Monday, May 21, 2007

Winners and losers

There are winners and losers both on and off the table. This weekend we ended up in the latter group in the most exciting finish in the history of the event. Decided on the last board, the event ended with home team SanSac winning one VP before 2 teams (who played each other in the last round), with my team catching silver on better imp quiotient!

It looked like we controlled the event after 3 days but ended with 2 losses for a very disappointing finish. Frederic and I won the datum but faded in the end, playing well below our standard the last day. Time for confessions.

My single biggest weakness is playing too fast at times. Then things go wrong. Here is a classic mistake from the last match.

JT987
KT94
7
963

A653
A3
A96542
4

After a 1D opening on my right, showing 11-13 bal or 11-15 unbal with a 4-card major (same as our 1D-opening), I overcalled 2S, CJO (se previous posts on that subject). LHO made a negative X and partner jumped to 4S ending the auction. I got the 5 of H lead (3rd).

This is a real simple hand. Just grab the K in dummy and start setting up diamonds with the ace of H as a re-entry. Lapsing in concentration and playing to fast I inserted the 9 instead to the J and my ace.

At this point I realized my mistake but figured that I was still in the game. I now decided to finesse in hearts (with QJ, RHO might have 'false-carded' with the Q) to get rid of the club loser and go for the cross ruff.

This day justice was served when the lead was from 765, diamonds where 4-2 and spades 2-2 with split H's. I ended up -50 instead of +420, if playing correctly at trick 1, with the rest of the field going 3 down in 3NT the other way, never getting spades in the picture. 12 imp swing; shame on me.

Congratulations to Magnus Berg, Carl Ragnarsson (3rd win in a row), Torbjörn Axelsson, Emma Sjöberg (22nd birthday yesterday), Petter Fryklund and Erik Fryklund (20 years old).

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Shit happens, Ulf...even to the best players. Not that I would know anything about that.

Anonymous said...

You we're criticized by some people watching the Swan broadcast for your second round heart finesse, but no one saw that the contract could not be made after winning the first trick with the ace.

After heart king, diamond ace, diamond ruff, you have to play spade ace and a spade to make. Trumps has to be 2-2 when East is the one with short diamonds.

ulven said...

I deserved to be critisized. I just lost my composure a bit when I realized my mistake.

Still not taking my time, I could have made it by shunning the heart finesse.

Diamond ace and ruff, H king and another ruffed, diamond ruff. Best defence not offerruffing. Last H ditching my club (say). The position:

JT9
-
-
963

A65
-
965
-

Having lost only one trick so far, I can afford to lose 2 trump tricks. Say club shift ruffed, diamond ruff (still no overruff), trump to the ace and a good diamond.

Now, I was ok even after finesse lost if diamonds were 3-3 or RHO had 3-3-2-5 with a stiff spade H offside.

The H finesse could have been right if trumps were 0-4.

Anonymous said...

If you don't mind I'll use this hand for a lesson type "even experts go wrong".
As you said, taking the lead on dummy, you can afford the normal splits diamonds 4-2 and spades 3-1.
Taking the lead in hand you need either spades or diamonds to break.
Bad luck to finish second with just 1 VP but quite sensational that such a young team won!