practicing
Sue and Jenny arrived safely on Thursday, we played 24 getting-acquainted boards after dinner. Yesterday was a work day. While my teammates were sleeping and working out, Judi and I bid 40 major-suit oriented hands in the game-to-slam range. Then the girls and I played thirteen (intending to play sets of 12). We split up and discussed some of the agreement-oriented stuff that came up, then played 36 straight through; I’d say the rockstars had the better of it for the most part.
We broke for dinner and to catch up on the action in Las Vegas. Levin and Weinstein are leading, Meckstroth and Welland are second. Most of my favorites will begin the climb up through the soft underbelly (as if there were such a thing). Take a look at the bottom of the heap, it’ll blow your mind:
32 -11.00 A-28 Paul Chemla - Michel Lebel
33 -38.00 A-49 Michel Bessis - Thomas Bessis
34 -165.00 A-31 Bruce Rogoff - Louk Verhees
35 -197.00 A-18 Michael Rosenberg - Christal Henner-Welland
36 -211.00 A-48 Boye Brogeland - Rita Shugart
37 -246.00 A-53 Drew Casen - Mike Passell
38 -267.00 A-23 George Jacobs - Ralph Katz
39 -279.00 A-33 Peter Bertheau - Fredrik Nystrom
40 -353.00 A-14 Richard Jedrychowski - Wojtek Olanski
41 -370.00 A-36 Alain Levy - Herve Mouiel
42 -433.00 A-44 Chris Compton - Bob Hamman
43 -436.00 A-30 John Diamond - Jim Krekorian
44 -488.00 A-51 Jacek Pszczola - Jerzy Zaremba
45 -526.00 A-27 Kevin Bathurst - Justin Lall
46 -592.00 A-17 Walid Elahmady - Tarek Sadek
47 -616.00 A-9 Per Erik Austberg - Jon-Egil Furunes
48 -653.00 A-4 Fred Stewart - Kit Woolsey
49 -729.00 A-12 Ralph Buchalter - Migry Zur Campanile
50 -755.00 A-19 Fu Zhong - Jie Zhao
51 -768.00 A-34 Albert Faigenbaum - Romain Zaleski
52 -843.00 A-38 George Mittelman - Melih Ozdil
53 -848.00 A-45 James Cayne - Alfredo Versace
54 -1512.00 A-32 Veronel Lungu - Daniel Savin
We played another 24 boards after dinner then went to bed, completely wiped out. As we played all those boards I kept some notes, scribbled down some hands to ask about later, but this morning I look over all the score cards and I can’t quite muster the energy to remember things like how the bidding went. Here’s the one I did write down … tell me what you’d do:
:S: KTxxxxx
:H: AKJx
:D: x
:C: x
I opened 1 :S: and Shannon bid 2 :C: on my left. Partner bid 3 :C: and Jenny doubled. I bid 3 :H: , Shannon bid 3 :S: and Sue bid 4 :S: . Are you done?
Me Shannon Sue Jenny 1 :S: 2 :C: 3 :C: x 3 :H: 3 :S: 4 :S: pass ?
May 10th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
There are 2 questions on this hand: (1) How many aces does partner have? (2) Do you have a heart loser?
If you are willing to risk going down with a heart loser then after the X, you should just bid 4N. If partner has 1 key you get out at 5, if 2 keys you bid 6 and if 3 keys you bid 6H asking partner to bid 7S with 3rd round heart control.
If you are not willing to gamble on no heart loser, you should XX showing 2nd round club control.
The dilemma will be on what to do after it then goes 3S-4S-P. You have 3 choices - Pass, 4N and 5H. I think partner has likely denied the ace of diamonds so I would pass, but it is a very close call.