Recent Matchpointer Articles

Below are links to some articles which have either been printed in the Matchpointer print version, or appeared in the online version, or both.

New articles intended for the print version should be sent to Ben Takemori here.  Articles intended for the online version should be sent to Bruce McIntyre here.  Anything printed in the print version may appear later in the online version, and vice versa, unless the author requests otherwise.

The difference between a Regional, and an NABC (North American Bridge Championship) is that the bridge stars come out at the NABCs.  Every NABC has a marquee event; for the fall NABC it is the Reisinger Board-a-Match.  I took advantage of the opportunity to kibitz and observe some of the brighter lights in the bridge universe.

Bill Gates was there.  He was dressed inconspicuously in jeans and a floppy sweatshirt.  He was seated at the far end of the room, the last table in the row, facing the wall.  I could tell from the handwritten correction to the printed assignment sheet that he had asked to be moved from a table in the middle of the room to somewhere less conspicuous.  He seemed very nervous was constantly jiggling his knees.  His team was next to last at the time I observed him and did not make the cut for the following day.

Meckstroth was there, wearing the same vivid yellow jacket he had been wearing all week.  At every hospitality break he would dash to the exit for a smoke.  I also observed his partner Rodwell giving a kiss to a blond woman, right in the middle of the room. (So the kiss was on the forehead, it still looked kind of sweet.)  I assume it was his wife.

Zia was there.  He was dressed in a beautifully tailored black jacket, black slacks, black polo shirt, and black silk handkerchief.  Very very elegant.  No one else in the room, women included, took half as much trouble with their outfit.

I chose to kibitz Roger Bates.  His partner is Alan Sontag, author of The Bridge Bum.  Together they are one of the top Precision pairs in the country.  Sontag obviously thinks very quickly.  Like Meckstroth, he gives the impression he has figured the entire hand out after about 30 seconds.  He is a nervous type; whenever someone pauses for thought longer than about 30 seconds there is a lot of fidgeting, sighing, and raising of eyebrows.  Even when it is his partner.  His wife was kibitzing him, and sometimes after the hand she would ask him to explain why the play had gone the way it had.

Roger Bates is very nice.  When I asked if I could kibitz he said sure, and at the end of the night as I was leaving he said there would always be a seat.  One thing surprised me though; after they had bid and made 7♣ he had to look up the score on the back of the bidding card!

Sontag also made a bad mistake.  After one round, where they had finished early, he wanted to look at one of the opponents’ hands.  So he took the hand out of the tray, and began to look at it.  Bad move.  His partner had already moved the played boards to the next table, and Alan was looking at the next board he was to play.  Of course he called the director at once.  The director replaced it with another board.  Since this was B-A-M where the boards are compared I presume that there was some work involved on the directors’ part to make sure the scoring came out OK.

During the play of the hand, Roger and Alan are very patient on defense.  They seldom take their tricks at the first opportunity.

During the Blue Ribbon pairs I also got the chance to play a couple of boards against some of the top bridge names as well.  Fred Gittleman, inventor of Bridge Base online and his partner Brad Moss, Sabine Auken and Daniella von Arnem (as good looking as they are smart), Mildred Breed, Mathew Granovetter, and others.

NABCs offer more than just Regionally-rated knockout events; the next time you attend one, try to take advantage of some of the extras.

While at the NABC’s I chose to spend one evening kibitzing Roger Bates of the Sontag and Bates partnership.  They are one of the top Precision pairs in the country and I wanted to see Precision in action when it was played by, and against, the big boys.  You are playing Board-a-Match.  A team game like pairs, where every overtrick is vital.

First a slam hand.  South deals.  How would you bid this using your methods?

See later for their auction.

Here is a hand that might cause many Precisioneers a problem.

Your partner deals and opens 2♦ showing 10-16 points in a hand with no five card major, and zero or one diamond: 4=3=1=5, 3=4=1=5, 4=4=1=4, or 4=4=0=5.  (With longer clubs the Precision opener would be 2♣.)

What do you say?

Passing is certainly an option.  So is 3♣, but opener, even with a 15 count will pass this, and besides he might be 4=4=1=4.

Roger thought a very long time over his bid.  Finally he bid 3NT!  I can only assume that had he bid anything less, his hesitation would have barred his partner anyway.

Turned out to be the winning decision since Alan’s hand was:

If any of you are playing Precision you might open this hand 2♣, showing 6 clubs, OR 5 clubs and a four card major.  This style of 2♣ opening is gradually falling into disfavor among the top Precision pairs.  The tendency these days is to open 2♦ with these hands, and have the 2♣ opening always show six or more clubs.

Here is an interesting play decision.  At IMPs there would be no problem, but at Board-a-Match you can’t ignore any 50-50 shot at overtricks.

You are in 4♥.  The opponents have been silent throughout.

The opening lead is the J♣.

Ten tricks seem easy, and eleven are quite possible.  In fact the Deep Finesse analysis on the hand records says that you can make 5♥.  So how do you play to win this board for your team?

At the table Roger tried for twelve tricks.  He won the club in his hand with the Queen and led a spade.  His plan was to steal a trick with the K♠ (if his LHO had the ace), and discard dummy’s second spade on the long club.

Disaster!

His LHO had the A♠ alright.  But the play went A♠, T♣ to partner who ruffed and returned a spade, ruffed.  When the trumps proved to be 4-1 Roger had to lose a second trump trick for down one.  Eleven tricks had become nine.  He had run into TWO 6-1 splits on a hand where the opps had been silent throughout.  Alan to his credit never said a word.

The full hand (rotated for convenience):

The slam hand revisited:

Their auction:

1. Precision.  Artificial and strong.
2. Game forcing.  Natural.
3. Asking for shape.
4. No second four card suit.  Club one-suiter.
5. Roman Keycard for clubs.  (In some partnerships clubs would not be agreed at this point. So 4♦ might not be RKC.)
6. One keycard.
7. Asking for the club queen.
8. Showing the Q♣ and the K♥.  Roger took a long time to make this bid.  In most RKC agreements when one partner knows of a ten card fit, he shows the queen regardless of whether he has it or not.  Here I think that even though Roger had a seventh club, he was not sure that Sontag had three-card support.  If Sontag intended to bid notrump next, for example, showing the queen might lead to disaster.

All was well though, as 7♣ made when Sontag was able to establish the fifth diamond.

This is what inevitably happens to a playing director.  My sympathy to partner Ron Dixon, who somehow brought me in above average on a night when I was usually elsewhere, both mentally and literally...

Remember: you're a playing director to fill in a movement.  You have money to count, names to enter, scores to enter, rulings to make, arguments to settle, coffee to prepare, counters to clean, telephones to answer...and 26 deals to play.  Here is the one I won't forget:

Nobody vul, 4th seat.
♠ AJ
♥ QT86
♦ QJ54
♣ JT6

Partner opens 1♣ in second seat and RHO overcalls 1♦. Your move.

I chose to double. I can think of several better calls. You probably can too.

LHO raised to 2♦ and partner bid 2♠, passed to me. Now what?

I chose 3NT. This was passed out and I was on play. LHO led the 8♦.

♠ Q987
♥ AK3
♦ A
♣ Q9743

8♦ led vs 3NT

♠ AJ
♥ QT86
♦ QJ54
♣ JT6

The defenders were kind enough to unblock the diamonds for me, so I set about blocking the other three suits.  There was a 'method' to the madness which I will try to explain, though probably not very well.

It seemed that clubs were a source of future and necessary tricks, so at trick two I led one to my jack.  LHO won the king and returned a heart.

It seemed that this return gave me four heart tricks against any distribution, so I ducked in dummy and captured RHO's jack with the queen.

It seemed that no astute defender would take the second club if I led the ten or low to the nine, so I made a better offer: I led the six of clubs to the queen.  Nobody in his right mind would play me for JT6!  RHO agreed with this analysis and took his ace and returned another heart, leaving this:

♠ Q987
♥ A
♦ --
♣ 974

3NT (3 tricks in, defense has 2, lead in dummy)

♠ AJ
♥ T8
♦ QJ5
♣ T

Easy route to nine tricks here, despite the blockage.  Three in already, plus (careful with the order!) the T♣, A♥, 9♣, 7♣, A♠, and T♥.  Both followed to the second heart, so once this manoeuvre was completed I would have nine tricks and nobody would have clubs or hearts left.  A lead of the J♠ from hand at trick 12 might net an overtrick.  Instead, I finessed the J♠ at trick six. It won.

♠ Q98
♥ A
♦ --
♣ 974

3NT (4 tricks in, defense has 2, lead in dummy)

♠ A
♥ T8
♦ QJ5
♣ T

And despite the "BLOCKAGE...BLOCKAGE...BLOCKAGE" alarms that are surely going off in your head, there was still a way to ensure an overtrick: four tricks in, plus the T♣, A♥, 9♣, 7♣, A♠, T♥.  430 would have scored slightly above average.  I scored well below average.

In fact, this is where my memory of the hand ends and I have to reconstruct a way to match the result...because I don't believe it myself.

At trick seven I must have played (don't ask me why)...the queen of diamonds!  RHO won the king and returned a heart.  The ace of hearts was my fifth trick.  There were three more winners in my hand but I had strategically blocked myself from the two good clubs in dummy.

Down one.

Somehow this was worth a matchpoint.  (Somebody was probably in 6NT.)

{this article originally appeared in the 2007 Penticton Daily Bulletin}

Before finding out how many IMPs were won or lost on the very first board, any good player playing with new teammates can tell how the match is going to go.  It has nothing to do with how well your own results were.  It has nothing to do with how well you and your partner play.  It has nothing to do with how well your teammates play.  It has nothing to do with how good the other team is.

We all come back to the comparisons table with a number in mind: on these results we should be up around 30, for example.  I had a partner once who saw fit to find fault with virtually every card I put on the table: bid-box or playing.  At the end of the first half he stomped off saying "we must be down a hundred!"  But that is tough to do in the lowest bracket no matter how many errors you make.  In fact, we were up 64 at the half, so I had the pleasure of letting him know that his estimate was off by over ten IMPs per board, a record that stands to this day.

Anyhow, you want to know how a good player can tell, before finding out how many IMPs were won or lost on the very first board, how the match is going to go.  Here's the great secret.  If you call out "plus 420" (or whatever the score is) and hear any of the following within two seconds...

- "push"
- "minus 400"
- "minus 450; lose one"
- "win six"
- "lose two"
- "minus 1520"

...you're going to have an okay day.  Even the last one is not necessarily an omen for eventual disaster.  It may look bad but there is one key advantageous element to it that will presently become clear.  For if you call out "plus 420" and hear anything like the following...

- "well, the declarer at our table took the finesse..."
- "which board are we starting with?"
- "wait, did you guys bid the slam?  Lemme see your scorecard!"
- "what contract were you in?"
- "I led the queen of diamonds on that one, and at trick seven..."
- "wait, let me find my scorecard"

...it is time to check the tournament schedule to see what's on in the next session, or look for something else to do, because this session will - mercifully - be your last in this knockout.

IMPs is the only game at which we let the players score the results, and perhaps this is a weak point.  Maybe it might be a better idea to put out pickup slips and have the scores entered into the computer, because only the very best teams seem to know how to properly compare.  The vast majority are more concerned with excuses and alibis and stories and other silliness than the score, which is all the Directors ask for in the end.  Sadly, the worst offenders are often those who have taken the longest to actually play the hands, which is why it sometimes takes forever between rounds in a Swiss.  (I guess they realize that their next round opponent will be out as soon as the result is in, so they want to make sure they get their excuses and stories in.)  At the other end of the scale, I have personally witnessed some Flight A teams comparing the second half...and then arguing about the score of the first half, which nobody seems to have bothered to confirm.

Here are some tips to help speed up the process.  Follow these and you will look like an expert from the moment you sit down (which is often worth a few IMPs by itself!):

1) Before you begin making the boards, figure out which boards you will have for the segment.  There a bit of mathematics here, but you can do it.  In a Swiss teams where the rounds have x boards, you will always play a set that ends in a number that is evenly divisible by x: a seven-board set will be 1-7, 8-14, 15-21, 22-28, or 29-35.  The first number of such a set will always be 1, or a number one greater than a number divisible by x.  In knockouts there will normally be twelve board segments, 1-12, 13-24, or 25-36.  But in afternoon and evening sessions, matches may get extra boards (usually of a different colour, one per half) so that you play 26 boards in a session.  Put the extra boards at the very end of your list no matter when you play them.

2) Prepare your scorecard.  Whichever boards you have, write the board numbers down on your sheet before you begin shuffling.  If you start in the middle of the set numerically, make a note so that you write the first score on the correct line.  Another good technique is to write the vulnerability down as well.  You can find the vulnerability using the chart at the bottom of the standard team scoresheet or on a standard pairs scoresheet.  I usually pencil in one of the following symbols:

o  —  |  +

to indicate "none," "they," "we," and "both" vulnerable.  This will save time later.  I find that the average number of boards that have to be retreived from the chair (sometimes from the other table!) to find out who's vulnerable is about one in three!  I often wonder if these people knew who was vulnerable during the auction.

3) If you still need boards from the other table and have none left to play after the current one ends, call for a caddy at the end of the auction.  Don't wait until the play is finished or wait for the boards to miraculously arrive.  If play at the other table is seriously behind your pace, call the Director and say so immediately.

4) On the last board of a segment, whoever is dummy should spend the time during the play comparing scores with the scores of ONE of the opponents to ensure that they match.  Don't interrupt: if there is a problem, say nothing until the hand is over.  Once this comparison is done, the dummy and the player whose scorecard was compared can each hand their scoresheet to their partner, and a quick comparison can be made so that all four players agree.  If one player has managed to gouge holes in his or her scoresheet by repeated errors and a frenzy of frantic erasing, compare with the other.  Tell that player to read this article.

5) If you have some time to wait for the other table to finish, check (without interrupting) how many boards they have left.  If they're on the last one, don't run off.  If they have multiple boards left, count on five minutes per unstarted board and make sure you are back in time.  If you are the last table in the match to finish and you see your teammates hovering, let them know how many boards you have left.

6) Dont wait more than a minute for a missing player to arrive before you begin comparing.  If they wanted to be there they would have ensured that they were.

7) Whoever on your team is best at math should be the receiver.  A member of the other partnership calls out the score on board one, and the receiver calls out the IMP swing.  "Plus 420."  "Win six."  "Minus 180."  "Lose ten."  Nothing more is required (or desired) at this stage.  The objective is to arrive at the final score as quickly as possible.  Two minutes tops in a knockout segment, one minute tops in a Swiss should be all that is needed.

8) (I credit Cam Doner with this particular bit of magic, although he will no doubt tell me he got it from someone else.)  On your scoresheet (this works especially well for long segments), score up the IMPs cumulatively.  Instead of this way...

...do it this way:

You'll be able to tell everyone what the final score for the segment was, instantly, while they are adding all the numbers up.  This is very impressive and often spurs your teammates on to play better, whatever the result is.  If this is the second half of a knockout, you start with the halftime score at the top and continue from there:

Doing it this way is a lot more exciting, especially in a knockout, because you can see the lead changes as they occur.

9) Confirm the result with the other team as soon as you can, or better yet, find the member of the team who doesn't do post-mortems and have him go over and confirm.  (If I'm on your team, that would be me.)

10) Report the confirmed result to the Director as soon as possible.  If you're in a Swiss teams, your result may allow the computer to match up a few more teams for the next round, or in the last round your reported result may clinch an overall spot for someone (hopefully you).  Why delay?  In a knockout teams, your break time is mostly dependant on how fast you can finish.  Here in Penticton, the Convention Centre is nice, but the surrounding area is even nicer.  Get finished quickly and go see it.

A word about post-morteming.  I sat through part of an excruciating post-mortem once, on a team which lost by 2 IMPs over 32 boards.  There were five swings where we lost exactly 2 IMPs and they went through the first two in great detail, skipping all boards with any other result.  I left at that point in exasperation.  No doubt they felt that I was crushed and couldn't face the rest of the team after this shocking defeat.  This team had three people with post-graduate university degrees and me (a UBC dropout).  I was apparently the only one who realized two obvious facts:

- The 2 IMP deficit was probably recoverable on at least 30 of the 32 boards, not just the ones where we happened to lose exactly 2 IMPs.
- The unrecovered IMPs were gone forever.  No amount of post-morteming could recover them.  The winning team had left long ago and the correction period was over.

My general theory of post-mortems is that you're better off to avoid them.  If there is a board you are interested in, write it down before the next round begins and look at it later.  Most of us here have learned the rudiments of bridge and are honest enough to see and learn from our mistakes.  I have found that many post-mortem addicts are not so concerned with doing what's right as with doing what works on that particular deal.  They work backwards through the 'clues' like a corrupt regime trying to frame an inconvenient victim.

In a Swiss teams once, we lost 6-IMP swings in three different matches, when the other table bid a very anti-percentage game that happened to make while we scored 170.  In one of these matches, we lost the match by 4, but in the others, we won handily.  Of course, the other members of the team insisted on putting the board from the match we lost under the microscope.  We should have bid the game because of this inference combined with the hidden value of spot cards in both hands, and it didn't matter that it could be defeated by perfect defense because it would never be found, and anyway you have nine or ten tricks all the time, so you should bid the game in case it makes.  (I've learned not to argue with these lines of argument.  Teammates don't want to know that in fact the game could be defeated two or three tricks by decent defense when they have failed to find the routine defense that beats it a single trick.)

The two boards where we lost 6 IMPs in exactly the same way, yet won the match?  They didn't seem to want to look at them.