Friday, April 27, 2012

Well played, but not well enough

There is a saying in chess. When you find a good move, do not stop, look for a better one. The same is true at matchpoints. In the following hand, I, abhirar, got a 77% score making two overtricks in 3NT. The first few tricks have possible different plans, but let me pass over them without too much comment. Trick one, H6, 9, J, A Trick 2: Spade 5, HEART DEUCE, SA, S2. Trick 3,4 test clubs, on T4 RHO pitches D9 and I keep the remaining clubs for transportation. Trick 5: I play the SQ to drive out the SK Trick 6 (At this point all returns give me at least 11 tricks which the reader can work out) RHO returns ST to drive out my SJ I win and Trick 7, from my S equals 8,7, lead the 7 to drive out HIS S9, but defence makes its first matchpoint mistake ducking this trick. Now I can take ALL the remaining tricks making 12 instead of 11 (a MP score of 89% instead of 78%), can you see how? This is the ending Dummy S:void H:KT D:AQx C:x LHO S:void H:Q87 D:x C:xx RHO S:96 H:none D:KJ82 C:none Me: S:8 H:x D:Tx C:QJ Well the only line to win all the tricks is to finesse the HT, cash the HK pitching my diamond, Cross to the Club master, cash the last club master pitching a diamond, and RHO is simple squeezed. If the S8 is not high in the two card ending, the DAQ should score two tricks.

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Welcome to Ramesh's BRIDGE BLOG

In these pages, I comment on hands from Bridge Base Online ACBL tourneys. I play in these with a variety of partners with different degrees of skill. I might present a hand or two from my collection of bridge books, every now and then. I am more interested in play and defense than in complex bidding systems, but I do follow the cut and thrust of Vanderbilt and World Championship Vugraph and try to keep abreast of expert practice in the obstructive and constructive bidding system department. I may also feature, newspaper-style, famous hands from important matches that I saw on Vugraph.

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Bridge expert for 20 years. I started blogging about bridge only in 2009. Chess follower. Problem fan. Studied hundreds of composition themes in two-movers, fairy chess, the former from the Good Companion era to the modern style of virtual play. Big collector of chess and bridge rare books. My two game blogs bridge blog, and my chess problem themes blog chess expo

My alter ego, The Hideous Hog

My alter ego, The Hideous Hog

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