Over this past weekend I have created a Dictionary of Bridge Terms (parodied of course). It's set up as a blog, and is located at:
www.dictionaryofbridgeterms.blogspot.com
Enjoy!!
Monday, June 15, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
The Three Suit Squeeze
Playing on BBO today with Jakob, I found the oppurtunity for a rare, but extremely fun techinque: A Three Suit Squeeze. It's not often that you are able to squeeze the opponents in 3 suits, since usually you need more than 1 suit to reduce and strip down their guards in several suits. However sometimes you find a position where you squeeze one opponent in 2 suits, one if he pitches, it's easy, and if he pitches the other, his partner gets squeezed in 1 of the same suits, and another one also. Here is the hand (Played in 3NT):
I received the 6 of Spade lead, which I ducked in dummy, RHO playing the 8 and I won the Ace. I led a Diamond to the ten, and RHO won, played a spade to LHO's King and the Jack of Spades back, won in dummy pitching a small heart from my hand, I now ran all my diamonds, and the position with 1 diamond to go from my hand, was:
When I play my last diamond from my hand, LHO can pitch whatever he wants, but RHO is stuck. He can be squeezed, or he can create a squeeze on his partner. If he pitches a club, my 9C sets up. If he pitches a heart, it at first doesn't seem so bad, after all, he still has the club guard. But when I now cash all my clubs, LHO can bare himself down to the Ten of Spades and the KQ of Hearts, but on my last high club, LHO is squeezed also. If he pitches his spade, my 9 is good in dummy, if he pitches a heart, because his partner was squeezed into letting go of a heart, dummy's 9 of Hearts is now good. Squeezes are so much fun!
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I received the 6 of Spade lead, which I ducked in dummy, RHO playing the 8 and I won the Ace. I led a Diamond to the ten, and RHO won, played a spade to LHO's King and the Jack of Spades back, won in dummy pitching a small heart from my hand, I now ran all my diamonds, and the position with 1 diamond to go from my hand, was:
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When I play my last diamond from my hand, LHO can pitch whatever he wants, but RHO is stuck. He can be squeezed, or he can create a squeeze on his partner. If he pitches a club, my 9C sets up. If he pitches a heart, it at first doesn't seem so bad, after all, he still has the club guard. But when I now cash all my clubs, LHO can bare himself down to the Ten of Spades and the KQ of Hearts, but on my last high club, LHO is squeezed also. If he pitches his spade, my 9 is good in dummy, if he pitches a heart, because his partner was squeezed into letting go of a heart, dummy's 9 of Hearts is now good. Squeezes are so much fun!
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Palm Beach Gardens - Part 2
Palm Beach was somewhat small for the morning sessions, and in fact 3 of the 5 morning sessions were cancelled. I played every session I could, in addition to playing some on BBO throughout the week. We won 1 Knockout and made it to the Semi-Finals of two others, then on Saturday, played a Bracketed Swiss Teams, where we played top bracket in the B flight. We had won our first 3 rounds by 13, 29 and 23 IMPs, and were playing the top team in the bracket, when this hand came up:
Much to my surprise, RHO opened 2C! We were Vul. and they were not, so this hand became quite a problem for me. I was kind of glad I was given 10 seconds to think after RHO's skip bid, but I really wanted more time. After some thought, I decided that 4S rated to put the Maximum amount of pressure on the 2C opener, who probably had tons of red cards. It also didn't look like it was going to go down more than 1 or 2, and at IMPs this is another major deciding factor. Over 4S, LHO doubled showing a negative hand, and everyone passed (also much to my surprise). I hate to sound easily startled, but it really shocked me when I saw both hands:
I received the King of Club lead, and unfortunately RHO ruffed, so I finished -1, which appeared to be an decent score, since the full deal was:
This layout is actually quite interesting, since East has absolutely no entry to West's hand. West's 8 of Diamonds holds the key to the hand... The solution to make 4H is to play the Ace of Diamonds and Queen of diamonds, then play a Diamond to the eight, now you only lose 2D and 1S, whereas if you do not lead up to the eight, North's seven becomes promoted... Sadly, our teammate was not watching the spots, and promoted the 7 of Diamonds for North at the other table, for a 6 IMP loss, however this is a perfect example of why even the littlest of cards are important! We lost this round by 3 IMPs, as a result of this board, however we went on to win the event handily after blitzing all the remaining matches. I finished the tournament 19th in Overall Masterpoint winners... With 52.95 points. My partner was Steve Wallis for the week, and we had a blast experimenting with precision stuff!
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Much to my surprise, RHO opened 2C! We were Vul. and they were not, so this hand became quite a problem for me. I was kind of glad I was given 10 seconds to think after RHO's skip bid, but I really wanted more time. After some thought, I decided that 4S rated to put the Maximum amount of pressure on the 2C opener, who probably had tons of red cards. It also didn't look like it was going to go down more than 1 or 2, and at IMPs this is another major deciding factor. Over 4S, LHO doubled showing a negative hand, and everyone passed (also much to my surprise). I hate to sound easily startled, but it really shocked me when I saw both hands:
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I received the King of Club lead, and unfortunately RHO ruffed, so I finished -1, which appeared to be an decent score, since the full deal was:
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This layout is actually quite interesting, since East has absolutely no entry to West's hand. West's 8 of Diamonds holds the key to the hand... The solution to make 4H is to play the Ace of Diamonds and Queen of diamonds, then play a Diamond to the eight, now you only lose 2D and 1S, whereas if you do not lead up to the eight, North's seven becomes promoted... Sadly, our teammate was not watching the spots, and promoted the 7 of Diamonds for North at the other table, for a 6 IMP loss, however this is a perfect example of why even the littlest of cards are important! We lost this round by 3 IMPs, as a result of this board, however we went on to win the event handily after blitzing all the remaining matches. I finished the tournament 19th in Overall Masterpoint winners... With 52.95 points. My partner was Steve Wallis for the week, and we had a blast experimenting with precision stuff!
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Palm Beach Gardens - Part 1
Sorry for not updating the blog for a while, I have been very busy. I was in Palm Beach Gardens at the regional tournament there for the past week, there weren't too many really wild hands, but one from the Monday Night session was quite memorable! The 2nd board of the entire tournament, playing with a very good partner, who however is playing precision for only his 2nd time, so we were going to have to work through that a little bit. I pick up my hand, in 2nd seat all vulnerable I hold:
So I of course open 1C, and partner makes the expected 1D response showing 0-7 HCP. Now I ran through a lot of options in my hand, but finally decided to bid 1430 for Diamonds, since all I really cared about was the King of Diamonds and the Ace of Hearts. It was a brilliant plan I thought... Partner denied any keycards, and undeterred I bid 6S and earned myself this beautiful dummy:
I was kinda stuck, after all, I had no entries to dummy, and received a club lead. Luckily trumps split 3-3, but even then, there was only one hope... A squeeze creating an endplay. As long as the King of Diamonds is in the hand with the ace of hearts, and I read the cards correctly, I can make. So I ran off 5 spades, and all my clubs, making sure to preserve 3 hearts and diamond in dummy. On these LHO followed to all of the clubs, and pitched 2 small diamonds. RHO followed to 2 clubs, and pitched 2 hearts and 2 diamonds, leaving this ending:
On my last Spade, LHO can pitch a Heart or a Diamond, but RHO is in trouble. If he pitches a Diamond, I drop his now stiff king. If he pitches a small Heart, I exit with my Heart, and he's endplayed into allowing a Diamond finesse. If he pitches his Ace of Hearts, then I exit my Heart, and LHO is endplayed into either leading a Heart into dummy's good Jack, or leading into my AQ of Diamonds... Either way I have 12 tricks. As it was, RHO was not too imaginative, and pitched a small heart. Now I exited the heart, and took the diamond finesse to make 6, the full deal:
This was a complete top, worth all the matchpoints, and lots of bragging rights too! I'll have more from Palm Beach shortly.
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So I of course open 1C, and partner makes the expected 1D response showing 0-7 HCP. Now I ran through a lot of options in my hand, but finally decided to bid 1430 for Diamonds, since all I really cared about was the King of Diamonds and the Ace of Hearts. It was a brilliant plan I thought... Partner denied any keycards, and undeterred I bid 6S and earned myself this beautiful dummy:
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I was kinda stuck, after all, I had no entries to dummy, and received a club lead. Luckily trumps split 3-3, but even then, there was only one hope... A squeeze creating an endplay. As long as the King of Diamonds is in the hand with the ace of hearts, and I read the cards correctly, I can make. So I ran off 5 spades, and all my clubs, making sure to preserve 3 hearts and diamond in dummy. On these LHO followed to all of the clubs, and pitched 2 small diamonds. RHO followed to 2 clubs, and pitched 2 hearts and 2 diamonds, leaving this ending:
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On my last Spade, LHO can pitch a Heart or a Diamond, but RHO is in trouble. If he pitches a Diamond, I drop his now stiff king. If he pitches a small Heart, I exit with my Heart, and he's endplayed into allowing a Diamond finesse. If he pitches his Ace of Hearts, then I exit my Heart, and LHO is endplayed into either leading a Heart into dummy's good Jack, or leading into my AQ of Diamonds... Either way I have 12 tricks. As it was, RHO was not too imaginative, and pitched a small heart. Now I exited the heart, and took the diamond finesse to make 6, the full deal:
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This was a complete top, worth all the matchpoints, and lots of bragging rights too! I'll have more from Palm Beach shortly.
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