Bridge Madness

Although I planned to pass this blog due to lack of readers, I cannot resist posting this madness here. As the cards fall, the best contract is 3♠. I went down for -150 undoubled in my foolish slam. I would have loved to simply play 4♠, but Lia had other plans and I trusted the robot. Looking at the explanations, 4♠ promises a more solid spade support and 11-20 points, not a very precise bid.

The expert went down in 3NT for -150 too after the bidding above, obviously trying his luck in clubs after the diamond lead, which fails miserably. His 2♥ show a stopper in hearts, a bidding opportunity I missed because I was blinded by my good holding in spades and hoped for good luck. The fact that North repeated his clubs and passed over 2♦ and evaded to 2SA should be a warning to stop earlier. 

Many more players reached 6♠ here. That is no excuse. I know.

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Some Swings

I am restarting this blog. It is the kind of blog which does not draw much attention. The Google AI estimates that there are 600 Million blogs currently, constituting 30% of the total pages of the net. Even if these numbers are grossly exaggerated there is no hope to draw much attention with any single one, especially not one by a non-professional Bridge player. So, I keep writing this for my own joy, focusing mainly on my IntoBridge activities. More on this in another posting.

The hand above came up today, and resulted in a huge Swing of +1250 to my favor against one of the leading players in the ladder. It is interesting to see who is to blame. 

Lia selected the ♥9 which immediately makes the contract a lot easier, because I have no way to enter the table for a finesse. I don't like attacking a singleton trump. It often gives away the trump distribution, unless you are also willing to attack under a doubleton queen occasionally, thus confusing the declarer. In this case, it makes an impossible finesse possible. 

The contract is still not safe. You have to decide how to play the spades. You cannot use your trumps to reach the table to expass twice against your spades. You have to use them to trump the spades. So I played the ♠K and lost only one trick in spades. The ♠J does not fall. In the end, I had to play the diamonds myself. Surprisingly, the ♦J held. Lia sometimes plays such nonsense. It does not matter because I would play for ♦Ax.

On the other table, South did not bid 4♥. But the contract of 3NT is safe when played by East. Lia obviously fancied that the clubs will deliver enough tricks, so that the single stopper in hearts is good enough, or that there is a double stopper in hearts and the clubs can be established and reached. From the point count, the game should be with E/W, either 3NT or 5♣.

In double-dummy, 5NT always make. if the lead does not establish the ♥K right away, the declarer can establish a diamond without letting North into the play. It is really difficult for East to see that even 4NT is possible. So, Lia opted for the double which failed so miserably.

Here is the next board, this time ending with a loss on my side. You see the bidding on the other table, where I compared against Lia, not a human opponent as above. 

The contract makes, but not easily. If you finesse towards the ♥K, you can only make the contract by throwing away a spade loser on a diamond and conceding one spade trick to West, ruffing the other one with the ♥J. This is a very strange line which works only because the board stands as it stands. Lia found this. I doubt that many humans would play that way.

On my table, the robot on North did not double. I failed to bid 5♥. Shame on me! To my excuse, the 3♥  is explained as 3-7 points and "enough trumps to be there", and I showed all my hearts already. 5♣ goes down, but that is not enough.

I find the 5♣ bid by the robot interesting. If you can finesse in spades, you have 9 tricks on your own, and maybe partner has another one for only one down.

Here is another one worth 1640. And it is not my merit. In pairs, the contract is okay. In teams, I'd be worried about my partner bidding such a grand slam. 3♠ is forcing, of course, trying to find a fit in the major. 3NT is showing a stopper in hearts and to play. West does not want that and offers another suit. Note that West does not know about the excellent diamond suit yet. But after 4♦, Lia smells the slam. 4♥  is then a "fit bid" suggesting to explore slam in diamonds. 4NT is ace asking. East is assuming at that point that West has no values in hearts and might even be void. 5NT shows all needed keycards and a serious interest to go for a grand slam, which East did.

I should have attacked a trump to remove the trumps in dummy, but went for the ♥A, an uneducated choice. It does not matter anyway, because the contract depends on guessing the clubs right. Surprisingly, Lia failed. The robot tried to establish the spades first. That does not work. But he sees my doubleton there. He also knows my doubleton in diamonds. My hearts leave only room for two or maybe three clubs. The robot went to the ♣A and played a small club to which North followed. With my likely 7 hearts, I must now have the ♣Q. Surprisingly, Lia did not see this.

The bidding on the other table was surprisingly short. South bid 4♥ there. For me, that is no good idea because it misinforms the partner. But indeed, West has a tough bid now. To me, a double looks like the best option if it is played as take-out. But this robot gambled for 6♣. The X at South was explained in that system as take-out. The robot on North passed it. Of course, the contract makes easily.

After seeing all this, you may wonder if the robots play better on other servers. I do not know.

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