Hands

The Great Escape

Aug 212002

E/W Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead: 3

	vegan 9 7 6 5 2 Q 8 K 4 K J 9 2
jime J 8 10 5 3 J 10 9 8 6 3 10 7		Maestro A K Q 10 4 A 9 Q 2 6 5 4 3
	patss 3 K J 7 6 4 2 A 7 5 A Q 8

West

Pass
Pass
Pass

North

1
Pass
Pass

East

Pass
3
Pass

South
1

Dbl

We all find ourselves in hopeless contracts occasionally. Maybe not quite as hopeless 3CX, but hopeless nonetheless. The expert does not give up. Today Gee demonstrates how to make the best of a bad situation.

N/S are cold for 4H, but miss it after South understates his hand slightly with the 2H rebid. Two passes to Gee…a pause…and 3C emerges!

2S, which has to be natural in this position, is probably unwise at unfavorable. In fact it would either go for 500 or balance N/S into game. 3C, however, beggars description. Certainly my small literary powers cannot begin to do it justice. 3CX it is, however, and now the play problem is to hold the loss down to a palatable 15 IMPs or so.

Double-dummy defense takes 11 tricks. Heart lead, knock out the HA, ruff in on the second round of spades, pull trump, and cash seven tricks in the reds. But it’s not easy for South to visualize declarer’s hand, and he leads his stiff spade.

Gee wins in dummy and leads a diamond. North flies with DK and shifts to the HQ, won by Gee, who continues diamonds. South wins the DA, cashes a high heart, and makes a crucial error by leading a third round of hearts, shortening her partner’s trump. North discards a spade, as good as anything, and Gee ruffs. He plays another round of spades, ruffed by South with C8. Now Gee alertly lets the defenders play a high cross ruff for the rest of the hand, and winds up holding his C6 over North’s C2 at the end for his fourth trick. Down 5, to be sure, but think of what might have been.

Gentle Minds, Gentle Deeds

Aug 202002

N/S Vul
IMPs
Dealer: North
Lead: 5

	weaver A 9 5 4 2 Q A K 3 A 10 8 6
brando K J 8 6 A J 8 7 3 Q J 9 5		jb_1 10 3 10 6 5 4 2 7 6 2 9 4 3
	Maestro Q 7 K 9 10 8 5 4 K Q J 7 2

West

Pass
Pass
Pass

North
1

Pass

East
Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass

South
2

3NT
6

The gentle mind by gentle deeds is known.
For a man by nothing is so well bewray’d,
As by his manners.
–Spenser

The expert is not a result merchant. The expert does not blame his partner for a bad board. The expert does not leave the table after a catastrophe. At least that’s what I used to think.

Gee is South today. We have an uncontroversial auction — assuming, as I think, that 2C just shows 11+ and is not game-forcing — until Gee bids 3NT. Now there’s nothing wrong with the bid or the contract, which is cold even on a heart lead. But North has a slammish hand with excellent trump support and extras. He cues 4D to show it.

My inexpert eye sees nothing wrong with this bid either. North has a stiff heart and first round control in the other suits, and 5C is likely to be safe, maybe even safer than 3NT. Gee, however, reevaluates his aceless balanced minimum and leaps to 6C. The result is what you might expect.

As he claims down 1 the specs bestir themselves:

Spec #1: here come the recriminations
G: pd… 3NT was worth 7.75 IMPS
Spec #2: Oh :<<
G: why take me out of it?
Spec #2: You sure called that one
Spec #1: bridge is a lecture
Spec #3: [Spec #1] is a jaded veteran in the ways of the G
G: I can’t play like that… then specs judge me and say I am a bum
G: sorry
Spec #1: god i love that
G: my last one now
Spec #4: lol
Spec #2: Oh my god.
Spec #1: actually, specs judge you and say you’re a flaming asshole
Spec #5: gerard is all ego and little skill
Spec #5: i have played with him live and online
Spec #3: live?? I feel sorry for you
Spec #5: nothing is his fault
Spec #1: bum too, but that’s on other evidence
Spec #4: maybe we should all stop speccing him
Spec #5: we had a 3rd overall in a pair event in anaheim
Spec #5: with one of my students we would have won the event lol
G: what play? this was not play
Spec #4: oh brother!
Spec #1: he’s lucky this isn’t live
Spec #1: because I’d be looking for a blunt instrument by now

L’Etranger Plans the Play

Aug 192002

E/W Vul
IMPs
Dealer: North
Lead: K

	pikachu K Q Q J 6 5 3 2 A 9 8 4 2
mgr777 9 8 A K 6 5 K 10 9 8 10 7 6		spikel 10 7 5 3 9 7 4 3 2 7 4 Q J
	Maestro A J 6 4 2 10 8 A Q J K 5 3

West

Dbl
Dbl
Pass

North
1

Pass
3

Pass

East
Pass
2

Pass
Pass

South
1

Today our hero, sitting South, winds up in a good spade game after a normal auction. One could argue about West’s first double, which is thin but reasonable with North unlimited at unfavorable vulnerability. His second double is lead-directing in case N/S decide to play notrump.

The play is somewhat more interesting. West begins by cashing two hearts and can beat the contract by playing a third heart. This gives up a ruff-sluff but either promotes a trump trick for his partner or causes declarer to lose control of the hand. At the table it is far from obvious that this is the winning defense, and West can’t be greatly faulted for shifting to a diamond at trick 3.

Gee wins the DJ and proceeds to draw two rounds of trump with the KQ in dummy. He crosses to the CK, East dropping the queen, and plays a third high trump. West shows out, sluffing a heart. At this point the everyday expert might stop to consider the situation. West’s takeout double marks him with the DK. Unless East has all the remaining clubs the hand is now cold. Pull the last trump, sluffing the worthless diamonds from dummy, and duck a club. If West has four clubs, which is unlikely on the bidding but barely possible, he will be forced to insert an honor and be endplayed. Otherwise there are ten tricks.

Gee has something else in mind. He discards a club on the third round of trump, and another club on the fourth round. West errs by discarding his last heart, his only exit card, leaving this position.

	pikachu — — 6 5 3 A 9
mgr777 — — K 9 8 10 7		spikel — 9 7 2 7 Q
	Maestro 6 — A J 5 3

Even if West had correctly discarded a diamond on the fourth round of trump, a fifth round would strip-squeeze him. He’d be forced to part with his last heart or unguard one of the minors. But in the actual play West is already out of exit cards, and two rounds of clubs will force him to lead into Gee’s diamond tenace.

And in the actual play Gee, I report with some regret, does not play his last trump. He doesn’t play two rounds of clubs either. He plays the DA and another diamond, and West winds up with the setting trick in clubs at the end.

“Close,” Gee says ruefully to his partner after the hand, “but no cigar.”

You in Our Case

Aug 182002

Both Vul
MPs
Dealer: South
Lead: 9

	Maestro A 10 3 A 10 8 7 4 K 10 9 5 7
sasscat Q 6 5 2 9 6 J 6 2 J 9 8 2		danb J 9 7 4 K Q J 3 2 Q A 5 3
	sensj K 8 5 A 8 7 4 3 K Q 10 6 4

West

Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass

North

1
2
3

East

Pass
2
Pass

South
1

Pass
Pass

Again, as much as the answers to give to the captain’s questions are precise, the captain’s questions do not have for feed you with information about his/her hand, though it is preferance incase captainship is picked by the crew, you in our case.
–G. Cohen, Bridge Is a Conversation

When is a preference not a preference?

After South opens 1D in first seat, Gee holds four-card support to the K10, a decent 5-card heart suit, two aces and a stiff — pretty good-looking hand on first glance. He bids an unexceptionable 1H. South rebids 2C, and Gee has a few choices. A fourth-suit game-forcing 2S would be my choice, leaving plenty of room to explore 3NT, 5D or even 6D. (Even with South’s 12-point hand 6D has chances, and it makes on the actual layout against best defense provided declarer guesses trump.) 3D is another possibility.

Then there is the actual bid, 2D. This appears to be a preference — it walks like a preference, it quacks like a preference — but is actually a “preferance incase.” That’s in case your partner complains that you took a preference with a game-forcing hand.

East, however, decides to give Gee another chance and overcalls 2H. You can’t really blame him. He figures North and South for minimums and knows any trump holding will be in front of him. 2H is passed around to Gee. He could double: this nets anywhere from 1100 to 500, depending on whether the defense is perfect, adequate or woeful. He could bid 5D. He could bid 3NT. If he still isn’t sure they have game, he could bid 2NT.

Or he could bid 3D. As sensj chalks up 170, and none of the matchpoints, for making 6, he remarks, with notable restraint, that Gee’s hand is “too strong for a preference.” Gee doesn’t answer. “Preferance incase” theory would take too long to explain.

Visions from the Gallery

Aug 172002

E/W Vul
IMPs
Dealer: East
Lead: K

	xarman K 7 3 10 8 6 J 10 3 J 10 8 4
icerock A Q J 9 4 A 9 2 A Q 8 6 Q		pq2 10 8 6 5 2 7 5 4 5 K 6 5 3
	Maestro — K Q J 3 K 9 7 4 2 A 9 7 2

West

Dbl
4

North

Pass
Pass

East
Pass
1

Pass

South
1

Pass
Pass

Mystic bridge visions are not confined to the players.

Today E/W reach 4S after a quasi-normal auction. Gee, South, should double East’s 1S bid for takeout, but the final contract will be the same.

The spade game needs only the SK onside, and even on the actual layout it is cold on anything but a heart lead. A heart, however, is the obvious choice with Gee’s hand, and he leads one.

As declarer ponders his line, a veteran Gee-spec, who modestly prefers anonymity, suggests ducking, “to give Gee a chance to cash the CA.” The other specs scoff — “no way he’s gonna do that,” “nobody could be that stupid”: but they scoffed at Edison, they scoffed at Fulton…

Declarer ducks the heart, North playing the 8 to show an odd count. (This must be three. If declarer had one he would have no reason to duck: if he had five, the bidding would be strange and a duck would be too dangerous.) Gee cashes the CA and shifts to a low diamond. Declarer rises with the ace, ruffs a diamond, and cashes the CK discarding a heart loser. He loses the trump finesse, wins the trump return, ruffs his last two diamonds and claims.

More Mystic Visions

Aug 162002

E/W Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead: 3

	tsen A Q J 9 3 2 3 J 7 5 8 4 3
Maestro 5 9 8 7 A Q 4 3 A K Q 6 2		taryk 10 7 6 4 J 5 2 K 10 8 J 10 9
	icaros K 8 A K Q 10 6 4 9 6 2 7 5

West

2
3
Pass
Pass

North

Dbl
Pass
Dbl

East

Pass
5
Pass

South
1

Pass
Pass

Visions, as any visionary will tell you, arrive on their schedule, not yours. This led to disaster in today’s hand.

After South’s 1H opener our hero has choices. Some players, holding such good minor suits, would bid unusual 2NT, despite being 1-3-4-5, for its preemptive value. 2NT works out well on the actual layout, as the subsequent auction is probably 3S, all pass, down 1. But 2NT could also work out badly, and 2C, Gee’s actual bid, is perfectly fine. North makes a rather eccentric negative double; other possibilities are 2S, or even a semi-preemptive 3S if the partnership plays 2S there, as is customary, as a forcing bid.

East passes, South rebids his hearts, and it’s up to Gee. He has defense but should be willing to compete, even at unfavorable, to least the three-level in the minors. A modestly gifted visionary would double for minor-suit takeout. (E/W make three of either minor, and N/S can’t make more than two of anything.) But Gee is cursed with an untimely moment of blindness: he bids 3D, forcing his partner to take a club preference, if he needs one, at the four-level.

Naturally partner takes the club preference — in spades, as it were. The less said about the 5C bid the better, but the 4C bid he should have made doesn’t work out too well either.

When play begins Gee, too late, regains his vatic powers. As South cashes his second heart, dummy undummies: “Down 2.” “OK,” Tsen replies, “diamonds 3-3.” “Automatic down 2,” Gee insists, “even if diamonds are 4-2.”

This puzzles Tsen, who like most of us is not blessed with the ability to see through the backs of the cards. “If diamonds are 4-2,” he says, “I will ruff.”

“If you have any trump left,” says Gee. “Which you won’t.”

Update: My distinguished expert consultants, O_Bones and dross, inform me — but nicely! — that I’ve butchered this analysis. Although they agree with me that 2NT is a reasonable compromise bid the first time around, they think a double on the second round suggests three good or even four bad spades, i.e., three-suit takeout, not the minors. 2NT is their suggested rebid, even though it’s supposed to show 4-6. They also both agree with taryk’s 5C bid. Since Gee’s 3D bid should show a huge 5-6 hand, 5C looks, from East’s perspective, like a reasonable proposition.

Mystic Visions

Aug 152002

None Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead: 3

	mico K 9 K 9 7 6 3 Q 9 7 Q 7 3
altaya Q J 8 7 6 4 5 2 8 4 8 6 4		Maestro A 2 A J 8 4 A 10 5 2 A J 2
	hsherif 10 5 3 Q 10 K J 6 3 K 10 9 5

West

Pass
2
Pass
Pass

North

1
Pass
Pass
Pass

East

1NT
3NT
Rdbl

South
Pass
Dbl
Dbl
Pass

Many qualities distinguish the expert from the ordinary player, and imagination is not the least of them. The expert will often bid contracts undreamt of by the Small Time Club Player™ because of his almost extrasensory ability to visualize the other hands.

Today, for example, Gee, sitting East, has a very solid 1NT overcall of North’s rather shabby third-hand heart opener. South doubles to show a competitive hand, and West bids 2H, transferring to spades. This is passed to Gee. You would accept the transfer. I would accept the transfer. Gee is blinded by a vision of runnable spades in dummy and bids 3NT.

South does not share the vision and doubles. The doubt of the world is but confirmation to the prophet: Gee redoubles. One may ask why West doesn’t pull to 4S, but you aren’t supposed to yank your partner’s business redouble, and if Gee holds, say, Kxxx AQ A10xx AJx, then 3NTXX probably rolls in while 4S has no chance. So West lets the redouble stick.

The intensity of a vision, alas, does not guarantee its accuracy. Gee makes the HJ along with his four aces, for -1600. His partner inquires in the post mortem what induced him to bid 3NT. “If you have KQxxx of spades,” says Gee, “then 3NT is cold.” (Actually there are still only eight tricks on the actual diamond lead, even if spades break, provided South discards carefully.) Gee’s partner wants to know what happens if spades don’t happen to be 3-3. No problem, Gee says, 3NT makes anyway. There has always been a fine line, the historians of religion tell us, between mystic vision and hallucination, and here, perhaps, we have crossed it.

Modern Bridge Conventions

Aug 142002

None Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead: 3

	goal Q 6 3 J 6 3 3 J 10 9 6 4 3
janiner 8 5 4 10 8 4 2 A J 10 8 A 5		Maestro A K A K Q 5 K Q 9 6 4 K 2
	zow J 10 9 7 2 9 7 7 5 2 Q 8 7

West

Pass
4

North

3
Pass

East

Dbl
Pass

South
Pass
4

Pass

I have often heard Gee accused of underbidding, often of overbidding. This misses the point. Gee is, on average, an accurate bidder. The scatterplot, however, is rather widely dispersed.

Today, as East, he holds a two-loser moose and doubles North’s grungy third-hand 3C preempt. South raises to 4C, although it looks like E/W are cold for slam and an obstreperous raise to 5C seems warranted. A 5C bid would tempt me to double with West’s hand, making it far more difficult to find the heart grand. (5CX is down 5 automatically and down 6 with perfect defense.) But over 4C West naturally bids the heart game and North passes, leaving matters up to our hero.

Fortunately a modern convention has been devised to help him find the right contract here. It’s called Blackwood. If West shows one ace you bid six; if she shows two you bid the grand. It is also barely possible that West holds something like Qxx J109xxxx x Qx, in which case you sign off in 5H.

I forgot to mention that you can pass too. Which is what he does.

For the less mathematical of my readers, who may not know about scatterplot dispersions, perhaps a homelier analogy will serve. If you have one arm in freezing and the other in scalding water, you’re comfortable. On average.

Off With My Head

Aug 132002

E/W Vul
IMPs
Dealer: East
Lead: A

	taryk K Q 7 6 3 — K 9 8 3 K 10 8 6
gv_roma 10 9 8 4 Q 3 2 Q J 2 Q 9 4		lulu A J 5 2 A K J 9 7 5 J 7 5
	Maestro — 10 8 6 5 4 A 10 7 6 4 A 3 2

West

2
Pass

North

Dbl

East
1

Pass

South
Pass
Pass

I’m getting kind of tired of sticks & wheels, aren’t you? Let’s try some defense today for variety.

Gee, sitting South, passes over 1H, and hears lefty raise to 2H and his partner double. This is a wet dream of an auction. Matching major-suit voids, as East-West are marked for the missing eight hearts, and a virtually guaranteed nine-card diamond fit. Five diamonds must be cold. Six diamonds is likely to have an excellent play; and even a diamond grand is possible if North holds something like Axxx — KQxx KQxxx.

A 3H cue bid seems indicated; or if not that, then something forcing, anything forcing. Gee passes for penalty. That last sentence deserves a paragraph to itself.

Gee passes for penalty.

There is only one possible way to follow a bid like that, and Gee finds it. He leads the CA, his partner signals with C8, and Gee plays a second round to North’s CK, declarer dropping CJ. North returns the SK, covered with SA and ruffed by Gee.

At this point the hand is almost an open book. Declarer must have four spades; with 5-5 in the majors and a minimum she would have opened 1S. Therefore she is either 4-5-2-2 or 4-5-1-3. The only missing honors are the SJ and the DK. If North doubled with eight HCP — rather unlikely, even at favorable and with perfect distribution — then you aren’t beating the contract anyway; declarer will get time to sluff two spade losers (in this scenario North holds SJ) on the spare minor suit winners. So you underlead the DA for your second spade ruff, right? Nah. You play the DA and another. Declarer ruffs the second diamond, pulls trump and claims.

Whose fault is this catastrophe? Gee explains his failure to underlead the DA as follows: “[It is] the play I would normally do, but I dare not anymore because if it does not work, aaron will kill me again, like he does each time I play an uncommon play and it does not work.”

You know those dictators-in-exile who are always getting sentenced in absentia by some toothless international court while they’re tanning on their hacienda in Uruguay? Today I feel a little like that. Could you rub on a little more sunscreen, sweetheart? You missed a spot.

Son of Trump Management

Aug 122002

None Vul
IMPs
Dealer: East
Lead: 8

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

West

1
3
4
Pass

North

Dbl
3
Dbl

East
1

Rdbl
4

Pass

South
Pass
2

Pass
Pass

In an earlier installment we had a demonstration of how to get tapped in a 5-3 fit. Today we have another rare variation: getting tapped by discarding your stopper in the suit.

East’s redouble is support, showing exactly three hearts; and South’s jump to 2S is preemptive. North raises to 3S over Gee’s 3C, and East rebids his diamonds at the four-level. 4D makes without any trouble, except on an unlikely club lead, but Gee, aware of his sure touch in Moysians, corrects to 4H. The spade game also makes, extremely luckily, for N/S, with the trump and diamond finesses both on; but North wisely opts for the certain plus by doubling.

North leads the D8, best for the defense, and here we should pause to consider how the play might proceed in a parallel universe of accurate declaring. The bidding and opening lead indicate that North is 4-4-2-3 with all three aces. Declarer plays three rounds of diamonds, discarding a spade and club. North’s best play is to discard a spade on the third round, retaining trump control. A fourth round of diamonds is ruffed by South and overruffed by declarer with the 10. North must refuse to overruff and discard a club. Now South plays a heart to dummy, ducked by North, and a fifth round of diamonds, which South can no longer ruff, discarding a club. North ruffs in and plays a low heart back, but eventually is endplayed in the black suits for down 1. (Update: My original analysis was wrong. Thanks to Ira Chorush for this improved version.)

In the actual universe the play goes somewhat differently. Gee wins in dummy and plays two rounds of trump ending in dummy, North correctly ducking. Now Gee shifts to diamonds. He discards a spade on the first round. He discards a spade on the second round. North ruffs in, cashes the trump ace, cashes the SA, dropping Gee’s now-bare SK, and leads another spade. Gee could hold it to down 4 by ruffing the fourth round of spades, and leading a low club, forcing North to concede a club trick. Instead he ruffs immediately and leads a club into North’s tenace. Down 5, not vulnerable. And you know what that means.

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