At the very top level bridge players represent countries in world championships. There's no reason not to do this at smaller scales too. I find that it adds a level of fun and camaraderie in something that we often forget is just a game.
Like the past few years, William and I had the honor of being on one of the teams for our Unit (110). Unfortunately, like we seem to do in a lot of events, we started slow, including bidding to two unmakeable slams due to miscommunication. After lunch we came back strong, winning 3 of our last 4 matches. This was aided by two (makeable) slams that we bid that were missed at the other table. Though we won only 3 out of 6 matches, we did win by slightly larger margins than we lost by to earn 67 out of 120 victory points.
Anyway, for the 2nd year in a row, the Richmond Unit (109) pulled out the victory and so, kept the trophy. I should have taken a picture of it to post here - sorry, I still need to work on my blogging skills.
And just so this isn't a completely bridge free post, here is one of the auctions where we got to an unmakeable slam.
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William and I are trying out Precision. 1♣ shows a strong hand, 1♦ shows a weak hand, and the 2♠ shows a very strong hand with spades. (i.e. a strong 2 type hand). 3♠ shows 4-card spades support and the 4♦ and 4♥ are cue bids showing controls.
We showed controls in diamonds and hearts. What about clubs? This was the problem. The opponents won the first two tricks with the ♣A and ♣K, setting us a trick. Cue bidding is supposed to prevent this problem. I thought I had denied a clubs control when I cue bid 4♦. Therefore, I assumed that when William bid 4♥ he was implying a club control, too. (otherwise he would have just bid 4♠). Obviously William had a different thought.
Which of us was right? Well, there is no universal answer. It comes down to how you cue bid. Do you only show first round controls? Do you show shortness in addition to aces and/or kings? Different partnerships do it differently. What is important is to make sure you are on the same page as your partner.
We had a second chance to see if we were on the same page later in the day with this auction.
We showed controls in diamonds and hearts. What about clubs? This was the problem. The opponents won the first two tricks with the ♣A and ♣K, setting us a trick. Cue bidding is supposed to prevent this problem. I thought I had denied a clubs control when I cue bid 4♦. Therefore, I assumed that when William bid 4♥ he was implying a club control, too. (otherwise he would have just bid 4♠). Obviously William had a different thought.
Which of us was right? Well, there is no universal answer. It comes down to how you cue bid. Do you only show first round controls? Do you show shortness in addition to aces and/or kings? Different partnerships do it differently. What is important is to make sure you are on the same page as your partner.
We had a second chance to see if we were on the same page later in the day with this auction.
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The 2♥ bid was a strong jump shift showing 18 or more points. Again we got into a cue bidding auction where 4♣ and 4♦ were cue bids. So what about spades? During a break we had discussed what went wrong on the first slam and we didn't make the same mistake again. This time William had a spades control (the suit I implicitly denied by bidding 4♣ rather than 3♠). The opponents led a diamond, giving me a free finesse, so I only lost the ♠A. Yeah, maybe we were a little lucky, but at least we were on the same page.
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