“I am playing worse and worse by the day.”
Aug 042002
Aaron Haspel
Aug 032002
Both Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead: 
3
justinl K Q 9 5 4 3 2 Q 7 4 2 — 10 8 |
||
| O_Bones 6 K J 9 6 3 4 3 2 A K Q 9 |
![[W - E]](http://gee.aaronhaspel.com/files/2012/10/t.gif) |
misu J 10 8 7 A 10 5 A J 9 7 6 3 |
| Maestro A 8 K Q 10 8 5 J 7 6 5 4 2 |
| West
1 |
North
3 |
East
4 |
South Pass 4 Pass |
Is he banned or isn’t he? Apparently O_Bones had (I use the past tense advisedly) a special exemption to join Gee’s table, provided he opposed him, of which he and Misu took advantage last night for a short but exciting grudge match against Gee and notorious Texas juvenile Justin Lall.
The first four hands were uneventful; and then this was dealt. Bones opens a perfectly sound 1H, and Justin makes a frisky but defensible vulnerable overcall of 3S. Misu makes the obvious raise to 4H. Now to Gee. He has a stiff spade A, indicating that the opponents may well have two spade losers. His diamonds figure to be worth no more than a trick on offense, with no entries save the spade, and worth that same trick on defense. His stiff heart indicates that trump may break badly for the opposition, yet he has no ruffing value. He adds all this up and comes to the obvious conclusion: bid the spade game. This is passed around to Misu, who has three defensive tricks opposite an opening hand and doubles. “Bones Principle,” types Bones to the specs, but this is perhaps not a classical application. If Misu had, say, 1/2 a defensive trick, and doubled anyway, then the Bones Principle would more properly apply.
Misu opens his stiff club and Justin surveys the dummy with, one surmises, some disappointment. “Interesting,” he remarks diplomatically. Bones wins the first two rounds of clubs with the queen and ace, Misu sluffing a low diamond on the second round, and makes the crucial error of shifting the H3. Misu is forced to win the H10, and two subsequent rounds of hearts set up Justin’s queen. He winds up down 800 instead of the 1100 the defense could have had if Bones had returned the HJ or H9.
“Sorry, missed stix & wheels,” says Bones to his partner after the hand, which is perhaps, just after beating the opponents for 7 IMPs, not in the best possible taste. The following colloquy ensues:
G: ugh bones… was unexpected that my partner made a pre-emptive overcall with 7 and a 4-card suit
misu: actually 8card suit wasn’t it?
misu: oh no 7
G: no enough of that BS, bones
G: I don’t take it lightly
O_Bones: what?
G: insulting me will not get you anywhere
misu: huh?
justinl: stix and wheels is a common term… don’t think he was badmouthing you G
O_Bones: what you chirping about now gee?
O_Bones has been disconnected.
justinl: i say it all the time
misu: gee what’s wrong?
misu: he should have returned the heart 9 and we would have got 1100
misu: that’s all he meant
O_Bones has joined the table.
O_Bones: correct
justinl: G, really don’t think it was meant as an insult, he could have beaten me 1100
G: no, that’s not all he meant
O_Bones: apologised to my pard for my weak defense
G: he meant he would have had something to add to aaron’s website to demonstrate how ridicule [sic] I am
O_Bones: we got only 8 BONES instead of stix & wheels, due to my defensive slip
G: end of the game all
justinl: let’s just give bones the benefit of the doubt and move on please, ok?
G: sorry justin
G: bye
justinl: bye
Fair-minded person that I am, I propose a compromise: I publish the hand on my site anyway, but without the customary Sticks & Wheels logo. Is everyone OK with that?
Aug 022002
E/W Vul
IMPs
Dealer: West
Lead: 2
| billyyeh A K Q K Q J 3 10 9 4 A 10 6 |
||
| mgold J A 9 8 5 4 2 Q J 3 K 7 2 |
|
zl1 10 9 7 6 5 2 10 7 6 A 2 Q J |
| Maestro 8 4 3 — K 8 7 6 5 9 8 5 4 3 |
| West 1 3 Pass |
North Dbl Dbl Pass |
East 2 Pass Pass |
South Pass 4 |
The results of listening carefully to your partner and acceding to his wishes can be readily observed in today’s hand. West opens a borderline 1H; many players would consider 2H with his hand. North doubles with his monster, and East makes a standard but minimum raise in hearts.
Gee has a hand with some offensive but next to no defensive values. Either bidding or passing is reasonable (I would bid) but if he does want to compete then he must, with 5-5 in the minors, bid 3D over 2H, which allows him to show the clubs on the next round and avoids the risk of selling out to 2H when three or four of a minor makes your way.
Gee passes. West makes a “Law” bid with his six hearts and sub-minimum. Larry Cohen warns in his books that if you follow the Law of Total Tricks you’re going to go for a nasty number once in a while, and this is such an instance. North doubles with alacrity, and correct defense (an early diamond shift) puts 3H down 2 for 500.
Ah, but Gee, perhaps regretting his pass over 2H, and holding half a trick more defensively than he’s promised, comes in from left field with a 4D bid! This converts +500 into -50, with two unavoidable losers in each minor. Until the play.
Gee wins the opening club lead with the ace. You or I might think about pulling trump at this point. The master, however, leads the HK, ruffs it low, crosses to dummy with a spade and leads another heart, ruffing low again. The second spade is ruffed by West, who continues with the CK and a third round, giving East a ruff. The spade return is ruffed by West, who returns the HA, ruffed by Gee in hand. At this point, having shortened himself twice in hearts, he is in danger of going down 5 or so if either West has the last two outstanding trumps, so Gee makes the shrewd safety play of leading good clubs to force East and West to make their trumps separately. This guarantees down 3.
It is important, as Gee well knows, to clear up little misunderstandings like this one before they poison the partnership. So after the hand Gee assures his partner that he knew exactly what he was doing when he yanked his penalty double, which I’m sure came as a relief.
G: Not an accident I did not pass 3HX pd :)
G: I really meant not to leave 3HX in…was sure we have 4D makeable
billyyeh: OK G.
Am I reading this correctly? Did Gee pull the double, not because he was afraid that 3HX would make, but because he thought 4D was makeable? I think I need to go lie down now.
Aug 022002
Gee has a question.
It is remarkable that aaron only shows boards with a bad results and of course pin the blame on me, regardless of the reasons that led to that bad result. He has not shown anything positive at all I might have done during the course of the 500 or more hands I play a week, which makes a minimum of 26,000 boards a year (500 boards a week x 52 weeks a year), but found the 35 worst possible examples in the same period. Does that mean that I played 25,965 boards correctly during that period?
Why, yes! Yes it does! And now it should be clear why I don’t publish Gee’s “positive” results. If, let’s suppose, I were able to find two or three examples of brilliant bids or plays on Gee’s part, and published them, that would imply that he’d butchered the 25,997 other hands he played that year. Which would compromise the reputation for objective reporting that I work so hard to maintain.
Aug 012002
None Vul
IMPs
Dealer: West
Lead: 6
| priceat — J 5 A Q J 7 4 3 2 A J 5 3 |
||
| Maestro A Q 7 6 4 3 A 10 3 5 Q 8 4 |
|
hl J 8 5 2 8 7 6 2 K 10 9 7 6 |
| wildats K 10 9 K Q 9 4 8 6 K 10 9 2 |
| West 1 Pass |
North 2 Pass |
East 2 Pass |
South 3NT |
Many “zero percent plays” are not, technically, pure zeros; there is often some arcane distribution on which the “zero” play would succeed. Today Gee is kind enough to supply us with the rarer case of a pure zero, a play that always fails, no matter what the layout.
Today we reach 3NT after what, by the standards of the Chronicles, is a normal auction. South has just about the absolute minimum for his game bid, and North should certainly consider bidding further with his seven-bagger and spade void. 5D is far superior to 3NT on the layout; and even slam is barely possible with a magic South hand like, say, QJx Ax Kx KQxxxx.
But 3NT it is, against which Gee, sitting West, leads an automatic low spade. The first trick goes club sluff, SJ, SK, and South leads a diamond, finesses the DQ and prays. No luck; it loses to East’s DK and the S2 is promptly led back. South plays the S10 and our hero wins the SQ. Gee thinks for a moment (I once heard a very wise player remark, “When the opponents think there’s always hope.”) and produces the S3. Plus 430 to N/S; only -3 IMPs because 5D is cold.
A rather put-upon East inquires, “I thought my S2 meant original 4th, was I wrong?”
Replies Gee: “I had so many spades, could not believe you could possibly have 4.” The reader should pause to grasp the implications of this remark.
One’s first thought might be that it’s not especially remarkable for seven hidden spades to be divided 4-3 in favor of the player who raised the suit. But let’s dig a little deeper. Original 4th best has been a standard defensive convention since Ely Culbertson’s heyday; but note that Gee doesn’t deny that his partner showed 4; he denies believing his partner had 4. Sure, bridge is a conversation and all, but one must sometimes take matters into one’s own hands.
OK then. Let’s suppose East had three and led the wrong spot back. South must have every missing high card for his 3NT bid. Therefore your only chance to beat the contract in this case is to hope that East holds K109x in diamonds and South needs a heart trick to make. You may as well clear the spades. It costs nothing; and who knows? Partner may have led back the correct spot.
It’s also remotely possible that East made an eccentric spade raise on Jx, and South holds K10985 in spades. In this scenario the only way to beat the contract is to play partner for a double stop in diamonds and six small hearts (giving South KQ tight), and to hope South misguesses clubs. Here it’s essential to lead either the HA or the H10, unblocking the suit. Not a low spade.
We are left, in short, with a play that can only lose if partner played correctly, and can only break even if partner played incorrectly. A pure zero.
Jul 312002
N/S Vul
IMPs
Dealer: West
Lead: Q
| tovak K 7 5 J 5 A 8 7 5 4 3 7 3 |
||
| esther1 9 6 4 A 10 8 3 2 Q Q J 10 6 |
|
Maestro Q 10 8 2 K Q 7 6 — K 9 5 4 2 |
| icaros A J 3 9 4 K J 10 9 6 2 A 8 |
| West Pass 1 Pass Pass |
North Pass 3 Pass Pass |
East 1 3 Dbl |
South 1 4 Pass |
Today Gee, sitting East, opens 1C. South has a very nice 1D overcall and makes it. West has a choice of raising clubs but with her five hearts to the A10 it’s hard to argue with 1H. North raises to 3D, and it’s back to Gee. Some players would consider 4H here with the fine hearts and diamond void. On the layout it goes down 1 with a spade lead (highly improbable), or a spade shift after the CA is knocked out (highly probable). But an immediate 4H might bring 5D from the opponents — it would be difficult for North not to bid 5D and equally difficult for South to double to forestall it — and defending 5D is the only way for E/W to go plus as the cards lie.
Gee, however, bids 3H, and South has a virtually automatic raise to 4D, which is passed back to our hero. West has 1 1/2 defensive tricks, having promised zero, there are two heart losers, and 4D is still ice cold. Perhaps Gee expects West to show up with the HA, the CQ, and a couple of trump tricks (in which case West might have entertained a double of her own). Perhaps it’s takeout. Perhaps…I’m reaching here, anybody have any ideas? In any case he doubles.
So what’s today’s moral? Don’t double with a trump void? Don’t double with no defense? Don’t double? I don’t know. Maybe today’s hand has no pedagogical qualities. Maybe I’m just printing it because I think it’s funny.
Jul 302002
Both Vul
IMPs
Dealer: North
Lead: 3
| raquel A 9 8 2 3 A 10 9 8 10 6 5 4 |
||
| krt K J 5 3 K K 7 5 2 K 9 3 2 |
|
behemoth Q 10 7 A 10 9 4 Q 6 3 A Q 7 |
| Maestro 6 4 Q J 8 7 6 5 2 J 4 J 8 |
| West
Dbl |
North Pass Pass |
East 1NT Pass |
South 4 Pass |
Small Time Club Players™ can read book after book on bridge, memorize and routinely apply rule after rule, and never improve. They have no table feel. Today’s hand aptly demonstrates the importance of knowing when to follow the rules, and when to break them.
Our protagonist sits South, with both sides vulnerable, contemplating his action over 1NT with seven hearts to the QJ8 and three worthless doubletons. The STCP™, or even the run-of-the-mill expert, might remember the rule about not preempting vulnerable more than three levels above the number of tricks you expect your hand to take. The South hand could expect to take five tricks — if the heart spots were a little better. So the STCP™ would thoughtlessly apply the rule, and pass; or perhaps, if he was feeling really frisky, show a one-suiter at the 2-level (double, 2C, 2D, 2H, depending on your NT poison).
This shows only what small imagination most players have. Gee leaps into the breach with a 4H call. Now, sure, this turns out to be a disaster on this hand, but before you leap to criticize, remember, his partner happened to show up with two aces. Had his partner been absolutely stone broke, as he had every right to expect, 4HX, instead of going for -1400 against 3NT making 3 or 4, would have gone for -2000 against a cold grand, saving at least 4 or 5 IMPs.
Jul 302002
It seems that my innocent tribute to Gerard got him so worked up last night that he quit OKBridge for good. Well, for two hours anyway. I apologize for the inconvenience. And now I see, looking over the site, that I have many other things to apologize for. The stat page, for instance. I was asleep at the switch and missed at least two versions of his card that day. They were changing rapidly, true, but that’s no excuse. It’s my job to keep on top of it. Sorry about that.
Another time I edited his guest commentary for spelling and subject-verb agreement without notifying my readers. I realize now that this was a clear breach of journalistic ethics. It won’t happen again.
When I began to write hands for the site I occasionally conveyed the impression that Gee’s bidding or play was less than expert — here, for instance, or here. And here and here too. (Also here and here and here, come to think of it.) It should have been obvious to my readers that these lapses were simply a matter of my inability to express myself clearly. But still, mea culpa.
Finally, I wish to clarify that the sole purpose of these pages is to help non-experts learn from the masters, from a particular master, to play better bridge. If certain malicious readers have taken what I write in some other spirit, then I deeply regret it. Really.
Jul 292002
None Vul
IMPs
Lead: 4
| wildcats Q J 8 4 K J 10 3 8 5 3 9 3 |
||
| martygx A 9 7 5 9 5 2 K J 9 10 6 4 |
|
fun1 10 6 2 7 Q 4 2 A K Q 7 5 2 |
| Maestro K 3 A Q 8 6 4 A 10 7 6 J 8 |
| West
Dbl |
North Pass 2 Pass Pass |
East 1 3 Pass Pass |
South 1 3 4 Pass |
The zero percent play, as devotees of this column know, is all too common. These days I can barely stifle a yawn when I see one. The zero percent bid is far more unusual; and today we have an exquisite example.
Gee sits South. The auction proceeds normally at first. East’s club opener is perhaps a little light, but Gee’s heart overcall, West’s negative double, and North’s heart raise are all straight out of the book. (N/S often make 4-card overcalls at the 1-level, so a raise to 3, especially with no singleton, is out of the question.)
East competes to 3C with his stiff heart and excellent suit. It’s unlikely to be down more than 1, and it may induce N/S to bid 3h, which Gee promptly does. West should probably pass. But he has a decent hand for his double, and 3H may go down but is not a lock to, since E/W have at least 9 clubs and either North or South figures to be stiff. So he bids 4C, converting a plus to a minus.
Until Gee’s turn to bid arrives. The worst conceivable outcome in 4C is -130. The possible outcomes in 4HX — a double is certain on the auction — are:
Down 1: -100
Down 2: -300
Down 3: -500
The best possible outcome in 4HX matches the worst possible outcome in 4C. Why do I exclude 4H making, you ask? There is no conceivable North hand, given the opposing bidding, on which 4H makes. The magic dummy is QJxxx Kxxx Kx xx. In this scenario we must assume a) North did not raise to game over West’s 4C bid; b) East has 11 or 12 points for his opener and free bid (OK, this part turns out to be true); c) West has 6 or 7 points, counting loose queens and jacks, for his negative double and club raise; d) the moon is in the seventh house; and e) Jupiter aligns with Mars. On the other hand, North could easily hold Jxxx Kxx Jxxx Kx, in which case N/S are staring at a probable -500.
And sure, Gee goes down 2 for -8 IMPs. But readers, you should thank him, for his loss, as ever, is our gain.
Jul 292002
“I was told by [an innocent party] that I was the laughing stock of OKBridge just now… Aaron’s website seems to work very nicely… I give up… farewell all.”
—giving his latest OKBridge valedictory (he was playing again two hours later)