Posted 9:29 PM by Floyd

Last May I played bridge with my wife in the Monterey Sectional. Last October I played a session with my friend Joel at the San Jose Sectional. Today I played a team game with Joel, Brian, and Scott at a regional in Santa Clara.

Scott and I get a chance to play Caroline Club about once a year, so of course we spent several hours discussing, in person, over the phone, and via email, several intricate changes to the system. We did not have any disasters, but we did not use the system much either.

We won our first match, but our next four matches were a narrow win and three blitzes. We had 27 victory points out of a possible 100. The next two matches were kinder and we finished with 62. (Naturally I was named captain so it was my name on the leaderboard that was defaced with these poor results.)

Some quick notes, in the form of awards:

Winner, Sticks and Wheels Self-Immolation Award: That would be me, for perpetrating the following auction at unforavorable with KJT2 QT65 Q JT87

P[1] - P - P - 1
P - 1 - X[2]

[1] Scott opens all hands with 10 or more points, so I know it's the opponents' hand
[2] Entries for the W,SaWSIA are closed for 2007

LHO pulled out the 2N card, then saw my double and his eyes got very wide. A blue card hit the table. Pass, pass to me. I bid 1 and LHO struck that. He led a high club and partner displayed:

97x 9xx Txxx 9xx

Wow. Look at all those nines.

But I managed to wriggle out for -500, winning 10 imps when Brian scored up six diamonds.

Winner, Avoidance Play Made When Tired And Not In Contention

At the end of a very wearying day we played our final match against our friends Len and Jo, who were at the other table. At our table was the expert Richard Meffley of Fresno. I held 9xxx JT Qx KJxxx. I passed, Scott opened 1, I responded 1, he raised to 2 and it was passed out. I told the opponents that his raise showed a balanced minimum, but Scott pointed out that he had a 15-17 hand since we play 12-14 notrumps in 3rd and 4th. As I said, it had been a long day.

Meffley led a heart, here are the two hands:

AQ87 AQ9x JT9 Ax

9xxx JT Qx KJxxx

I ducked and won the heart in hand. That meant I had only two side-suit losers, the top diamonds. I wanted to pull trumps, but not have the opponents pull all my trumps if they broke 4-1. So I led to the ace of spades and then led low from dummy. This would leave me with Qx left if either opponent had four spades. My caution was rewarded when RHO had KJTx; he could not attack spades so I made two on the nose.

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