Yeh Cup diary

[sartaj]

As part of the Ozone team that just returned from the Yeh Cup , I thought I?d try and share part of the experience with our forum community.
Ish, Vince, me and Tony set out in the first week of march to play this prize money tournament in Schenzen, China. The playing conditions, the quality of the opponents, the prize money were all top class (First place pays US$50,000 to the team)

The first two days we?d play a swiss that would qualify 15 out of 27 teams for the knockouts. Sounds easy ? The French national team, consisting of four ex world champions missed out, the french womens? team consisting of four current world champions missed out, the dutch team missed out, very strong teams from Israel and Japan missed out, as did quite a few others too?

But we made it through, qualifying 7th , which was crucial, as the top 7 teams got a second chance if they lost a knockout match.
I can think of one hand where Ishmael held

Q109xxx
Xxx
Xx
Xx


Partner passed at favorable vulnerability, and the next hand opened 1D. At these colors, and especially opposite a passed partner who wont kill us by bidding too much, it seems ideal to go berseck. 2S, 3S, 1S or a psychic 1NT overcall, or even 1H or 2H or 3H seem to be possible choices.

Ish chose to pass !! A minute later he found himself on lead against 3NT. He led his best suit and hit partner with Akx of spades for down 2. This, when the opponents were cold for 6D !!
At the other table, they overcalled 2S and we eventually doubled 4S for +800 and 14 imps in.
The philosophy behind ish?s pass is that once partner has passed, the hand belongs to them, why tell them anything , just wait and watch. Feels a bit ?soft? to me, but hey, being out of the auction was never my style?

[sartaj]

I learnt something again from Peter Gill. In the last match of the qualifying stage, his team were a marginal case for qualifying. A small win would be enough, but Peter and Val were having a bad set against us. Things were flowing our way, and a decent slam they bid went down?.One of those kinds of sets, when nothing works?.Well, it?s the last board, Peter/Val get to 4S and I doubled in the passout seat. This went back to Peter who held a 6/5 shape. He flinched for a couple of seconds and passed. 4S doubled went down 1.
I teased him later about whether he was considering a redouble, and why did he chicken out, when the occasion seemed to favor a wild action. He replied on the lines that he thought just maybe, there was a chance that his teammates were having a good game too, that things were not going well for our team at the other table, there was a chance that was occurring. In such a case, it would be IRRESPONSIBLE for him to take such a big action like redoubling.
Hats off to such discipline (Peter?s team narrowly missed by losing 14-16 to us). Especially so on the last board of a 8 board match.

Us Ozoners, we like to redouble 1NT early in a match. :) Perhaps we can learn something from the Gill machine.


For our first knockout match, we would play the ?host? team of Mr. Yeh (the sponsor of the tournament), Patrick Huang (arguably the best player ever on the East side of the Suez canal), two Taiwanese experts, and two American plonkers called Jeff Meckstroth and Eric Rodwell :p

Vinnie dropped a singleton king of trumps offside, tony played his usual technically perfect game, ish was a rock and I followed suit as we won by 27 imps over 24 boards.
We were lucky on one hand which got fouled due to a dealing error. Could have easily lost 12 imps on it?

[sartaj]

So next match, effectively the quarterfinals, we?ve got Italy. Bocchi-Duboin,Sementa-Madala would play throughout. For about the millionth time, it feels, Australia plays Italy. Every single time, we lose !! NOT 2001 we lose, Olympiad R/16 we lose, Bermuda Bowl QF we lose, Yeh Cup 2005 we lose?..I am just SICK of losing to the Italians.

Well, unfortunately, this year we couldn?t change the tide. I?ll try and put a post some other time about my thoughts on ?Now we play Italy. Now what ??
The Italians outclassed us on a lot of part-score hands. They bid 3 over 3 when it was right and they defended card perfect against low level contracts. In the card play, they are almost like machines. We won imps in the game department and by effective preemption.
In the slam zone again though, the Italians were better.
They bid a slam with a trump suit of Axx opposite KJ to six which came home.
Tony and I bid a no play slam on another hand.
On one hand it went
(2C) ? P ? (4S) - ?
to Madala who held
AK
AJx
AKxx
AJxx

2C was weak, both majors.
Madala doubled and collected 800 against his making 1370 which Ish and Vince did bring home..

The bad hands from match still rankle in my head and I?m not going to share ?em. We lost by 26 imps. Although one can argue that if their slam missing the queen had gone down, the match would be tied, I think that?s self-serving. We were beaten fair and square. But we will be back for combat next time !

[sartaj]

We got a second chance to play two short matches against a Chinese team and a team featuring Helgemo-Helness and the Hackett brigade.
On one hand I held
-
AKJxx
X
AKQ1098x

Pass- pass to me at nil vul.
I toyed with opening 6C, but we could easily make a grand, so I decided to go slow

1C ? (1S) ? 1NT- (3S)
?
OK, now, I bid 6C . Partner had the queen of hearts , no ace of diamonds so it was a nice looking 920.


One powerful impression from this match was of playing against Helgemo and Helness. These two guys don?t seem to have any regard for the delicacy that pervades modern bidding. Their whole style is to bid 1N ? 3N or 1H ? 3H; 4H on as many hands as possible. And in the play, their natural flair and concealed information comes out. I am finding it hard to describe the feeling, but playing these Norwegians, one of the world?s best pairs, is a strange experience..

We didn?t get through this second chance hurdle either so had to return home disappointed, but perhaps wiser?.

At the end, I?d like to thank the whole Ozone project for making experiences like this possible. Its just fantastic, going out there, hobnobbing with the best, and hey, even pasting up those dudes called Meckwell ! :cool:

[Peter]

(1) This was a terrific tournament. I loved it.

(2) I think it was Paul Hackett who told me his opinion why Australia keep losing to Italy in matches. It is all about psychology, one of the weak points of Aussie teams I was told. I cannot go into specifics in an open forum but am happy to talk privately about the details. Suffice to say that something happened just prior to one of the sets between Australia and Italy which Paul thought was highly relevant to why Australia lost the match.

The point is that Oz-One should get a Sports Psychologist more involved. Paul said that the Hacketts have all benefited from assistance from sports psychologist(s) in the past.

I personally think that the Sports Psychologist at the Kokish Traning Camp in December has turned the Sydney Swans from non-winners into winners, and that someone like her could do the same with Oz-One. Not with the stuff she did at the Training Camp, but with other stuff, indivdually for each player and for each pair.

For example, one key issue is that one should not think about line-ups and the like in terms of what we like, but in terms of what the other team likes.

(3) I think it was the Canadian players who told me that in a marathon tournament like the NOT, one can get away with late nights in the early stages, when qualifying is pretty routine for the top teams. However in an event like the Yeh Bros Cup which is a short sharp SPRINT, late nights are a big No-No. They said that their failure to understand this was a factor in their demise, and someone pointed out that the Beijing team which won got adequate sleep.

I believe that one of the losing finalists was up at 4am the night before the Final. And in a recent Cavendish, a pair who led into the last day went out until 4am or 5am on the night before the last two sessions then promptly dropped out. If Oz-One is to turn into a winning outfit, they need to make sure that they get these sorts of simple things right.

This does not mean that anyone in Oz-One was out late. I am just trying to give an example of what winning major tournaments is all about. All the winners of the 2007 NOT got adequate sleep and were psychologically well prepared to maximise our chances of winning.

At the Gold Coast my team which ran nowhere was a psychological mess.

I think the Oz-One players have reached the level where psychological factors rather than bridge ability are the difference between winning and "doing pretty well without winning".

Peter Gill.

[JackyG]

Love these posts sartaj and Peter! You make these events come alive :) . The Unbeatable Italians, the Simple Bidding Norwegians, the American plonkers and most of all the partying nightowls yahooing around the city till 4 or 5 am only to lose the next day because of sleep deprivation. And just what DID the Italians do to stir up the psychologically delayed Aussies??

[mrdct]

Whilst staying up until 4:00am on the night before a final wouldn't appear to be a winning strategy, it can be difficult to find the correct balance between caffeine in-take and sleeping times particularly when session times in a tournament are variable. I often find it quite difficult to sleep after an evening session that has lasted until midnight or so as I've inevitably had a couple of strong coffees and my brain would be buzzing from the bridge anyway.

It was well reported that the socceroos took a lot of expert advice on sleeping patterns, eating times and diet to deal with changing time zones and to be at their peak performance at the critical times. I'm sure something similar could be done for a bridge event.

[Nigel]

I agree with Peter's points. I also believe that oz-one teams need to conduct themselves more professionally. Think of how Seres, Howard, Cummings, Smilde conducted themselves as a team. :)