Willy-nilly in Philly

The bridge World Championships are in the U.S.A. this year! Usually a player has to travel the seven seas to play in a world event. Last year it was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the year before in Beijing, China. Next year it will be in the Netherlands. This year, however, it will be held in Philadelphia - awesome!

I don't get to play much high-level bridge any more because of my job, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to go play in the three-day Mixed Pairs with Kate. It begins this Saturday and continues through Monday. There are three qualifying sessions and three final sessions. For those pairs who don't qualify for the final, the organizers offer something called a Mixed Pairs Plate (where do they get these names?), which is basically a closed consolation. Let's hope we don't play willy-nilly (which means in a haphazard manner) and end up in the Plate thing.

You can find more information about the championships here. You can see the complete schedule here.

Some bloggers are entered: Bob Klein - Jennifer Jones, Karen Walker, Ken Rexford and Justin Lall

UPDATE: I see the bridge blogger Paul Gipson is playing, although not in the Mixed Pairs. He wrote a post called "A hop across the pond" that you can read here.

UPDATE #2: There are 364 pairs from 47 countries that have already entered the Mixed Pairs, the event I'm playing in. To see the Daily Bulletins, click here. The Vugraph schedule on BBO is available here.

Image taken from the WBF web site.

The world through glass

Last May, I opened my e-mail to find that a Chihuly exhibit was coming to Nashville to the Cheekwood Botanical Gardens. For those who haven't heard of him, Chihuly is an American glass sculptor. I combined this with my trip to watch the NFL game last Sunday, viewing the exhibit on Saturday.

I had heard about this from photo bloggers. Two are Julie at Scottsdale Daily Photo and Sharon at Phoenix Daily Photo. A Chihuly exhibit has recently been in Phoenix AZ and they took photos. I had also seen excellent images of his work by Wolynski here and here.

I mentioned to a friend that I was going to the Chihuly Exhibit, and she said, "Oh, I saw it in Israel." Dale Chihuly sure does get around. Some exhibits travel and a few are permanent. For example, one opened in New York City Sept. 16, and another is opening in Chicago on Nov. 5. (Schedule is here.) Poker players and other degenerates might be interested to know that there is a permanent one located at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.


Above: Bamboo reeds -- Chihuly exhibits try to blend his work into the environment. The one in Phoenix, for example, had cactus, etc. He first made bamboo reeds after a trip to Japan.


During the 1995 Chihuly Over Venice project, Chihuly often tossed glass into the river, letting it float downstream. Teenagers in small wooden rowboats gathered them. It is likely from that he conceived the idea for a new installation shown above.


Above: Amber cattails shoot up from a flower bed. In Phoenix, he had them arise from a cactus bed (see here).


Images by MOJO and taken with my Canon. These are straight out of the camera except for Nos. 2 and 3 that were cropped slightly.

For techno-geeks like OhCaptain, most were shot at 1/200th of a second, F5.0 and ISO of 100.

If your team loses, at least you can take photos

When the game is lousy, it's better to take some of your photos of stuff besides football.


Above: Rob Bironas kicks a field goal for the Titans.


Above: This guy was named Flame. I found out later there are lots of them -- Flamehead Brothers. They come, tailgate together and hope to get on TV. You can see more pictures of them here.


Above: The Tennessee Titan cheerleaders had a calendar for sale. I took a pass.


Above: They start them young in Pittsburgh.

Images by MOJO and taken with my Canon.

In person is better than on TV, or is it?

I traveled to Nashville TN this weekend to see the Tennessee Titans take on the Pittsburgh Steelers. Sportng events are so much more exciting in person that I like to go to one or two NFL games each year.

In person wasn't so hot this time. The Titans had seven turnovers -- seven! which makes for a lousy game. Vince Young had two interceptions where he threw the ball directly to the Pittsburgh player. The defender didn't even have to move. The Steeler QB wasn't much better.

Here are some shots from the game. I'll post a few more tomorrow.


Above: Best friends . . . until the game starts!


Above: Justin Gage hauls in a pass and runs for a first down. One of the few bright spots for the Titans.


Above: Pittsburgh fans will travel to see their beloved Steelers. Wherever they go, they have the "terrible towels" and aren't afraid to wave them.

I went to Nashville one day early (on Saturday) to take some photos of something else. I'll tell you later this week what the mystery is.

Images by MOJO and taken with my Canon.

The easy dollar

I traveled to Raleigh NC this past weekend for my live fantasy football draft. Most of them are bridge players, so after the draft, we pulled out the bidding boxes -- time to play some bridge. There were 8 of who stayed to play, so we drew cards for teams, then drew for partners. A team game!

We played eight boards, then redrew and played eight more. The process was repeated a third time, and we quit after 24 boards. In the old days, we would have played until 3 a.m., but we're older now.

The second round, declarer was in 6NT on this layout (low cards approximate):

                ♠ A K
                ♥ J 6 5 4
                ♦ K Q 10 9 8
                ♣ 6 4
==
                ♠ Q 7 2
                ♥ A Q 3
                ♦ A J 2
                ♣ A Q J 5

Declarer won the spade lead in dummy. He could see that if the club finesse worked, he would have 12 tricks. If it failed, he might have some rare squeeze, or he could finesse in hearts. Both hooks were off, down one.

Here are all four hands:

                ♠ A K
                ♥ J 6 5 4
                ♦ K Q 10 9 8
                ♣ 6 4
♠ 9 4 3                          ♠ J 10 8 6 5
♥ K 7 2                          ♥ 10 9 8
♦ 7 6 5                          ♦ 4 3
♣ K 10 7 3                       ♣ 9 8 2
                ♠ Q 7 2
                ♥ A Q 3
                ♦ A J 2
                ♣ A Q J 5

In the other room, the contract was the same, but declarer, Randy, was made of sterner stuff. He won the spade, and finessed the heart first. The hook lost, but when hearts divided 3-3, he had 12 tricks without finessing in clubs. We were playing for 10 cents an IMP, so this was worth a little more than $1 to me!

Are you ready for some football?

I traveled to Raleigh NC over the weekend. I lived there for 21 years and have been in the same fantasy football league since back in the Eighties. When we first started playing, fantasy football wasn't very well established and there was no internet, so we made up our own rules.

In our league, you play two QB, two kickers and one TE. We also play four RB and three WR, or four-three the other way. We draft six WR and six RB. There are 10 owners, so 60 of each are picked -- you're down to the stems and pieces at the end.

QB
Eli Manning, NYG
Joe Flacco, BAL
Josh Freeman, TB

RB
Michael Turner, ATL
Joseph Addai, IND
Reggie Bush, NO
Tim Hightower, AZ
Fred Jackson, BUF
Javon Ringer, TN

WR
Roddy White, ATL
Steve Smith, NYG
Percy Harvin, MN
Terrell Owens, CIN
Chris Chambers, KC
Jacoby Jones, HOU

TE
Jermichael Finley, GB
Kevin Boss

K
Stephen Gostkowski, NE
Billy Cundiff, BAL
Nick Folk, NYJ

Do you think I have a chance? Do you play? How does your team look?

Image taken by a player's wife with my P&S.

Good but not good enough

I played online last night with Notzia. On board #11, he held:
♠Q 5 2 ♥A K 6 3 2 ♦10 8 ♣A Q 7.

His right-hand opponent opened 1♣ and he overcalled 1♥. His LHO passed and I bid 1NT. What would you do?

Notzia raised to 2NT, a nice bid in my opinion. He knows I have constructive values and may have enough for game, but not enough to do more than bid 1NT. I raised to 3NT.

Now, let's suppose you are sitting East in the following diagram. Partner leads the ♠3.

                Dummy
                ♠ Q 5 2
                ♥ A K 6 3 2
                ♦ 10 8
                ♣ A Q 7
                                 You
                                 ♠ J 7 6
                                 ♥ 10 8 4
                                 ♦ Q 9 7 3
                                 ♣ 10 5 2

Declarer plays low, you put up the jack and South wins the ace. At trick two, he leads the ♥5, partner plays the 7, dummy the 2 and you?

Suppose you win the ♥8. Now what?

At my table, declarer shifted to the ♦4 -- good, but not good enough. Here are all four hands:

                ♠ Q 5 2
                ♥ A K 6 3 2
                ♦ 10 8
                ♣ A Q 7
♠ K 9 4 3                      ♠ J 7 6
♥ Q J 7                        ♥ 10 8 4
♦ A J 4                        ♦ Q 9 7 3
♣ J 8 3                        ♣ 10 5 2
                ♠ A 10 8
                ♥ 9 5
                ♦ K 6 5 2
                ♣ K 9 6 4

Do you notice anything? Yes, East could shift to the (not so obvious) queen, instead of the 3. Would you find that play? The ♦Q shift would allow the defense to take three diamonds on power (or four if I cover) to go with the heart and the ♠K. With the shift of a low diamond, I was able to duck and lose only two diamonds and make my contract.

Plus 400 was worth 3.72 IMPs. You can see all the results, if you click here.

Sights at a baseball park

The Gateway Arch in the background gives away any secret of where I was today. The St. Louis Cardinals played the Cincinnati Reds, their rival this year in the NL Central Division. I went with my two brothers and one of my sisters.

A holiday weekend, time at the ballpark, and the smell of food in the air is a terrific combination. The smell was hard to resist. Nothing's better that watching your favorite team and munching on something good. Besides the obligatory hot dogs, they had Philly cheese steaks, nachos, BBQ sandwiches and lots of cold drinks, ice cream and other stuff, too.

The temperature was around 80F -- just right for a baseball game.


Fredbird (above) is the official mascot.


The ground crew above keeps the field in good shape.


The Cards won 4-2 and Matt Holiday hit the winning home run.

Images by MOJO and taken with my Canon.

Blogger money!!

It's like a universal truth that there's no money as sweet as blogger money. Yeah, and for the next month I have Very Jose Poker Tournament bragging rights.

I think a tournament must take on the personality of its sponser -- in this case
Very Josie. It was perky and fun, just like she is.

At the end, I was heads up with Rakewell, and we battled forever. First he got lucky, then I got lucky. Neither of us could take out the other. On the last deal, we were all in pre-flop. He had ♠A ♥9 and I had ♥K ♦J, so he was a 57+% to 42+% favorite. The board ran out:
♣6 ♣J ♥3 ♥10 ♥2,
and my hand held. I didn't feel jubilation -- more like relief. Third-place went to Thorn in side, who played great, so congrats to him, too.


Rakewell had a Royal Flush. My best hand (above) was only measly quad aces. I play so well.


Above was a big hand. I had two players ahead of me go all in and I was looking at ♠K ♥K. Sure, I could have run into aces, but I'm not good enough to lay these cowboys down. Show me somebody who does that, and I'll show you a loser.