The WBF can be capricious

I am taking a moment to warn players about how the WBF can change the conditions of contest of an event, after the event is partially completed.  Gail Greenberg and I played in the World senior pairs in Verona in June 2006.  The event was scheduled to last 4 days - 2 days of qualifying, and 2 days of finals. 

Gail and I had chosen to play the prior day in a 1-day event, because we had felt like playing.  And we had played very well that day.  Now for the senior pairs  I figured that we would qualify easily enough, and then we would have to play very well to try to win in the 2-day final.

For whatever reason, I did not arrive at the table that first session committed to playing my best bridge, and I did not.  We were below average that first session.  Now I knew that I had better play well in the next 3 sessions, not only to qualify but to get a reasonably good carry-over into the final 2 days.

What I did not plan on was the WBF's ability to change the conditions of contest after an event had begun.  Suddenly they announced that instead of being a qualifying event, that they were going to play 8 straight sessions of play-through.  Suddenly I found myself in an extremely difficult position to do well in the event, when I originally had figured that I would have a reasonably good chance to win the event.

I made my comments to the tournament directors, but they said that they were just doing what the WBF board had instructed them to do.  It was upsetting, but Gail and I got to work, and began competing hard. 

Strangely, the last couple of sessions actually counted less than 1/8th of the overall score.  Since every single board carried the same weight, when we actually played less than full sessions in the last day (several of the worst pairs left when they knew they had no chance to win), we played around 22 boards instead of 26 boards, so the final sessions actually had less weight in our overall ranking than the first session did.

Under the circumstances, it became very hard to move up very much in the rankings.  At the end of the second session, we had climbed above average, but now we had the equivalent of two near-average sessions to pull down our results of the remaining 6 sessions.  If the opponent's ever played a really bad session against us, we might still have prevailed, but it never happened.

It was very annoying to be almost be thrown out of a 4-day world championship event by the capriciousness of the WBF board of directors.  And, someone told me that they often do things like that.  So be wary whenever you compete in a WBF event.

                              When should you lie to partner?

This hand is board #7 from the last of 8 sessions in the senior pairs at World Bridge Championships at Verona Italy on June 23, 2006.  Barometer scoring was being used, and at the time Gail Greenberg and I were ranked 18th overall, while our opponents, Italians  Rainieri-Dato were ranked 17th overall.  Scoring was matchpoints.

I was dealt:ªAJ10973  ©QJ102  ¨A  §82, everyone was vulnerable.  My LHO dealt and opened 1§, Gail jumped to 4©, and my RHO raised to 5§.  I held a very nice hand, and had to make a high-level decision.  How would you bid this hand?

Well, you clearly want to play in hearts, and slam is likely.  Do you have fit-showing bids that would elicit cue bids from partner?  Would a bid of a new suit be a cue bid supporting partner's suit, or would it be a natural bid?  Cue bids are useful when you have a heart fit and want to investigate small or grand slam, while on distributional hands you could easily have your own great suit that you want to show.  I think most people and partner would likely take a bid in a new suit as a natural bid. 

So, I think the preempting by the opponent's and partner has given you a problem that has no good solution.  Partner could easily have a singleton or void in clubs, so a gambling bid of 6© is probably your percentage action.  You are gambling that you don't have 2 fast club losers, and also that partner will not have to lose a spade.  You might miss a grand slam, and you might go down in small slam.  You also have a chance of enticing the opponents to sacrifice in 7§, which you might be able to double for a good penalty.

But I did not bid 6©.  Instead I reasoned that this was a good time to lie to partner.  I chose to bid 6§, advertising 1st round control in clubs and grand slam interest in hearts.  Since I was going to 6© anyway, and I knew that partner could not have values to go to grand slam by herself, I chose to lie, hoping that the opening leader would believe that I held 1st round control in clubs, and would choose to lead a different suit.  And that is what happened.  This was the hand:

The opening bidder doubled my 6§ bid, and Gail passed to show 2nd round club control.  I then bid 6©.  The opening leader guessed to lead a diamond and was upset when he saw the dummy.  He complained about being misled by my 6§ bid, which was exactly what I had hoped would happen.

I think my RHO should have sacrificed in 7§.  If his partner doesn't have enough defense to double 6©, then he must expect our slam to make.  Perhaps he was afraid that we had a grand slam, and that we would bid it if he went to 7§.

Gail made all 13 tricks, and we scored 96% on the board.  And on the next board the same opponents overbid to 6NT and went down 2, and we scored 100% on that board.  Perhaps they were steaming.  After that round we climbed to 16th overall, while our opponents dropped to 20th overall.

So, in response to my question "When should you lie to partner", I would say very infrequently.  It is best to lie when the lie is almost never going to affect partner, and it will often affect the opponents.