February 1st, 2010 ~ Eric Emin Wood ~
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Most welcome posts are done by “admin,” that spotlight-hogging jerk, but since this introduction is particularly special, I felt it should be done under my own name.
You see, my current “intern” model is not meant to last more than a year. Sad but true. In fact, most such models tend to give out with shocking regularity every three months. Frankly I and the rest of this office am amazed this one has served as long as it has.
It is, however, with some pride that I introduce Bridge Blogging’s sleeker, shinier intern, known colloquially as “Jessica.” I first came across this model during my studies at Ryerson, and recommended her for the position.
She will, in the coming weeks, assist our bloggers as I have, play bridge more frequently (I hope) than I have, and yes, possibly even update more often than I have.
Ray and Linda must have become used to their current model however, because they’re letting it stick around until the end of February.
In the meantime, the torch has been lit. You can read Jess’s first post here.
As the dolphins written by a great man (whose words have subsequently been stolen more than once by the people in charge here) once said: So long, and thanks for all the fish.
December 10th, 2009 ~ admin ~
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He’s already made three posts, so this welcome is a bit later than it should be, but Bridge Blogging would like to formally welcome Mr. Paul Bethe to its fold!
Paul is a Wall Street analyst and onetime professional who has been collecting bridge hands for awhile now and asked if we would be interested in posting some.
We certainly are – and thank Paul for sharing. Visit his blog to read a few.
September 9th, 2009 ~ Eric Emin Wood ~
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No, the results aren’t being posted here, but if you’re interested, mosey on over to the Contest page of our World Team Championships blog.
Which will be updated soon.
I promise.
The tabulating is going faster than it did yesterday, at any rate.
August 25th, 2009 ~ Eric Emin Wood ~
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The most surprising part of the seniors bracket is that a couple of entrants have cast votes in the Bermuda Bowl contest but not the seniors contest. Is it really that difficult to enter both? Better odds for the winners, I suppose.
In the quarter-finals, the most popular teams by far are USA 1, USA 2 and Poland, with Sweden, England, Canada and Indonesia also ahead by a not-far-but-still respectable margin. Italy’s seniors team does not fare as well as its open one, with Australia nudging just ahead of them. At least Japan and New Zealand are receiving some love; this time the countries with no supporters are Barbados, Argentina, Venezuela and Uruguay. Meanwhile, South Africa and Pakistan each have received only one vote.
In the semi-finals USA 1, USA 2 and Poland remain dominant. Sweden loses all but one of its supporters, while England, Indonesia and Australia lose half, leaving Canada the fourth-place favourite according to our entrants (yay?). Meanwhile, in addition to Sweden, Italy, Belgium, Egypt and India join the single-supporter club. (South Africa and Pakistan, sadly – along with Japan, Brazil and New Zealand – are knocked out.)
In the finals, the USA 1, USA 2 and Polish teams remain on top, but since only one USA team can make it to the final, I must reveal that according to our entrants the USA 1 team (which includes our esteemed blogger, Bobby Wolff) has the upper hand. Meanwhile England, Indonesia and Canada (*sob*!) can console themselves with the fact that each of them retains more than one supporter. Sweden’s lone supporter continues to hold on, as does Belgium’s and India’s. Egypt’s and Italy’s do not – their supporters are gone, as are Australia’s, before its support even had a chance to whittle down to one! I must also note with Turkish pride (my mom’s side of the family is from the Turkish-speaking side of Cyprus) that a lone Turkish supporter hangs on.
The winner, according to our entrants, will be USA 1, while second place will go to USA 2. Since, as stated above, this is impossible, who do our entrants believe will actually receive second place? Indonesia – after the semi-finals Poland lost all but one of its supporters. Canada, meanwhile, retained one of theirs (thank you!), as did India. Turkey, sad to say (along with England, Sweden and Belgium) did not.
Once again, this bridge novice is shocked – shocked! – to discover his own entry matches the averages almost perfectly. (He will admit he has bet on Turkey making it to the quarter-finals. Heritage pride and all that.) Unlike the open, I DO have a connection to at least one player in the seniors division: Mr. Wolff, who deserves every kudos our entrants have heaped on him. Best of luck Bobby! No pressure.
I WILL point out, however, that only ONE entrant thought USA 1 would receive third place (same with USA 2). Isn’t that like Americans – everything or nothing with these people.
The most popular tie-breaker, you may ask?
…Canada.
Yep. We’re smart enough to know we’ll probably lose, but just proud enough to cheer for third place.
(I am, for the record, a dual citizen.)
August 25th, 2009 ~ Eric Emin Wood ~
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Linda tells me we’ve officially received more contest entries this year than we ever have before. We are, however, greedy players and demand more, more, more!
To help those of you who STILL haven’t entered along, here’s a breakdown of the entries so far:
For the Bermuda Bowl’s quarter-final, the eight most popular entries, by far, are USA 1, USA 2, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Brazil, Germany and China. Poor Chile, Poland, Mexico and Taiwan have each only been entered once, but even they’re doing better than Guadeloupe, Morocco, Japan and New Zealand, which have nobody standing behind them.
For the semi-finals, the USA 2, Italy, Netherlands, and Norway teams are most popular, while China, surprisingly, loses all of its support, as do poor Chile, Poland, Mexico and Taiwan, while Argentina and Australia join the single supporter club. If any of these teams reach the semis, their supporters will be very happy indeed!
If our entrants are to be believed, at least one country’s place in the finals is certain: Italy. The other country is less certain, as the USA 2 and Dutch teams each have equal votes. Norway also retains solid support, while only one entrant believes the USA 1 team will make it to the finals. Also, at this point Brazil loses all its support.
Not surprisingly, the winner, according to our entrants, will be Italy, while a significant enough percentage believes the USA 2 or Netherlands teams can win to give them a fighting chance (assuming our contest makes any difference). The USA 1 team retains its lone voice of support, while Norway and Germany too are each left with only one supporter.
And the most popular tie-breaker? Italy – it would seem our many of our entrants who don’t believe it will win at least believe it will receive third place. The second-most popular pick is the USA 2 team. Interestingly, nobody believes Norway will take third place – clearly it’s all or nothing with that team.
Shockingly, though I am a bridge novice with no working knowledge of any of these teams save that the USA 2 includes the Nickell one, these statistics match my own picks almost exactly.
The deadline has been extended – the contest closes August 28th, this Friday. Anyone else care to enter?
August 24th, 2009 ~ Eric Emin Wood ~
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As a two-year veteran of a film review blog, I realize that what is initially posted is rarely what people read if they revisit your blog a week later.
Similarly, the entry I posted last Friday at 5:30 after staying at work late is not the entry you’ll read if you scroll down.
As a bridge novice, I obviously have trouble with certain terminology, and because I mixed up terms such as “trick” and “hand” and didn’t order the plays correctly, Linda had trouble following my original entry. She showed me what was wrong with it, and after two attempts by me to correct it (and which, to my credit, did clarify much of it), she finished correcting it herself.
The subsequent draft, which you can read below, may be easier for a bridge expert to read, but I must state for the record that I would never have written the sentence “Luise was leading a heart from dummy and I had to discard one of my winners.” I HATE seeing the word “dummy” without the word “the” in front of it and would never have written it that way. (Yes, I know it’s the “rules” but I find it grammatically infuriating.)
Also, I can no longer follow the tenth trick. “Luise discarded her diamond loser on the heart and Sally was forced to lead back a club. I could win but this set up Luise’s last club and she still had a spade left to trump my high diamond.” Luise explained that to me but part of it is STILL going over my head – and I played it!
In the future, I will (continue to) make a greater attempt to integrate proper bridge terminology into my entries. But if you read something with lots of jargon that makes sense, it’s probably because of Linda.
August 21st, 2009 ~ Eric Emin Wood ~
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It’s much easier to remember hands played on Bridge Base Online than hands played in person during our in-person office bridge sessions; and since our in-person office bridge sessions are more fun than hands played on Bridge Base Online, that option usually wins. This would make blogging office hands difficult even if we played every week – which we don’t.
The lessons gleaned from these in-person sessions are just as useful as the BBO ones, however, even if I tend to forget them until I’m once again sitting at a bridge table. Case in point: today’s second hand, in which Linda (West) and I (East) were playing defense and Sally (North) needed only one trick to win. The bid was 3NT; I had the â™ Q and â™ A, and I knew Sally had the â™ K. I forget the exact card that Sally had played when my turn came (it was something like â™ 10), but my â™ Q could have easily taken it. Instead, in the heat of the moment, I played the â™ A – which naturally meant Sally took my â™ Q with her â™ K on the last turn.
Lessons were learned in the first hand too: specifically, assume that if an opponent bids a suit, chances are you don’t want to bid that suit (Linda told me this after I bid 2♣ against Luise’s 1♣).
Then there was our third and final hand, which Luise was kind enough to turn into a BBO movie. Once again I was East, Luise was South, and Sally took Linda’s place at West once bidding wrapped:
During bidding, I was in an awkward position. Sally bid 3â™ . I had only one spade, and wasn’t nearly strong enough in diamonds to overtake a 3â™ Â bid. In response to Sally’s bid I snapped my fingers in frustration, and Linda knew I had passed.
The scary thing (for a novice bridge player, at least) was, I knew that an expert player could have done a fair bit with my hand, strong as it was in diamonds and clubs. My big mistake (though as Luise points out to me even as I write this, everyone made mistakes) came during the tenth trick. If you follow along on the diagram you can see that I held two clubs (the ♣A and ♣Q) and two diamonds (the king – which was now high – and jack). Luise was leading a heart from dummy and I had to discard one of my winners.
I knew Luise had only one diamond remaining, and could be fairly certain she held two clubs, including the jack – which meant the ideal card to play would have been the ♦J. After which I still could have taken Luise’s last diamond with the ♦K, and, with the ♣A and ♣Q, taken her last two clubs. Instead, during the next trick, I discarded my ♣Q. Luise discarded her diamond loser on the heart and Sally was forced to lead back a club. I could win but this set up Luise’s last club and she still had a spade left to trump my high diamond. Well done Luise.
I’m not sure this would have allowed me and Sally to win the game, but I’m sure it would have helped me and Sally feel less… well, you can see for yourself. Linda called it a “pseudo-squeeze.”
There are moments in every session that sail over my head whether in person or on BBO. The scariest part of today’s game? During the third hand Linda explained to Luise what she should have surmised from the bidding and first trick – namely that after diamonds had been led, because I had played the diamond six, I probably had the diamond ten, jack and king.
Luise guessed the way I would have – that I was long in diamonds because I’d hesitated. Linda’s answer was pure mathematics.
Take a look at my hand.
Even knowing what Luise held, I still don’t know how Linda did that.
July 17th, 2009 ~ Eric Emin Wood ~
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It would appear that our usual contest address, marketing@masterpointpress.com, is busted – so Linda has placed me in charge of receiving your entries.
Rest assured that I have no idea what I’m doing. In the proud tradition of apprentices being assigned tasks for which they are dangerously underqualified, I intend to make up the rules as I go along. Should any problems arise, you may almost certainly blame them on me.
In the meantime, e-mail your entries to eric@masterpointpress.com – if you don’t receive a reply within 24 hours (48 on weekends), indicating that I received your entry, e-mail me again. After all, your message could have been lost in the ether. Or I could accidentally have hit the delete button. Followed by the “empty trash” button. Sure I’m supposed to be from a tech-savvy generation, but you never know.
June 17th, 2009 ~ Eric Emin Wood ~
1 Comment
It would appear I lied. A week after Ray and Linda’s exit, Sally took over my bridge education and introduced me to Bridge Base Online, that primitive, unfamiliar program I had seen Linda playing and immediately decided I would never join.
Last night, however, (under the username “Mirrorston”) I played a round on BBO with Sally (SSparrow), her mother, Maggie (arrow), and her mother’s student Mary Lou (jessekins).
Here was my most… educational hand:
An approach I’ve always taken in Rook is, once trump is called I’ll play any high cards – ones or fourteens (equivalent to aces or kings) – I hold in the other suits, taking those tricks as soon as possible before my opponents run out of those suits and trump them.
In this case, when the ace of diamonds was played in the very first trick, I played the diamond king knowing (or more accurately guessing – but I thought I knew at the time) that it would win the second trick. I followed that up with the diamond jack, because between us Maggie and I had 7 diamonds – and since neither Sally nor Mary Lou had bid diamonds, I bet on them holding three diamonds each.
I was successful, but in retrospect this may not have been the smartest thing to do.
Anyway. While I’d won the contract, I didn’t hold the king, queen, or jack of hearts. I also had two aces and three kings outside the trump suit, and planned on using them to take half my tricks (at this point had already taken two). If you assume my rook thinking (and you should) you’ll see why I planned on using these high non-trump cards BEFORE playing my trumps.
So my next plays were the ace of clubs and the club king. I had my four tricks. What happened next? I played the ace of hearts, of course. After that I was stumped.
I played the two, figuring that if Sally had the king she’d play it, since anything else would be taken by the queen. I was right. But what if Mary Lou had held the jack and king? I would have been forced to play the queen, and another trick would have gone out the window. (I’m still thinking, however, that it was an acceptable risk.)
Unfortunately, even after my gamble paid off and I transferred the play over to dummy, instead of playing dummy’s precious, precious queen I played… a club. The second-highest club left, to be sure (I held the highest), but a suit that could easily be trumped by what I should have realized was the only trump remaining. Sally took my club with the jack of hearts, a card I should have taken with the queen, sealing my doom.
I took the final three tricks, of course. By then I only held hearts. But I was one shy of making contract, a goal that would have been realized if not for the faulty thinking I’ve employed all these years.
I have a history of what I call “tunnel vision,” something obvious to others that goes overlooked by me, and which must CLEARLY (and often condescendingly) be pointed out – at which point it becomes as clear to me as anyone else.
By laying out trumps in the beginning, I now realize I would have drained my opponents’ supply early, and they would have had no trumps left to take my tricks when I played my higher cards in non-trump suits later on. My opponents might no longer hold the suit I was playing, but they wouldn’t have been able to trump it either – a fact I had overlooked all these years.
I have another Rook strategy that I believe would have helped me succeed, however: why did I have to bid 4H? Anything over eight tricks feels like an awfully high contract to me, and Sally and Mary Lou had both passed. If I had passed Maggie would have won the bid – 2H – and probably won. Even if I insisted on being declarer I didn’t see the point in bidding more than 3H. Sure I saw the mathematical reasoning – we knew we had at least eight trumps between us – but since our opponents had passed, why risk the extra point?
June 16th, 2009 ~ Eric Emin Wood ~
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