Author Topic: 2021 January - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB  (Read 12440 times)

blubayou

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Re: 2021 January - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB
« Reply #30 on: December 10, 2020, 03:13:15 AM »
I dont want to be  "debbie Downer",   but am forced to hope all of us that OPENED ONE ANYTHING on problEM B get their heads handed to them on a sterling silver platter, -- for the sake of......... [ fill in the blank]  You ALL know it is not a one-bid of any sort, and just because you can't decide what two-  or three-  (or four- )  bid it is will not MAKE it into a one-bid!
I get antsie when Jim and I stand alone against the IAC thoughtful  folk,  but this time at least we have MSPH and WACKO  starting with something other than  one-bid!
« Last Edit: December 10, 2020, 03:26:54 AM by blubayou »
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drac

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Re: 2021 January - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB
« Reply #31 on: December 10, 2020, 11:43:21 AM »
Wladislaus Dragwlya
Tin Street No.1
Castrum Sex 545400
Romania

PROBLEM A: 5 Diamonds
PROBLEM B: 2 Hearts
PROBLEM C: 2 Hearts
PROBLEM D: 3 Notrump
PROBLEM E: 6 Spades
PROBLEM F: 2 Hearts
PROBLEM G: Spade Queen
PROBLEM H: Spade 10

ccr3

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Re: 2021 January - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB
« Reply #32 on: December 10, 2020, 01:32:53 PM »

SOLVER: PATRICIA MCDERMOTT
        8015 Buford Cmns
        Richmond, VA 23235-5258
        U.S.A.

Your Solutions for the January 2021 Contest
-------------------
PROBLEM A: Pass
PROBLEM B: Pass
PROBLEM C: 2 Hearts
PROBLEM D: Pass
PROBLEM E: 6 Spades
PROBLEM F: 1 Spade
PROBLEM G: Diamond 10
PROBLEM H: Spade 10

jcreech

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Re: 2021 January - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB
« Reply #33 on: December 10, 2020, 04:22:30 PM »
January Results

All three of our leaders this month made the BW Honor roll.  Jock McQuade (BluBayou) led the way with a score that was good for a tie for 3rd in the honor roll list (ased on his submission to BW) .  Also making the Honor Roll were Wladislaus Dragwlya (DrAculea) and Pat McDermott (CCR3).  Congratulations to all!!!

NAMEBW-SCORERANKMPs
Blubayou     720   1   30
DrArculea     700   2   25
CCR3     690   3   20
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Also participating: BabsG, Curls77, DickHy, Jcreech, KenBerg, Masse24, Msphola, Thornbury, WackoJack, Yleexotee.

This is two months in a row for Blu to win the MSC within IAC - give the man a class to teach!!

Note:  IAC score for BluBayou has been adjusted because he changed his submission for F.  That does not affect his getting a tie for third on their Honor Roll, and it does not change his placing within IAC, but does reduce his score for the IAC contest).
« Last Edit: December 12, 2020, 05:36:45 PM by jcreech »
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yleexotee

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Re: 2021 January - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB
« Reply #34 on: December 10, 2020, 06:19:50 PM »
Nice one Blu, arcu and pat!

blubayou

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Re: 2021 January - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB
« Reply #35 on: December 10, 2020, 06:48:07 PM »
be sure to mark me down 20 less on the IAC spreadsheet Jim.  I am on record for chickening out late in the month from the winning leap to spade slam, back  to bidding only five  ::)
  P.S.:   surely looking forward to why 57% of us solvers (80% of us IAC)  got 50 on the no-brainer lead problem!!!
  PPS:  I bet at least one of the folks wit 750 score  had their PERFECT GAME wiped out by the idiotic 50 score on  problem H..?
« Last Edit: December 10, 2020, 07:07:43 PM by blubayou »
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bAbsG

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Re: 2021 January - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB
« Reply #36 on: December 10, 2020, 08:53:36 PM »
Wahoo blu!!!

Masse24

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Re: 2021 January - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB
« Reply #37 on: December 11, 2020, 02:02:19 AM »
Bluuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

“Kindness is the only service that will stand the storm of life and not wash out. It will wear well and will be remembered long after the prism of politeness or the complexion of courtesy has faded away.” Abraham Lincoln

Curls77

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Re: 2021 January - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB
« Reply #38 on: December 12, 2020, 08:27:35 PM »
This is two months in a row for Blu to win the MSC within IAC - give the man a class to teach!!
APPLAUSE Blu!!  :-*

LOL I adore Todd's comic : )))))

ccr3

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Re: 2021 January - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB
« Reply #39 on: December 18, 2020, 05:34:54 PM »
So Cooooooooool Todd

blubayou

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Re: 2021 January - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB
« Reply #40 on: January 01, 2021, 06:30:54 AM »
Please, Todd or Jim  report in with the usual wonderful postmortem!   I am going to try one in sad brevity,  as i cannot copy/paste the good stuff on the Bridge World's PDF:(   Also  the spreadsheet for Jan has been put in mothballs, so we have only a partial reference for our club's complete vote list:(    [WHY must the spreadsheets from the RECENT past be hidden,  O, masters??...]

  OK  here we go:  On problem A,  bidding SOMETHING  outnumbered  passing 4NT in the panel by   19 to 8 [!]   so we practical folks were lucky to get the 100 for dropping pard's UNT.  Granted, 7 of the BIDDERS  made a bid that drives to slam just to improve their chances at locating the insanely unlikely 10-11 card heart fit--that still leaves 12 panelists + a similar fraction of the IAC that commented "I am following orders"  with 5C or 5D--which mercifully  scored 80 or90.  one quote from the panel  will  nail the dillemmas  we faced here perhaps:  Larry Cohen:  PASS...guessing to bid 5 of a minor is only 50/50 to find hearts anyway (I would need to guess his non-suit).....PLEASE TELL ME NOBODY CONSIDERED SLAM!-- THE ULTIMATE HANG JOB.  <my capps>


PROBLEM B:>> Once again bidding SOMETHING  outnumberd PASSING , this time by 17 to 10, so we few IAC passers again are lucky to get the 100.  That can only mean the host looked at things this way:  "This is NOT A ONE-BID" scored 16 times, while "This IS a one-bid" scored 4+7 = 11 times only.   There were lots of one-bidders among the solvers as well as our club  (66%).   The panel comments for one or two spades or hearts all touch the expected bases similar to the [rare] comments from IAC voters ,but there are these 1 1/2 votes for the FOUR level :) :   Steve Garner actually opens 4 Hearts,  and (my MAN  Ron Gerard bids a spade but gives us this:  "When I was younger, we had a convention for exactly this hand,  but I had my jump-shot 40 years ago, too."   This can ONLY be BLU's  4 Club  "Instant-Michaels" opener -- true?


PROBLEM C:>>  Flipping the pattern  of #A and #B, the 12 panel votes --and HUGE favorite of solvers [78%] --the simple 2 Heart rebid got pipped for the 100%.  Fair enough since the remaining 15 votes all moved toward game, or even WENT to game.  Every single one of US rebid the "WTP??"  2 Hearts--for the 90%, but let's but give DickHY a 95%  for stating clearly that if off his meds,  bombing away to the notrump game looked good to him!  For the panel,  Bruce Rogoff hit the short-and-sweet button with :  "Were we missing the heart ten, we would NOT BE HAVING THIS CONVERSATION."   Most of the game-tryers and the seven game BIDDERS clearly felt the same about the likelihood of running those hearts, or that pard would provide 3 more tricks in time should the HQ score against us..


PROBLEM D:>> Three fouths of our club got butchered here  with 60% for their 3 spade choice, so we need some advice about how pard's double is NOT STAYMAN--ie he can bid his own spades on the rebid. If we prefer to carry on to our supposed vulnerable game --  in hearts, notrump or CLUBS?! 3 spades is not helping this --3 hearts is better and 3NT now, ourselves  is likely as good as it gets.   But let the panel teach:....Rodwell  the lone quoted 3S bidder  [HALF the solvers joined our thundering herd with this?!]  spoke of club slams and cold nt games --as well as offering THIS quote:  "It seems partner may have  AQJx, xx, xxx,  KQJx".   Does anybody buy this?  Not me .  Mainly, the passers did not expect to make up for the vulnerable game bonus  but were willing to 'gamble' that 3NT would come up short, and not willing to punt with "3 hearts" hoping to reach making heart or club bids.   ...Danny Kleinman types: "Pass. Partner forced to game, and without interference we would be bidding game. But that doesn't mean the game we bid would be a lock....i will settle for the likely 300 in imps."  Woolsey on the other hand expects pard to provide a massacre seeing the vulnerability.
« Last Edit: January 04, 2021, 07:23:35 AM by blubayou »
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blubayou

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Re: 2021 January - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB
« Reply #41 on: January 03, 2021, 04:13:00 PM »
PROBLEM E:>>  JcREECH SAYS " All I need from partner is four points ( A or the two round queens) and may be gin with just the  Q if I right side this. as he chooses 6 spades.  That makes 21 + 4 WORKING points for our side leaving the opening side with 15 or less.  Hmmm.  Almost half the solvers and a good minority of us IAC decided that was a bit rich...eventually.   But this month's highest single vote from the panels WAS to follow Jim's advice--15!.  Throw in 4 more votes for other slam-forcing bids [5NT or 6D] and the moderator had a hard time restraining himself. Zia even had a plan in mind to make a forcing pass if RHO went to 7D, expecting partner to bid the Grand if he had the club ACE.  One plan none of us thought of came from Alan Sontag  (not the OTHER Sontag)   to get himself to hearts from the right side:  "(1D) p (5D) 5NT; [p] 6C [p] 6H!.  We guess he is hoping for something like xx, Qxxx, xx, xxxxx? where most of dummy's clubs will go off on his spades, and one of the worrysome clubs can be ruffed at trick 12 or 13.  Sweet.
v
PROBLEM F:>>  By the ranking rules used for problems A, and B,  the  the 9 + 6 + 1 = 16 panel votes saying "This is NOT a constructive heart raise"  versus the eleven votes FOR 2 hearts,  the 100 should go to the 9 spade bidders.  Kokish, a 2 H bidder  offered this "While 2H is an overbid or sorts, it has some preemption going for it and North might need to know of the 3rd trump to re-evaluate". Not one other heart raiser claimed they HAD a constructive raise or "apologized" for raising anyway!  Are we going to see the constructive-raise item in BWS2017 put in the trash when BWS2026 comes out? IMO, that would be an honest thing to do.
     There were 6 votes for the classic way of showing a substandard raise  --by way of the forcing notrump  but in IAC only blu  and Joe gave this a thought. I think joe yleexotee ended up going that route.  Most of the 9 spade bidders figured there is no reason that 1Spade first/then a heart preff. doesn't send the same message but some bid a spade simply because they wanted to.


PROBLEM G:>>   The spade Queen got a STUNNING 15 votes!?  Also-rans were other spades and the beautiful heart 10 with a disappointing 4 votes.  Playing cozy via the diamond shift was all but ignored by the PANEL, though it had plenty of fans among both IAC and Solvers.   This forum beat problem G to death on the first two pages--and the panel just copied our hard work  is what it looks like in the magazine -- so  look upthread for the best opinion-offering of this month, and off we go to.....

PROBLEM H:>>   ,HOORAY!!  a unanimous vote for the spade ten!  Unfortunately only true in the IAC:(   The panelists HATED wasting the spade ten, whether they were in favor of passive defense or 'getting busy'!   Many of them refused to credit North with 5+ spades just because he passed over 1H holding 7-9 points!!!  A few were so committed to passive defense that they chose the heart QJT--opener's 5-bagger.  high diamond leaders looked to combine active and passive imagining partner winning and starting clubs perhaps after seeing dummy.  most lead bridge-101  4th in L & S -- which horrified the other half as much as our dear spade ten lead would have.

hope this has been a tolerable read, friends,  but like it or not please help us get Masse and/or Creech back where they belongin 2+ weeks.   This has been HARD
« Last Edit: January 04, 2021, 07:32:48 AM by blubayou »
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ccr3

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Re: 2021 January - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB
« Reply #42 on: January 04, 2021, 03:44:19 AM »
Well done Blu!!Yes it's HARD!

Masse24

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Re: 2021 January - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB
« Reply #43 on: January 04, 2021, 05:57:36 PM »
Thanks, Blu!

To be honest, I wasn't in the mood to do another recap. As you discovered, it's a lot of work. Jim, thankfully, had just "done it" the last few months, which I am grateful for. Jim has done a fine job with the recaps--his writing is superb.

The MSC has morphed into a nice little monthly diversion. Unfortunately, we could never get more than 15 or 20 people to participate. Of those we get what . . . maybe a half dozen chiming in with comments? I'm not so sure it warrants the effort. Even the first month of the new year saw reduced numbers with a few regulars falling away. Will they return and chime in with a February MSC submission?

I have no suggestions for increasing our participation.

For now, I'm just thankful for the help!
“Kindness is the only service that will stand the storm of life and not wash out. It will wear well and will be remembered long after the prism of politeness or the complexion of courtesy has faded away.” Abraham Lincoln

jcreech

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Re: 2021 January - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB
« Reply #44 on: January 04, 2021, 08:28:55 PM »
Thank you, Jock, for doing this.  I was actually glad when you complained because when someone works as hard as Todd (and more recently me) to pull together a recap, with this group, it is sometimes unclear if it is appreciated.

One thing that does make the recap process easier is to see articulated reasons for choices.  I noticed in the February that one who has participated, has finally started to do exactly that - thank you ccr3.  In addition, new participant, peuco1, is also providing his thoughts behind the choices.  Thank you.

As much as I find the expert's opinions on these problems, I also enjoy hearing from IAC.  Within IAC, we can discuss, argue, and even change minds, where all we can get from the experts is what they were thinking at the time the problem was posed.  We can't tell them that something was truly insightful from our viewpoint, or ask them why one of our answers was wrong headed, but we can do that with each other.
A stairway to nowhere is better than no stairway at all.  -Kehlog Albran