headed by the Q opposite a 2N opener it's often a good idea to bid 3NT because it's unlikely you'll take exactly 8 tricks.  Either your suit will come in when partner has a fit and you'll take a lot of tricks, or it won't and you won't take many at all.

Here I decided that my chances of taking tricks would be much better in a diamond contract.  However, I'm looking at the wrong aspect of the hand.  I was considering that we'd be more likely to make 3D than 2N, when I should have been considering how probable we were to make 3N in comparison to 3D.  If we make 3N 32.5% of the time when we make 3D (I won't do the math to include multiple undertricks or when 3D doesn't make) then I should kick down the door and bid 3N.  While there is a somewhat lucky layout for the full deal, 3N rolls and we lost 11-IMPs when my counterpart wasn't afraid to bid 3N.

The Field

With game time fast approaching (10:00 AM, 10/10/10) it seemed opportune to scout some of the opposing rosters.  Being the premier junior event of 2010, very few of the teams can be taken lightly.  Certainly, though, some are far more dangerous than others.  Roster personnel can be found here.

So, who should you look out for?

Certainly two teams that jump off the page are France and Israel.

France - Headlined by Thomas Bessis -- perhaps inarguably the most successful junior in the world over the past year having won this year's Vanderbilt and finished 4th in the prestigious Cavendish Invitational Pairs -- this team appears to be deadly.  Nicolas Lhuissier finished 3rd in the World Junior Paris in 2009 and Cristophe Grosset is a former European Junior Champion and fresh off a 2nd place finish at the recent FISU championships.  He'll partner rising French youngster and FISU teammate, Cedric Lorenzini.

Israel - By far the most experienced team in the field, Israel sports 43 years combined junior-team membership between 6 players.  Mostly comprised of the 2006 FISU championship team, Israel finished 2nd in the last European Junior Team Championships.  Top to bottom, hardly a weak link.

Wild Cards - The rest of the field contains some very good players, but also some all stars, Junior status aside.  Andy Hung's Aussie squad can be counted on to win a match at any time, as can former-European-Open-Champion Espen Lindqvist's Norwegians.

The next month will probably draw out quite stressfully as Jason and I prepare and try to get to a level where we could possibly defeat all these teams.  Hopefully I'll feel much more calm once the action starts like in prior years.  I received word from Captain Kevin Wilson yesterday that Jason and I will likely be in for our first match vs. USA2, a team that may boast the best partnership in the tournament of Owen Lien-Zach Brescoll.  It helps to know when our campaign will start... but only slightly.

Starting Six

Time to meet your starting six for Philadelphia.  Pictures included are as ferocious as could be found.

Dan Wolkowitz - Polymath, Harvard graduate and current teacher, Dan and Marius have shot onto the scene this year some good results in recent NABC+ events, including a 30th place finish in the Werner Open Pairs in New Orleans.

Marius Agica - Dan's partner.  Marius just turned 21, which hopefully won't negatively affect his Philadelphia performance too much.  Marius is studying computer science at Pace University.

Roger Lee - Roger was my partner the last time I played this event (World Junior Championships, Ortiz-Patiño Trophy).  Roger recently graduated from Cal Tech and has enjoyed many high-place finishes in recent NABC+ events. These include, 8th in the 2010 Werner Open Pairs, 16th in the 2010 Fast Open Pairs, 

Jeremy Fournier - A junior-team staple since 2004, Jeremy is a Tennessee alum.  Currently employed by Bob Hamman, he had no problem finding time off to compete in a bridge event.  A big clubber at heart, he and Roger will be playing 2/1 in Philly and hopefully lead our team into the KOs.  A true Renaissance Man!

Jason Chiu - Avid wine enthusiast and current partner of yours truly, Jason is a superb card player from Wyoming.  Currently employed by Deloitte Consulting, Jason graduated from MIT at the ripe old age of 19 with degrees in engineering and mathematics.  "ch00bacca" has enjoyed many successes playing on teams with Kenny Gee and employs an old-fashioned -- to say the least -- 2/1 style that lends itself to very few misunderstandings.  

Kevin Fay - Your humble blogger.  If you're reading this, you probably already know me.  Possibly not the best bridge player around, but driven by an unquenchable desire to excel at all endeavors and win.  With such prestigious almae maters as this team boasts, KFay is proud to have attended the most famous and successful, the University of Michigan.

Mandatory Falsecard

I played in a junior match today with ch00 that was especially fun because we were treated with great teammates... Roger Lee and Jeremy Fournier, another pair for or squad in Philadelphia.

Here is a slam hand from the match that contained a fairly common theme:



Take note of Roger's nice play of the Spade Nine on the first round of trumps. This gave North, Dana Berkowitz, a chance to misplay the suit by crossing to hand and finessing East out of a hypothetical initial holding of Jxxx, which resulted in a swing for our team when Jason made an overtrick. So what's the correct play?

The answer to this question--like many--is: it depends. If Roger Lee is sitting West, then you should play him to have started with an initial holding of J9xx. The reason is that a good player sitting in the West seat will always play the nine on the first round of trumps in this position, otherwise you can hardly go wrong. J9xx is exactly 3 times as likely an initial holding as stiff 9 since there are 3 ways West can hold J9xx and only one way they can hold a singleton 9; therefore, it's 3 times more likely that they're playing the 9 from J9xx. If a poor player is sitting West, however, then it's correct to play East for Jxxx since West would probably never find the falsecard even though this is the quintessential mandatory falsecard position. If the caliber of the player is somewhere in between, then you have to judge whether West will find the play of the 9 from J9xx more than 33% of the time before you can determine the correct play.

Nice play, Roger!

Challenge the Champs

Jason and I haven't been playing many hands lately. However, we have had the opportunity to bid a few Challenge the Champs hands, which are good practice to help straighten out the few areas that need straightening in a simplistic system such as ours.

Some time ago I was lucky enough to come into possession of a collection of old Bridge Worlds. I had some duplicates and sent them along to Jason.  The current batch of hands we've been working on come from 1978. Contestants include Becker-Rubin, Hayden-Kasle, the couple Capplletti, Woolsey-Robinson, Hamman-Wolff and Kemp-Rapaport (who had a nice run this year). This is from the period where the champs actually stayed on until they were defeated. The Master Solvers' Club panel was comprised of Billy Eisenberg, Edwin Kantar, Theodore Lightner, Marshall Miles, Richard Pavlicek, Alvin Roth, Ira Rubin and stalwart Carl Hudecek, amongst others.

Here are a few of kf00's travails from May '78.



Here is a hand where I need to have better judgment to make up for our partnership's lack of bidding agreements. The hand is centered around one card, the queen of spades. The top spot is 7S (which will succeed against no diamond ruff and spades 4-2 or better), but Jason and I arrived in 6D like both the contestant pairs, which was worth 5/10 Matchpoints. To make a long story short, if Jason doesn't have the spade queen we might very well be too high already. The contract's prospects most likely hinge upon whether he is 3163 or 2164. As such, I should probably bid either 6NT--in which I can count 12 tricks slightly more than 50% with the former distribution--or 6S, looking for grand if Jason does have the spade queen. I argued that perhaps Jason should have bid more, since I know he doesn't have the king of clubs by his failure to bid 4C when afforded the opportunity. I'm sure he knows the queen of spades is a very key card, but it may not be enough in his eyes to go higher.

The Fall of The Junior

Summer's coming to a close and the contest for the Ortiz-Patino trophy is less than 50 days away. This fall will be my last as a junior playing for the USA. It's been four years the the United States has won a Junior Championship. What else can I say? I want to win.

Jason and I finished putting together our WBF Convention Card last night. For anyone who's interested in seeing what a WBF CC looks like, you can find ours here. There are many features about the WBF card that are far superior to the ACBL convention card, in my opinion. These include:

1) A section for bids the opponents absolutely must know about.
2) A note about psychic tendencies (gasp!)
3) An extensive section on defensive carding, an area that is very poor on the ACBL card
4) Stress on defensive and competitive bidding.
5) Easy chart for common, uncontested sequences
6) The encouragement of including supplementary notes.

Items 3 and 4, especially, are key, in my opinion. These are the calls that opponents actually need to know during an auction in which they intend on bidding. Half of the ACBL card, it seems, is essentially a template for players to brag about how many conventions they play. These are bids that can easily be explained at the conclusion of the auction.

You'll notice that nearly the entire WBF card is devoid of an area in which you can tell everyone you play the latest Bergen gadget, or how many artificial ways you have to raise partner. It's not about conventions, it's about bridge.

Getting Started: Jason's Nice Read

I've finally been playing a fair number of hands with Jason the past few days.  I'm sure there were a number of hands that are probably worthy of a post but this was the first that caused me to say 'AHA!  A post!'

(hands rotated)

Book Review and The Lew

Today I finished reading 'Calf,' one of Krzysztof Martens' books from his 'University of Defense' series. I originally picked it up because of a recommendation that advertised it as an expert/world-class book on defense. While the plays in the book may well be of that caliber, the way in which they are presented sometimes obviate the plays from a problem perspective. So, while I would certainly recommend the book as an instructional piece on how to think as a defender, I did not find it to be on par with, say, Kelsey on Defense in how the text and plays are organized.

The book is so named because Martens compares the average player to a calf, wandering aimlessly through the wilderness. 

Here is a hand from the 4th quarter of the recent Vanderbilt in which my old coach, Lew Stansby, defended a hand that seemed to have come straight out of Martens' book (accurate defense would have ensured victory):

Well, I could have done with a lighter warm-up post, but hopefully this wasn't too bad, and hopefully I'll be able to posts some hands with mon ch00 soon.

Last Chance?

I received a call from Jason two days ago informing me that I've oficially been added onto the USA1 roster for the World Junior Teams in Philadelphia, this October. Needless to say, I am happy and honored that my friends and peers would choose me to play in this important event.

Whether I will be able to play is still a little cloudy, but hopefully that will all be resolved very soon. In the meantime... maybe I should try to take it to the next level? That's what my brother Pat would advise anyway. This year is my last cycle as a Junior, and after having come so close to gold in Istanbul... I really want to run it back and put the US back on top.

Recently, Jason and I have been playing a series of matches against Val Kovachev on BBO. In general these matches keep me up really late since everyone is going by GMT-8 while I'm at GMT-5 (now -4 on account of daylight savings) so I don't play my best bridge. However... considering recent developments I'm going to put a renewed energy into them and really start to hammer out some definitive agreements with Jason -- limited though they may be.

Hopefully I'll be able to post a few of our more interesting problems on here as a run-up to Philly. Vugraph from the Vanderbilt begins today... so maybe I'll try to get back into the swing of blogging by posting some of the hands played by the best.

Cheers!