Minnesota Bridge

No Fireworks

Some bridge hands are razzle dazzle.  A fancy squeeze or duck; plays that less than .05% of the bridge community would ever imagine.

Other hands, however, are plain old crunching out the odds, calculating what is most likely to work - then following through.  Sounds simple - yet, as we all know, too often many of us miss "doing the right thing."

This week, John Koch presents a hand from the Gopher where this common sense path led to success.  Please see below.

And - speaking of tournaments, we have some great ones coming up!  St. Cloud's sectional is this coming weekend, 299ers have a Silver Point Sectional the next weekend at the Twin City Bridge Center, and District 14's Des Moines Regional takes place over the 4th of July week.

Lots of super events to attend - and - if you study John's Koch Korner columns, you will be a winner more often than not!

Understandings

 

Joe Grue at the Team Trials!

Many players like to focus on what conventions to play.  This is important - but more important still are understandings.

What are understandings?  They are general principles (and more specific, too) as to what a myriad of sequences mean.  Which bids show extras and which are competitive?  What are the upper limits for preempts - and the lower limits for overcalls?  When both sides are bidding, what does "pass" indicate and what does "double" show?

For ten days in Orlando, ending this Sunday, the best teams in America are vying to be USA #1 and USA#2. Though you can bet that they have extensive understandings on what all their bids mean - they nevertheless can, and do, have misunderstandings.  If you want to see bridge at the top, complete with razzle dazzle and errors by the elite, then tune into Bridgebase for a great vugraph show.

In the meantime, please enjoy this week's "Koch Korner" column.  John demonstrates with a specific hand how important it is to have well tuned understandings - and then win like the big boys.

Partner, Please

We can request partner to show or do various things in bridge.  4NT asks that partner show how many aces or keycards he has.  After a NT opener, bidding clubs asks that partner mention a major suit - if he has one.  And some calls - often "double" - request that partner lead a specific suit.

Yet, how do we know which one it is?  From this week's Gopher Regional, John Koch highlights how he made just such a double, knowing that this partner, Terry Beckman, would figure it out.  T did indeed.

Terry won a number of events at the Gopher, and almost 68 masterpoints.  Read John's column, and you will understand why.

Irrational Exuberance

At times in life, we get swept away by optimism and irrational exuberance.  Even at the bridge table, we are not immune from this phenomenon.

Today, John Koch presents us with a hand where the auction took just such a flight of fancy. The good news is that the cards were most favorable for declarer - and he was blessed with enough skill to take advantage.  Once again, John shows us how to bring home a tough contract and garner all the matchpoints.

On that latter point, please note.  Had declarer taken 12 tricks in game rather than slam - he would not have lost a single matchpoint for his efforts!

Queen Ask

Most experienced bridge players know how to use some form of key card to inquire about aces, along with the king and queen of trump.  Yet when it comes to declaring, no one has yet devised a method to determine where a key queen resides within the opponents' hands!

This week in Koch's Korner, John features a hand that your editor played recently.  I took risks both in the auction and the play - and they paid off for me.

Please note, however, that often luck plays a role at the table. Had the queen of diamonds been in the wrong spot - or, had the heart suit been distributed a bit differently, this story would have had quite a different ending.

Many years ago, I kibitzed Howie Weinstein in a team trials match.  Howie bid an aggressive 3NT, and failed when a jack was not where he needed it to be.  Edgar Kaplan wrote up Howie's choice of calls in the Bridge World and was not complimentary.  Had the jack cooperated, though, we likely would have read that Howie's bold move paid big dividends.

Thanks to John for writing up a successful tale of boldness - and thanks to that diamond queen for contributing!

A Decisive Moment

Bridge is clearly a game of skill.  If it were not, then we wouldn't see the same names continually at or near the top.

Yet, part of the fascination of our game is that it can be impacted by some measure of luck.  Sometimes, we are graced with a helpful lead or break. Other times, the opponents give us nothing.  Then, we must calculate how to create our own luck.

John Koch presents us with such a hand today.  When you are dealt lemons, you make lemonade!

A Fierce Competitor

Every week, John Koch regales us with stories about insightful defense or magnificent declarer play.  A few of us are up to such plays at the table; others of us can only admire such brilliance.

This week, John sent me a column about superb play by a local player:  Tim Wernz.  Most of Minnesota's players wouldn't be up to analyzing a hand as Tim did under any circumstances. Yet, Tim found this insightful line of play while suffering from severe illness and fatigue.

John shares with us this fine hand - and a remembrance of Tim, too.  Our thanks to John for both - and our gratitude to Tim.  He displayed competition at a high level - and a will to do his best under the most trying conditions.

Something Better

Expert players usually exercise excellent declarer play and defense.  

Still, we can recognize the difference between your "garden variety" expert - and a champion. While the expert performs at a high level, the champion imagines an odds on line of play .... and then searches for something even better.

This week, John Koch demonstrates how to go from good - to extraordinary.

Counterintuitive

The more experienced we become at the game, the more rote many plays become.  We've "been there; done that" - and we go through the process again.

Except - sometimes the game tricks us.  We see a familiar position, and "rote" is the losing course.

Today, John Koch presents us with such a defensive hand.  Would you have gotten it right at the table?

Remember that sometimes things are not what they seem - even at the bridge table.

Last Board

The last board of a NABC event.  Most are tired; some a bit irritable.  A few know they are in the hunt; their senses are heightened and every trick matters tremendously.

John Koch, one of Minnesota's finest, faced this hand as his last in St. Louis.  All of us would do well to read why John played as he did - and likely got a whole pile of matchpoints on his last hand of the Silver Ribbon Pairs. 

Well done, John!

Extra Chances

As anyone who has played bridge for more than a brief moment realizes - bridge is an imperfect game.  Although we do our best to learn and improve, error-free bridge is impossible.

Slam bidding can be particularly tough.  First - as slams are infrequent occurrences, most of us aren't as familiar with all the intricacies of slam auctions as we are part scores and games.  Second - slams can lead to larger swings.  Calculating the location of a mere jack can mean a swing of 26 IMPS!

Sometimes, however, power leads us to slam.  Our dummy can be excellent - or our values in all the wrong spaces and places.  In today's column, John Koch delivers a hand where dummy is not the dummy of our dreams.  Yet, with a bit of imagination, calculation of odds and weighing of the information we receive as the hand progresses - success can be ours.  Let John explain how to achieve those extra chances.

Nasty Diversion

Are you declaring and you need one more trick to go plus?  Does it appear that there is no way to find that extra elusive trick?

If so, study squeezes.  A squeeze is a method of running winners, such that eventually, one or both defenders are unable to hang on to all the cards that they need to beat you.  This week, John Koch instructs us exactly how to do that.

Defenders, however, can sometimes employ a nasty diversion to subvert your squeeze.  Are you then sunk - or can you still swim?

John has all the answers for us!  If you want to raise the bar on your declaring skills, study squeezes - and John's article for the week!

Extra Measures

When we first begin to learn our fascinating game, we are given many rules to study.  As declarer, we are told "Count your winners and losers."  And so we do - looking at what finesses might fail, what aces must be given to the opponents and what winners can be established.  Then, we go upon our merry way seeing whether the hand layout delivers success or failure.

As we become more experienced, however, we learn that on many hands, we can search for "extra chances."  Sometimes, even if those hooks aren't winners, we are able to spin gold out of straw.

This week, John Koch shows us how to turn a hand into a fairy tale ending!

No Autopilot

For experienced bridge players, some positions are familiar.  We recognize when to duck with a winner, when to pull trump, when to choose to shift, and so forth. 

Yet, if we allow ourselves to fall back on "autopilot" - sometimes we may find that we've missed the winning play.  One of the many fascinating aspects of bridge is that every hand is unique.  What may work on 97% of similar hands may be the losing play on the other 3%.

This week, John Koch demonstrates how to analyse, step by step, how a hand will progress.  For both declarer and defender, the end game must remain always in focus - and "autopilot" should be carefully monitored!

A fascinating hand, and more evidence of how and why John earned his national championship!

Getting Clues

A big key to successful defense is signaling.  Unfortunately, however, always figuring out what exactly partner is trying to tell us with signals isn't crystal clear.  Some situations are common - and - others are not.

Today, John Koch sheds light on unusual shift signals.  What are they?  How do you recognize them?  What's up with partner's carding?

John has all the answers!  (Well; a lot of them at any rate  )

A Missed Opportunity

How many of us start to put our cards back into the board - when we suddenly realize we had a play that would have beaten a contract?  Answer:  all of us.  And, if you think that moment is reserved only for your average Joe, then you would be mistaken.

This week, John Koch highlights a most interesting hand.  Here, a defender can make a not common play that leaves declarer with no recourse.  This play, however, is not obvious on the face of it.  Indeed - a world class player missed it.

Our thanks to John for pointing out how to recognize this action.  Also, note that John also focuses on the abilities of champions.  They put a lost opportunity in the past and concentrate on the hand in front of them to go on to win.

Enjoy!

In Partner We Trust

Defense is a tough business.  Declarer knows where his strength and weakness is.  You and partner must guess.

From the opening lead, however, you and partner have an opportunity to communicate.  What is partner's signal at trick one?  As the play unfolds, what can you glean from declarer's choices and what you and partner communicate to one another?

This week, John Koch shows us how to trust what partner is telling us, and how best to judge our path with that information.  Our thanks to John for ramping up our games to a new level!

Expert Inferences

Experts often seem to be magicians.  They take a contract that, on the face of it, seems impossible to make - and then they bring it home.  They defend a hand that seems impregnable - and, somehow, it fails.

How do they do this?  This week, John Koch takes one such hand and demonstrates exactly how the experts reach success with insightful inferences.

Brilliancies

For many of us, much of bridge is attempting to avoid stupid mistakes.  How many of us might have won our session or match, had we simply remembered to count out a hand, pull trump, or pay attention to the bidding?

Once in a while, however, we deliver a clever play or bid.  When we do - particularly if the outcome results in success - it's a thrill.

For a few of us, however, a true brilliancy seems to occur more frequently than most of the rest of us put together.  Today, John Koch describes such players and such plays.

Enjoy - and - admire this brilliancy.

Christmas Present

As we welcome in 2013, the holidays are now behind us.  But this weeks' Koch Korner column highlights a gift that John found under his tree.

Of course, the gift would not be possible without John's deft analysis of the hand.  Please read below how John assisted Santa in delivering this present!