Analysis of the MP Exclusive Tournament #3 of Milan Macura

The third “weekly exclusive tournaments” are over. We know the winners and you can watch and read the bridge board analysis.

If you have not played these tournaments yet, you can find them under “Get started/Practice > Exclusive tournaments” and search for Milan Macura.

Both the IMP and MP tournaments start on Saturday and end on Thursday when I am making the videos.

Week 3 confirmed players have a high interest in the weekly exclusive tournaments. The total numbers did not raise though, staying at 430.

More people have the tournament in their favorites – 256, which is the best statistics for us.

Tarun from India has once again climbed to the top with an impressive score of 85.17% which did not beat his first win.

The second place goes to Ivan from Croatia with 81.07%.

And third was Tomasz from Poland with 76.47%.

Here is the top 10 leaderboard

I have struggled this time with two bottom scores, but finished in the top half with 53.28%.

Some top scores could have been achieved by doubling E-W when they were too aggressive.

With Argine, it really depends on your chosen bidding sequence and how you describe the hand for her analyses.

Here is a great example of a very different outcome with 3 different approaches.

You hold this hand and partner overcalls 2♥ over left-hand opponent 1♣ opening. What do you bid?

First, you should make an evaluation of your hand based on the bidding.

Clearly we want to play hearts since partner promised a 6-card and a preemptive hand.

The thinking procedure should be changed from counting the losers to counting the winners because partner is the one with longer trumps.

♦A and ♦K should cover losers for sure if partner has at least two of them. ♠K is most likely not a trick since it is situated before the stronger opponent, but the singleton club can cover up to 2 losers.

In total, we can count we are covering 4-5 losers which is exactly on the edge of a game. A standard preempt is 7-8 losers based on the position and quality of the honors and distribution.

I chose to find out more information…

… by bidding 2NT, expecting partner to bid a side suit with maximum (7 losers) and 3♥ with a minimum (8 losers). Left-hand opponent bid 3♠ and partner bid 4♥ on her own which was doubled by West.

After the club lead, West wins and return another club.

What is your plan?

You are still left with 3 losers in clubs, most likely 2 losers in spades and you have to find the ♥K. The diamond suit in dummy can produce a lot of tricks, but since West is trying to shorten your trumps in dummy, you don‘t have enough entries to draw the trumps, unblock the ♦Q and discard your losers on winning diamonds.

Your high trumps should be an indication for a crossruff. You ruff the club, cross to North with ♦K and ruff another club. So far both opponents follow suit. Now, you start cashing the diamonds hoping to discard both spade losers in the North hand. Unfortunately, West ruffs the third round of diamonds. You overruff and play the last club to use your last trump in dummy. You still have one more diamond winner. Playing it works the same as playing trumps. West has to ruff, in this layout with the ♥K so you will lose only one spade in the end to make 11 tricks.

If West ruffs low, the ♥K will most likely drop in the third round. If West decides not to ruff, you discard a spade.

A very useful technique on how to finesse in trumps when you do not have any left in partner’s hand.

4♥x +1 for +690 scores only 78.26%.

The most frequent score was 4♦x -4 for +800 for N-S.

That can happen if you bid only 3♥, West doubles with 19 HCP and 4252 distribution.

When I tried to replay the board, West bid 3♠ instead of doubling, partner passed and RHO bid 4♣.

When you now raise to 4♥, you don‘t get doubled, but still achieving above-average score.

If you jump to 4♥ immediately, West either doubles or bids 4♠ and E-W end up in 5m which you double.

With a proper defense, you can collect +1100 or even +1400 as 6 other players in 5♣x.

Here is the full board

And the most played contracts

How would you do?

You can find all the boards in the video which is posted on the Funbridge youtube channel.

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