KFay's Bridge Hands

Season of Giving

2011-01-04T09:56:00.001+02:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and is in store for a prosperous New Year!

In their famous book, Adventures in Cardplay, Kelsey and Ottlik wrote, “The peculiarly satisfying quality of a bridge hand is that it is a fragment of human experience.” Whether or not you buy into such a grandiose statement, the fact remains that—if you look hard enough—some hands do contain within them a hint of life’s lessons. Take, for example, this hand I played about six months ago...

The setting, a BBO IMP-Paris Speedball game with an irregular partner, may excuse the bidding:

When the dummy comes down you briefly lament missing 6(or even 7!)Clubs, but quickly turn your thoughts to the present contract. The opponents play “standard” (4th best) leads, so you know the suit splits evenly. Take a moment to decide how you would play the hand before moving on.

There are basically two ways to declare this hand: the right way and the wrong way. Many declarers will begin the play along two essentially similar lines:

Ruff a spade, Ace of diamonds, Ruff a spade, play high clubs
Ruff a spade, AKQ of hearts, play high clubs

Both of these variations, ultimately, are at the mercy of the club split. In the first line, declarer is stuck in dummy with all of the enemy’s trumps outstanding. If clubs are 3-2 and a defender ruffs the third round, then declarer will be able to pitch his losing diamond before attempting to return to the closed hand with a diamond ruff to claim the balance. He may, however, be overruffed or subjected to a trump promotion. In the latter case it appears that declarer is better positioned, needing only to dispatch of his spade loser before crossing to hand with the sure Diamond Ace entry. However, if clubs split 4-1, and the defender with the short clubs holds the remaining trump, the defense will be able to ruff declarer’s winner and cash a spade trick.

How should declarer attempt to deal with an adverse club position? Play a small heart out of hand at trick two! This, undoubtedly, will appear bizarre, if not insane, to someone who has never seen such a play before. Losing trumps on purpose is hardly standard practice after-all. Yet, what can the defense return (assuming reasonable splits) that causes declarer much harm? If dummy is forced with a spade, he returns to hand with the Diamond Ace to draw trump and establish clubs, ruffing one if necessary. Dummy’s losing diamonds disappear on the run of the Heart AKQ. A minor-suit return allows declarer to use the Diamond Ace or dummy’s remaining trump for transportation.

Ducking a round of trump when in a 7-card fit headed by the AKQ is a common strategy to protect against a 4-2 break, which is about one-third more likely than a 3-3 break. If you’ve never seen this play before, I highly recommend you add it to your arsenal. Coups like these are extremely difficult to find at the table if you’ve never seen them before, and still a challenge when you have.

For reference, here is the complete hand:

As you can see, the club position wasn’t friendly. Luckily, West held both the Heart Jack and Heart 10, so the defense couldn’t manage a club ruff after the heart duck. Once declarer is lucky enough to clear that hurdle, he can manage a 5-0 Club split against either defender!

So, what life lesson can be drawn from this deal? I hope you’ll agree with me when I say:
Often, if you give a little, you’ll receive much more in return.

Special thanks to Gerardo Malazdrewicz for digging this hand up from the BBO archives.

Bibou

2010-10-15T21:46:00.003+03:00

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

2010-10-15T04:52:00.002+03:00

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:

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.
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

2010-10-12T21:43:00.002+03:00

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:

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…
Both players have limited their hands so you know your partner must have some values.
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.
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.
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

2010-10-12T19:50:00.001+03:00

Well, it’s the 3rd day of play here in Philadelphia and finally I have some time to write. So far my time has been mostly occupied with 10 hours of bridge a day and attempting to eat and sleep in the remaining 14 hours. Luckily, I did 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 and see 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 and I kind of have to force myself to eat breakfast and lunch at the very least.

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 is a picture:

Notice the high 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 you and your partner. During play the small window is opened in order for you to be able 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 1st ranked team gets first choice of 5th-8th placed opponent in the quarterfinals and is allowed to set the bracket. However, if USA2 qualifies for the knockout phase, we’d be forced to set the bracket so any potential meeting with them would be 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

2010-09-29T23:16:00.002+03:00

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

2010-09-20T21:47:00.000+03:00

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

2010-09-14T08:38:00.005+03:00

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

2010-09-09T04:39:00.000+03:00

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

2010-09-02T01:30:00.001+03:00

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

2010-09-02T01:00:00.001+03:00

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

2010-08-25T09:27:00.003+03:00

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

2010-08-23T23:38:00.001+03:00

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, so the current batch of hands we've been working on hail from 1978. Contestants include Becker-Rubin, Hayden-Kasle, the couple Capplletti, Woolsey-Robinson, Wolff-Hamman 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 (which might not be so great. 6S received the same score as 7S according to the scorer). 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 he was 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

2010-08-23T22:47:00.000+03:00

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

2010-06-09T09:08:00.001+03:00

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

2010-03-23T03:52:00.004+02:00

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 without plan or awareness that they should even have a plan. This idea induced me to have a slight feeling of panic when I glanced at some of the submitted rosters for the Ortiz-Patino Cup and noticed Thomas Bessis on the French team, a young player who is fresh off a Vanderbilt championship over my coach from Beijing, Lew Stansby, & co.

Here is a hand from the 4th quarter in which Lew's defense reminded me 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?

2010-03-16T18:35:00.003+02:00

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!

Parting Shots

2009-08-24T17:41:00.005+03:00

Well last night was the awards ceremony and banquet. It was held on the rooftop of the playing site, which looks down over the hillside through several miles of Asia and eventually down to the Bosphorus. It was a beautiful view, and the skyline was highlighted by a crecent moon that turned blood red before it set, which seemed a fitting sign of the end of our stay here. There were cocktails and a live band and everyone was dancing, it was a lot of fun.

Today we went on a tour of the city. We saw the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace (where the sultan kept the harem), and a very old Greek Orthodox church, the Kariye, that had some stunning mosaics. Finally we went on a cruise up and down the Bosphorus, which is like a real-life episode of The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. The houses are out-of-this-world and everything is set in perfect order as if there were going to be a big party at each house at any moment. They had sailboats, yachts, pools, and there was even a private club set on a floating island in the middle of the straight. It was pretty incredible. Here are a few of the better photos I was able to take last night and tonight before my battery died. Actually I didn't have my memory card in last night at the ceremony so those pictures may have to wait until I get home, where I have the cables that can transfer everything. I just posted a lot of photos of the trip on Facebook, so you can have a look at them there. Anyone should be able to see them!

Again I must thank my teammates and my captain for a wonderful tournament. It is always an honor to represent your country, and to be on a team of great friends is very heartwarming on top of that. I hope to play with you all again sometime, I know you'll have great successes and hopefully maybe one or two of those will be together again. Cheers!!

Finished!!

2009-08-23T14:00:00.003+03:00

Well... it's all over. Maybe with a stellar session today Jason and I might have been in medal contention, as it was we came in 15/54, about 3 boards back of 3rd. If you remove our 2nd session, in which about a million and one things went wrong, then it probably would have happened. Justin Lall and Jeremy Fournier came back from 29th to be in 4th place with 3 rounds to go, but 3 Polish pairs put paid to that. Alex Hudson and John Marriott won Gold for the U21 category. Justin and Jeremy had the top result for the Americans, taking 10th. I managed to win a couple side bets, so it wasn't all bad.

Here were a few interesting hands from the final set:

I'm not sure how the auction should go here... but we did end up in the right spot.

The ole' 5-card suit preempt. Declarer is dangerously close to being able to make a game that they would never otherwise bid, but he can't do everything. If you draw trumps you lose 3 diamonds, and if you set up hearts then you can't draw trumps.

I blew a trick in the endgame when I could have thrown N in for an over to lead away from her DK, but I knew that 3NT= would already be a good board and when the C9 held (you know N is dangerously short in clubs, and South's D6 was a lavinthal discard) I basically stopped paying attention.

Jason made this on the nose. I should have rebid 1NT at my first opportunity but... well I didn't. After Jason shows up with a monster for the minors I know that unless he has a hand that's interested in grand, we're probably going down in the small, so I opted for the matchpoint locale of 4NT :-)

That's the last of the hands from this tournament and the last hands I'll likely post on this blog. Hopefully I'll get a lot of pictures tomorrow to upload. To anyone who's reading this: see you soon! Hope you're doing well!

Exhausted

2009-08-22T20:58:00.005+03:00

Non-players probably wouldn't believe how exhausted playing bridge all day will make you. I've been trying to eat right and sleep right for this whole tournament, yet waking up after a full night's rest at ~8:30am only takes me until about 8pm before I'm totally spent.

This evening there's an exhibition match between some of the Turkish organizers, two Dutch girls, and Adam Kaplan, Howie Weinstein and Matt Meckstroth. I'm kibbing Howie and Adam, here was one hand:

It's hard to pick out one good hand from a match when you don't have any hand records, but this one was funny because nobody at the table really had any idea of what was going on, yet I think that N/S found a pretty nice defense.

None of the hands that we played today are really worth mentioning. Both Jason and I didn't play particularly well, and we had a 1st set that was a total wreck. We're in 18th, I believe, with 26 boards to play and need a pretty healthy set plus some luck to medal. But I'd be happy with a top-10 finish.

I'll be happy to arrive home and get back to school... bridge is just too hard!

A Few More Days

2009-08-21T09:41:00.004+03:00

Kate informs me that I need more photos on the blog. Well... I'd post them if I had them. Over the past week we haven't been able to do much sight-seeing, but we will be going on a very extensive tour of the city the day before we leave, hopefully I'll have a lot of photos to post at that point. In the meantime:

Here's a photo of the team a day after our bronze-medal win. Front row: Justin Lall, Matt Meckstroth, Kevin Dwyer. Middle: Me, Jeremy Fournier, Jason Chiu, Dr. Jim Sternberg and at the top our awesome captain, Howie Weinstein.

You may have notice the beard. Well it's easy to explain, it seems the love of my life is now into facial hair, so I must comply.

The final round of qualifying for the pairs starts in 10, so I have to go. Ch00 and I are in 5th right now and are playing some rather entertaining conventions... ask privately for more details.

Jokered

2009-08-20T19:30:00.004+03:00

Well my team has been mentioned twice in the NYT this week. Once for a hand in which I receive some slightly bad press here and once for coming in 3rd here. It's the second hand that I'd like to talk about, in the diagramed position below (hands rotated):

These are the jokers who are playing in the finals instead of us? First off, who bids Michaels with this hand? This is something you do when you're like 10 years old. And then who doesn't know that this second double is penalty? Anyway the hand is just extremely frustrating.

There was an interesting hand from our semifinal match against Italy in which you can pick up a big swing for aggressive bidding and good technique as declarer:

OK... so that's now really how the auction went. But it does make things more interesting. Can you spot the winning line? Often on these 'obscure' plays, the extra tricks seem to appear from nowhere. Solution to come later.

Guts and Glory

2009-08-20T14:50:00.004+03:00

My team beat NL Red in pretty dramatic fashion. It was an exciting match to watch, having to come back from 31 down and 13 boards to play we squeaked it out by 10IMPs. Here are a few gutsy hands, without which we would not have made the podium.

After the auction I know that Jason has 1) the King of spades at most 3 times 2)no Queen of hearts 3) the KQ of diamonds. That's 12 tricks, with the possibility of a 5th diamond or a heart finesse. I could hear Howie's voice in my head after we'd spoken about the 7NT hand from the previous day 'if you go down, you go down... don't be afraid to bid.' So I sucked it up and bid the grand. Molenaar found the incredible lead of the H10. If Jason just ducks, he can count out the hand and take a proven finesse in the endgame, but in what must be one of the most 'stick it to you' plays I've ever seen he calmly inserted the Jack, 11 IMPs to USA, one more than the margin of victory.

6C rests on the position of the club K until Marion leads a heart... 11 IMPs to USA, one more than the margin of victory.

How Minimeck found this heart lead, I'll never know. He claims it 'Just felt right' but it is the one and only lead to defeat the contract. It was one of the most incredible things I've seen on Vugraph in my life, and the excitement I felt after thinking our tournament was over and seeing the VG operator say, "He led a heart!!" to dispel any unbelief there may have been in the audience is a feeling that is so hard to describe. That was 7 IMPs to the US, instead of an 11-IMP loss and another bigtime gamble paid off, all 3 being necessary to clinch the win and every member of our team being involved.

The pairs competition started today. It's a lot less exciting than playing teams, but so far all the US pairs are doing well. Hopefully I'll be able to post a few matchpoint problems. For now I just have to say that it was a great honor for me to play on this team. I don't often get to sit down with players of this caliber, let alone play on an entire team of phenoms, so it's just a great thrill for me. They are all incredible people as well, so the whole trip to this point has just been amazing. It's unfortunate that our team only lost one match, and that match cost us a shot at the top of the podium, but I'm still ecstatic over what's happened the past few days. So... thank you guys!!

BRONZE!!!!

2009-08-19T15:17:00.000+03:00

Well we got down and dirty, but the Bronze is ours!! Story to come.

Two Big Deals

2009-08-19T08:26:00.005+03:00

There were definitely more than a few moments yesterday where the thought, "I think I'm just going to quit bridge" crossed my mind. There's no doubt in my mind that we have the best team here, but I probably played most poorly. There is a thing about these championships--the age limit--that makes them so crucial to win for guys like those who are on my team. In other big events (like the Bermuda Bowl, or the Spingold) there will usually be another chance, if you keep going. Here, though, there is a short and overshadowing time limit to take home gold. On this particular event, my time has now run out.

To be a great champion in anything, you can't just love to win, you must hate, hate, hate to lose. It's this hatred, especially, that helps you reach down to places unknown when your back is up against the wall. And no matter how many times it happens, losing matches like these still burns horribly, even if there was really nothing more you could have done.

Here are two deals from the first half of the Italy match that I wish I could have back:

In her book, "I Love This Game," Sabine Auken talks about there being a crucial juncture in every hand where, the fate of the contract after that point has passed is already sealed. If you play bridge long enough, at a high enough level, you develop a 6th sense for when this "kill point" has come and gone. See if you can follow me:

Here's another baby bid that I botched:

Well what do we know at this point? For one, partner is 100% to have both major suit aces. There is no chance he would bid 5NT pick-a-slam missing AK in both hearts and spades. So we can count 12 tricks at this point... but wait, there's this annoying blockage in hearts and spades. I was thinking at the table, "a kingdom for the 2 of hearts!!!" but you still have to decide what to do. If partner has CQJ, we're cold for 6, if he has the Q and the K is onside we're still cold. If he has the club K we're cold for 7. There are in fact quite possible cards that he can hold that make us cold for 7, and many that give us obscure squeeze chances or finessing options. At this point there's no particular reason for me to believe that we're only making 6 of anything, so I should just man up and bid grand. If we go down, hey, we go down.

These two hands cost our team 21 IMPs. If I get them right we're up 9 at the half. If I get just one of them right we're down 1 or 2.

But there are a few things I've learned at this tournament. One is that my cardplay is actually much better than I thought it was. The other is that, I at least have a sense of these bids at the table... maybe just a little more experience will fill out that part of my game. Today we play the Dutch, and I told Howie, "I'm playing Drijver." So this is the matchup I jokingly wanted, even if it is just for the bronze medal. But I'll be damned if we bring home nothing.

Dream Deferred

2009-08-18T19:57:00.002+03:00

Our team was knocked into the consolation round by an Italian squad that made very few mistakes in the semis.

I'm obviously very upset. There were 2 hands where I generated game swings in the wrong direction. If I'd just thought a little more, perhaps everything would be different now.

Crises Averted

2009-08-17T20:39:00.003+03:00

Round 12 arrived with the quintessential Bridge World problem. Here we were, USA Blue, well ahead of the pack. USA Red, after a favorable director's ruling, was in 6th seemingly next on the chopping block. This is a situation that's seen many times in sporting competition. You might think of it as analagous to a baseball team in mid-September who is well out of the playoff race going up against a wild card contender. Why even show up for the game? Well... there's a code in baseball. It's that when you set foot on the diamond you play, and play the right way. If a last place team were to just lay down at the feet of their opponents it wouldn't be fair to their competitor(s) who may have faced the underdog earlier in the season, when they still had something to play for. This creates a skewed result.

In our situation there were several angles to consider. We might shell out points to our compatriots, allowing them to qualify for the knockout stage where if they'd played a team who couldn't afford to they might receive a less-than favorable result. Is this an unfair result or not? If we consider the code of conduct for a sportsman, Jeff Rubens has argued that the sporting person (or team) will take the action that gives them the greatest advantage over their opponents, if the rules so allow. If there are no rules against dumping to an opponent, we might be well-advised to allow USA Red to beat us soundly, knocking another good team from the top 8 and giving us a relatively soft opponent to play in the quarterfinals. So perhaps the directors would be right to disallow our match. But is the latter solution best? Sure it avoids ethical dilemmas--including those faced by our captain, Howie Weinstein, who has to decide what advice to give us--but if we were to play soundly against USA Red, then skipping our match is an undue reward to them since they would not have to play arguably the best team in the tournament, unlike their competitors. Is this problem insoluable?

In the end USA Red was spared, but was blitzed by the team they played in our place. It's now our sole responsibility to carry the torch of USA Junior bridge. Here is the last hand from our match in the penultimate round:

A note about the auction. 4NT is always blackwood for Jason. Whether this should be blackwood for clubs or hearts is unclear. I might have set hearts by bidding 4D over 3H, but for simplicity's sake maybe the last-bid suit in an ambiguous auction is best. Furthermore, maybe 4H shows a 7th heart, which would clearly make me more interested. I might have bid 4C over 2S to set trump, what would you do? I intended 6C as 'to play' since I knew the wheels had come off. However, the ch00 ch00 train could not be derailed and, taking my 6C bid as asking for the queen of that suit, Jason leapt to grand. Note S's error in doubling 7H. I would pull to 7NT almost surely anyway, since if Jason's hearts were good enough to make grand then 7NT must roll as well, and maybe even sometimes when 7H does not. But still, doubling a contract which you know to be going down that will already be a tremendous pickup in this situation is a serious lapse in judgement. Now, on to the play.

If I were on Vugraph I might have claimed at trick 1. As it was, when N showed out of hearts I was 100% to make the contract on a simple squeeze played as a double. After cashing the ace of hearts and queen of clubs, the run of the clubs will destroy either N or S (N in the pointeds, S in the majors). As my boy Clyde Love would say, "a load that would be too heavy for both defenders cannot possibly be carried by one alone."

We finished the day by coming full circle. Being more than 25VP clear of 2nd place, we were forced to play a team that was mathematically eliminated from qualifying. As it was, the directors had us play the Irish girls for a 2nd time. This time around, with nothing to lose but our perfect record, Howie put us in and I was able to wow the girls with my Irish language skills. We blitzed in the end, so now sit at 13-0 going into the knockouts tomorrow. Jason and I will be in the first set, and I feel ready.

Once in a Lifetime

2009-08-17T13:26:00.012+03:00

Jason and I played the first match this morning. Beforehand our team met in Justin and Jeremy's room and were listening to some music to get pumped up when 'Lose Yourself' by Eminem came on. In some ways I can relate to this song a lot. Marshall Mathers is from SE Michigan, like me, and has had to come up from basically nothing to where he is now. In the world of bridge, I certainly wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. A lot of good young players come from families that have bridge players in them, if not bridge stars. They hail from areas like NYC and Los Angeles, where good players (read: mentors) abound. I never really had any of that, and I like to think that I've come pretty far in bridge in a pretty short time from limited resources. But most people like to think of themselves as underdogs.

There's a verse from this song that really gets to me:

This world is mine for the taking
Make me king, as we move toward a, new world order
A normal life is boring, but superstardom's close to post mortem

It only grows harder...

In bridge, the post mortem is what you do after the hand has finished and the entire deal is known. Superstars play like they know the hand from the very beginning and to win a world championship... well I'm not calling myself a superstar but the words definitely speak to me. From this point out things are only going to get tougher and I'm going to have to step up my game because, hey, this might just be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

To view the standings you can go here and to view the 'Live Running Scores' you can just click the link at the top. The server is very poor so you may have to hit refresh several times.

That team way in front is mine. As the Knockout phase approaches tomorrow I am feeling confident and excited about our chances.

14 Tricks and a Beer

2009-08-17T11:58:00.007+03:00

There was a funny hand in our match yesterday against Netherlands Orange. Our team managed to win 14 collective tricks against our opponents, who were playing in diamond contracts at both tables. You can click on the yellow bids to see what they mean. Click again to make the description go away.

The dutch declarer in the closed room forgot how to play this club suit combination, and so finished -2 doubled, 4 tricks for USA Blue. Even in the dark our boys got it right, though, and so when the last trick was played the declarer in the open room had taken just two diamonds and the ace of spades. 14 tricks and 11 hilarious IMPs to the good guys.

In bridge the 7 of diamonds is known as the 'Beer Card.' If you take the 13th trick with this card in a non-diamond contract, your partner owes you a beer (in Australia the rule is everyone at the table owes you). I feel if you win the last trick with the diamond 7 on defense, even when diamonds are trumps, your partner should get the next round. Now only if I could find a partner who would agree to that...

Director!

2009-08-16T18:50:00.006+03:00

Jason and I just had a director call on the last board of a set which we lost 14-16. Hopefully, that result will be scrubbed and we'll end up winning 17-13. Here's the hand:

Jason (E) was informed by N, his screen partner, that 2S set diamonds. I wasn't given this alert by S, who thought that this agreement was off over Jason's double (God knows why this would be a superior treatment, most likely he just intended it to show a spade stopper for NT). Either way Jason probably knows that declarer is short in hearts, but how short? I could lead the 4 from either Jx4 or Jxx4, so ducking retains communication if I have, say, Kx of clubs. After the duck it was game over, pending the ruling. We will appeal if the table result stands.

How would you rule? I obviously haven't covered all possible inferences Jason made, etc.

THIS JUST IN: Directors ruled in our favor. Pending an appeal by the Japanese we won 17-13, are still undefeated and--at the moment-- are 18VPs clear of the field.

Another interesting point about this round is that I was querried for an appeal committee for the first time in my life, which was fun :-)

Orange Juiced

2009-08-16T15:06:00.001+03:00

Our last 3 matches have all been against Dutch teams. Since we've been in 1st place since the start of the tournament, and since this is a Swiss movement, that means that all 3 of these teams have been in 2nd when we've played them. There are 5 teams in total here from the Netherlands, and all of them are in the top half of the field. This is really just a huge testament to how good the junior program is there, seemingly well ahead of any other country.

That being said, it was 3 up and 3 down for the USA Blue squad. We blitzed Netherlands Orange 25VP-5VP. Here was one hand that helped our score:

AMERICA LEADS THE WAY

2009-08-16T09:14:00.013+03:00

The title of this post isn’t my own, but something they decided to put up in the bulletin today, which you can find here.

The team played passably yesterday, the majority of the mistakes made by myself, but we were still able to nab an early lead at 66 Victory Points, 5 clear of the field. For those of you who don’t know what Victory points are, there are several types of scoring that are important in bridge. Initially, hands played give an output of a total point score for a team. Since contracts are regularly worth 500, 1000, and even 2000 points, these raw scores are converted into International Match Points (IMPs), which is basically a way to prevent one hand from deciding an entire match. Rather than having to make up a deficit of, say, 2000 total points, a team would only have to cover its IMP conversion, 19 IMPs. This takes about two good hands to do, rather than 4. At the end of a match IMPs are converted into Victory Points (VPs), a parallel idea that prevents one match from deciding the winner of a tournament.

So, after the opening ceremonies yesterday—which included a hilarious montage of world culture through the decades, 90% being US-centric—play was under way. We were lucky to draw the Irish in the 1^st match who, although having some excellent Open players back home, were really atrocious. Jason and I sat out, possibly because Howie knows how I’d probably give out free points to cute Irish girls. Our teammates, however, totally flattened them, picking up the maximum score possible. They were not a great team, and frankly we were lucky enough to play them in the first round. Here is a hand in which Justin Lall converted on some poor defense to execute a rare and elegant type of squeeze. You can click ‘Next’ on the movie to flip through the play and bidding. The GIB button gives you computer analysis on whether the contract can be made or not at each trick, based on which card is played.

Final score: USA Blue 25-5 Ireland

Jason and I were in for the 2^nd set against France, which included 3 world-champion players from last year’s World Mind Sport Games in Beijing. The set got out to a fast start:

Well, we know partner only holds 2 hearts since if he held 3 he’d bid game himself.If he doesn’t hold any heart honors this game rates to be fair at least since all finesses will work against W and E is likely to hold any outstanding hearts. I didn’t come to Istanbul to pussy-foot around, so I raised.

I definitely made an error by not inserting the heart Q on the lead of the 9, which pays off to North having the singleton Jack of hearts. South is virtually certain to hold KJxx of hearts, but technically best is still best. Luck was on my side when the 8 was smothered and the rest was easy. That was 9 IMPs to the good guys en route to victory despite my poor judgment just 3 hands later when I held:

I bid 2C, showing the majors and after the dust had settled -1100 was duly chalked up, which is as bad as it sounds.

Oh well, I'll take 1st after day 1. Today, however, is moving day!!!

Prop Bets

2009-08-14T21:29:00.006+03:00

There was a good discussion at the bar last night about what it means to be on a bridge team. I’m sure that anyone who is reading this who doesn’t play bridge still might have some trouble following me if I ever talk to them about bridge being a team game. Why are there 6 people on a team when only 4 play at a time, and how do you play like a team when you’re at 2 separate tables?

The latter question is a little too remedial to address here, but the 6-man team is a concept that I struggled with last year in Beijing. I’d never been on a team with more than 4 players, so it often felt awkward to sit out of matches and at times it was hard not to feel like I was doing something really wrong or that I should have been playing, even though I knew that my teammates were playing just as well if not better than I might have if I were at the table in their place.

Bridge is a tiring game--not physically, but mentally. It is hard to focus your energy for a long time guessing what cards someone might hold, making statistical calculations and tactical decisions, and using logic to deduce how you might bid or play a hand. 6-person teams help when you’re playing in long events to keep you sharp and prevent that tired, cloudy feeling that slows your ability to think critically. Not only that, but it’s great to have another pair who the captain (who tries to remain unbiased) can sub in for another pair who is really sucking, for whatever reason. Sometimes people just need to be benched in bridge just like in any other game. It’s your job as a player to gather yourself, not get angry at the captain or be a distraction to the team, and get back to the table and do that. You also need to be able to pick up your teammates after they make mistakes to keep them playing their best. There’s a lot of morale and momentum in bridge, and in my opinion teams really bring out these aspects of the game and make it a much more enjoyable way to compete.

We went to the Grand Bazaar today. There were a lot of shops and a lot of haggling. I was able to procure a backgammon board in the hopes that I can win back the money I lost to ch00 last night betting on how many mililiters there are in a shot of liquor. Having dated a girl who liked to bartend and worked with metric measurements all the time in labs I thought I would have known...

Vugraph Etc.

2009-08-13T12:46:00.003+03:00

It appears that there will be fairly thorough Vugraph coverage of the games here. They'll be covering at least some of the tables every round, but since there are currently 35 teams registered it's unclear how often USA Blue will make it on.

You can find a schedule of Vugraph play here. Look for the '1st World Youth Congress' matches. Times on the left are military standard and appear as correct for your own time zone.

To watch Vugraph matches you need to go here, click on 'Play Bridge Now' then 'Look Around Our Site.' If a Vugraph match is on the 'Vugraph (live broadcasts)' button will be yellow and you should find it easy to navigate from there.

The University is on the Asian side of Istanbul. We're a little more than an hour by car away from Old Istanbul, which is on the southern end of the European side of the city along the Bosphorus river, which is the first straight that leads from the Black Sea through several bodies of the water eventually into the Mediterranean. That's the really 'happening' part of town with the Aya Sofya, Istanbul University, Topkapi Sarayi (where the kept the Harem) and the Grand Bazaar. Hopefully I'll be able to make it down there for a Turkish bath house experience.

Here's a rather blurry photo as we crossed the Bosphorus, you can just see the Aya Sofya in the distance. It used to be the largest cathedral in the world for about half a millenium before St. Peter's was built. I apologize about the quality, our bus driver was going pretty fast.

Queen of Clubs!

2009-08-12T02:33:00.010+03:00

Some of you may remember this inglorious moment.

The night following the match my partner, Roger Lee, gave me the Queen of Clubs from a deck of cards. I still have it and I'm bringing it with me to Turkey. Hopefully if I keep it in my pocket it will remind to to think a little harder.

Anyway I've been perusing hands from the trials for a story that contained my personal Black Mariah... but so far nothing has come up. I wanted to get a hand up, though, so here's one where there were mistakes made all around:

The Players

2009-08-12T00:57:00.012+03:00

The USBF has assembled a crack squad of young bridge talent to try to bring a championship back where it belongs. Just so everyone knows who I'm talking about when I rant and rave about how stupid they are (j/k) here are some photos.

Our Captain, Howard Weinstein.

Jeremy Fournier and Justin Lall

Matt Meckstroth and Kevin Dwyer

.... and my partner, Jason Ch00

Off to Turkey!

2009-08-11T23:18:00.004+03:00

Well at the time of this post it's a little more than 12 hours until I begin traveling to Istanbul! Even though this is a pretty big trip for me everything feels pretty normal today, except for the fact that I did my laundry :-)

For those of you who don't know, I'm on the 'USA Blue' team for the "First World Youth Congress," which is basically the World Transnational Junior (Under 26) Championships. This is an open event, so anyone can go and the amount of entries allowed is unlimited. You are also permitted to play on teams where several nationalities are represented. If you visit the link you can see some photos of Yeditepe University, where we'll be playing and staying.

I think it definitely helps to have 'been there, done that' last year in Beijing because I am nowhere near as nervous this time around. Maybe Turkey just seems closer to home than China, or maybe it's because I know my teammates better now, or that I haven't been studying as much, but the only weight I feel on my shoulders currently is the weight of expectation: I expect to win.

The original conception for this blog was just as a place where I would post some of the bridge problems my team and I face while we're playing over the next two weeks. I know how it is to read a blog and people don't generally want to pore over daily posts about your daily life unless they're your mother, but I'll probably throw some Turkish vignettes in there to spice things up a bit. But don't worry, there will be plenty of bridge hands to offset that!

Last night some friends of mine threw me a 'good luck sendoff' of sorts, and I'm eager to be on my way and CKD (Crush, Kill, Destroy!) Flight leaves from JFK at 4:30!