Parting Shots

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!!

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:

Exhausted

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

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

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

My team managed to beat Netherlands Red to claim the Bronze in pretty dramatic fashion. It was an exciting match to watch.  Needing to come back from 31 down with 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!!!!

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

Two Big Deals

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

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

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:

Once in a Lifetime

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

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!

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

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

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

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.

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!

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

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!

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!