Loading ...i love my methods
Had the best time playing with Shannon this morning on BBO. I was feeling quite completely incompetent after a few disasters last week and was prepared to grit my teeth and battle through it this morning. Luckily we found opponents who appeared to be practicing pushing buttons on their computers, because the results were mostly absurd. The bridge might not have been great, but it was good for my bruised ego.
My favorite hand of the day was Board 5, Shannon opened 1 :S: (1st chair, unfavorable, imps) and I held:
:S: J9
:H: KT83
:D: 7532
:C: 984
Yummy. I bid a reluctant 1NT just in case Shannon could bid 2 :C: (Gazilli. Either 11-15 with 5+ spades and 4+ clubs or any hand with 5+ spades, 16+). She came up with the goods and I bid 2 :S: showing my complete garbage. Lefty came in with double and Shannon redoubled, showing the good hand. Now they were in trouble. After a long hesitation, righty bid an ill-advised 3 :H: which I cheerfully doubled.
Shannon had :S: AQ6542 / :H: Q62 / :D: AT / :C: KJ. I think I dropped a trick along the way, but +800 was top on the board at the time we’d played it.
Ralph and Martha and Howie missed their flight from Viet Nam to Taiwan, so when George went to sleep tonight it was with contingency plans for the 9:30 a.m. start. Good luck!
February 12th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Query about the system: If Shannon had held the same high cards with 2 fewer hearts, 1 more diamond and 1 more club then what happens. Now you have some where between 4 and 6 defensive tricks.
Also, had LHP passed I presume she has to raise spades to 3 and u likely get a minus for being too high on a hand where you might have passed 1S.
I hate to be a naysayer but isn’t this an example of some good fortune on a hand that instead might have been a 6 imp loss.
February 12th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
No, Bob, she does not have to raise spades. 2 :S: shows 4-7 hcp and exactly two spades. It would have gone all pass, and we’d have beat the standard bidders who jump to 3 :S: to show Shannon’s hand.
February 13th, 2008 at 1:22 am
Wait, we did make it! We missed it because for no reason they moved the flight up 3 1/2 hours. Too bad they said, we should have checked (Checking is no easy task on these airlines) We bought new tickets only none to Kaohsiung so to Taipei, only to miss Taipei train to Kaohsiung, so rented a car and got driven 4 hours.
Ah the joys of travel:)
February 13th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Thanks, Stacy. That clarifies things, clearly one of the strengths of the system.
February 14th, 2008 at 8:43 am
There is more bad news. Howie went home today due to his Father being gravely ill. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.
In bridge news we qualified in the top bracket. Unluckily we had 1 too many VP’s or 2 too many imps. We drew the Netherlands while Norway, who LOST the tie-breaker with us, drew the Yeh team.
Italy 1 plays Italy 2 and there was much histionics about some late imps that were found in the all US match. We were not going to play them anyway, but it looked to Italy 1 that we dodged them. Ah, bridge at the top.
Happy valentines day to you all, especially to you, Stacy.