None Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead: 
2
wzheng Q 8 7 6 3 2 Q J 8 6 A 6 2 |
||
| tahirb A K 3 K J 7 3 2 K J 10 7 4 |
![[W - E]](http://gee.aaronhaspel.com/files/2012/10/t.gif) |
wildcats J 10 9 5 4 10 4 Q 9 4 A 8 5 |
| Maestro K A 9 7 5 2 10 8 6 5 Q 9 3 |
| West
1 |
North
2 |
East
Pass |
South Pass Pass Dbl Pass |
I have emphasized in this column many times the importance of judgment in expert play. A rule that an STCP™ might treat as an iron law is, for experts, a mere heuristic. Like the rule that you’re not supposed to be double a part-score at IMPs if you expect to beat it only one or two at the most. Nonsense. Real experts pay no mind to that sissy stuff.
Like many thrilling adventures today’s auction begins in deceptive calm. West opens a normal 1D and North makes a normal, non-vulnerable weak 2S overcall opposite a passed hand. This is passed back to West, who reopens with 3C with his excellent two-suiter. East, holding too little to bid the first time but too much to take a simple diamond preference, invites with 4D. Once again it’s up to our hero.
Gee holds one certain defensive trick, HA, and a half trick or so in each of the other three suits. His partner has promised nothing on defense. E/W may yet bid 5D. The cowardly intermediate would pass and await developments. The courageous expert, trusting his defense and table feel, seizes the moment and doubles. East reseizes the moment and redoubles.
North leads the S2. West wins the SA, and a low trump brings the stiff DA. A heart is returned — nothing else helps — and it’s a simple matter, on the bidding, to guess the location of the CQ for the overtrick. Our hero is unlucky again: if North had held a small diamond instead of the stiff ace, then the strategic double of 4D would have kept E/W out of a cold diamond slam. What’s that I hear my expert readers saying? If East had held the DA he wouldn’t have passed the 2S bid? 4DXX making 6 scores more than 6D anyway? Oh. Right. Never mind.
Gee was indeed courageous, if a trifle short of defense, to hit 4D, but take note: once again he has invented a conventional application at the table! In this case it is that of a Stripe-Tailed Chimpanzee Double, a punishment of a partscore in order to keep the opponents from bidding a game. When the double was shipped back at him he realised instinctively that this hand was an exception, and that it would be unwise to run to partner’s 6 card suit; indeed 4SX would find a D lead, a likely trump to the K and A, and a D pump. Now declarer would cash the SQ, wipe the detritus from his shirtfront, and hook the heart, losing to the K. Now a C to the A would allow all declarer’s trumps to be drawn before the defense claims, a Miami endpickle resulting in 4SX making ten tricks — for the defense. Gee was a gee-nius for avoiding down 7 for 17 bones, and minus 920 was a victory (albeit somewhat pyrrhic) since Gee’s partner could hardly be expected to hold the A of the opponent’s trump suit. It is astounding how often Gee’s partner’s have holdings that negate his sometimes brilliant forays at the table, suggesting that the worst thing about Gee’s game is his horrible bad luck.
The tactical-optional double: It’s easy to blame Gee for all the bad results he encounters, but if we look carefully at the auction we’ll see that his double can’t be pure penalty — he passed twice, how can he have 4 defensive tricks? Surely his double was optional and it’s all his partner’s fault — he should’ve bid 4H, great contract, 9 tricks and hey, who’s going to bid 5D now??