Well, San Francisco's over and so is college football.  A few thoughts about each.

First, San Francisco:

Glad to see Canadians Dan Korbel and Jonathan Steinberg string together a few impressive performances.  The brass ring tantalized, but ultimately eluded them, but they still managed a very respectable 16th place in the Blue Ribbon pairs and a top 10 finish in the National Open Swiss event.  (They jumped from 20th to 9th on Sunday.  I was looking to see if anyone else finished in the top 10 who started from further back in the pack and lo and behold Austinites Mildred Breed, Tobi and David Sokolow came roaring back from 40th (last qualifier) to pip them for 8th place.  Fred Gitelman's squad (Lynch) also managed a decent salvage effort, rising from 37th to take 10th spot.)

I was really happy to see Cayne win the Reisinger.  Those guys practice so much and make themselves so accessible, I think a win was long overdue.  Congratulations to Jimmy Cayne, Michael Seamon, Alfredo Versace, Lorenzo Lauria, Fulvio Fantoni, Claudio Nunes and Charlie Weed (team manager).

I was disappointed that they only had final round coverage and only of 1 table of the Reisinger on BBO.  The ACBL is really squandering a great opportunity by not taking Vugraph more seriously.  BBO shows Vugraph (often of pretty rinky-dink events) from Turkey, from China, from Australia, from Scandinavia, from Indonesia, from South America, from Canada, from you name it, but the ACBL can't be bothered to take the broadcast of its premier events seriously.  It's pretty disgraceful. 

On the other hand, watching the final round coverage was pretty excruciating at times.  It's clear that most of these guys play too much IMPs and not enough BAM.  Hand after hand of mistake after mistake (a few tough decisions, but mostly bad bridge) got pretty painful to watch.  It felt like I was watching a CNTC qualifier rather than a Reisinger finals.  My favorite instance of this was on Board 8 when a guy had AQ of trumps and a Diamond loser in one hand and stiff J of trumps and two Club losers in dummy (actually not exactly, but equivalent) and knew the Kx of trumps was behind the Ace and managed to lose 2 tricks. The commentary left a lot to be desired, too. (Sorry, I can't get the link to the Board to work, the file is on BBO here where it says 2007 Reisinger Segment Final 2 of 2.)

On to college football:

I can't remember a season with more upsets.  That may sound exciting, but what it means is that at the end of the year nobody's really worthy of playing for a national championship. 

All 3 of my favorite teams ended the 'regular season' with a whimper.  I got stuck with a rare loserfecta, if you will.

Tennessee lost the SEC Championship Game to LSU 21-14 when quarterback Erik Ainge imploded in the 4th quarter.  The guy reminds me of former Longhorn Chris Simms, who never met an interception he didn't like.

Texas lost to Texas A&M 38-30 when our offense didn't show up.  They needed to put a couple of drives together to at least give our defense a chance to rest for a few minutes and it never happened.  A team that played so bad this year that their coach quit after the game dominated the time of possession and held the ball for over 40 minutes against the Longhorns.  Ridiculous.  Quarterback Colt McCoy played better last year as a freshman.

Oregon lost to the Beavers of Oregon State in overtime.  I transferred to Oregon because Animal House was filmed there.  Well, actually I was young and in love at the time, but I agreed to go because Animal House was filmed there.  At the time their football program was pretty much a joke, but the year after I left they went to the Rose Bowl for the first time in forever.  I think the Ducks were ranked as high as 2nd this year, with a realistic shot at a return to the Rose Bowl but this loss dropped them out of the rankings.

I was reading today's Daily Bulletin from the Nationals and stumbled across an article by Mike Flader that really ticked me off.  Every ten years or so it seems like the ACBL tries to outlaw psychs.  I remember a letter to the editor on the subject I sent in that got published back when Henry Francis was the editor of the Bulletin.  They're at it again.

The article is entitled 'The Trouble with Psychs' on page 14.  In it, Mike Flader describes people who psych as 'perpetrators' and 'offenders.'  He describes those who receive bad boards because of their inability to deal with a psych as 'victims.'  He describes psyching against weak players as 'unsportsmanlike.'  He proposes a psychic offender registration system whereby those who psych must notify the directors in their area when they do so and agree not to live within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop (okay, I made the very last part up.)

Now some of you might be thinking 'I didn't know Jonathan liked to psych.'  I don't.  That's not the point.  If I psych an opening bid or initial action twice a year it's been a busy year.  But psyching is a time-honored part of our game.  When I played with Jeff regularly he used to psych frequently.  It drove me nuts. (If Flader had described the partner of the psycher as a 'victim' he would have been much closer to the mark.)  But if he hadn't managed to expose his own psych, I'd hang him, take the bad result, and make it up on another hand with my stellar declarer play.

As to the argument that psyching is unsportsmanlike I'd call that utter hogwash.  Okay, if you bring me a hand where you psyched against a novice and it worked and you were bragging about it, I might bring you back down to earth.  But if you followed the rules and won, nobody has any business implying that your win was somehow tainted. 

If you consider psyching against novices unsportsmanlike, are these unsportsmanlike too?

Deciding that a novice/intermediate is unlikely to have made a 'mandatory falsecard' and playing a suit accordingly.

Preempting aggressively against novices, knowing that you're less likely to go for a digit.

Playing out a hand against a novice that relies on a 'pseudo-squeeze' or even a complete mental meltdown on defense instead of making a claim assuming perfect defense.

Executing a squeeze against a novice.

Taking a finesse against a novice.

Leading an honor to try to elicit a cover against a novice in a situation where no experienced player would ever cover.

Bidding your hand correctly and arriving at a normal slam contract against a novice that you suspect they would have been unlikely to bid.

Had a pretty ugly set with Jeff tonight.  Usually when we do badly it's because of a couple of bad misdefenses or a misguess or occasionally a clearcut butchery but tonight it was all bidding.

First board out of the box I picked up all white

QT98542 / T5 / 4 / 875

Jeff opened 1 Diamond.  Righty whipped.

Now I get to play my favorite game.  The good old 'I wonder if this is a fit bid situation' game.

Surely over a double by an unpassed hand Jeff will take this as a good old weak jump shift, no? 

 

I trotted out 2 Spades.

 

Lefty bid 2NT (okay, if Jeff's unsure maybe he can figure it out from the opponents' bidding) and Jeff bid 3 Diamonds.

 

Well, I hope he has them, because I don't.

 

Now Righty bid 4 Hearts.

 

Off the hook again.  I hope 4 Spades isn't a good dive, but if I thought it was I should have bid 3 Spades already.  I passed.

 

Now Jeff bid 5 Diamonds.  Wonderful.

That got whipped by Righty.  Float.

The good news is that we had no Spade losers, 1 Heart loser and 2 Club losers.  And Righty only had Qx of Diamonds for his whip.

The bad news is that Lefty had AKJx of Diamonds.  Jeff had

A / J / T98753 / A9632

-1400 was lose 13 and change

http://online.bridgebase.com/myhands/fetchlin.php?id=1537451&when_played=1195675346

So 5 boards later I picked up at unfavorable

AJ7632 / Q72 / J532 / -

Jeff passed.  Righty opened 1 Diamond.

I'd already gotten burned once today with a 2 Spade bid at an inopportune moment.  Should I go for best 2 out of 3?  Maybe Jeff will take this one as an intermediate 2?

Sure enough, I was in there with 2 Spades.  My suit quality is horrible.  The colors are wrong.  But I'm 6-4 and pard is a passed hand.  This is somewhere between normal aggressive and nuts.  I tend to think it's closer to the former, but your mileage may vary.

Lefty made a negative double.  Float.

Uh oh.

Lefty led the Club Ace.  Surprisingly I bought extremely well.

K4 / AJ85 / 4 / J97652

AJ7632 / Q72 / J532 / -

Been an interesting last few days.  Glad to see the USA1 Venice Cup controversy resolved.  I sponsored a petition on the subject and whether or not it made any difference, things played out as suggested in the petition.  Enjoyed the discussion on BBO Forums about my letter to the Editor about BIT-UI by novices. 

Even had a chance to read Watership Down over the weekend.  I vaguely remembered the film from my childhood and wanted to see if it had the same kind of impact on me as an adult.  Good read.

Unfortunately, I haven't been playing much bridge since San Antonio and the bridge I have played hasn't been very good.  Now that the firestorm on BBO forums has subsided, I plan to change that.

One interesting habit that people on the Forums seem to have is assigning motives/beliefs to other people that they haven't expressed.  People there seem to particularly enjoy doing that to me.  They assume that because I loathe the Cheney/Bush administration that I'm a partisan Democrat.  Not true.  I'm sure the following sentiments have been expressed more articulately by others, but I'll take a crack anyway.

What makes America great?  Is it that this particular land mass has magical properties?  Is it that our population is smarter or stronger or wiser or braver or better-looking than the population of other countries?  Is it that we spend more on our military than the next 10 or 15 countries on the list put together?  Is it that our God(s) are better than their God(s)?

Clearly, none of the above.  What makes America great is the principles upon which it was founded and which, in theory, it continues to be guided, and the sacrifices made by those defending those principles.  If America becomes a communist dictatorship, or a theocratic oligarchy, it will no longer be great.

The Cheney/Bush administration has done more to diminish America's greatness than any other administration in US history.  That's why I vilify them.  That's why I support the Democrats (the enemy of my enemy is my friend.)  When the threat they pose is gone, my unwavering support for Democrats will go with it.  But until it does, I will continue to worry a lot more about the lurking cobras than about the mongoose running around crapping on my carpet (here I'm referencing another favorite childhood film of mine, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.)

On BBO Forums a few men were complaining that Jill Levin had sued the ACBL to get men's events abolished but meanwhile, the ACBL continues to host women's events. 

I support the idea of Junior Events, Senior Events, and Women's events.  I used to support the idea of Men's events too, but except perhaps as a once-a-year tradition, I don't see any reason why we should prevent women players who want to play against the best from playing against the best.  And the best men tend to be better at bridge, on average, than the best women.

At the end of a long day, I tried to poke fun at those guys by making a joke without thinking it all the way through.  I posted it too quickly and subsequently deleted it.  It's mildly vulgar, mildly sexist, not very funny and over the fold.

I was trying to tweak the men I was having the conversation with, but then subsequently realized that the joke also insults the participants in those events, which is certainly not what I intended.  The joke was up less than 10 minutes, but it got a response, so I had to acknowledge it and now that I've deleted it, I figured I ought to post it somewhere rather than have people speculate about just how horrible it might have been.

Played a set with Jeff against Izzy and Linda on Tuesday.  The girls played well but it looked like we were going to eke out a small win, up 13 and change with 3 boards to go.  Unfortunately, the roof caved in and we lost 9+, 10+ and 7+ on the last 3 boards to lose by 13.  Here are a couple of bad boards from this match.

The first board was interesting because I've never seen Eddie Kantar's advice to give count instead of covering with a couple of low spots at trick 1 in 3rd seat to steer me wrong.  Here's the hand:

73 / Q53 / J864 / QT42

 

Izzy opened 2NT on my left.  Float.

 

Jeff led the 2 of Spades (3/5).  Izzy played the 6.

 

96 / K64 / T532 / 9875 Dummy (LHO)

73 / Q53 / J864 / QT42

Congratulations to JZ's dad, Ed, who clinched the Cohen trophy (awarded to whomever wins the most points at Unit 192 Sectionals in a calendar year) yesterday.  It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since I won my one and only Cohen ... time flies. 

Had a pretty gruesome set with Buddy tonight.  The IMP result wasn't so bad, but playing random BBO opps anything less than an IMP a board and you're either off, or they're luckier/better than most.  It's like we were speaking totally different languages on most auctions.  Reminds me of playing with Elwin Brown, another former partner of mine and fine Ottawa player whose play and defense were excellent (certainly more consistent than mine at the time) but who never seemed to manage to see eye-to-eye with me when it came to the bidding.

If I could take anything back, it would be this bid (I was masterminding a little and got burned.)

4th, unfavorable

QJT4 / Q / 54 / AQ7542

 

2 passes to RHO who bid 1 Heart.  2 Clubs seems normal aggressive. 

LHO bid 2 Hearts.  Passed back to me. 

I'd bid aggressively on the first board with excellent results.  I felt like passing this out would be awfully timid.  Still, if pard couldn't move after he heard me overcall, maybe it's right.

Rolled into town Friday night and booked into the Pear Tree Inn on I-35, recommended by the tournament chair.  Pleased to get a room as far from the highway as possible.  In retrospect, maybe it would have been better to be close to the highway.  That might have helped muffle the sound of the TRAINS.  Doh!  Drop $80 (at least it wasn't $80 CANADIAN) to ensure being well-rested and end up much less rested than I would have been if I had just gotten up at 7 and made the hour and a half drive straight from Austin.

 

Somehow managed to get lost on the way to the playing site.  Google maps are nice, but driving directions with landmarks (2nd light, you'll see a Wendy's, turn right after the high school on your right, etc.) are much easier to follow (when I drove into St. Louis in March, we ended up in East St. Louis at midnight, which was an adventure of its own, because once you leave the safety of your directions, you're pretty much hosed.)

Got to the playing site 15 minutes late, at 8:45 (still with 15 minutes until game time.)  The good news is we drew a less-than-stellar team.  The bad news is that the event is handicapped.  Doh!

Our team was Greg Hinze, Patty Lozano (Greg & Patty are married,) Mike Doyle and me.  Mike and I filled out a card and away we went.

First half was brutal.  Flat board after flat board.  We compared and we not only hadn't chipped away at the 16 some odd IMP handicap, but it had grown to 30 with 12 boards to play.  Pairs game anyone?

The 2nd half was a different story.  Mike and I had huge plus positions on our first 4 boards and we held on to win by a dozen or so.

More bad luck when I was informed that we'd drawn the 2nd strongest team in the field (Lord it's hard to be humble) in the semi-finals.

2 hands from the semi-final:

xxxxx / Axx / Ax / AKx

I opened this one 1NT.  Mikey bid 2 Diamonds.  I bid 2 Hearts.  He bid 4 Hearts.  Playing Texas.  Move or no?  Rest of the story at the end.

KJ / x / AQTxx / AKQxx

Like a bad story in the Bridge World, LHO opens 1 Spade pass pass to you.  Abstaining is not an option.  Rest of the story at the end.

We survived these 2 hands (we didn't end up in the double-dummy optimal spot on either hand, but neither did our opponents) and were very solid otherwise and won the first half by 10 or so and the 2nd half by 1.  We'd won the 'money' match (paying 6.75) and now all that remained was the 'glory' match (paying only another 2.25 to the winner.)  On to the final!

I'm off to San Antonio to play a few sessions in their Fall Sectional.

I'll update this post when I get back.

Another team match with Ken tonight.  Had a 1 IMP lead going into the last board and ended up tied.  I made a post in the BBO Forums on that board here.

Here's a bidding problem that Ken faced.

Red vs white

J9 / A732 / KQ9763 / 3

He opened 1 Diamond in 3rd.  LHO bid 2 Clubs.  I doubled.  Righty bid 2 Diamonds.  He trotted out 2 Hearts.  LHO bid 3 Clubs.  I bid 3 Diamonds.  Righty bid 4 Clubs.

P - P - 1D - 2C
X - 2D - 2H - 3C
3D - 4C - ?

Rest of this story is at the very end of the article.

So on another hand I picked up a moose in 1st at favorable:

9 / A874 / AKT986 / AQ

I opened 1 Diamond and Ken responded 1 Heart.

Wow.

Slam is at least fair opposite any hand with KQxx of Hearts.  I wanted to bid Keycard right now, but I'm not sure what a direct 4NT asks/shows and I figured Ken wouldn't be sure either.  I was really reluctant to splinter because I plan to take over the auction anyway, but I'll save my Zia impersonation for a more dramatic setting.  I bid 3 Spades.

Now Ken went into the tank.  Sigh.  He's gonna agonize for 30 seconds and then bid 4 Hearts.  Again, I was going to take the position that I knew he had no cuebids available below game anyway, and was always planning to bid on, but I'm a little sick of these close UI calls.

Lucky for me, Ken trotted out 4 Diamonds.  Hmmm.  I hope he's not cuebidding a void in my first suit .

I bid 4NT.  He responded 5 Clubs, showing 1 or 4 (a victory for 1430, if 5 Diamonds had showed 1 or 4 I'd have no Q ask available.)

I bid 5 Diamonds as a Q ask.  I was ready for him to pass that, since he seems to be confused already, but I've got to bid my hand.

He raised to 6 Diamonds.  Oh, you have the Queen of Hearts and the King of Diamonds?  Really ...

Whatever.  I bid 6 Hearts.

Whatever objections I had to his bidding were more than offset by my partner's line of play.

Ten of Clubs was led.

9 / A874 / AKT986 / AQ

AK3 / QT932 / J743 / 8

Plan the play.