Aaron Haspel

To Cover or Not to Cover

Oct 142002

Both Vul
IMPs
Dealer: East
Lead: A

	timo K 8 5 3 2 10 4 4 3 Q 9 5 2
laurel Q 7 K 9 7 3 A K J 2 K 10 8		kayla J 4 A Q 8 6 5 10 6 5 6 4 3
	Maestro A 10 9 6 J 2 Q 9 8 7 A J 7

West

1NT
Pass
Pass

North

2
Pass
Pass

East
Pass
2NT
4

South
1

Pass

Yesterday we had a brief respite, a hand where Gee’s play, though bad, was possibly the best at the table. We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

The score was tied in a team game when today’s hand came down, the last in a ten-board match.

The bidding is pretty normal. N/S go down 1 in three spades, but East, with most of the opponents’ high cards marked, takes a flyer at the heart game.

Gee leads the SA and continues spades. Timo, North, wins the second spade and shifts to a club; Gee cashes his ace and leads another. Now declarer, after pulling trump in two rounds, needs four diamond tricks to make: how do you play the suit?

The book says you play the ace and finesse the jack on the second round if the queen doesn’t drop; this wins against Qxx or Qx onside, or a singleton queen in either hand, for around 30%. In this case, however, Gee is almost certainly marked with the DQ for his opening bid; N/S have 16 points and Timo has already shown up with the spade king and a club honor. Furthermore Gee can have no more than six cards in the majors, so with seven in the minors he must have at least four diamonds.

Is it hopeless? Not quite. Declarer leads the D10; and Gee, holding Q987 and looking at AKJx in dummy, plays low. Declarer repeats the finesse and claims. Now it might look to STCPs™ like me that the contract always goes down as long as Gee covers the 10; it even looks that way to Timo, who asks Gee why he didn’t. “It didn’t matter,” Gee explains, “because she could ruff the fourth round of diamonds anyway.”

Oct 142002

Last night Gee readmitted me to spec! I was speccing Mini-Gee, minding my own business the way you readers know I always do, when Gee came along, seated himself at the table, noticed me in spec, and informed me, apropos of nothing, that I could stay. I was warned, however, that this was a suspension, not a commutation, of my life sentence. I prepared a nice hand in honor of this; but say hello while I last.

Bones Redouble

Oct 132002

N/S Vul
IMPs
Dealer: West
Lead: J

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

West
1

Pass

North
Pass
Dbl
Pass

East
1NT
Rdbl

South
2

Pass

Today, for once, a hand on which Gee’s partner really does sell him down the river. No, really.

Gee, South, at unfavorable vulnerability, makes a reasonable 2C bid over West’s 1S opener and East’s forcing notrump. Double is the other choice, but the awful hearts could easily put you down 500 in 2H against a part score the other way.

Mini-Gee, North, doubles West’s 2S for penalties, which is fine but for the fact that you have to back up bids like that with actual defense. Seaman Lall promptly redoubles, alerting it to the specs as a Bones Redouble. We owe this modern extension of the Bones Principle™ to Ira Chorush. It can be enumerated as follows: When Gee doubles a freely bid contract for penalties, always redouble, relying on a combination of errors in judgment and defense. It will prove to be a profitable action 90% of the time.

Justin’s alert, then, was erroneous, as it was Mini-Gee, not Gee, who doubled. But since the contract is a part score, perhaps we could safely call it a miniature Bones Redouble.

The contract looks to be off 2 on casual inspection, and Mini gets the defense off to a fine start by leading the CJ. Gee cashes two clubs and gives his partner a third round ruff with his lowest club, the 3. I’m not sure what this means in the strange world of Roman carding, but ordinarily it would ask for a diamond shift. Mini takes his ruff, ponders the layout, and leads a low heart.

Now the hand is cold. Simply play the HK and lead another high heart back, discarding a diamond. The second diamond loser goes on the remaining heart, and declarer loses two clubs, a ruff, a trump, and a heart, making 2.

But West, in a fit of generosity, lets the heart run around to his queen, sticking himself in hand and giving the defense another chance. His best chance now is to cash three rounds of trump and throw North in with a fourth round, hoping he will try to cash his HA instead of shifting to diamonds. Instead he plays three rounds of trump and leads a diamond. North plays the 9 and declarer ducks in dummy. Gee now makes his one defensive error of the hand and it’s a beauty: knowing that his partner holds DQ and HA and that a diamond return will always beat the contract, he lets the D9 hold, allowing his partner to try to cash the heart. Sure enough, North, who can also mark his partner for the DK, plays the HA, and the Bones Redouble cashes in for 640.

I apportion blame for this catastrophe 80%-20% N/S. Declarer earns demerits for nearly allowing a cold hand to get away and dummy, Seaman Lall, for an incorrect alert of an unsound redouble. Gee’s sins look minor by comparison, and it’s only fair that he should be the hero every once in a while.

Logo Sac

Oct 122002

Both Vul
MPs
Dealer: South
Lead: 3

	lornic J 10 7 A 8 J 8 7 5 2 8 3 2
a-yummy — K 10 5 4 3 Q 10 9 4 K 10 6 4		sauron 8 6 5 3 J 6 2 A K A J 9 5
	Maestro A K Q 9 4 2 Q 9 7 6 3 Q 7

West

Pass
3
Pass

North

2
Pass
Pass

East

Dbl
4
Pass

South
1

Pass
Pass

Sacrificing used to be a simple matter of comparing the points you expect to lose by passing with the points you expect to lose by bidding, and acting accordingly. In today’s hand, for instance, Gee, South, opens a spade in first chair and hears a pass from West and a spade raise from his partner. East doubles, West, who ought to bid 4H straightaway, bids 3H, and East, who has no business raising hearts, raises to game anyway. Sometimes two wrongs do make a right.

Back to our hero. Does he sac?

Let us reason together. With a 2-2 spades break unlikely on the auction, South holds about 1 1/2 defensive tricks, which means North needs 2 1/2 more to beat four hearts. Not happening.

So how many tricks do N/S take in spades? Nine is the normal expectation; it sounds like North has a stiff heart. Ten is conceivable, and fewer than eight is just about impossible. Down 2 doubled is 500, vs. 620 or 650, so you sacrifice, right?

Wrong: you pass. Sure, West eventually finds the CQ and loses just two trump for 98% of the matchpoints, but there are more serious considerations:

a-yummy: lucky i think
Spec #1: crash test helmet
G: I swear I was about to bid 4S but I did not want to hear about bones double tomorrow morning
Spec #2: lol
Spec #1: excuses
G: you guys feed the ego of that maniac by sending him stuff he can hit me with
Spec #2: oh man
Spec #3: lol
Spec #4: pills stopped working
Spec #1: the only maniac with an ego is the one we are currently watching
Spec #3: rofl
Spec #5: we are looking for sympathy here?
Spec #5: it seems like the wrong place to me :)
G: I cannot play bridge under fear… I’d better stop after this hand… I am not playing my game
Spec #6: sigh
Spec #1: fear?
G: I am playing the game of that a**h*** aaron
Spec #5: anxiety attack — anyone have any prozac?

The pass, then, if I understand it correctly, hedges against the possibility of another Bones Principle logo appearing on the site, and what looks like a refusal to sacrifice turns out, in fact, to a be a deeper sacrifice — a logo sac, as it were. And just as I thought I was starting to figure this game out…

Balancing Without a Net

Oct 112002

N/S Vul
IMPs
Dealer: North
Lead: 3

	laurel K 8 7 3 Q 9 5 2 8 6 K 6 2
samik 9 6 2 K 8 7 6 10 3 A J 8 5		jdonn A J J 4 3 K Q 9 2 Q 10 7 3
	Gerard Q 10 5 4 A 10 A J 7 5 4 9 4

West

Dbl
2
Pass
Pass

North
Pass
1NT
Pass
Pass
Pass

East
1

Pass
Pass
3

South
1

Pass
2

Pass

Every call is normal today until West’s 2C is passed around to Gee. Does he pass? Nah, E/W have about half the points, why sell out to two lousy clubs? OK, does he bid 2D? Well, his partner implied a diamond doubleton, but she could have just one, that seems problematic. Yet partner did promise something in the majors with her 1NT bid…clearly there’s only one answer: yes, it’s 2S, on Q10xx, the passed-hand balancing reverse, with two and a half twists from the pike position.

Again Gee’s masterly table feel has landed his side in their best fit. East, staggered, manages to recover in time to compete to 3C on nothing in particular — although I don’t blame him for bidding something, anything, on that auction — and there the matter ends. 3C has no chance against ordinary defense, but unorthodox bidding often calls for unorthodox play. Gee opens the HA, ignores his partner’s encouraging 5, and shifts to the DA and another diamond. This is the end of the defense. Declarer wins the second diamond and plays trump ace and another trump. (North now has no way to get to South’s hand for a diamond ruff to kill one of declarer’s discards. This is the vital importance of cashing the HA at trick 1.) He wins the spade return, draws the last trump, tosses two hearts on the diamonds, and claims.

STCPs™ should pause here to ponder the exquisite timing involved. The heart ace and another heart will defeat the contract. So too will the diamond ace and another diamond (provided North finds the heart shift). Only the alert defender who thinks to lead both aces can allow the hand to make. Be honest now: did you expect anything less?

How Did That Happen?

Oct 102002

None Vul
IMPs
Dealer: West
Lead: 3

	laurel A Q J 8 J 8 7 6 3 Q 9 2 4
sauron K 7 6 4 K 10 2 7 3 9 7 6 2		jdonn 10 3 2 9 4 K J 5 Q J 8 5 3
	Maestro 9 5 A Q 5 A 10 8 6 4 A K 10

West
Pass
Pass
Dbl
Pass

North
Pass
4

Pass
Pass

East
1NT
Pass
Pass
Pass

South
Dbl
Pass
Rdbl

You ever hear a score and wonder to yourself, “How did that happen?” I do all the time. So when I was told that Gee lost an eight-board team game 31-12, I had to wonder, “How did he win 12 IMPs?” Here’s how.

Today’s hand was reported to me by one of the participants, one might even say the principal culprit, jdonn, and I can do no better than to let him tell it.

“I get the party started,” Josh writes, “with a 1NT psyche 3rd seat, knowing Gee is bound to have a good hand and doesn’t have a penalty double available. He doubles to show a single suiter (though I hesitate to call those diamonds a ‘suit’) and his partner bids…4 hearts!?!?! Personally I would be worried that my partner’s suit might be clubs, but that’s just me.

“Gerard uses his famous table feel to work out to pass 4 hearts, not playing his partner for anything like his bid (Axxx K109xxxx x x or the like, which leaves me room for a 16 count and might explain his partner’s initial pass). I would of course be playing my partner for Jxxxx as well on this auction. Anyway my partner quite reasonably decides to double, not knowing what they or I am up to. Laurel now decides that even though Jxxxx opposite no hint of support is good enough to triple jump to game, AQJx isn’t good enough to run to when the first suit gets doubled.

“Gerard now ships it back. Interesting how a hand that last round didn’t consider itself good enough to explore to the 5 level becomes absolutely confident of making 4, when his only new information is that the opponents have doubled him. I consider a run to 5 clubs but quickly decide that will only make things worse (indeed, despite my partner’s club support, I am on a diamond guess for down 6/7 in 5 clubs doubled). So I suck it up for -1080.

“The post mortem sheds little light on their adventurous auction.

jdonn: sorry partner, I thought you had opened 1 diamond. I need to go to bed and get my vision checked :o
Sauron: no problem partner
Sauron: strange bidding by opps as well, X as single suit
Sauron: and then 4H from hell
Gerard: yes… we play DONT
Gerard: not sure where the 4h comes from:-)
Laurel: do we play dont?
Laurel: lolllllllllllllllllllllllll
Laurel: i thought we played capp
Gerard: was happy to hear 4h anyway:-)

“I, still reeling, and wondering how 4H is any better opposite a capp double than a dont double, will take a nap now.”

At least it wasn’t sticks & wheels.

The Hangmen Cometh

Oct 092002

None Vul
MPs
Dealer: West
Lead: 6

	classact 8 6 3 A 2 Q 9 5 2 A Q 8 6
petit_g K J 9 7 2 K 9 7 10 8 4 K 5		Maestro 4 10 8 5 3 A J 7 6 3 J 10 2
	a-yummy A Q 10 5 Q J 6 4 K 9 7 4 3

West
Pass
1

Pass
2

Pass
Pass

North
1

Pass
Pass
Pass
Dbl

East
Pass
1NT
2

Pass

South
1

Dbl
Pass
Pass
Pass

Today we have the remarkable spectacle of a balancer being hanged by his partner and hanging him in return. And this is just the beginning.

The auction cannot be faulted through Mini-Gee’s 1S overcall. Gee’s 1NT, though brave, shows, to most, something other than a six count and a stiff in the suit of his passed-hand partner.

The double scuttles what is left of Gee’s courage, as the words “Bones Principle”* thunder through his mind like a herd of charging elephants across the Serengeti. He pulls to 2D.

Over this Mini-Gee, with three cards in both reds, finds the imaginative bid of 2H, pulling to the suit his partner didn’t bid. Your basic expert would be ecstatic to find a 4-4 heart fit to play at the two level; not Gee. He persists with 3D, off 3 doubled for 500 and a stone matchpoint zero.

What possessed Mini-Gee to bid 2H with K97 remains a mystery. Perhaps they play transfers here — an unusual treatment, considering that the opponents have already bid two suits, including hearts, but one never knows. And although to the STCP™ it looks like Mini-Gee could have a stiff or void in diamonds, Gee divines Mini’s error (table feel!) and pulls to the superior 3D contract. What looks like luck is in fact a calculated risk by an expert to improve the contract.

Three brilliant bids in sequence, poor Gee still nets a bottom. Some days it just doesn’t pay a guy to get out of bed.

*Although the Bones Principle did not come directly into play, its specter was enough to affect the hand. Hence, a logo.

Oct 092002

“Learn to respect your opps…you will not be a champion until you learn how to do that…gambling against great players is a losing proposition.”

—lecturing Mini-Gee while playing against a high school and a college student

Permalink October 9, 2002 No Responses »

Oct 092002

“If only I could make him study conventions so he knows what he is playing, we could make a good guy out of him.”

—discussing his protege, Mini-Gee

Permalink October 9, 2002 No Responses »

The Master’s Way

Oct 082002

E/W Vul
IMPs
Dealer: West
Lead: Q

	pq2 8 7 4 5 3 K Q 10 4 A K 9 7
devil Q 3 Q J 8 7 9 8 5 3 2 5 4		domminae A J 9 6 5 A A 6 Q J 6 3 2
	Maestro K 10 2 K 10 9 6 4 2 J 7 10 8

West
Pass
Pass
2

Dbl

North
1

Pass
Pass
Pass

East
1

Dbl
Pass
Pass

South
2

Pass
3

Pass

Today we are doubly fortunate, with lessons from the bidding and the play. North in first seat opens 1C instead of 1D, for reasons that elude me. East makes a pretty ordinary 1S overcall. Now our hero has a problem. He lacks the strength for a 2H free bid, yet, as we know, it is never correct to make a negative double with a five-card suit, let alone a six-bagger. Passing never enters the expert mind. What to do? Make the free bid anyway. West is happy to defend, and North, too, presciently passes this ordinarily forcing bid. East reopens with a double, and West wisely ignores his diamonds in favor of supporting with Qx of spades. 2S probably makes, but our hero won’t settle for -110. The STCP™ who doesn’t have his bid in the first place pulls in his horns: the expert rebids his suit.

West’s double of 3H is not Bones, as some readers may assume. Sure, Gee is declaring, but West has a hand, and has heard an auction, that would prompt a double under normal circumstances. One can argue, of course, that under normal circumstances we would not have heard today’s auction at all.

West leads the SQ, ducked to declarer’s SK. Gee leads the DJ; East wins the ace and cashes two spades, West discarding a club on the second one. Gee ruffs the fourth round of spades with the nine; West overruffs with jack and shifts to a club, won by Gee in dummy as West shows an even count. He leads a low trump, which isn’t optimal but is as good as anything else on the layout. East wins the stiff ace and leads another club. West ruffs and returns a diamond.

Gee leads a trump from dummy, East showing out. Now he hesitates, and hesitates some more, and finally ducks, for -500. The beauty of this play does not lie in the mere fact that he lost the trump count; this can happen to anyone, although to some more than others. It lies in Gee’s absolute assurance that there was more than one trump out. After all, if you had any doubt, since there’s no reason to force the defense to take its “winner” now, wouldn’t you play the HK to be on the safe side? You and I would. That is not the master’s way.

Older Entries Newer Entries