Monkey Business

What are the chances of an 8-card suit in bridge? Surprisingly small, at around 200-1. However, the chance of an 8-card suit (or longer) with someone in an evening of bridge is around even money, I think 51% in a 32-board sesssion, but only 30% in the shorter 18-board Woodberry Online Pairs. Generally it pays to pre-empt at the four level when you get one and this your scribe did on the above hand. David Burn's double showed "cards" in the modern manner, and Dr Frances Loughridge, with three aces, chose to take the money. North led a club and South cashed a second round and now cashed the ace of hearts on which David played the eight, normal attitude, so he probably has the king. South could reason that North had not opened a weak two, so probably did not have six hearts, and now the winning defence was to cash the ace of diamonds and exit with a spade. Note that playing a spade immediately is not good enough, as declarer can rise with the ace and exit with the king of diamonds, and a loser disappears as South does not have a second heart to play. Instead South played a third club, but North's trump trick did not need promoting and West escaped for 2 off and an average. Collecting the magic monkey was worth 90%, as that beats the game of 5C which South could make as long as she cashes the ace of diamonds at some point.

What was your experience on the board? Several left 4S play undoubled, and they scored poorly in the rough and tumble of matchpoints. 

Lockdown League Report

The Lockdown League is an online competition for teams of four.

The teams are arranged into 12 divisions of up to 16 teams.

We play an 8 board match against each of the other teams in the division, over a season of four weeks.

At the end of the season, the top 4 teams are promoted, the bottom 4 are relegated.

Woodberry initially entered 4 teams. The EBU placed them in a division which reflected the average NGS score of the team members.

As there are 4 scheduled matches per week, we decided to register 6 players in each team. The maximum permitted number of players is 8. Some teams have subsequently added extra players.

• Woodberry A were placed in Division 6, promoted to division 5 at the end of season 1, but then finished 14^th in division 5 and were relegated to division 6.
• Woodberry B were placed in Division 5, relegated to division 6 where they finished 10^th.
• Woodberry C were placed in Division 7, promoted to division 6 where they finished 11^th.
• Woodberry D joined in Season 2. They were placed in Division 9 where they finished 7^th.

This probably means that the A, B and C teams will play one another in season 3.

These are the players in each team (the first name is the captain):

• A: Andy Conway; Kevin Robins; Chris Dee; Matt Hendrickson; Sam Nim; Mahender Pal; Lindsay Scandrett; Karen Sloan
• B: Paul Lamford; Stef Rohan; Paul Thornton; Gerry Weston; Ivan Helmer; David Taylor; Milo Brett
• C: Dominic Flint; Pamela Reiss; Dean Swallow; Carlos Dabezies; Steve Foster; Barrie Gilbert
• D: Steve Coulter; Harvey Fox; Maria Essen; Derek Essen; Nic Madge; Mike Klein; Saamir Mahmood.

On this board we missed a grand slam:

On reflection, I think I would have been better advised to respond 2NT (Jacoby) to Kevin’s 1 heart, instead of 4D (splinter). Perhaps readers could suggest a suitable bidding sequence to reach 7H. Fortunately, our opponents also played in 6H . No swing.

Human Victory

 EBU pairs tournament 23rd. May.

My partner, Karen Sloan made 3NT+1 for a 92.5% board.

The north robot led AK of clubs before switching to 10 of hearts. Karen cashed her clubs and hearts in hand, then established a spade for 10 tricks.

The history file showed that five pairs had made 3NT+1, four of which had north robots who defended in the same way.

Many pairs were held to 3NT where north was a rational human being who led 10 of hearts initially and continued hearts each time they regained the lead.

Perhaps BBO need to upgrade their robots!

The Woodberry Online Pairs is going from strength to strength under Fred's impressive organisation. The most interesting board of the night saw many different scores with two East-Wests reaching slam, and South making 3Dx on the opposite side of the spectrum. We made a bit of a mess of the board, and were lucky to even get 25%:

Paul Thornton and Gerry Weston had a splendid result, but were given an easy ride here when South overcalled a pusillanimous 2D and Gerry forced with 3D and then bid Blackwood. Making the slam is not trivial, but you should be able to make two diamonds, five clubs, four spades and a heart with careful timing. One declarer went off when he tried to ruff a heart in dummy and throw another on the ace of diamonds but when North ruffed he overruffed and fatally ruffed a heart in dummy.

At our table, South was made of sterner stuff and overcalled 4D and now Stefanie chose to double, mainly takeout, but obviously a wide range of hand types. I think 2-4-2-5 or 2-4-3-4 would be the most common, and I decided to pass on the East hand. West cashed the ace of hearts and then played a spade to South's ace. The queen of diamonds went to my king, and now I needed to lead a heart, so that partner could ruff, underlead the ace of clubs, and get another heart ruff for 500. That would have been worth one more match point, so I am not too dismayed at not finding that. I think West should just bid Blackwood over 4D, You want to be in grand opposite AQxxx Jxx x Kxxx but only six opposite QTxxx KQx x Kxxx, and neither of these is an opening bid. Not that the East hand is much of an opening bid anyway.

There were a wide range of results here, and many East's did not open, and Wests who overcalled 3D with 3NT, making 12 tricks when North did not find the heart lead, scored well. What were your thoughts on the board? And how do you play 4NT here, after 1M-(4m). Blackwood seems simplest and maybe it should be simple Blackwood ….

Find the Lady

Your scribe was not on his "guessing game" tonight, and, as in the post below - A Critical Decision, I took a wrong view in the heart suit. North, Stefanie Rohan, began with 2C, intending to show a game force on the next round and East-West gave in to 4H despite the favourable vulnerability.

West led the two of clubs, which looked suspiciously like a singleton to my untutored eye, so I rose with the ace and led the three of hearts. East hopped up with the ace, cashed the king of clubs, and gave his partner a club ruff. West exited with the jack of spades, and I won with North's ace and led another heart on which East played a disappointing nine. Reflecting on the auction, I thought West was unlikely to have seven diamonds, or he might have made a weak jump overcall at favourable vulnerability, or might have saved in Four Spades. He clearly has three spades, so is probably 3-3-6-1, I thought, foolishly, and rose with the king, expecting to drop the queen. Two down and another bad board.

If Oscar Wilde were alive he would no doubt say: "To misguess hearts once may be regarded as a misfortune. To do so on both hands looks like carelessness."

And, did you see how Sam Nim, East, could have guaranteed beating the contract? If he gave his partner a club ruff without cashing the king of clubs, declarer would have no way home. And why not comment with your experience on this board?

A Critical Decision

This was an early board in the second session of the new Woodberry Online Pairs, brilliantly conceived and executed by Fred Pitel.

South, your scribe, opened 1H, just out of screen shot, and Andy Clery overcalled a conservative (for him) 2NT. Stefanie Rohan, bid 4H, weaker than bidding 3C to show a good heart raise. Liz Clery was not going to be shut out of the auction and sacrificed in 5D. Now, I don't think pass is forcing by South at this stage, as  partner may just be bidding with shape, and so I doubled, and Stefanie judged well to pull to 5H, as 5Dx is only one off, for a near top. However, Andy, expecting a bit more than a 11-loser 1-count from his sister, went on to 6D. Now North's pass is clearly forcing, as partner had doubled 5D only some moments ago, and South, visualising something like Qxxxx Qxxxx none xxx opposite decided that he was not getting rich from 6D and went for 6H. Andy doubled, ensuring the board would be a top or bottom!

After the AD lead, I ruffed in dummy and crossed  to a high trump and cashed the ace of spades, felling the jack on my left. I now had to decide whether West was 1-1-6-5 when I can ruff a diamond, finesse the nine of spades, cash the king, ruff another diamond and play two more high spades, discarding clubs on both while East ruffs, or if I should cash a second heart, finesse the spade, cash the spade and then ruff a diamond to throw two clubs on the winning spades. In the end, I cast my mind back to the 5D bid, and thought this had to be 5-card support on such a bad hand. But the motto is "never trust a woman". And no sour grapes, just congrats to the Clerys for a fine set, and a deserved win.

Comments, in particular how you did on this board, are most welcome. Email Andy Conway or me, the administrators, if you need help or permission to post. I think you have our email addresses or can find them easily.

The above hand occurred in the first online Woodberry Pairs event and was quite instructive. North, Ryan Stephenson, opened a strong NT and South, Andy Clery, transferred to clubs. North's 3C bid said that he liked clubs, and South gambled that the side suits would be stopped and bid 3NT.

NS50, the moniker of Nigel Stuttard, led the ace of hearts and West, John Bernard, a keen Arsenal fan, played the five, encouraging. Now East continued with two more high hearts and West played low on both. He feared that if he unblocked the jack, North might have Txxx. Now the hearts were blocked and the contract made.

The answer here was for East to lead the queen of hearts, and when West encourages with the five, then East can underlead the ace, on the THIRD round after West completes an echo. It would be wrong of East to underlead immediately as the five might be discouraging from T85 or T75.