I was hoping for some hands from today's Canada-Poland match, but Jeff and JZ didn't play and it was something of an ugly set.  If you just look at the score on boards 1-3 and 11-32, Canada won by 5.  Unfortunately boards 4-10 rank right up there (or at least darn close) with the biggest 7 board disasters (and not a single slam or 4-digit number in the bunch) in history (I know I've never won or lost a 7 board match by that much.)  66-0.  Ouch. 

The final score was Poland 104 - Canada 43.  Hopefully they'll do better against Cayne.

I ran my first sub 7-minute mile today (treadmill, slight (1.5%) incline to compensate for no wind.)  Not exactly world-beating, but it felt good.  The ultimate goal is 6 minutes (I'm not as young as I used to be,) but I have a feeling that the next 60 seconds are going to be coming off very slowly.

 

Rather than blog a really old hand or a not-so-great hand, I pinkie-swear that I'll blog 2 hands tomorrow and 2 on Wednesday to catch up. 

 

Here are a couple of hands (our worst and best scoring) from today (9/4)'s half-set with Jeff against Izzy and Pamela.

3rd white on red

 

T65 / 432 / T87 / A642

 

When I played with Jeff regularly (over 10 years ago now, yikes!) I couldn't get him to stop psyching.  One of the nice things about playing with him these days is that he almost never psychs (it doesn't hurt that his declarer play and defense are immeasurably better as well.)  But clearly the temptation still arises from time to time (and 3rd seat favorable with a bust is a 'classic' psych situation) and he was unable to resist.

He bid 1 Heart.

What followed is an auction you don't see everyday.

Lefty (Izzy) doubled.  Righty (Pamela) bid 1NT.  Izzy now bid 6NT.

On the surface, this looks like a really bad contract on the 5 of Spades lead.

AKQ8 / Q5 / AKQ3 / KQJ (Dummy)

942 / AJ976 / J6 / T53

But really, even though there's a 1 Heart opener on your left, it's a coin toss.  It's almost inconceivable that Lefty's hand resembles a 'light' opener, so since it's a pure psych, Jeff's more likely than not to NOT have the Heart card.  On the other hand, Righty didn't raise Hearts, so maybe Jeff did do this on KTxxx of Hearts and out.

Regardless, you need at least 2 Heart tricks to make this so you've got to hope that the finesse works.  Since the cards were lying perfectly (KT8 of Hearts in the pocket and Spades 3-3) she actually could have made 7 double dummy (barring the Club Ace lead.)

Glad to see that Jeff's psychs are getting us the same results they used to back in the day.  (Ya, ya, I know, they probably get there anyway.)

-1440 was 13 IMPs and change to the Ladies.

http://online.bridgebase.com/myhands/fetchlin.php?id=6298478&when_played=1186410446

Our good board shows the great lengths to which I'm willing to go and the sacrifices I'm willing to make to keep my partner happy.

4th unfavorable I picked up a fair hand

AKQT9876 / 6 / AJ86 / -

 

It got even better when Jeff opened 1 Heart in 2nd.  Izzy bid 2 Clubs on my Right.

 

What say you?

Of course, it goes without saying that I WANTED to bid 7 Spades here.  I mean, I was even dealt the 7 of Spades!  If that's not a sign, I don't know what is.

But seriously, I'm still not sure what the best way to find out what I need to know is.

How can I figure out to go opposite

xx / Axxxx / KQx / xxx (a sub-opener)

and stop opposite

Jxx / KQJTx / KQX / Ax

I don't think I can cover all the bases, but I knew that Jeff would appreciate it if I at least made SOME effort to find out something.  So I bid Exclusion.

Luckily, we'd semi-recently (maybe a month ago) briefly gone over our limited Exclusion agreements (1430 Keycard) and so I at least figured I'd be able to decipher Jeff's response. 

He bid 5NT (2 with the Queen, presumably) and I bid 7 (which doesn't need much more than Spades to not be ridiculous.)

What I actually needed was Exclusion Ordinaire (to paraphrase my old friend Jim Riegle, an expert player who never took a shining to Keycard Blackwood.)  It's almost impossible (you can if you really try X AKJxx xxxx KJx) to construct an opening hand with the Heart Ace that makes 7 anti-percentage whereas my auction doesn't help me solve the problem I posed initially. 

Dummy (eventually) appeared (it's usually a good (though unappreciated) sign when an impatient kibitzer tells the table to claim before the opening lead)

2 / AKQ874 / K95 / 654

AKQT9876 / 6 / AJ86 / -

Spades were not 4-0.

+2210 was win 12 and change

http://online.bridgebase.com/myhands/fetchlin.php?id=6301558&when_played=1186410446