Aaron Haspel

The Gods Must Be Crazy

Nov 252002

None Vul
IMPs
Dealer: North
Lead: A

	kmb24 10 9 A J 8 5 A Q 9 K 10 7 3
cicatrix 7 5 3 2 Q 9 7 6 8 7 6 2 Q		Maestro Q 8 4 K 2 J 5 4 A J 9 6 5
	jdonn A K J 6 10 4 3 K 10 3 8 4 2

West

Pass
Pass

North
1

1NT
Pass

East
Pass
2

Pass

South
1

Dbl

Well, it’s another night on Planet Gee. Our hero, thanks, in part, to an unusually helpful partner, has dropped about 100 IMPs, and South, serial Gee partner and opponent Josh Donn, commiserates. “North/South are very inconsistent on weekends,” he says. Gee agrees ruefully as today’s hand comes up.

North’s 1D is a catch-all Precision bid, usually showing 11-15 points and 2+ diamonds. South’s 1S reply is natural, North’s 1NT rebid shows 14-16 balanced, and Gee’s 2C overcall is…well, I’m not quite sure how to describe it. Adventurous maybe. South, knowing the trump lie as favorably as possible for declarer, cracks a Bones double, which North is delighted to pass.

South leads the SA, gets a look at the dummy, and shifts to the D3. North wins the DA and shifts back to spades, Gee covering the 10 as South wins the king. South cashes the SJ and the DK and continues diamonds. North wins the queen, cashes the heart ace for the defense’s seventh trick, and exits with a heart. Gee unblocks the king under the ace, wins the second heart in dummy and leads the trump queen, which holds. He ruffs a heart in hand and both defenders follow, leaving this:

	kev — — — K 10 7
trix 7 6 8 —		Maestro — — — A J 9
	josh 6 — — 8 2

Since North’s 1NT rebid showed at least 14 points he is marked with the trump king. (Had Josh properly alerted his Bones double he would have provided another clue.) There is only one way not to make two tricks, and our hero finds it. He cashes the trump ace, then executes a Miami endplay, leading away from his J9 into North’s K10 to lose the last two tricks, for 800, with only the vulnerability standing between Gee and a two-logo hand.

Asked about the overcall, Gee replied, “Partner, since when we play correctly we get a minus, when they do they get a huge plus, I felt I had to do something outrageous and then maybe turn the cards around.” The bridge gods, perhaps partly appeased, take only another 20 IMPs from Gee before he retires for the evening.

Nov 242002

“I’m the biggest masterpoint winner in California, doesn’t that count for anything?”

Permalink November 24, 2002 No Responses »

Nov 242002

“It hurts when a regular partner falls for rumors and turns me down…especially when we have never lost a game together.”

Permalink November 24, 2002 No Responses »

Mini-D

Nov 212002

Both Vul
IMPs
Dealer: North
Lead: K

	petit_g K Q 4 2 4 J 8 4 2 K J 10 9
aric 6 K Q 10 8 6 2 Q 10 7 6 3 4		srul A 7 J 5 3 9 A Q 8 7 6 5 2
	Maestro J 10 9 8 5 3 A 9 7 A K 5 3

West

2
Pass
5
Pass

North
Pass
3

Pass
Pass

East
1

Dbl
Pass
Pass

South
1

Pass
Pass
Dbl

Today’s auction is perfectly normal, even unexceptionable, until srul’s 4H bid. (Some might double 1S with aric’s hand.) Our hero, having heard a limit spade raise from his partner, holds six trump, Axx in the opponents’ probable nine-card fit, first and second round diamond control, and a stiff in the opponents’ second suit. I would worry about missing slam. Gee passes.

Mini-Gee comes to the rescue with a not-really-warranted four spade call, which East doubles, speculatively, holding two defensive tricks. West properly pulls to 5H with his useless hand defensively, and back we come to our hero. It’s hard to imagine 5S not making if Mini-Gee has his 4S bid, and in fact it makes even though he doesn’t have it. (Declarer must play East for both club honors, which works.) But I guess if you pass four hearts you double five.

Mini gets off to the fine lead of the SK, killing an entry. A trump seems natural on the auction but two rounds of trump almost force declarer to make. He wins the second round in hand, finesses a club, ruffs a club, and has just enough entries to set up the clubs and cash them, making 5. On a trump lead Gee must duck to hold declarer to ten tricks.

But with the spade lead the contract looks hopeless. Declarer does the best he can, playing CA and a small club, hoping to find either defender with Kx, which is enough to make if trump break or the ace drops. Gee shows out on the second club lead: that’s the bad news. The good news is that he ruffs the second club lead, shortening himself to two trump.

Declarer overruffs and leads a diamond, ducked, correctly, by Mini, and won by Gee with the king. He now knows declarer’s hand is either 1-7-4-1 or 1-6-5-1. (Mini must have four spades on the bidding.) Therefore two rounds of trump are 100% certain to stick declarer with at least a second diamond loser and beat the hand.

Dear reader, you must know by now that Gee continues spades. Declarer ruffs the spade, then ruffs a diamond, a club, another diamond and another club. Diamonds break, so a trump off the board finishes the hand; thanks to the early, pointless ruff, Gee has but two trump remaining, to declarer’s three, and he can win the trump ace at his leisure.

“On that sort of auction, Efes,” says Gee, “it’s usually not a good idea to lead our suit.”

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Gee

Nov 192002

Both Vul
MPs
Dealer: West
Lead: 9

	e48400 K 6 4 2 A J 7 K 10 7 6 10 4
francis A 9 3 10 6 4 3 2 2 K Q 9 7		Maestro 8 Q 9 8 5 A Q 9 8 3 J 6 5
	howies Q J 10 7 5 K J 5 4 A 8 3 2

West
Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass

North
Pass
2

Dbl
3NT

East
Pass
2

Pass
Pass

South
1

Pass
2

Pass

Bridge, it cannot be overstressed, is a cooperative game. And on defense communication is essential. Today’s hand shows Gee and his partner in a seamless performance, each contributing mightily to achieve the result that they deserve.

South applies the rule of 15 and opens a subminimum 1S in fourth seat. North, the aptly named e48400, bids reverse Drury, and our hero, East, throws in a rather irresponsible 2D vulnerable overcall, with South unlimited, partner possibly broke, and 47 losers. On the layout, 2DX is down only 2 on best play, which loses most of the matchpoints but not quite as many as the actual result. (It would be prescient but not impossible for West to run to hearts.)

2D is passed around to North, whose double looks like penalty to me but is taken out to 2S by his partner. North figures, incorrectly, that his partner’s hand is unsuited to defense and, hoping for long runnable spades, takes a wild stab at 3NT, which is where we end up.

Gee kicks off the defensive communications by leading the H9. This communicates a heart honor and length in the suit. Wait. It doesn’t? OK, never mind. It does show the eight though. Probably.

Declarer wins HK and plays spades. West ducks the first round and wins the second, as Gee discards the H5, eliminating the remote possibility of West returning a heart, which beats the contract two tricks. Had Gee kept his hearts and discarded one of his useless diamonds instead, West might have bothered to count the hand, placed North with the diamond ace or king for his notrump bid, and concluded that Gee must have a heart honor for his overcall and was leading from an “interior sequence.”

A club return still beats the contract a trick; but if declarer holds J10x it is a disaster. So West, suboptimally but understandably, leads his partner’s suit. Our hero wins the DQ and thinks matters over. North is marked with the DK for his 3NT bid. He has already shown up with SK, HA and probably HJ as well. Either club honor makes 13 points and an opening hand. Partner holds KQ of clubs, therefore, and two club tricks, two diamond tricks and a spade put the contract to bed. There’s only one thing to do: he returns a low diamond.

A grateful declarer wins the D10 and promptly plays a diamond back, establishing a second diamond for nine tricks. Communication, that’s what I’m saying. Gerard couldn’t have done it without Francis, and Francis couldn’t have done it without Gerard.

The Best Line

Nov 152002

Both Vul
IMPs
Dealer: West
Lead: A

	Maestro Q J 9 7 6 — A K 5 A K Q 10 2
dond 3 10 9 8 7 5 9 3 J 9 8 7 5		otherguy K 5 4 2 A 3 J 10 8 6 6 4 3
	re34 A 10 8 K Q J 6 4 2 Q 7 4 2 —

West
Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass

North
1

4NT
7

Pass

East
Pass
Pass
Pass
Dbl

South
2

Pass

I often hear complaints that I never show Gerard in a favorable light. Of course most of those complaints are from Gerard himself, but fair enough. Today’s hand, on which Gee, as declarer, takes an unusual but optimal line, not once, but twice, should quiet the nay-sayers for a while.

The bidding, too, has points of interest. Gee opens his superb hand a normal 1S in second seat and hears a game-forcing 2H response from his partner. He rebids 3C and his partner jumps to 4S, showing three-card support. 5NT, the grand slam force, asking partner to bid a grand with two of the top three trump honors, is the forced choice for those of us with only standard bidding arsenals. Gee launches into RKC Voidwood, the Cohen treatment. Ordinary Voidwood has special bids for responder to show voids as well as keycards. Cohen Voidwood, on the other hand, is a method allowing the asker to show a void. (Note that the void is not guaranteed, and the suit is not specified.)

Partner replies 5C, showing one keycard, and Gee leaps to 7S, giving N/S a rare chance at a freely bid grand missing both of the top trumps. This is just as promptly doubled by East, who holds both of the missing key cards and has a certain trump trick assuming dummy has no more than three.

East leads the HA. Gee ruffs in hand and now needs only to bring the trump suit in to make. He leads the SQ. It holds. Gee infers that trump are breaking and the king is onside, and claims. Indisputably the optimal line, but no luck: East declines. Another trump to the 10 reveals the bad news. And now the key play: a high heart from dummy, discarding a small diamond from hand, killing his outside entry. A pedestrian player would still survive for down 1 by continuing hearts until East ruffed in. Gee takes a more elegant approach. First he cashes the trump ace, removing his last entry to dummy. Then he plays hearts. East ruffs in, and Gee claims down 1, again optimally. This second misclaim has a real chance to work — it’s certainly better than the alternative, hoping East returns a club — but East unfortunately notes that he can return a diamond, sticking Gee with a club loser at the end. Down 2, one off for each superb play. Life is so unfair sometimes.

Hitting the Gee Spot

Nov 122002

Both Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead: 10

	mytmouse 10 9 7 5 J 10 4 2 10 9 6 3 5
Maestro Q 6 4 A 6 5 A K Q 7 5 7 3		sophie A K 8 3 K 8 3 J K Q J 9 4
	snag J 2 Q 9 7 8 4 2 A 10 8 6 2

West

1NT
Pass

North

Pass
Pass

East

6NT

South
Pass
Pass

We can absolve our hero of any malfeasance in today’s auction at least. East’s leap to 6NT is perhaps a trifle rash, when we consider that the seven or eight missing points might include two aces, or likelier, and worse, the ace and king of diamonds. Six clubs, six spades and even six hearts may be better than 6NT, and there are several levels and available bids to find out. 6NT does rate to play better than 6D, however.

But 6NT turns out to be a superb contract, and we aren’t here to talk about the bidding anyway. Declarer has eleven tricks after he knocks out the club ace, and many possibilities for a twelfth. Diamonds can break, spades can break, the club ten can drop, and there are squeeze chances all over the joint. I make the contract in the hands of a competent declarer about 95%.

Of course it is Gee who is declaring. The S10 is led, and Gee goes right to work on severing his communications. He wins in hand with the queen, leads a low diamond to dummy’s jack, and crosses back to his hand with the HA, removing his last entry. He now cashes two top diamonds, carefully discarding a spade first and then a heart, preserving the crucial fifth club. Both defenders follow.

The reader who says to himself at this point that the contract is making anyway underestimates the master. Gee cashes a fourth diamond, discarding a club finally as South does the same, and shifts to the C3, stranding his fifth good diamond in hand. (The alert reader will note that the C3 is not next to the diamond, but one card removed. This weakens the motor impairment defense.) Unlucky again: the club ten doesn’t drop, and it didn’t matter that he killed his spade threat because spades don’t break anyway.

Gee’s line requires that diamonds break (or if they don’t, that the defender with the CA is short diamonds), and that the C10 drop. We add in the 1% and change that the club ace is stiff onside and arrive at 32% or so. So our Gee spot becomes 95% – 32% = 63%, or 63. Not bad, but not 100. The search continues.

The Blackboard Jungle

Nov 092002

Both Vul
IMPs
Dealer: East
Lead: K

	petit_g 10 A 9 4 2 Q 10 8 2 A 10 6 5
janiner 9 6 3 K 10 9 7 K Q J 7 4 3		justinl K 7 5 4 7 6 5 A K J 5 3 9
	Maestro A Q J 8 2 Q J 8 3 6 4 8 2

West

Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass

North

1NT
3
Pass
Pass

East
1

Pass
Pass
Dbl

South
1

Pass

Bridge teaching is difficult. Ordinarily keeping your student’s spirits up produces the best results, but sometimes, as in today’s hand, harsher measures are called for.

Proceedings begin innocuously, with a standard diamond opener by Seaman Lall, East, and a 1S overcall by Gee. Mini-Gee replies 1NT, passed back to our hero, who without hesitation bids 2H. Mini, under the impression that this shows a good hand, and holding four-card support and a maximum, naturally enough invites with 3H; Gee reevaluates his loser-rich, already immensely overbid hand and plunges fearlessly into game. A Bones double by the Seaman, holding two defensive tricks at most opposite a partner who has shown nothing, ends the auction.

West leads the club king and recriminations begin immediately.

Gerard: why 3H, efes?
G: just pass 2H
petit_g: god knows how many u got.. i limited my hand with 1 nt..why 4
petit_g: ????????????
G: yes you know
G: 1S then 2H …. can’t have much
petit_g: how do i know?? 3h is a free bid… and don’t have more than 10 for sure [He must mean 2H. —Ed.]
G: not true efes
petit_g: yes u cant have 17+
G: no, I can’t… I can’t even have 13
petit_g: why not??????????
petit_g: u r not a passed hand
G: what would I rebid with more than 12 points? [I give up. What? —Ed.]
petit_g: changing colour actually shows opening or more
G: no, efes… I am only the crew
petit_g: if u dont have much pass 3h, if i pass ur 2 h and we have a game i will be responsible
G: 1S then 2H is as weak as it comes
petit_g: yes if u r a passed hand
G: no, efes
petit_g: well ok then i am sorry i am not understanding
petit_g: i don’t understand this game

Gee bites his tongue and declares to his customary standard. He wins the club lead and plays S10. If he overtakes with the jack, playing the Seaman for the spade king, which he is a big favorite to hold, he goes down 1. He ruffs a spade and plays a low club. The defenders get their two diamonds and one trump but that’s all. Gee, however, makes the key play of the spade ace, leaving himself a spade loser in the endgame for down 2, -500, and a less than satisfactory result. Out comes the hickory switch:

G: proof is in the pudding… we just made 2
petit_g: u wanna be captain in all seats… its not fair… u r telling me my bidding and playing is wrong in front of all… when u r right, u r right but not this time sorry
G: oh no… dont start that with me, efes
petit_g: ok sorry…

Uh oh. Criticizing Gee’s bidding is one thing, but taking captaincy theory in vain will not be treated lightly.

G: what did I say 5 minutes ago?
justinl: come on guys, this is just a fun game, lets all relax a bit
G: that in this auction I was just the crew
petit_g: sorry and ty all
petit_g i cannot concentrate when u do this to me
G: I did not do anything to you
G: you are doing it to yourself
petit_g: i have not made any mistake at all… when I do i accept… but i am your pd… am i not?
G: you made an error, fine… just trying to tell you where
petit_g: no it is not an error… pls check… u cannot say it is… it was totally right
petit_g: and u criticize when i do.. but dont when i dont
G: you were right because you can’t see or refuse to see where you were wrong
G: I criticized you?
G: you told me I wanted to be captain in all hands
G: that’s criticizing you?
G: that’s you criticizing me
G: you bid wrong… and I told you you did
petit_g: my bid is very very very right 100 percent… if not i dont wanna play this game coz i know nothin
G: can’t you take that and try to understand?
G: no, efes
G: you can believe whatever you want… your 3H was wrong
G: now… are you gonna calm down?
petit_g: ok it was wrong.. this is how i play this game… pls accept
G: not if you play with me nor any really knowledgeable patner.. that means expert partner
G: do that to an expert and you are out the table [Ummm…”out the table”? —Ed.]
Spec #1: once you criticize your partner in front of everyone who not only has have one opponent you have three
G: I DID NOT DO THAT TO YOU, DID I?

Charity begins at home.

petit_g: i think u were distracted with the bidding…
G: you want to play with me, you play correct… not the Efes way
petit_g: i am sure u had a phone or something…
Gerard: again.. attacking me instead of accepting what I am telling you!!!!
petit_g: i am not attacking u.. u teach me all i know.. why should i?
Gerard: best way to defend yourself is beat me down to the ground… like aaron?

Wait a second. How’d I get involved in this?

G: you made a bad bid, efes
petit_g: pls calm down… sorry… i will leave…
G: I explained why
petit_g: just be ok and thats enuf
G: can’t you accept that without attacking me?
G: that’s ok… I’ll quit
G: efes.. your stubbornness will not help your game
G: oops he left

Oops. Still, discipline has been restored.

Nov 082002

Dross writes:

With two months to go, Gerard is winning masterpoints at a blistering pace. His 82 points YTD is nearly double his closest competitor in his unit’s Mini-McKenney Sectional Master (50 to 100 MPs) Race. A good showing in Phoenix will secure his title.

Thanks Doug.

Nov 072002

Dear Dr. Robert:

Does Gerard really believe he’s an expert? Or does he think, deep down, that he just can’t play this game at all?

–A Tyro

Ty,

Of course he really believes he’s an expert. He is an expert. However, Gerard has been, for some time, playing an elaborate confidence game on the rest of the bridge world. Several years ago he perfected his game. With nothing left to learn, he grew bored. And to create a new challenge, he began, with the aid of a few trusted conspirators, known in public as “students,” to try to convince the world that he is, in reality, awful.

The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. Could anyone compress defensive tricks at such an astonishing rate without knowing the location of every card in the deck? Could your everyday Joe misplay hands so regularly without a solid grounding in the fundamentals of declarer play? Could you or I misbid so consistently if we didn’t know what the correct bid was in the first place? Of course not! So the next time you sit down to oppose Gerard, remember this: He is toying with you, the way children pull the wings off flies, and if he wanted to beat you, oh he would. He certainly would.

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