Win by 20 vs NN despite butchering the play of a slam against NN. Fortunately a push as the cards lie. Here’s the hand:
Bidding (opps silent) 1C - 1S - 2H - 2S - 3C - 3S - 4S - 4N (key-card, spades agreed) - 5H (2 no Q) - 5N (king ask) - 6C - 6S
East leads the diamond Q. Plan the play. Interesting hand: worth thinking about before you read the spoiler. Reissued
Win the opening lead, play a trump to the ace, then take the heart finesse, even though you have 13 tricks without the finesse if spades are 3-3. If spades aren’t 3-3, you almost certainly have 12 tricks if the heart hook wins, and are down if you don’t take the heart hook.
Very unlikely to matter, but slightly better to lead a heart to the 10 or 9 rather that leading high. Matters only if East has a stiff heart, and you want to be in your hand to pull trump.
NN played it correctly. I didn’t, but with spades 3-3 it still made 13 tricks.
NN romps in the regular challenge with +20.25, by 24. I win the declare-only with 57.03%, by 0.78%. Both reissued
Bummer. I still had 3 matches to play and knew it would be close. Finished vs NN, won by 4, Can’t see the individual boards any more, but I’m pretty sure it was because I went down 300 instead of 500 when partner made an awful 3D bid instead of letting us play 3C. Finished the match against procrastinator, but no result since he didn’t play them. Because I played 16 vs procrastinator, I didn’t finish against AA. Played 11, or maybe even 12 or 13, but don’t know the result. I think he could tell. I might have even been able to finish all 16 except BBO kept crashing in the match against NN.
All 3 reissued
ETA: now I can see the individual boards against NN, and I had the hands wrong. I did win 5 for -300 vs -500 in 3D X, but the 3D bid was more unlucky than awful.
procrastinator wins the regular challenge with +24.00, by 5.50. Reissued
ETA: AA and I tie for first in the declare-only with 56.25%. We better not use our current individual challenge as the tie-breaker. I think I had my worst 16 boards ever. Some reasonable but very unlucky. Others just awful, in decisions made and in results. Reissued
I lose my individual challenge to NN 9-0, with 13 push boards. Reissued.
EATA: As expected, lose to AA. By 19. Could have been worse, but he also failed to beat the opponents’ slam when we had 2 aces. (That was one I had just chalked up to an unfortunate result, not that I should have beaten it, or that he would. But I certainly wasn’t going to win anything on that board.
Lose to procrastinator by 14.
Both reissued.
NN wins the regular challenge with +14.00, by 1.75. Reissued
Lose to NN by 11. Not surprised to lose, because on board 14 I let a nonvul game make that based on the honor cards already revealed in declarer’s hand (and he had opened 1NT), there was a 100% set available, yet I sleepily let it make, not counting the values he had already shown. To my surprise, that was a push. NN playing the same cards in the same order (except that with club KQ with a stiff led from dummy, he split with the K, I split with the Q. That wasn’t the fatal mistake
Reissued
ETA: NN wins the declare-only with 55.21%, the only score above 50%. Reissued
Win by 2 vs AA. Lose by 24 to procrastinator. Both reissued.
ETA: NN wins the regular challenge with 20.50, by 4.75. Reissued
Thanks for doing these. I don’t always have time to give it my full concentration, but I enjoy the practice.
NN wins the declare-only with 60.94%, by 7.03%. Reissued
I lose to NN by 12. Reissued
ETA: Win by 18 vs AA. Procrastinator did not play our match. Both reissued
EATA: NN wins the regular challenge with +12.25, by 4.75. Reissued
EATA: oirg wins the declare-only with 54.69%, by 1.35%. Will reissue later today.
EATA: Lose by 4 to AA, by 33 to procrastinator. Win by 1 vs NN. All reissued
oirg wins the regular challenge with +16.00, by 10.67. oirg also wins the declare-only with 58.59%, by 7.03%. Both reissued
I lose an extremely low-scoring match to NN, 3-2, only 3 non-pushes. I win a pretty low-scoring match against procrastinator, 10-1, only 4 non-pushes. I lose a slugfest to AA, 24-22, only 5 that were pushes. All 3 challenges reissued.
ETA: procrastinator wins the regular challenge, with +15.00, by 7.50. NN wins the declare-only with 58.59%, by 3.90%. Both reissued
EATA: Win by 2 vs NN, by 4 vs AA. Both reissued
EATA: Demolished by 35 by procrastinator. Yes, there was an absolutely awful misclick, but I think I was losing 13 on the board with or without the misclick. Reissued.
EATA: procrastinator wins the regular challenge with +11.00, by 1.25. In the declare-only, a 3-way tie for first among procrastinator, AA, and me with 52.34%. Both reissued
Lose to AA by 1. Lose to NN by 18. Both reissued
ETA: :swear: Lose to procrastinator by 1, because I was in the better contract. I was in 4H, not cold just looking at our hands, but surely where you would want to be. He was in 5H, a bad contract looking at our two hands, but with some chance of making.
So at imps I played what I thought was my safest play for 10 tricks, and made 10. He took his only shot for 11 tricks, and made them. In retrospect, maybe I should also have made 11. The line that makes 11 tricks is extremely likely to make at least 10 tricks, maybe as likely to make 10 tricks as the line I took. This time it takes 11 and pushes the match. [There are some distributions of the opposing cards when I would take 10 and the other line takes only 9. But there are some where the other line takes 11 and mine takes only 9. And many where the other line takes 11 and mine takes only 10, a result normally not worth worrying about.
Reissued
Romp by oirg in the regular challenge: +28.25, by 24.50.
Some very strange hands in the declare-only, which I won with 56.25%, by 4.47%. Especially board 5. oirg and I ended up tied for top (3S making), even though we started by misguessing trumps (very reasonable), after which we should always have been down 1 and should be been down 2 as we played (reasonable play, but unfortunate). Only LHO defended like an absolute idiot.
Then board 11, where I got a top for an overtrick in a contract that would have little chance against optimal defense. Fortunately bots did not find optimal defense, and even excellent defenders might have trouble defending it. If you look at all four hands, you would not predict that any declarer would win 10 tricks.
Both reissued
I win by 22 vs NN, by 42 vs AA. Both reissued
ETA: Win by 15 vs procrastinator. Reissued
oirg wins big in the regular challenge: +30.75, by 24.00. NN wins the declare-only with 61.46%, by 6.25%. Both reissued
ETA: win by 45 vs NN, by 29 vs AA. Both reissued
EATA: win 3-1 vs procrastinator. Only 8 boards since I set it up wrong. Next 2-way vs NN is 16 boards, but Best Hand and basic robots since I set that one up wrong.
EATA: Very low scoring group challenges. oirg wins the regular challenge with +7.00, by 1.25. I win the declare-only with 53.91%, by 0.78%. Both reissued
Lose to NN by 4. Lose to AA by 1. Both reissued
Lose to procrastinator by 16. I win the regular challenge with +21.25, by 15.75.
I win the declare-only with 53.91%, by 1.57%. Did anyone notice some of the terrible plays by bots? One, just a push, we each saw. Board 5, in our 3H contract, when spades had been bid and raised by them, saw this trick 1: spade 4 led; 2 from dummy’s 1082, 7 from RHO, letting us win two tricks with our A9 doubleton (RHO played 7 from Q76). Bizarre.
Then board 11, play varied. AA and procrastinator got a gift when RHO made a very unwise discard. Whether t really terrible or just very unwise, had to say, but it was costly. Against me, after different early play, really terrible. In NT, dummy had AK9xx of diamonds. I led to my Q and led the 10, and LHO decided it would be good to cover with Jxxx. Could never be right. Never.
All will be reissued by this evening.
Lose to NN by 17. Pro tip: when declarer in 4 spades, vul, realize before trick 9 that spades, not hearts, are trump. Will be reissued this evening.
ETA: Win by 3 vs AA. Will be reissued this evening.
Some REALLY strange bot bidding in day 1 of the 2-day weekend Survivor. I’ll post two auctions tomorrow. This isn’t a spoiler since even if you play today you might not see a deal I’m talking about, and since it’s a declare-only you wouldl see the auction anyway (from declarer’s viewpoint).