Hands

The Bones Principle Revisited

Jul 222002

Both Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead: 6

	vcaracci A K Q 10 4 8 5 3 2 A 4 J 2
bach 7 5 3 2 A Q 6 9 7 K 10 8 6		Maestro 9 K J 10 4 Q 8 6 5 3 A 9 3
	pinpin J 8 6 9 7 K J 10 2 Q 7 5 4

West

Pass
Pass
3
Pass

North

1
Pass
Dbl
Pass

East

2
Dbl
4

South
Pass
2

Pass
Pass

So many people sent me this hand from last night that I feel obliged to publish it. Besides, I kind of like it myself.

Gee, sitting East with 10 pts, 1-4-5-3 and five diamonds to the Q8, inserts a 2D overcall over North’s spade opener. Lesser players might double for takeout, or even pass. This sets the specs murmuring:

Bachelor #1: 2 vully D’s??? time for the bones principle
Bachelor #2: 2D? geesom

OK. I’ll settle for “geesom.” South raises to 2S, passed around to Gee, who reopens with a double. The spec buzz grows louder:

Bachelor #3: and a reopening dbl with 10 to back it up
Bachelor #1: after a spade pump gee would go for stix and wheels again
Bachelor #1: X???? lolol–this is insane

Poor West, who figures if his partner is willing to force him to bid at the three-level that they must have a pretty good shot at game, makes a 3S asking bid. Since Gee is almost certainly stiff or void on the auction this might be considered sub-optimal. Gee pulls to 4D, and the Bones Principle, which could have been profitably invoked at the two-level, is violated at the four-level as South neglects to double.

The defense taps Gee with spades, and he loses control of the hand pretty fast, winding up with two heart tricks, two spade ruffs and two club tricks for down 4. Sticks and Wheels if doubled, but we just finished a week of that, and you were bored with it anyway. After the hand Gee visits spec himself, where he overhears Bachelor #4 inquiring, reasonably, if O_Bones invented the Bones Principle.

Gee: please, spare me…the Bones Principle is as stupid as its inventor…when my partners overbid or don’t tell me their hand properly (90% of the time) I go to forbidden places. If he cannot see that, he should not pretend to be an “expert”…good night and god bless you all.

And God bless you all, and to all a good night.

Non-Forcing, Non-Working

Jul 212002

E/W Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead: 3

	nirgr A 10 7 4 3 — K 10 7 6 A K 9 6
yigal 9 6 A K 10 9 7 6 2 9 5 Q 5		Maestro K Q J 5 J 4 3 Q J 2 J 7 4
	eitan 8 2 Q 8 5 A 8 4 3 10 8 3 2

West

3
Pass
Pass

North

Dbl
3

East

Rdbl
Pass

South
Pass
Pass
Pass

In the absence of a post mortem, we are forced to speculate about the often-mysterious motives for Gee’s play. Today we are fortunate: he gives us a personal glimpse into the mind of a master.

West opens a reasonable 3H, doubled by North. Gee redoubles, passed back to North. 3H redoubled is down 1, but one can hardly fault North for pulling to 3S, which buys the contract.

Gee leads the H3, won by West with the K as North discards a diamond. West returns the CQ, as good as anything. Declarer wins the CA and leads a low trump. Gee wins the SJ, pauses, and returns the C7 into declarer’s marked tenace. Declarer wins in hand and plays A and another trump. Gee wins and, mindful of the danger in switching defensive strategies mid-hand, continues clubs with the J, which, it cannot be denied, shows a certain flair.

North wins and forces out the last trump. Gee leads…a low diamond. Minus 140. The post mortem:

YIGAL: Partner, why not play hearts?
G: Nirgr does not have any, and I would rather try to set up my diamonds.
YIGAL: But you have a trick in clubs…
G: Did not know which would work, diamonds or clubs, at the beginning of the play and picked the wrong suit…but what else is new?

Slow Compression

Jul 202002

None Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead: 2

	pierri K 10 9 7 4 Q J 6 10 7 6 5 10
touchet Q 5 8 7 2 A K 2 9 8 7 4 3		kalligr A 3 K 10 5 4 Q J 8 3 K J 5
	Maestro J 8 6 2 A 9 3 9 4 A Q 6 2

West

Pass
3NT

North

Pass
Pass

East

1NT
Pass

South
Pass
Pass
Pass

Both teams engage in one board at a time intellectual confrontation at the end of which one will have the pleasure of playing the contract and the other will have the misfortune of having to defend it.
–G. Cohen, Bridge Is A Conversation

An ordinary multiple-trick defensive compression play usually involves a single, catastrophic error: the air rushes out of the defense like a balloon that you blow up and then forget to tie. Far rarer is what we have today, the defensive equivalent of a slow leak.

An undernourished fourth-seat 1NT opener by East followed by an equally undernourished raise to game by West leads to a hopeless 3NT. At least it appears hopeless — down 4 before a card is played.

Intermediates are generally taught to lead a spade against this auction, especially with a holding as good as 4 to the J. Gee opts instead for the expert lead of the C2. Declarer wins the J, dropping the C10 from North, and is now down only 3. Probably his best hope now is to lead back the CK from hand, preserving his dummy entries to cash the clubs and hoping that South has the SK and that the heart losers can be held to two.

The actual East crosses to dummy with the DK and leads a club, playing North to have ducked with A10 tight. North shows out, of course, discarding the S7, and Gee wins the CK with his A. He could of course duck the club, leaving East an entry short to cash the club tricks and guaranteeing a one- or two-trick defeat, but he generously refuses to profit from declarer’s misplay. Reading his partner’s discard as Lavinthal, Gee now switches to the H3! At this point Declarer has seven sure tricks and begins to hope. In fact it’s all over. The third club drives out the CQ — declarer overtakes in dummy so a duck makes no difference — and the defense can do no better than to cash their two heart tricks. The post mortem is, alas, lost to the mists of time.

Malpractice Finesse

Jul 192002

N/S Vul
IMPs
Dealer: East
Lead: K

	kellyp J 10 3 2 K 7 K 10 3 K Q J 8
Maestro A K 8 6 5 4 10 9 5 A 9 7 6		cyl 7 A Q 6 A Q J 8 7 2 10 5 3
	peterkwp Q 9 J 9 8 5 4 3 2 6 4 4 2

West

1
4

North

Pass
Pass

East
1

Pass

South
Pass
Pass
Pass

Each declarer play is like a battle. Prepare for battle. Count your winning tricks, your loosing [sic] tricks. Make a plan of attack to better your chances of winning the remaining ones.
–G. Cohen, Bridge Is A Conversation

Sticks and Wheels, for now, is at an end. Today we have a sort of intermezzo while I contemplate our next theme.

Some Wests might trouble to show the clubs on the second round to reach an excellent 3NT by East, but Gee, shrewdly aware of how much better off the partnership will be if he plays the hand, leaps to 4S instead.

North leads the CK, best for the defense, and Gee wins the first round. To the unpracticed eye this may look like a zero percentage play, but it wins if clubs are 5-1 and South has the short trump, which happens at least once for every five or six times this play loses.

Declarer is due to lose at least one trump, probably two, and this leaves the question of what to do with the club losers. Diamonds come to mind, and Gee promptly finesses the DJ, which holds, improving declarer’s prospects considerably. He now plays off his two top trumps, both defenders following. So far so good: as long as one defender can’t ruff in before the fourth round of diamonds declarer has time to discard two clubs and make, conceding two trump tricks and a club. Sure enough, that’s the layout. (If trump were 3-3, of course, then a first round club duck might have come in handy.)

So Gee repeats the diamond finesse and makes, right? Um, actually, Gee leads a heart and finesses the queen! It holds, and he can still survive by returning to his hand with a heart ruff and repeating the diamond finesse. Instead he cashes the HA, discarding a club, and cashes the DA. Unlucky again; the DK doesn’t drop. When he leads the DJ and South discards a small heart, he still has at least a theoretical chance if he ruffs in hand and plays a trump: South may have erred by not ruffing and trump may be 3-3. But real experts hate to take advantage of defensive errors and Gee instead elegantly discards the C7, guaranteeing defeat.

Grand Finale

Jul 182002

E/W Vul
IMPs
Dealer: West
Lead: J

	drkangel K 6 Q 3 2 7 5 K 10 7 6 5 4
demolay Q 7 4 A J 10 6 5 — A Q 9 3 2		Maestro A 9 5 2 8 7 A K Q 10 8 4 3 —
	waso J 10 8 3 K 9 4 J 9 6 2 J 8

West
1

2NT
4

Pass

North
2

Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass

East
2

4NT
5NT
7

Pass

South
Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass
Dbl

Today I shall necessarily be brief, for before us is the Auction That Passeth All Understanding.

Our hero sits East. After a perfectly sane 1H opener from West and a rather less sane 2C overcall from North, Gee responds 2D. This is the last bid of his that I understand. Doubtless this is due to my own limitations. West rebids 2NT. He has no attractive alternatives, and one can sympathize. (3NT may well make at the table. 4H is somewhat better, but no game is cold.)

West has now shown no fit — with four spades he would probably bid them over 2D — and a minimum hand. Lesser players would content themselves with a simple 3NT here. Gee, however, bids 3S, and West raises to 4 — assuming that his partner would never introduce a motheaten four-card suit at the 3-level. A pause ensues, and 4NT emerges. Blackwood with a void is again perhaps not every player’s choice, but true masters adopt, quite properly, a Nietzschean contempt for the silly “rules” that constrain the rest of us. West dutifully responds 5S, with spades agreed. It is possible to construct a West hand on which six diamonds makes, something like QJ10 Axxxx Jx AJx. But Gee, missing a key card but nonetheless dissatisfied with a mere small slam, proceeds to 5NT, asking for specific kings. West denies an outside K with 6S, Gee signs off in 7D, South doubles, and the rest is silence.

The diamond grand is off only one if spades and diamonds both break 3-3 (or the DJ drops second) and the SK is onside. On the actual, rather more likely distribution we have…well, you all know by now what we have. Don’t you?

Sticks and Wheels in the Balance

Jul 172002

E/W Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead:3

	okcu A Q 2 K 10 8 7 3 2 A K 10 9
Maestro K 9 7 5 4 3 K 9 9 5 6 5 2		shosha J 10 2 A Q 10 7 5 Q J 4 8 7
	balahe 8 6 J 8 6 4 3 A 6 Q J 4 3

West

Pass
Pass
2
Pass

North

1
2
Dbl

East

1
Pass
Pass

South
Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass

Balancing the opponents into game is one thing; I myself do it twice a week. But balancing one’s partner into Sticks and Wheels is one of the finer points that separate the EXPERT from the Small Time Club Player™.

Gee is West on today’s deal. N/S have a cold club slam on 24 points and an eight-card fit, but it is the rare pair that will reach even the good 5C contract (which essentially requires 3-2 splits in both minors), let alone the low percentage slam (as above, plus the SK onside).

Our N/S is not one of those rare pairs. North opens 1D third hand, East inserts a fairly grungy 1H vulnerable overcall, and the hand is passed back to North, who reopens with 2C. East passes, and although one can argue for 3C or even 2NT by South (3NT makes on the layout), or 1NT in the first place, South passes as well and leaves matters in our hero’s hands.

It would be grievously unjust to call Gee’s 2H balance a zero percent bid. If East holds Ax AQJxx xxxx Kx, just possible on the auction, and hearts are exactly 4-2, 2H makes and 2C makes as well. There are a few other possible East hands that break even as long as you’re undoubled, where 2H is down 1 and 2C makes. Then there are still other possible East hands, like the actual one.

Against 2H doubled South opens a low trump, won by East in dummy with the 9. It’s probably best to play a diamond immediately, not that it matters on the layout, but declarer instead cashes the HK, getting the trump news, and leads a diamond. South wins and shifts to clubs. When the smoke clears the defenders make two diamonds, two clubs and two spades and three trump for — say it with me brethren! — Sticks and Wheels.

The Sound of One Jack Dropping

Jul 162002

E/W Vul
IMPs
Dealer: East
Lead: A

	Maestro 5 Q J 10 7 5 K Q 9 8 5 4 3 —
wygbe K Q 10 3 A 6 3 A 7 6 Q 5 3		vrees A J 2 9 8 2 J 2 A K 9 4 2
	marcj 9 8 7 6 4 K 4 10 J 10 8 7 6

West

1
3NT
Dbl

North

2
4
Pass

East
1

Dbl
Pass
Pass

South
Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass

Many Sticks and Wheels hands, for all the suspense that they provide in the bidding, lack it in the play, where it’s usually a question of 800 vs. 1100 at the most. But in today’s hand the play supplies most of the excitement, and the outcome is in doubt until the last possible moment.

Our protagonist, in fourth seat, chooses 2D over 1C-P-1S, eschewing the four or five ways to show a two-suiter in this position. East puts in a support double, showing three spades, and West makes the obvious jump to 3NT, which is cold. Gee now, finally, bids his shorter, major suit at the four-level, forcing his partner to the five-level to show a diamond preference. His partner passes, reasonably, and fortunately too, because 5D is always down 1 or 2 and then I would have no hand to show you.

Best for the defense is to play black suit winners at every opportunity. Declarer eventually loses control of the hand and probably goes for 800. And the defense gets off to a good start by leading the CA. Gee makes the desperation play of discarding his spade loser, praying not be tapped, and his prayer is answered, as East switches to trump, apparently to prevent diamond ruffs. West takes Gee’s HK with the A and returns a club, but with trump breaking it’s too late. Gee ruffs, pulls trump in two rounds (making it clear to both defenders that he began 1-5-7-0), and plays the DQ, which holds. The J does not drop.

So what’s the diamond layout? Declarer needs to find either defender with Ax or Axx. The defenders know he has seven diamonds. Therefore either defender, holding Ax, would win the first diamond to protect a possible Jxx in his partner’s hand. Therefore declarer must play for Axx by leading the DK, squashing the presumed Jx and making the hand.

It is with some chagrin that I report that Gee led a low diamond, losing to the J, was tapped out of his last trump and proceeded to go for yet another Sticks and Wheels. Is playing for the defenders to make the zero percent play itself a zero percent play? This philosophical question is of some interest, and perhaps I will take it up another time.

Sticks and Wheels Classic

Jul 152002

E/W Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead: K

	janiner 10 7 6 Q 9 5 4 3 2 K 8 6 2
mantle A K 8 5 4 2 A 10 5 3 K 9 3		sudhir Q 3 K J 8 7 Q 8 7 Q J 7 5
	Maestro J 9 10 6 A J 9 6 4 2 A 10 4

West

4
Pass
Pass

North

Pass
Pass
Pass

East

Pass
Dbl

South
1

Pass

Sticks and Wheels, as we have seen so far this week, comes in many forms, but one can discern, over time, certain leitmotifs: favorable vulnerability, a phantom sacrifice, unilateral action, a slipped trick or two in the dummy play. Today’s hand, elegant in its purity, emphasizes all of these traditional elements. It is, as it were, Sticks and Wheels Classic.

Gee, sitting South, opens 1D in first seat with a sub-minimum and nothing in the majors. West shuns the conventional 1S overcall in favor of a more dashing 4S. Two passes to Gee, who likes his trump spots, discounts his two aces on defense, factors in his partner’s silence, and bids 5D. The student should note, first, that accurate defense defeats 4S: the DK lead, followed by a club shift (D2 presumably played to the first trick as suit preference), produces four tricks for the defense. The dummy play is the final point of interest. West begins with three rounds of spades, dropping East’s Q and forcing him to ruff with the D8, overruffed by declarer with the 9. This costs the defense their natural trump trick. Fortunately Gee, instead of pulling trump, plays a heart, wins the trump return, crosses to the CA, and plays a second round of hearts, allowing East to continue with a third round and promote West’s D10 for Sticks and Wheels, down 5.

Free Bid

Jul 142002

E/W Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead: A

	garyyang J 9 5 A K 9 8 5 A 5 A 4 2
Maestro A K Q 3 2 Q J 2 Q 3 K Q J		philou 10 8 6 4 7 6 4 J 9 7 4 2 3
	groll 7 10 3 K 10 8 6 10 9 8 7 6 5

West

1
Dbl
4
Pass

North

Dbl
Pass
Dbl

East

Pass
2
Pass

South
Pass
2

Pass
Pass

The freely bid Sticks and Wheels is exceptionally rare, even among master practitioners. It requires an exquisite combination of bad luck and bad judgment, and even then you usually have to be vulnerable.

Today Gee, sitting West, opens 1S second seat. Many players would simply overcall 2H with North’s hand but he doubles instead. East of course passes, and Gee doubles South’s 2C, one assumes for takeout with a plan to bid spades over a diamond response. North passes to await further developments, which indeed are forthcoming. Gee, vulnerable and holding a fistful of losers opposite a partner who couldn’t bid over 1S-X, jumps to 4S!

Ordinarily 4SX goes down 2, which is a disastrous but not world-historical loss against 2C making 4, but on this day the planets are aligned. North opens with three rounds of hearts, South ruffing the third. The club return is taken by the CA, and three more rounds of diamonds promote North’s SJ for the seventh defensive trick, down 4, 1100. That is artistry.

The Bell Tolls for Gee

Jul 132002

N/S Vul
IMPs
Dealer: West
Lead: 4

	Maestro J 8 A K Q J 10 8 Q 7 Q J 6
samir A K 9 5 2 3 A 9 3 2 K 10 3		ecam Q 10 4 3 4 2 K J 6 4 A 9 7
	stans 7 6 9 7 6 5 10 8 5 8 5 4 2

West
1

Pass
Pass

North
2

Pass

East
4

Dbl

South
Pass
Pass

This week’s hands shall be devoted to what I expect to become an ongoing feature in this space, the 1100 Collection. Down 4 doubled vul or 5 non vul. Sticks and Wheels™. Of course I’m not talking about going for 1100 against the opponents’ vulnerable slam; any idiot can do that. Sticks and Wheels, judiciously employed, can be a deadly weapon at the game or even the part-score level.

Today we see Sticks and Wheels used to great effect against a non-vulnerable game. Gee, sitting North, makes a perfectly fine 2H overcall over West’s first-seat spade opener. A quick raise to game by an unpassed East (3H is the book bid in 2/1, 3S in SAYC, but 4S worked out OK this time), two passes back to our hero…Reader, ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for Gee. Holding six heart tricks, a bag of potpourri and a petrified starfish, he rises to the occasion with a 5H bid. The dream dummy nearly prevented this hand’s inclusion in the 1100 Collection, but luckily the defense slipped and opened the clubs, allowing him to escape for 1100. Bean counters who carp at the resulting 12 IMP loss are missing the point. If you can’t appreciate the beauty of bridge, why play at all?

Older Entries Newer Entries