Hands

Quack Quack

Oct 282002

None Vul
IMPs
Dealer: East
Lead: 10

	petit_g J 9 7 3 8 5 4 2 9 2 6 4 2
krt K 6 5 2 A 6 3 10 Q J 9 8 5		taryk A Q 8 4 K 9 A K 8 5 4 A 10
	Maestro 10 Q J 10 7 Q J 7 6 3 K 7 3

West

Dbl

North

Pass

East
2NT
Pass

South
3

Pass

Today Gee sits South and hears a first-hand 2NT opener to his right. In a red suit his hand can be expected to take approximately three tricks. Applying the rule of six, which states that one should always preempt six tricks above expectation at equal vulnerability (seven favorable, five unfavorable), Gee accordingly bids 3D, showing diamonds and another. STCPs™ should note that this is simply the old 2-3-4 rule of preempts, adjusted for expert play.

West doubles, showing cards and an interest in penalty — it would be unfair to call it Bones when he knows that E/W have at least three-fourths of the deck — and North, the long-suffering Mini-Gee, passes. It looks to the casual observer like he should take the logo save; three hearts goes for a mere 800 on best play. But Mini realizes that in hearts he, not Gee, would be declarer, and the three-trick expert adjustment would no longer apply. (Students of Gee, as opposed to Gee himself, are entitled to a one- or two-trick adjustment at most.) Under the circumstances he has no choice but to pass.

East is delighted to leave in the double with his trump stack, and West leads the D10, ducked to Gee’s jack. One trick for declarer. Gee leads a spade, won by East, who returns another spade, pumping the chump. Two tricks for declarer. Gee switches to the HQ now, too late. East wins the HK, cashes the two top trumps, and plays a third round of spades. Gee discards a club, which doesn’t help. Club ace and another club to Gee’s CK. Three tricks for declarer. Another heart to West’s HA. West cashes clubs, and Gee ruffs in with the DQ for his fourth, and last, trick.

Of course it is only fair to note that had Mini-Gee shown up with a stone yarborough, instead of the SJ, slam in spades or notrump would be cold for E/W, and sticks and wheels would be a mere setback instead of a calamity. In fact six spades is an excellent contract, going down only because of the bad trump break and the offside CK. And how could our hero be expected to foresee that?

Untitled

Oct 252002

None Vul
IMPs
Dealer: East
Lead: K

	youngone 10 5 K Q J Q 10 9 7 A J 10 9
Maestro A Q J 9 8 7 4 9 8 5 4 5 K		jackl 3 2 10 3 2 A J 8 4 2 8 3 2
	conradt K 6 A 7 6 K 6 3 Q 7 6 5 4

West

1
3
Pass

North

2
Dbl

East
Pass
Pass
Pass

South
1

Pass

Today Gee is West. His first bid shows the importance, as he has reminded me many times, of understanding the bidding agreements before passing judgment. Gee is not vulnerable, has a passed partner, six and a half offensive tricks and a nearly useless hand on defense. Three or four spades would be the customary bid here. There is only one conclusion: E/W have agreed never to preempt in spades. Gee chooses the expert bid of 1S instead.

North bids a forcing 2D, South raises, and Gee reenters the auction with 3S, a bid that many STCPs™ might entertain in the first place, but what do they know? North makes one of those doubles that is designed to win the post mortem: could be negative, could be responsive, could be penalty, and whatever partner does is wrong. South interprets it as penalty, as would I, and passes. (Bidding 3NT is the winning action at the table. It makes on a spade lead and goes down on anything else, which is to say, it makes.)

And here we are in the apparently cold contract of 3SX. Hearts break, Kx onside in trump, and the defense cooperates by leading three rounds of hearts, dropping all the honors and eliminating any need for declarer to actually count the suit. (Not that any other defense helps.) South shifts to a club, Gee’s stiff king loses to the ace, and North returns a diamond, won in dummy.

Gee leads a trump and inserts the jack, which holds. He pauses, thinks, and leads…the 13th heart. North, who is already busy rehearsing for the post mortem the 47 reasons his double couldn’t have been penalty, relievedly ruffs with the spade 10. Our hero claims down 1. In fairness, the only card in his hand at that point that would have worked was the spade ace, and you can’t expect even an expert to pull the right card all the time.

Today’s hand also illustrates the situational nature of the Gee spot: if we assume execrable play, it tends to rise with each trick. At trick 1 we have a Gee spot of 20. Gee’s line succeeds whenever the stiff king is onside, for 6%, while the optimal line of play for K or Kx succeeds 26% of the time. But at trick 8, when the defense has cashed their tricks and the trump finesse has held, the Gee spot rises substantially. Gee’s heart play has a 0% chance of success, while playing the spade ace will succeed about 45% of the time (since we already know the SK is onside and trump don’t break 4-0). Thus a Gee spot of 45. The perfect Gee spot hand, then, is one where a 100% line is available at trick 1 and Gee takes a zero line instead. I haven’t found it yet, but when I do you’ll be the first to know.

Three Strikes

Oct 222002

N/S Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead: 6

	petit_g Q 10 7 3 K 9 4 2 K 7 5 K 5
picos A 2 10 8 6 A Q 9 8 4 7 4 2		tai2000 K 9 5 4 Q 3 J 10 6 9 8 6 3
	Maestro J 8 6 A J 7 5 3 2 A Q J 10

West

1
Pass
Pass

North

Dbl
3
Pass

East

Pass
Pass
Pass

South
1

Occasionally the opponents have to be taken firmly by the hand and guided to the winning defense.

Today, for instance, finds our hero declaring four hearts after an utterly normal auction. The defenders miss their first chance to defeat the contract by leading a helpful trump, picking up the suit for declarer (in fairness, it’s easy to pick up anyway as the cards lie).

Gee wins with the H7 as East ducks the queen. Let’s think along with declarer: what’s the best hope to go down? A spade ruff is certainly one possibility, so we’ll definitely want to postpone drawing trump as long as possible. There’s also a small chance the diamond ace is offside, and if so, it’s important to make sure that the defenders take all the tricks that they’re entitled to.

Gee rises to the occasion with a diamond at trick 2. West flies the DA, and, mirabile dictu, returns another diamond, spurning a second chance to shift to the spade ace and beat the contract. East follows to the DK, and our hero is in peril, with four trump, a diamond, four clubs and a diamond ruff staring him in the face.

He pulls one round of trump and finds that they break. The suspense mounts. Surely now he can’t…he won’t…he leads a spade. In a subtle point that many STCPs™ would overlook, he leads the spade jack, encouraging West, the likely short hand, to take his honor and untangle the suit for a ruff. West finally gets the message. He continues spades and gets his third round ruff. Off 1. The post mortem is unrecorded, but really, what is left to say?

The Gee-Spot

Oct 182002

N/S Vul
IMPs
Dealer: North
Lead: J

	endplay A 10 9 7 8 6 3 2 K J 9 7 4 —
icerunar 8 K J 5 A 10 6 2 J 10 8 7 4		ralphm 6 5 3 2 Q 9 7 8 K Q 9 6 2
	Maestro K Q J 4 A 10 4 Q 5 3 A 5 3

West

Pass
3
Pass

North
Pass
2

East
Pass
Dbl
Pass

South
1NT
2

Pass

Today we add a new term to the Gee lexicon, although, of course, we have seen the concept many times before. The Gee-spot may formally be defined as follows: The difference, as a percentage, between the optimal line on a contract and Gee’s actual line. Thus the Gee spot always ranges between 0 and 100.

An example may clarify. If Gee takes the optimal line on a contract, then the Gee spot is the optimal percentage minus the gee percentage, or zero, the minimum, in this case, since the two numbers are the same. This is, of course, unusual. If, on the other hand, Gee takes a zero percent line when there is a certain make available, the Gee-spot is 100% (optimal) minus 0% (Gee) = 100%, or simply 100. This, too, is unusual, though not unheard of; one of this week’s hands, for instance, had a maximum Gee spot.

As an exercise, let’s compute the Gee spot on a hand from last month. The optimal line: 99%. Gee’s line: 20%. Thus we have a Gee-spot of 99% – 20% = 79 (dropping the percentage, which is implied). Outstanding!

Yet the Gee-spot is impossible to compute for certain hands, like today’s. Gee ruffs the opening club lead and plays two rounds of trump and shifts to diamonds. The first round is ducked. East shows out on the second round. West takes his ace and leads a third round, ruffed by East, who returns a heart. Now Gee, crucially, instead of drawing the last trump and cashing diamonds, making five, ruffs his other small club and strands the diamonds in dummy by allowing East to ruff in on them with the last outstanding trump. He makes two club ruffs, four trump and a trick in each side suit for down 1.

Sure, the play is disastrous: yet what was the Gee-spot? If we reckon from the first trick, probably very small, since his line usually works when trump break (assuming he shifts to diamonds after two rounds of trump, and again, who knows?) And he was still about 80% to make right up until the moment he ruffed the second club, at which point he became 100% to go down. And if West had defended properly, winning the third diamond and shifting to hearts instead of winning the second and shortening his partner’s trump, again he would have gone down. It’s just too complicated — in this case. But many hands readily lend themselves to Gee-spot analysis, and I urge my readers to employ this useful heuristic.

A Ghastly Crew

Oct 172002

N/S Vul
IMPs
Dealer: East
Lead: 3

	Maestro Q 8 6 4 J 6 5 2 6 5 A 10 4
jdonn 5 A 8 7 4 3 K 9 7 4 3 3 2		carmdog K 10 9 K Q 9 J 10 2 J 9 8 5
	petit_g A J 7 3 2 10 A Q 8 K Q 7 6

West

Pass
Pass
Pass

North

1NT
3

East
Pass
Pass
Pass

South
1

Pass

Today we see captain/crew theory in action. Mini-Gee kicks things off with a second-hand spade opener. Gee raises to two, immediately requests an undo, and changes his (correct) bid to 1NT on the grounds that it was an “accident.” Since 2S was correct this sounds right to me.

Mini-Gee jump shifts to 3C. Any STCP™ who thinks Mini is a queen or so short for this game-forcing bid is advised to review Gee’s comprehensive explanation of captaincy theory. The opener, to repeat, cannot be captain. The responder places the contract.

Which is fine. Gee knows that Mini-Gee has an excellent hand with at least nine cards in the blacks (he would bid 2NT or 3NT if he were more balanced). Holding nothing more than four-card spade support and three clubs to the A10, he makes the expert decision of signing off in three spades. Mini, as crew, has no choice but to pass, and pass he does. Gee approves wholeheartedly: no results merchant he.

“Magic hand,” he says, as West leads a low diamond for the second overtrick. “Claim 6, Efes. Give a heart and let’s go on.” Efes, less ambitious, decides to concede the defense’s natural trump trick as well and claim five. In the post mortem Gee waxes positively effusive. The spec comments, since I lack the transcript, must be left to the imagination.

G: Efes, I command [sic] you for passing 3S… first time ever I see you observe the captain/crew relationship rules properly:-)))))))))
g: yeah..i had too [siccer]..why did u not bid 4 :-(
G: was afraid you would go on
g: noooo
g: u r the capt
G: I am very proud of you, kido [siccest]:-)

Dummy Play: Threat or Menace?

Oct 152002

E/W Vul
IMPs
Dealer: North
Lead: 8

	vcaracci 9 7 5 3 K 7 6 2 10 9 6 4 3 —
aupaleti A 10 2 Q J 5 A Q 7 5 2 7 6		Maestro J 4 A 9 8 4 3 K J A K 10 9
	dkogut K Q 8 6 10 8 Q J 8 5 4 3 2

West

North
Pass
Pass

East
1

Pass

South
3

Pass

Today we reach 4H after an ordinary auction, and the play begins quietly. South leads his stiff diamond. Gee wins DJ hand and plays a low trump, covering the 10 with the jack as North wins the king and returns a diamond. Gee’s king holds as South discards a spade.

At this point two veteran Gee-specs begin to debate whether the hand is, in the argot, Gee-proof:

Spec #1: well, what do you think, gproof?
Spec #2: thk gee is at least even money here with 11 top tricks
Spec #1: can still find a way to go down
Spec #2: nah, no chance

With the battle lines thus drawn, Gee decides there’s no hurry to cash his eleven tricks. He plays the CA, and North ruffs and returns a spade, won with dummy’s ace. West cannot restrain himself; “Gerard?” he asks. No sweat, Gee assures him: “This way I make five, the other way only four.” (To the STCP™ who does not understand how one increases the tricks one takes by allowing an unnecessary ruff of a winner, I can say only, study harder. Maybe someday.)

Even after the ruff, though, declarer can still draw trump and take ten tricks. Pull trump ending in dummy and claim. Gee elects instead to cash the trump queen. Not optimal, I grant, but no problem. Since the hand with the long trump is also marked with the diamonds, just cash the two diamonds and you still make. Gee cashes one diamond, discarding a spade. He then pauses for effect, and makes the key play of leading a second trump, stranding his diamond winner, losing two clubs at the end, going down one, bringing an anguished cry of “Why???”* from his partner, and making an idiot of Spec #2, who — I cannot tell a lie — was me. Gee-proof. Wouldn’t you think I’d know better by now?

*Gee answered, “You made me doubt what I was doing.”

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.”

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?

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