The Blue Ribbon pairs are the top pair event of the year in the US, incredibly prestigious, all the top international names in it too. As you may recall, last year Ari and I made it to the final day, which I think is actually the hardest thing I've ever done, and we even held our own there, posting two 49-somethings to finish 51st.

This year, we started out with a 56-something, just like I did last year, and then, just like last year, I played terribly in the evening. It was going to be close; there was a lot of nailbiting as the result sheet came out, but in the end 43-something was enough to qualify for the second day.

Where, in the first session, we got slaughtered. We had some good results, but we had some terrible, terrible things happen, mostly my fault, some maybe bad luck. I don't think I really need to go into detail; when the smoke cleared we had broken 40 (I was surprised) and were 15th from bottom in 208, with half the field qualifying.

On the first board of the evening, I picked up void J98xxxx K AQTxx. First board out of the box, I swear; I always hope this board will be flat, so I have time to settle in (digression: I believe firmly that one should warm up before playing bridge, and yet I've never seen anyone do this.) Not this time. To complicate matters, at unfavorable, partner opened 1C. Before I had time to think much, RHO put the stop card on the table, and I closed my eyes. When I opened them, 3S was sitting there.

I spent a long time trying to think of anything intelligent to do, but ultimately I couldn't do it, so I just winged 6C. Lefty now bid a quick 6S, which I was happy about, as I had no idea if 6C was making. Partner doubled this, and we beat it three tricks for 500; they did well to find the save, and with this less than the value of our making 4H or 5C, let alone our it-turned-out making 6C, I'm sure they got a good result. (6H was not making, but I doubt many people were there.)

I was actually really happy with how I played in the evening. I was very relaxed, since we didn't have a chance of qualifying, and I even managed to do something I actually thought was very smart. I held xxx J7xx AKJx xx as the opponents bid 1H on my right, 1NT on my left, 2H on my right, all pass. I led a high diamond and dummy tabled Qxx Tx xxx AQJ9x.

I cashed two diamonds as partner encouraged; declarer ruffed the third round and led the ten of clubs. When I palyed small, she overtook with the jack and played the ten of hearts, on which partner played his presumably stiff king and declarer won the ace. She now played HQ as partner pitched a small spade, and H9 to my jack as partner pitched a club. At this point the position was as follows:

             Qxx
             --
             --
             AQ9
xxx                ???
7                  --
x                  x
x                  ???
             ???
             8x 
             --
             ???

Somehow I worked out the winning action, playing a second club. Declarer had started with ATx of spades, and had just one club left; I managed to disconnect her from dummy before she could draw my last trump. She tried to take a pitch on the club, but I ruffed with my heart seven, and we still had a spade coming for only -110.

So that was fun. We actually ended up above 50 for the evening, even with some failed attempts to create action. Miles from qualifying, but a fun time. So I took today off, and tomorrow it's back to my favored form of scoring, international match points, a knockout.

I think I end up talking about bidding a lot in this blog, just because it's more opinionated and easier to write down on paper. But cardplay is probably a bigger part of bridge, and for most people, if you want to get better at bridge, work on cardplay, not bidding. While this is especially true at matchpoints, it can be very satisfying to do things right at IMPs too. Here are a couple of neat hands from today (rotated so I sit South):

        Kx
        Jxxxx
        xx
        JTxx

QJ                A987xx
KQT               xx 
AJ9xx             x
Qxx               Axxx

        Txx
        Axx
        KQT8x
        Kx

I opened 1D. Lefty scrounged up a 1NT overcall and promptly found himself declaring 4S. Partner led a small diamond to the queen and ace. At this point, after some thought, declarer ruffed a duamond and led a heart up. I ducked quickly (not a hard play) and he won the king. At this point, he played a small diamond and pitched the other heart from dummy on it as partner also pitched a heart, presumably trying to loser on loser and endplay me (although this is a very shaky line; leading up to the heart again eventually would have given him ten easy tricks.) I won the diamond and exited a spade to the queen, king, and ace; another spade to the jack left my ten as the master trump. Declarer now played a club to the ace and a club back which I won with the king perforce, leaving an end position if you have been following of:

        --
        Jxx
        --
        JT
--           xxx
QT           --
Jx           --
Q            xx
        T
        Ax
        QT
        --

And now a very strange thing happened. When I cashed the ten of spades, I executed that rare beast, the defensive squeeze. Whichever red suit lefty pitched, I could cash the high card of that suit; dummy would ruff, but this would no longer set up a winner for declarer to pitch his losing club on. Down one, and very satisfying.

I also had a cute declarer play deal; I'll show only our hands:

J9xx
KJ8
x
Kxxxx

Qxx
AT6xx
KJ9
AJ

I opened 1NT with the South hand, and lefty bid double showing a one-suiter. Partner bid Stayman, I responded 2H, and now lefty was in there with 3D. This was passed back to me, and, figuring nothing terrible could happen, I bid 3H. Partner raised to four and a low diamond hit the table, which I looked curiously at (no ace for all this bidding?) Righty won the ace and returned a small spade; lefty won the ace and returned a spade to righty's king as I unblocked the queen (a key play; sometimes I do do sensible things.) Righty now played a small diamond. I took stock.

I could play the king, play on trumps, and hope to later discard the diamond jack on a good spade or club, but it seemed to me that with lefty likely holding seven diamonds, nothing was setting up (although spades were theoretically 3-3; still, I didn't give righty enough credit to find the spade ruff after I unblocked/falsecarded.) Since it seemed like the heart eight was likely immaterial, I decided to play the jack and ruff this with the heart (which if diamonds were 7-2 I couldn't do later.) I then cashed the heart king as the seven fell on my left, leaving the following position (I've spoiled the hearts, but left the other suits a mystery)

J9
J
--
Kxxxx
            ????
            Q9x
            ????
            ????
x
AT6x
K
AJ

At this point I ran the jack of hearts. Righty failed to cover, although this does not materially change the position. I ran it as lefty showed out, and now I had a trump coup. I played ace of clubs, jack of clubs, and ruffed a club; they were 3-3. A spade to the jack followed; these were also 3-3, leaving three good black cards on the board, AT of hearts and a good diamond in my hand, Q9 of hearts and a bad diamond (as it turned out) with righty. He conceded the rest.

Now, I admit I made up the story; lefty did not have the heart seven, but rather a small heart. Righty failed to cover the jack, and so I ended up with this position. Still, it was neat; defensive squeezes and trump coups do not come up very frequently, and even though the opponents could have prevented both of these things, I still had to get them right, and it was still, I think, worthwhile.

Here's a quick Monday morning play problem for you. Against not very good opponents, with everybody vulnerable:

Dummy:
Jxx Qxx AKx ATxx
Hand:
KQx KJ xxx QJxxx

Partner opens 1D, righty bids 1S, you bid 2NT which partner raises to three. The nine of spades is led. Plan the play. If you play small from dummy, righty ducks.

Nationals! Sorry I've been remiss on the blogging so far and recently; I just moved, and things are usually hectic, and I'm not staying at the playing site so there's something of a commute. But, it's time.

The first two days were the LM pairs, at least if we qualified. The first session, I thought things were going really well -- the opponents weren't playing great, and everything we guessed seemed to be working bidding-wise, being in games which were lucky makes and whatnot, but at the end we only had something like a 55.6. A fine score, to be sure, but I was sort of worried that we had seemed to play very well and gotten reasonably lucky and yet only had that number. Still, we had a cushion for the second session, with usually more than half the field qualifying for day two.

But in the second session, I played some of the worst bridge I ever had, really tired and headachy although that happens to everyone and not everyone plays this badly. We've seen me forget what my own hand was before (a Mike Develin special), but I outdid myself on this hand. Holding QT9 Axx xx AQxxx, partner opened 1D and righty made a 1H overcall. I bid 2C, and lefty thought for some time before doubling, showing spades with heart tolerance. Partner now bid 3H, and when it was passed back to me, not only did I not notice the jump, but I (seriously) forgot that I had bid 2C even though the card was right in front of me!

So, I thought partner was asking for a heart stopper, so I bid 3NT. Partner now jumped to 5C, and, still not remembering the auction which was on the table in front of me, I thought for a while. Eventually I concluded that he had 5C with extras (3H being an advance cue), and I liked my hand (don't ask why), so I bid six. Of course, 5C was cold while 3NT had no play; 6C would have made on 3-3 diamonds, but as expected from the auction diamonds were not breaking and it duly went down.

Lots of things like this happened, and when the smoke cleared we had certainly no higher than 40 (38 with two rounds to go, which were fine, but I didn't look at the final numbers), and I had earned a day off. So day two was filled with some much needed sleep and unpacking from the move,

Day three was the first day of hopefully a two-day knockout, new partner, teammates I had played with once before. I remember that well -- we steamrolled our first two matches, but in match 3 I made a debatable but ultimately bad decision to pull 5Hx to 5S (doubled) -- neither contract was making, and while it was really the only bad thing I did all match, we lost a low-scoring match something like 31-25 and I felt responsible for it. I was determined to atone for that.

Well, on the very first board, partner opened a sketchy hand and I made a sketchy game force, and here we were in 4H. This was cold if trumps broke 3-1. Unfortunately, trumps broke 4-0, and I had no play on the actual layout; still, I could have taken a much better swindle line, so I felt at least partially responsible for the -100. Little did I know our teammates had doubled 4H and let them make it; -13 right off the bat.

Nothing good really happened for the remainder of the set, although nothing really bad; on one board the opponents were in a pushy 7C down one, but this ended up being a wash, and we were down 19. Great way to start, it was.


In the second half, we had a decent card but nothing spectacular, and with three boards to go, I felt like we were probably still behind. Given this, I was ecstatic when we were in slam with:


Axx KQxxx KQxxx void
opposite
QJTxx AT Jx AJxx.

After a diamond to the ace and a diamond back, I tabled the spade queen and prayed as lefty and dummy followed low. But no, right hand opponent produced the king, for down one. I figured that was the match, especially when on the next board we didn't bid a slam with:

AQxxx A xx KJxxx
opposite
Kxx Jxx x AQT9xx,

although this one was really hard. Lefty opened 3D, partner overcalled 3S on the North hand, and now righty bid 4D. How were we supposed to diagnose the double fit? It didn't happen, and we quietly played 5S instead of the best contract of 6C, or the decent contract of 6S (which would have made with clubs 1-1 and spades 3-2.)

On the final hand, the opponents missed a game I knew our teammates would bid, but I thought that ultimately things rested on the hook which was off. I was pleasantly surprised when we came back, and our teammates had a great card, covering the 19 IMP deficit, the 13 IMPs we lost on the slam, and four more for the margin of victory. And indeed, five of those IMPs came from something "good" I did (maybe don't try this at home): I held Axx AJ T8xx QJTx in fourth chair. Lefty opened 1D, partner passed, and righty bid 1H. I passed and lefty bid 2D, which was passed around back to me.

I don't know why I did it, but it felt really right. I put the 2S card on the table. After the fact, I analyzed my table feel: lefty had denied four spades, righty five, so we were starting with six total and it only went up from there. With us not vul and 2D a likely make, it seemed like I should bid; I didn't really want to play 3C; we were behind in the match.

2S was passed out (I sighed a small sigh of relief at no double), and on a high diamond lead partner (bless him) tabled xxxxx K87x xx Ax. Basically cold for two, the play was mucked around for a while, I misguessed some positions when they gave me chances for overtricks, and emerged with the same eight tricks for +110. Our teammates were in fact +90 (2D was cold, and they were in 1N, also making), so there you have it. In some sense, my one outside-the-box, creative action won us the match.

The evening was much smoother. Nothing bad happened, lots of good things happened, 41-0 in the first half and a continuing cakewalk in the second. John and I each hit the sandbox to run an experiment, both failing, but that's what you do when you are up by 41 and have had a great first six boards. No problems, and so we're onto the semis tomorrow. And now I should get some sleep.

I rarely talk about the opponents, but tonight was probably the worst/unluckiest the opponents have ever played against me. Here are some examples.

I held KJx J9x KQ9x Txx. Not a bad hand, huh? Partner opened 1H in first seat, and RHO bid 2D with everybody vulnerable. I had to think quick, so I chose to make a penalty pass. Of two diamonds.

Left hand opponent then bid three diamonds; partner passed. I prepared to make an unambiguous penalty double of 3D, but before I could, RHO bid 4C. Well, no need to take action now, so another green card hit the table. I was now salivating at the thought of 4Dx.

Left hand opponent cuebid 4H.

Partner passed and RHO started thinking about bidding a slam (or keycarding or whatever.) Alas, this time they stopped; he bid 5D. I was happy to double. Amazingly, I took all four tricks for the defense; partner had chosen to open QTxxx KQTxxx x x. +500 was a good score.

On another hand I held J97 xxxx T97xx x, everybody still vulnerable. I passed and LHO opened 1C. Partner passed, and RHO bid 1S. LHO bid 2C and RHO retreated to 2S. At this point LHO went into the tank, and emerged with 3D. RHO bid 3S which was passed around; I liked defending this, with the nice stiff club lead rating to go well.

Partner doubled.

What score would you expect on this hand? Well, when the smoke cleared, we had seventeen hundred points. I forget partner's exact hand; a 20-count including stiff king of diamonds which was duly finessed into...

This sort of nonsense kept happening all night, and I thought we had a 75 percent game going into the last three boards. Unfortunately, on the third to last board, I made two horrible defensive errors separately to turn +100 into -170 (-140 would have been mostly bad enough), and then on the second to last board, I totally misread the auction and ended up with -870 for my efforts (though we were headed for a near bottom anyway.) On the last board, the opponents again tried to help out: LHO bid 2C over my 1NT opening, which was a single-suiter that righty thought included clubs. When it was 2272, they went down four in 2C undoubled; +200 for us was good enough for another top.

We ended up at 68 percent, so my two errors would not have been enough to make it 75 percent, but somehow I still felt empty at the end of the night. I don't know when the opponents will play this badly again -- this is by no means a terrible field, I know these people well, I am by no means insulting their bridge ability. They just played extremely poorly when at our table tonight. I suppose one shouldn't complain about a 68, but this had the potential to be awfully epic.

This week's bridge comprised a Swiss on Sunday, and pairs on Wednesday. Mostly things went very smoothly, with a couple of exceptions (there always are) -- and I had the chance to do interesting, blog-worthy things. Probably the funniest hand was when, at IMPs, with nobody vulnerable, I held AJTx K 9xxx T9xx. My RHO opened 1C in first seat; I chose to pass, and LHO bid 1H. Partner passed and RHO bid 2H.

At this point, I felt like they were heading for 4H, so I decided to get my lead-directing 2S bid in (though in retrospect maybe 2S here shows a bad spade suit that you didn't want to overcall the first time?) and was very surprised to buy it there. The lead was a small heart and partner tabled xx xxx AKJT QJxx; possibly this was not our best contract. I managed to escape for two down, and... we won two IMPs on the board, after our teammates were in 2H making 3.

On Wednesday, I also managed to take some interesting actions. Holding x AJTxx KQT9xx x in second seat, no one vulnerable, I knew I had an opening hand, but my gut told me to pass. I did, and when LHO bid 1H and partner bid 4S I was actually pretty happy. Unfortunately, Ari held AKQJxx x Axxx xx and summarily took thirteen tricks on a heart lead. This was sort of unlucky; based on my hand, he was much more likely to have reversed minors. But I'm now convinced my gut was wrong here and I should have opened.

Finally, I held xx KQJ xx KT8xxx. Partner opened 1C and righty overcalled 1S, and I decided to make a negative double. Again, I can't explain why; it just felt like the right thing to do. If partner has good trumps, the 4-3 will play quite well, perhaps even at the game level; I wanted to get a heart lead-direct in, also, but again neither of these is really an explanation. I did it because it felt right.

The auction continued 2S on my left, passed back to me, so I calmly balanced with 3C. Partner corrected to 3H holding KQx Axxx Kxx Jxx or somesuch. The opponents did not defend optimally, and he escaped for down one in 3H, which was a good matchpoint result against their nine tricks in spades... so, again, who knows what is right or wrong in this game of ours.